Why are people in the west, Christian? Why is the middle east, Islamic? Why are others Jewish, Hindu, Buddhists, etcetera? Because they and those around them grew up being taught, and automatically accepted those beliefs. They have no other foundation for their thinking, except what they have been given.

People usually go along with their peers and accept that which they have repeatedly heard and read without question or proof. They defend rigorously and emotionally their convictions. It's human nature to go with the flow; to believe and perform like our peers around us.

Religion, for most all the people, is just a matter of memory training. We are taught to accept and memorize whatever our religious authorities say. We are admonished by memorizing and believing whatever teachings are poured into us. Even the greatest scholars have not seen the teachings of Jesus because their beliefs and convictions were second-hand, from authorities who had received them second-hand from others.

Jesus' gospel was replaced with religion in the first century. Ever since then, well meaning clergy have received their training from other clergy. They have assumed the scriptures to be the teachings of Jesus and therefore have interpreted them in a way to help themselves and others to believe what they have already been taught.

The world is full of religions which have their origins in the imaginations of men. Research into any religion will reveal to you how men have corrupted the doctrines of their specific denominations.

Religion is but a matter of memory instillation, a system of ready-made concepts, ideologies, facts, fables, beliefs and superstitions. The people's minds are conditioned and then controlled by the information given them. It usually requires a miraculous "Act of God" to open their minds. Remember Paul on the road to Damascus in Acts Chapter 9? How did he come to understand the teachings of Jesus? - certainly not on his own.

Could all religions be wrong? Could the whole world be in error? Reading Revelation 12:9, "And the great dragon was cast out, that old serpent, called the devil, and Satan, which deceiveth the whole world."

Come, let us reason together. Could we have been deceived? If we have been deceived, would we know it? The fact is that a deceived person doesn't know it!

It is up to each and every one of us to study the scriptures and discover what Jesus was teaching. Prove all things; hold fast to that which is good.