Each one of them hides from the ultimate test of its validity and truth

"And, above all, all three persevere in making a claim which cannot possibly be valid and true: that they are, each single one, the true religion.

Each one of them, however, hides from the ultimate test of its validity and truth behind a wall of unknowing and expectation. All three chorus that only on the “Last Day,” when the “End” comes, when “God” decides, will it be clear that the “other two” and all others besides were false, and it (the claimant) was all along the true community of the one “God.” " - Malachi Martin

“For almost two thousand years, three major religions, Christianity, Judaism, and Islam, have enjoyed a popularity and exercised a profound influence on millions of human beings. Each, from the very beginning of its existence, claimed to have the ultimate answers to the supreme questions that confront man in every age. Each claimed, on the basis of absolute exclusivity, to be a chosen people. Each claimed to be able to provide its adherents with the truth about man, his origin and his destiny, and further to provide him with a world outlook according to which he could explain everything in human life.

As Dr. Martin shows in The Encounter, each of the three religions at one early moment in its history made a choice according to which all its later history was determined. Christianity restricted itself essentially to the West; it attempted, with minimal success, to convert the peoples of Africa and Asia; it set up from its beginnings an official opposition and hate for Judaism; at one time it dreamed of supervising and controlling the secular and political life of man. Judaism set itself in opposition to Christianity; it became, for almost 1,800 years, the professional underdog of the West; in modern times, it has been polarized beyond repair. Islam tied its fortunes to certain geographical areas, to one concept of civil government, to a way of life totally incompatible with that of mankind generally today, and to an irredentism unacceptable to modern man.

Each of these religions had a limited success over a certain period of human history. That period is now over. It is Dr. Martin's thesis that, as a result, all religions are in a state of crisis. They are not able to provide modern man with answers to his ethical problems. They cannot unite man today. Their very formulations of doctrine and solutions to human problems are unintelligible today. In short, they have failed modern man." (summary on jacket cover)

“The Jews says:

I believe that there is but one God, YHWH, Eternal, Immutable, All-Perfect, who dwells in Paradise; that He created the skies, the earth, and all things visible and invisible; that He created the angels and spirits, among which is Satan, the Evil One, who was originally an angel, but who fell from favour by disobedience;
• that He created Adam and Eve, the first man and woman, each with a body and immortal soul; that they sinned against Him, and were expelled from Paradise; that He later revealed the true religion to Abraham who thus is the father of all true believers;
• that after Abraham's death Moses was the chief of these and that he led the Israelites out of Egypt at the Exodus to the Land of Promise; that he founded the law by which the true Community of Believers might be saved and so be YHWH's Chosen People living according to His Spirit and awaiting His Messiah; that the Christians corrupted the original teachings of Moses by following the teachings of Jesus of Nazareth; that the Muslims corrupted the true belief of Abraham and Moses further by following the teachings of Mohammad;
• that Jerusalem is the holy center of the world; that YHWH's revelation is only contained in the Jewish Bible; that henceforth men are divided into the Chosen People and the Gentiles; that YHWH's salvation is only with the Jewish People;
• that there will be a Last Day in the history of the world; that all men of the past will rise from the dead for a Last Judgment by God; that only the Jews can receive the final reward of Paradise; that on that day YHWH will admit the Chosen People to eternals in Paradise, and severely judge the others; that the sinful and the unbelieving will be punished forever in Hell.

