I have done some superficial research into the major religions
of the world, and I'd like to share my views here.
WHY?
It is clear that from ancient times, Man has always tended to
believe in the supernatural as an attempt to explain occurrences
that they could not comprehend. Early on, before the great
religions of modern times like Islam, Christianity and Buddhism,
people would create their own Gods. Frequently they were made out
of pieces of wood or stone. Thunder and lightning which frightened
many were attributed to various thunder and lightning gods. As
society evolved, these primitive religions lost their acceptance as
people began to question the logic behind them. It was explained
how rain fell and thunder was made scientifically, and with that
came the end of the reign of the gods of lightning. A major reason
for the prevalence of today's religions is that people have yet to
explain away the claims made by them. The downfall of the gods of
lightning was simply because people who once attributed them to the
lightning gods realized that they were wrong. The survival of
Christianity and Islam is based on the claim that the world was
made by a God/Allah. Up till today, there has yet to be anyone who
can convincingly disprove this. As for Buddhism, it does not
attempt to explain the creation of the world, instead expounding
something else instead---a way of life.
ANALYSIS
Suffice to say that, Islam and Christianity are 2 sides of the same
coin. They have similar themes, that of a central God/Allah who is
all-encompassing. They also have a holy book as the earthly
reference of the teachings of their creator, the Quran/Bible.
Buddhism instead offer a route to people to follow Buddha's path to
enlightenment and happiness--they do not answer questions on
Creation, and they have no answer on it in any case.
LOGIC
Islam/Christianity require faith to believe in them. You have to
have faith to take that first step. From a logical viewpoint, they
do not hold out convincingly---just take a look the killings and
massacres of today's world---with a benevolent God, this should not
happen. Since it is happening, either 1)the God in question isn't
benevolent or 2)the God in question isn't all-powerful. That is
after assuming the existence of such a God in the first
place.
CREATION VS EVOLUTION and about FAITH
Clearly, the likelihood of spontaneous evolution as put forward by
scientists is based on the probability that everything turned out
right, and that probability is so small it could be termed
negligible. So, we are left with the only remaining
postulation---creation. This is completely unacceptable to some,
which is why they go back to evolution. My stand here is: I don't
even try to understand it. It is beyond my ability.
Many religions mention faith, and most people would agree that
faith is a cornerstone of religions. However, to believe in
evolution requires perhaps even more faith. Mathematically, there
is next-to-nothing chance of evolution ending up in a world like
ours. It would actually be more plausible to have a creator.
Simply speaking, between evolution and creation, I'd take creation
any day. However, between creation, evolution, and leaving the
answer blank, I'd leave the answer blank!
CONCLUSION
I end with this: Logic cannot be used to explain our existence. It
would be better to ignore it...
