20. DECEPTION THROUGH RELIGION
20.1 Belief and Faith
Did You Know?
According to World Population Review, there were 2.6 billion Christians around the world in 2023 and according to a Pew Research Center survey, if current trends continue, Christianity will remain the world’s largest ‘religion’ by year 2050.
20.2 Personal Relationship vs Religion
Did You Know?
Religion is man-made, while a personal relationship with Jesus is ‘God-made’. Religion says you must do certain things and follow legalistic practices to get ‘right with God’. Relationship says you must believe in Jesus and have a relationship with Him. Religion expresses itself in rituals, while a personal relationship with Jesus expresses itself in love. Religion is man’s attempt or duty to do something in order to have a right standing with God.
20.3 Religions
Did You Know?
Pinpointing precisely how many religions there are in the world today is next to impossible, although some estimate the number to exceed four thousand.
20.4 Tradition
Did You Know?
Hatred, chauvinism, and sexism are all taught and passed down from previous generations. People adopt prejudices against people who are different from themselves. Simply put, narrow-mindedness is tradition—a bad tradition.
20.5 Atheism and Evolution
Did You Know
Scientists have found that no physical process can invent the coded information needed to create any type of living thing.
20.6 Wokeness as a new Religion
Did You Know?
Wokeness has not been organized into any formal religious structure, but it has all the functions of religious doctrine, including a unique epistemology, an evaluation of the human condition, and a redemption narrative.
20.7 Totalitarianism as a new Religion
Did You Know?
Through a comparative analysis of the religious context of the most powerful totalitarian regimes in the first half of the twentieth century, Emile Gentile in his book ‘Politics, Religion and Ideology’, finds that it can be considered a political Religion.
20.8 God’s Son sent to overcome this deception