The Bible

The Christians says:

I believe
• that there is but one God, Eternal, Immutable, All-Perfect, who dwells in Paradise; that He created the skies, the earth, and all things visible and invisible; that He created the angels and spirits, among which is Devil, the Evil One, who was originally an angel, but who fell from favour by disobedience;
• that He created Adam and Eve, the first man and woman, each with a body and immortal soul; that they sinned against Him, and were expelled from Paradise; that He later revealed the true religion to Abraham who thus is the father of all true believers; that after Abraham's death, He sent a number of prophets to revive the true religion of Abraham;
• that Moses was the chief of these, and that he founded the law by which the true community of Believers might be saved; that the Jews corrupted the Law; that finally God sent Jesus of Nazareth, His Son, to be the Messiah; that Jesus taught men the true doctrine and founded the Church to perpetuate these beliefs so that all Christians could live according to His Spirit; that Jesus saved all men from sin by His death on the Cross and resurrection; that Mohammad and the Muslims corrupted both Jewish and the Faith of Jesus;
• that Jerusalem used to be the holy center of the world, then alter it was Rome, then still later various places in the world; that God's revelation is only contained in the Christian Bible; that henceforth men are divided into the Church of believers and the non-believers; that God's salvation is only to be found in the Church;
• that there will be a Last Day in the history of the world; that all men of the past will rise from the dead for a Last Judgment by God; that only the Christians can receive the final reward of Paradise; that on that day God will admit Christians to eternal in Paradise, and severely judge the others; that the sinful and the unbelieving will be punished forever in Hell.

The Koran

The Muslims says:

I believe
• that there is but one God, Allah, Eternal, Immutable, All-Perfect, who dwells in Paradise; that He created the skies, the earth, and all things visible and invisible; that He created the angels and spirits, among which is Iblis, the Evil One, who was originally an angel, but who fell from favour by disobedience;
• that He created Adam and Eve, the first man and woman, each with a body and immortal soul; that they sinned against Him, and were expelled from Paradise; that He later revealed the true religion to Abraham who thus is the father of all true believers;
• that after Abraham's death, He sent a number of prophets to revive the true religion of Abraham;
• that Moses was the chief of these and that he founded the law by which the true community of believers might be saved; that the Christians corrupted his Gospel; that Allah finally sent Mohammad who left all he possessed at the Hegira in order to establish successfully the true Community of Muslims who could live according to His Spirit;
• that Mecca is the holy center of the world; that Allah's revelation is contained only in the Koran; that henceforth men are divided into Muslims and unbelievers; that Allah's salvation is only with the Muslims;
• that there will be a Last Day in the history of the world; that all men of the past will rise from the dead for a Last Judgment by Allah; that only Muslims can receive the final reward of Paradise; that on that day Allah will admit the Muslims to eternal rewards in Paradise, and severely judge the others; that the sinful and the unbelieving will be punished forever in Gehenna.”

Malachi Martin, The Encounter,
Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1970, p. 182-85.

"The doctrine of bodily resurrection, linked closely to the soul's nature and destiny, suffers like a fate. The ancients knew little or nothing about the human organism — its chemical constituents, its functioning parts, its psychology — and even less about the nature of death."

“The doctrine of bodily resurrection, linked closely to the soul's nature and destiny, suffers like a fate. The ancients knew little or nothing about the human organism — its chemical constituents, its functioning parts, its psychology — and even less about the nature of death. Modern man has measured corruption, can detail the chemical changes that take place when bodily life ceases, has a clear idea of what precisely corruption and decay of the human frame connote, and defines human death precisely by the cessation of the observable functions of the body. The three religions define death as the moment when the soul leaves the body.

On the other hand, the scientist cannot accept the “outside” explanation: that a god will “resurrect” the corrupted body. He knows that in a living body today the actual molecules which compose it were not part of it some time ago. In another decade it will be made up of molecules which at present are elsewhere: in African lions, in passion-flowers of the Amazon, in Maine lobsters, in earth in Patagonia, and in the fur of a Polar bear. For the scientist, the body as such has truly ceased to exist. No “shade” or reduced form of the body exists in an “underworld” or in Elysian fields. The body has ceased to exist. He therefore finds the resurrection of the body unintelligible.”

Malachi Martin, The Encounter,
Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1970, 286.

