Rumors, assumptions & truth

There are many religions that teach they alone have the TRUTH and the rest have it wrong. I recently asked one of my new friends about his faith (The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints). What was shared made me question alot of learnings, teachings, and understandings from Judaism and Christianity about other faiths.

This morning I asked a friend who was previously a Christian,  now a Jew, if she had ever read The Book of Mormon. The answer was" No, snippets here and there" yet when I asked her what her thoughts were on it. She immediatly replied "what I had read  is blasphemy.....that there is more than only one way to salvation, and that God came from another planet, and that Jesus is Lucifers brother".  Hummmmm.

This post is NOT about my friend but on the issue of rumors, assuptions and truth.  I have been in the Jewish Orthodox world and experienced/witnessed faith beliefs and living out that faith. In this particular "world" there is rumors, assumptions and truth regarding Christians, Buddists, Other Jewish groups (Lubavitch, Chabad, Reform, etc) which provoke distain, rejection and hatred. This made me very sad that even today  Chosen ones could be so hateful to their own kind.

I have also been a part of the Christian world to a limited extent as a teen and young adult. Snagged in with the movie "A Thief in the Night" , I discovered what was taught about loving your neighbor was only modeled when "your neighbor" agreed to your particular church beliefs. Everyone else was either lost, a back slider or blasphemer.

I have an aquaintance friend who calls herself a wican. We have talked about faith a few times and she shared she had been raised in the church setting of Jehovah's witness. She stated that she would rather be lost than to live her life in the hatred she found in Christianity.  BTW- I did not cast her aside as an aquaintace friend because I also saw some of that behavior.

Who has G-d or religion - the way G-d truely intended it to be? Which book is the "right" book? 2 Timothy 2;15- Do your best to present yourself to God as one approved, a worker who does not need to be ashamed and who correctly handles the word of truth. I personally follow Torah to the best of my understanding and walk that out as best I can with the guidence of how Messiah walked shared in the New Testament. Oh but which version of the N.T. is the "right" one? Shaking my head................

I would venture to say Man has made religion a divisive tool used against his fellow man. I doubt this is what G-d intended. I have walked away from organized religion several years ago yet still find myself tossing away teachings & learnings that have provoked judgement against others or adherence to man made traditions created for "crowd control".

I have no real answers or solutions to this topic as I am still on my journey of discovery ....pondering this life and all it beholds.