All religions but Christianity...

I think Islam and Judaism are different than what you describe. From studying Islam, they believe very strongly in predestination. So God chooses who will be "saved", not sure if that is the right word. All their laws and rules seem to be similar to Christian concept of "sanctification". It's why the less extreme forms of Islam say forced conversions are forbidden, because it's no good if the person doesn't really believe, and that Allah/God will convert whomever He chooses.

From conversing with a Jewish friend, they don't really believe in a concept of being saved/going to heaven.

St. John of Damascus, writing in the 800s I think, called Islam a Christian heresy. He wrote the first Christian apologetic work against Islam.

Very interesting.

I know for a fact that Islam is very works-based that is to say that good deeds determine who goes to Heaven, but from my understanding a Muslim has no way of knowing whether his or her deeds are "good" enough until death.

Lämmchen said:

I was taught that all religions except for Christianity teach that in same way you have to reach an enlightenment or earn your own way to some next echelon. But Christianity is the ONLY religion where we don't redeem ourselves.

Is there any religion that comes somewhat close though?

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I agree: there are really only two religions: you save yourself, God saves you. You gotta get up to God, God comes down to us. Works vs. mercy.


Hinduism is a VERY, VERY diverse religion with nearly countless subgroups. One (I forget - off the top of my head - the name of it) really hardly seems Hindu at all. It believes that the cycle is broken and "salvation" achieved because the divine does it. It has two schools: The Way of the Cat and The Way of the Monkey. The Way of the Monkey says that the divine picks us up but we must hold on (synergistic), the way of the Cat teaches that the divine just picks us up (even if we don't want to be picked up), and TAKES us where we need to be. One Hindu friend of my compared these two schools to Catholicism (similar to the Way of the Monkey) and Protestantism (the way of the Cat) but both suggesting that we need divine salvation rather than just more time to get it right.



Pax


- Josiah