The Great Adi Shakti Shri Mataji Nirmala Devi

The Great Adi Shakti Shri Mataji Nirmala Devi

the Paraclete Shri Mataji "Of course there are some absurd things which grew with misinterpretation and interference from unholy people, which are common in these religions. For example, Jews, Christian and Muslims believe that when they die their bodies will come out of their graves and they will all be resurrected at the Time of Resurrection, at the Time of Last Judgment, at the Time of Qiyamah. It is illogical to think what will remain inside those graves after five hundred years. Nobody wants to think and understand that it is not the body but the soul that will come out of these bodies, be born again as human beings and be saved through Qiyamah and Resurrection.

Who will tell them? No one can talk to them. As soon as one wants to talk one can be killed. This is the only way they know - how to kill."

The Paraclete Shri Mataji

“But these are special time, the Blossom Time. They call it the Last Judgment, you can call it the Resurrection Time, you can call it the Qiyamah, they call it in Koran. It is said that people will come out of their graves and will get their Resurrection. I mean what is left to the graves is nothing but a few stones and a few bones. No. All these souls which are dead will take their birth, take human body and take their Realization in these special times. This is a sensible thing to say and is also happening."

Shri Mataji Nirmala Devi

The Great Adi Shakti Shri Mataji Nirmala Devi

The Paraclete "We are now in the Blossom Time, as I call it, because many flowers are born and they are to become the fruits. This is the Resurrection Time, which is described in all the scriptures. But it’s not like this, the way they had described us. Something wrong with them that all the dead bodies who are in the graves will come out of the graves. I mean, how much is left out of them, God knows. Must be some bones or maybe some skulls there. So they’ll come out of the graves and they will get their Resurrection!!!? This is a very wrong idea.

Once I happened to meet a fellow, a Muslim from Bosnia and he told Me, "I want to die for my religion, for God’s sake." I said, "But why? Who told you to die?" He said, "Now, if I die in the name of God, I’ll be resurrected." I said, "It’s all wrong. That’s not the way it is going to work out. Resurrection is going to work out this way that at this time, all these souls will take their birth. All these souls will take their birth and they will be resurrected. As human beings they’ll have to come."

That’s why we find all kinds of funny people these days, all kinds of cruel, criminal, all kinds of idiotic, stupid, I mean very queer, weird, funny ideas which find such, such a variety of people and such a tremendous population that we should understand they have to have their chance of Resurrection. But how many will come? That’s the point. How many are going to come?"

The Paraclete Shri Mataji
Philadelphia, USA — October 15, 1993

"It is certain that exclusivity is an essential note of these religions. If tomorrow, Judaism, Christianity, and Islam conceded that any one of the others was as good as or better than itself, they would fall apart as we know them. Their entire history would be negated."

"Is the dominance-trait an essential characteristic or basic element of these religions? If they lacked or got rid of it, would they be identically the same in their essence as they are now? Are they viable as religions without the dominance trait? Is the dominance-trait non-essential, a historical accretion due to mere historical development or, at least, is it an element due to human limitations and not issuing necessarily from the religions themselves? After all, these religions claim to be divine in origin, to be messages of salvation received by fallible men from a god who is deemed to be illimitable, eternal, faultless, perfection itself. Perhaps the message itself is free from the dominance-trait; only the recipients suffer from this limitation? Perhaps all three religions adopted physical modes at the priceless moments of their history, and these modes imply a purely human dominance-trait?

This question has a burning importance today when a deep crisis appears to be shaking these religions at their very foundations: one of the aspects of all three religions that seems incompatible with the mind of modern man is this dominance-trait of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. Certainly the prejudice, bigotry, cruelty, the massacres and progroms and persecutions, the suffering and the oppression to which this dominance-trait has given rise, have shaken modern man's belief in the authenticity of their absolutist claims.

It is certain that exclusivity is an essential note of these religions. If tomorrow, Judaism, Christianity, and Islam conceded that any one of the others was as good as or better than itself, they would fall apart as we know them. Their entire history would be negated. The Jews would cease to be the Chosen People. Jesus would cease to be God and Savior. Mohammad and his Koran could be pushed aside as historical accidents. Each of the three must singly and for itself claim to have exclusive possession of the one and absolute truth, to exclude the other two and all others besides. The most any one of them could concede is that the others have a fragment or a portion of the truth, that in virtue of good faith and good works, Yahweh (or God or Allah) will have mercy on them.

