There is an irreducible difference between the world and our experience of it. We as human beings do not operate directly on the world. Each of us creates a representation of the world in which we live - that is, we create a map or model which we use to generate our behavior. That map, however similar it may be to that of others, is always unique to ourselves, the way our fingerprint or DNA is similar to others but also unique to ourselves. So too, our definitions and ideas of "God" are just as unique, however similar they may be to the definitions and ideas of others about the same word.
Our representation of the world determines to a large degree what our experience of the world will be, how we will perceive the world, what choices we will see available to us as we live in the world.
Religion, however, not only claims that it is the only lens through which the "truth" map or model of the world or ideas of "God" can be known, despite it being wrong in its assertions that the world was both flat and the center of the universe, but also claims that everyone else who refuses to look at the world through the lens religion offers is a threat that, through a lack of obedience to religion, operates to lure you to an eternal torture chamber called hell.
It must be remembered that the object of the world of ideas as a whole [the map or model] is not the portrayal of reality - this would be an utterly impossible task - but rather to provide us with an instrument for finding our way about more easily in the world.
Our reasoning abilities, reflected in our ability to use logic and the scientific method to more carefully test and verify our fallible and imperfect perceptions, are often thought to be a means of discovering "truth." Religion then claims that such "truth" is intended to provide us with "meaning," which science cannot provide, and to help us avoid pissing God off so much he casts us into an eternal lake of fire, and then keeps us alive for all eternity so we can suffer forever.
Our reasoning abilities are only the means of finding "truth" to the degree they help us to refine our understanding of ourselves and our environment. Such reasoning, and not faith, allowed us to learn how to set a fractured limb or perform open heart surgery to remove an obstruction or repair damage. And through this refinement, as such, we gain knowledge that increases our chances of survival.
Religion, however, wants us, indeed commands us, to believe that our ability to reason is first and foremost for helping us survive more in the afterlife than this life. Sure, this life "matters," but it can hardly be said to be "sacred" if it is born in sin and destined to end up in a lake of fire for all eternity. Hence, by "survive" in the afterlife, religion means "avoid spending eternity being roasted in hell."
No two human beings have exactly the same experiences. The model that we create to guide us in the world is based in part upon our experiences. Each of us may, then, create a different model of the world we share and thus come to live in a somewhat different reality.
Again, religion claims that the great "evil" humans suffer from is the fact we have the ability and the "free will" or "freedom" to create our unique models or maps, and therefore need to be threatened with hell and bribed with heaven to agree not to do so, and instead rely on the map and the model religion provides. Asking "which religion" requires you to use reason to separate the true ones from the false ones, of course, but since you have to have at least as much "faith" to buy into either one, it is therefore impossible to ever "know" which is true or which is false.
And this is the fatal flaw in "faith" as it pertains to subscribing to a religious brand: objective truth like the world being round and not flat, does not need anyone to "believe" it for it to be true, nor is the planet affected by every person believing otherwise. Only subjective truth claims require you to "believe" in it for that "truth" to be empowered in any way, shape, or form. The problem, of course, that that a lie requires just as much "belief" as a subjective truth claim.
Hence, to be empowered, a "subjective truth" that provides a person with meaning requires just as much "faith" and avoidance of critical consideration as a lie requires to be equally empowered. Since critical consideration act like kryptonite to a subjective truth claim as it does to a lie, for such considerations always pull back the curtain on both to reveal they are grounded in bias and emotional needs rather than logic or evidence, we are forced to limit the full power of our critical capacity to only criticizing the beliefs of others as "lies" as a way of avoiding and denying that were we to apply the same level of criticism to our own beliefs they would be exposed as the same thing.
And THIS, "believers" all claim, is "God's plan" even though it not only requires people to be hypocritical in measuring other peoples beliefs by a standard they steadfastly refuse to apply to their own beliefs, doing so also leads people to feel the need to kill each other over their disagreements about which "map" is truly from God, and which are polluted by the devil, just so they can avoid the terror that comes from their "beliefs" of being cast into an eternal torture chamber, which is like people killing each other in Iraq to stay out of the torture chambers of Saddam Hussein.
Talk about a "great plan" that is supposed to make us all "get along" and bring "peace on earth." Seriously... WTF?!
Also, important characteristics of maps should be noted.
A map is not the territory it represents, but, if correct, it has a similar structure to the territory, which accounts for its usefulness. . . (A. Korzybski, Science & Sanity, 4th Ed., 1958, pp. 58-60.)
First, there is a necessary difference between the world and any particular model or representation of the world. Religion's claims that the world was flat and the center of the universe illustrate not only this difference, but how such a map can be flat out wrong. Second, the models of the world that each of us creates will themselves be different. Religion also sells that idea that this is either not true, or what needs to be curtailed and avoided lest we all begin raping and killing each other, for our sinful nature leaves us with little ability to do anything else.
There are a number of ways in which it can be clearly and "infallibly" demonstrated as to why our differences or "imperfections" necessarily lead to each of us creating different maps or models of reality. Those reasons can be divided into three areas: neurological constraints, social constraints, and individual constraints.
Trauma and poverty, or the lack of trauma and affluence, serve as examples of things that contribute to vastly affecting these three areas, and as a result, the kind of different maps of reality people construct.
Yet religion wants and commands children to believe this reality is either untrue, or that if it is true, it does nothing to save the child from being potentially burned alive for all eternity for daring to create or rely on their own "map" or model that has not been officially inspected and approved by their religion.
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