Occasionally they do, and convert or opt out, but the real problem I think, is that a subcriber/believer in a religion or sect of a religion, is that that person HAS to believe that their one is the right one, and all the others are wrong.
That goes for Atheists also, because they think that ALL believers are wrong.
Because most of them have been conditioned from childhood to believe that there's is the only true religion. As St Ignatius Loyola said, "Give me the first 7 years and you can have the rest"
I am atheist my hubby is catholic and my next door neighbour is a Muslim. Now like flobadob says, one of us (if not all of us) is wrong. Now presuming there is a 'god' or a devine being who determines why and how we are all here on this earth. This god created us all differently, chose us to have different believes and opinions as part of his big plan. So it only really boils down to 2 groups believers and non-believers.
Your question is not new and I would not be surprised if you, yourself had previously asked and I am sure you know the answer you want to see too.
Having said all that I must say that it is a very good question. Of course with all these religions all apart from ONE has to be wrong. Or perhaps taken wrongly by the believers and the followers of that particular religion. But I do believe that to find that out one has to just look into their own religious scriptures and see if they are doing all (or most) of what they have been commanded. Instead of going into too much of details I will only give one or two examples.
In these following verses Bible (OT and NT) speaks about the how a human should worship his God. Now after reading these let me know if you have ever seen any Jews or Christians worshipping like this.
So their books were 2000 years old, and are not valid any more then that means their religion is not valid any more too. So according to Sandy we have found first two religion that are wrong. Am I right sandy?
Inclink - Your style reminds me of one( Ex Legend )at least among atheists of R & E known as Naomi. And what a coincidence that she only stopped posting a couple of weeks ago and you just joind couple of days ago. Then she was supposed to be female and you have signed in as a male. But who knows.......
Any way how do you know I do (do not) act upon my book.
Keyplus, to be fair you must include Islam there too. Religious faith should help people through life, not make their lives a slavery in the service of their god.
// with all the possible combinations of lottery balls, why can't people realise that the likelihood is that they may have chosen the wrong one? //
It's a silly comparison jno. Anyone who buys a lottery ticket, knows there's a 44 million to one chance they're going to win. Religious people don't apply the same thought process to their belief at all. They're all convinced they've made the correct choice.
It's perfectly valid question - why is each religion conviced that their choice is the correct one, when there's no evidence to suggest that any one of them is any more sensible or truthful than any other?