confused by religion?
Confused by the huge number of religions, their puzzling beliefs, rituals, and open hostility toward one another, many people decide to reject religion altogether. Others lose their faith after personal tragedies they feel God could’ve prevented. Still, look at all the suffering and unfairness in the world and figure out there’s no point believing in anything. Meanwhile, plenty of people are swayed by evolution and turn to atheism or agnosticism. Do you relate to any of these feelings about religion?
Does Disbelief Satisfy?
Even though lots of people today have walked away from religion, does disbelief actually make them happy and fulfilled? Breaking free from the mess of organised religion might bring some relief at first. Eventually, though, people realise they have a spiritual side that needs feeding. They start wondering, “How did we get here? Why are we here? What’s the point of life? What does the future hold?“
That’s exactly what happened to former agnostic Kenji Sato, who shared, “Ever since I was young, I thought a lot about life and death. Death felt like such a terrible waste to me. It made every goal in life seem pointless and empty.“
To fill that gap, people who walk away from organised religion or belief in a Creator often throw themselves into a substitute god with religious passion. Science, politics, philosophy, and even agnosticism or atheism become their deeply held faith.
For instance, the well-known scientist David Miller once remarked in an interview, “If you look into science, you’ll find a sense of intricacy, depth, and exquisite beauty which, I believe, is much more powerful than the offerings of any bureaucratic religion.” He went on to say, “I wouldn’t even object to saying that the sense of awe before the grandeur of nature is itself a religious experience.“
Do these kinds of experiences genuinely meet our spiritual needs, though? Sato, mentioned earlier, explained, “I got completely absorbed in studying electricity, thinking the laws behind it were the only things I could rely on. Yet something was still missing in my life. I needed to know God’s name and His purpose for me.“
In the same way, Mikhail Volkov, a famous exiled writer who leaned toward Marxism in his youth, criticised atheism when he said during an award speech, “The entire 20th century is being sucked into the vortex of atheism and self-destruction. We can only reach with determination for the warm hand of God, which we’ve so rashly and self-confidently pushed away. There’s nothing else to cling to in the landslide.” That hardly makes disbelief or atheism sound like the answer, does it?
Finding the Way
Does this mean any religion will do, as long as it fills a void and satisfies a longing in the soul? Clearly not, because as we’ve already seen, plenty of religions fail to produce good results, even if they look holy on the outside. So how can anyone find real satisfaction among so many competing faiths?
When explaining why he’d never joined any church, Thomas Clark once said, “When any church will inscribe over its altar as its sole qualifications for membership the Saviour’s condensed statement of the substance of both the law and the gospel, ‘Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy strength, and with all thy mind; and thy neighbour as thyself’—that church will I join with all my heart and all my soul.“
Those words Clark quoted came from Jesus Christ and appear in the Bible at Luke 10:27.
“In answer he said, ‘You must love Jehovah your God with your whole heart and with your whole soul and with your whole strength and with your whole mind’ and ‘your neighbour as yourself.'”
– Luke 10:27
They point straight to love—both for God and for our fellow humans—as the true badge of genuine faith. It’s hardly surprising that people are put off when they see supposed Christians and other religious people fighting and killing each other in bloody wars or promoting immoral lifestyles that hurt themselves and everyone around them.
On the flip side, across the world, Jehovah’s Witnesses have become well known over the past century for staying strictly neutral in national conflicts. During World War II, hundreds were executed because they wouldn’t compromise their Christian values. Even today, in certain countries, young Witness schoolboys know that once they graduate, they face years in prison for refusing compulsory military service.
In other places where education is prized, pupils are willing to give up their graduation prospects rather than join martial arts training. Why? Not because they’re against the government or antisocial, but because their love for God and other people stops them from taking part in the world’s violence.
What about simply living a decent, moral life in word and deed? Someone might ask, “Aren’t there nice people in every religion?” Sure, there are, yet everyday niceness often has very little to do with loving God, and it frequently crumbles when a crisis hits. Jesus Christ’s words show that loving your neighbour comes second to loving God. Real love for others has to grow out of love for God.
So, alongside trying to live decent, moral lives, Jehovah’s Witnesses show this love by giving up their own time and energy to go from door to door. They want to share something special with others—a Bible-based hope of living forever right here on earth in peace and harmony with fellow humans and with God, as promised in Isaiah 45.18 and Revelation 21. 4.
The Choice Is Yours
Across these articles, we’ve looked at different sides of religion around the world. On one hand, even though there are countless faiths today, they all stem from the same roots of false religion and end up producing disappointing results. On the other hand, we’ve examined the alternatives—disbelief, agnosticism, and atheism—and seen that these substitute faiths can’t truly meet human needs either.
Faced with this reality, what are you going to do?
Kenji Sato, who was once torn between his trust in science and his need to know God and life’s purpose, made his choice. “When one of Jehovah’s Witnesses knocked on my door, I gladly accepted a Bible study,” he recalled. As he studied, he began noticing just how reliable and accurate Bible prophecies are as they come true. “This made a huge impression on me,” he said, leading him to realise that Jehovah God and His promises can be trusted.
Spending time with Jehovah’s Witnesses later on, he saw that same trustworthiness in the people themselves and decided he wanted to join them. After studying for around a year, he got baptised and eventually became an elder in his local congregation.
He weighed up the situation and made the right call. It echoes what Moses told the Israelites when they were camped on the Plains of Moab, ready to enter the Promised Land:
“I take the heavens and the earth as witnesses against you today that I have put life and death before you, the blessing and the curse; and you must choose life so that you may live, you and your descendants, 20 by loving Jehovah your God, by listening to his voice, and by sticking to him, for he is your life and by him you will endure a long time in the land that Jehovah swore to give to your forefathers, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.”
– Deutoronomy 30:19.20
The choice really is there, and it’s yours to make. What will you choose?
