Meanwhile Mahayana Buddhists consider Theravada teachings inferior, that Theravadians are full of ego, self-centered and extremely fanatic. Both Mahayana and Theravada sects deny the existence of God (the Creator) and therefore consider Hinduism, Judaism, and Christianity to be false religions; Within Christianity, Catholic and Protestant denominations believe in different dogmas: the Catholics believe in the Virgin Mary while Protestants do not; Catholics believe Jesus as the Son of God, while some Protestants go too far in believing that Jesus is God the Father himself, the Creator of the universe and all beings; that Jesus is the first instead of the second rank of the Christian Trinity doctrine; Judaism only believes in God and never recognizes Jesus as the Savior. Consequently the Jewish rabbis accused Jesus of blasphemy, and requested the government of Rome to crucify Jesus; Islam recognizes Noah, Abraham, Moses, Jesus and Muhammad as five most important prophets, Muhammad is respected as the greatest and the last (perhaps to secure exclusive messianic rights for Muhammad, I supposed).
In religious history, even though Islam and Christianity worship the same God and have a common Patriarch, they have been killing each other in many holy wars in the past and continue so until today; Brahmanism or Hinduism believes in Brahma (Creator), and two other Gods: Vishnu and Shiva. They do not recognize nor believe in Sakyamuni Buddha, Jesus or Muhammad, as they see them as latecomers whom they do not know nor care to know about.

In light of these facts, it is clear that believers of one religion consider all others to be false. And if all believers are fanatics and base their discussion on faith alone, they will definitely fight against each other to prove that they are absolutely right. Hence, even though all religions teach compassion and forgiveness, religion itself is often the very source of hatred and wars. Besides faith, one must go about learning spiritual matters with rational thinking and scientific temper, respecting the truth and practicing religious tolerance. And, if what all religions teach are vain ideologies and dogmas then Karl Marx was not so wrong when he said: “Religion is the opiate of the people”.

So then we might say that it is better to be a rational atheist than a stupid theist, a dogmatic fanatic full of hatred and extreme intolerance of others, at least an atheist does not practice religious intolerance, while a theist always uses the name of God to criticize or destroy others.

(further reading: Nominations of the Gods and Mysticism- General outlines of religions by Scholar Trieu Phuoc)

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