This is something that I have came to realize after a lot of reflection, investigating and most of all reading about a lot of different religions, there customs, rituals, practices...etc so I decided to share some of my insights and thoughts and the main reason being that a lot of the times (including myself) we start to see and pick on the differences that surround the major religions rather than seeing the similarities. It's very easy to criticize and get caught up in something, someone, and or a group when it is demonized in the media due to negative programming which is not only dangerous but very harmful as well. So instead of focusing on all the minute details that create division I decided to focus on what makes them similar and the major belief-systems that exist within each religion.
If you look at all 3 of the major religions -- Judaism, Christianity & Islam they actually have a lot of similarities. All 3 of them are considered mono-theistic (belief in one supreme God or being), they had there prophets/messengers -- Moses, Jesus & Muhammad, they have there Holy books/scriptures --the Torah, Bible, & The Quran, they emphasize on prayer (another form of meditation and chanting), fasting, refraining from sin, giving to charity, being kind to children and orphans, all 3 of them have there mystical sects/aspects as well -- Islam has Sufism, Christians have Gnostic Christianity, & Jews have the Kabbalah, Muslims pray on Friday's at the mosque, Jews pray on Saturday at the Synagogue & Christians praying on Sunday at the Church, concept of heaven & hell, and basically the religions are emphasizing towards living a moral and ethical lifestyle. Essentially when you look at the big picture the main underlying principles are all the same. Now there are some differences when you get really technical but again the ideas, concepts and paradigms are all the same.
One of the main problems begin when people from one religion begin to assert there superiority over the other. It becomes a battle of the ego (hence the term ego-dominance or ego-engagement) that takes root in a person's thinking and they start to pick on certain passages/texts so it conforms to there distortion. People either end up taking things out of context or interpret the information literally without really thinking or discerning about it properly or on there own and how it relates to the world/reality that exists before there eyes. Interestingly enough this is something I've learned based of the discussions with a lot of people is that in the beginning stages of when someone accepts being part of a religion, sees the "light" or begins to develop faith --- there is a euphoric high that occurs in the minds of a lot of people. Feelings as if the world has been lifted from there shoulders, a sense of belonging, purpose, heightened awareness, and even a glimpse of something super-natural.
When you see examples in the media whether it is ISIS or the KKK -- these are the extreme versions of an ideology that is being presented before you to keep you deaf, dumb & blind. It doesn't represent the entire religion nor it's followers but only a small percentage that commit atrocities because the way Islam is practiced in Saudi-Arabia is NOT the same in Malaysia. But again the media likes to focus on the fanatics because that is what generates ratings, sensationalism, and negative propaganda. So I urge everyone in this discussion to thoroughly evaluate, challenge and scrutinize your belief-systems and rid yourself of this ignorance and realize that it's all in the same.