The pathos of their locked position is sharply focused by their professed belief in one god. There can only be one god, all three maintain obstinately. And this one god can have only one truth. Embedded in each religion, however, are mutually exclusive proportions about that one god: Jews and Muslims reject the divinity of Jesus; Christians and Jews reject the supremacy and final authority of the Koran as the last words of this one god to men; Christians and Muslims reject the Jewish Torah as the ultimate word of this one god; Christians and Muslims believe in the virginity of Mary which the Jews reject; Jews and Muslims reject the idea that the blood of Jesus wiped out all men's sins. The list is endless.” (pp. 217-8)

Christianity within its own borders has specialized in self-crucifixion, at first to quite a minor degree during the first 1500 years of its life, when heretics and dissidents and accused witches and sorcerers were put to death, as Jesus was. Then, with the breakup of its unity in the 16th century, Christians devised for each other one Hell more horrendous and tortuous than another, indulging in a 300-year round of mutual recrimination, accusation, denigration, and relegation by bell, book, and candle, to the filthiest categories of human life. No branch of Christianity can be excused from this, because all Christians have indulged in it.

No body of Christians ever answered the insults of other Christians with Christ's answer: “Forgive them, Father, for they know not what they do?” They all developed special vocabularies replete with violent words such as “heresy,” “heretic,” “extirpation,” “condemnation,” “excommunication,” “outcasts,” “unclean believers,” “vice-mongers.” Each one devised its special defenses against the other: social ostracism, civil war, discrimination, calumny, legal non-existence. Rome was the Red Lady of the South. Luther was the Pig of Germany. Protestants were the sons of vipers. Jews were the “race of the devil.” Muslims were “benighted and error-ridden barbarians.” No body of Christians ever tried to conquer the world with humility and patience and love, and no body of believers ever tried to fan the flames of faith, in the heart of man by being authentically believers.

The Jews, in retaliation for their pain and their sustained exile, contributed to the sea of hate, distrust and, in some cases, deformation of truth. They invented multiform expressions of contempt, condemnation, loathing, and utter rejection of Christians. They even modified some of their traditional beliefs because the Christians had borrowed them in their original form and, in their repugnance from all things Christian, they wanted no resemblance to subsist between their faith and that of the Christians. They returned hate with hate. They, also, cannot be excused and considered totally guiltless. They preached truth and justice, yet they violated both in order to maintain their religion and their Jewishness. Christians preached love but practised officially sanctioned hate, intermingling their loveliest psalms of compassion for their dying Savior with the expressions of extreme disgust for the Jews...

Muslims preached mercy and compassion, but they practised none or very little, assigning both Christians and Jews to the lowest rung in Allah's consideration, and historically meting out to both a treatment which rivals any cruelties of man in known history. Down through the ages, this procession of the crucified one has come: formed, maintained, and augmented by Jews, Christians, and Muslims. Each one has prayed with its armies to its god that the armies of the opponents be destroyed. There is no palliating or explaining away the sin of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam.

The three religions failed in another significant way. None of them attacked slavery or race prejudice or other flagrant inhumanities of man to man from the very beginning of their existence. The Arabs of today sanction slavery as spontaneously as the Popes of the 19th century sanctioned the creation of castrati choirs for Papal masses, as readily and blindly as the Protestant ethic of the white American sanctioned the serfdom and degradation of the Negro race until the second half of the 20th century. Each religion has practiced the art of climbing on the bandwagon: only when lay and secular reformers, sometimes lacking any formal religion whatever, raised such a hue and cry that men's consciences were stirred, did the religions begin to turn their huge resources toward reform. The Catholic Church in Germany and Italy acquiesced in Nazism and Fascism at least in the earlier stages of the ideologies. Russian Orthodoxy acquiesced in the despotism and sadism of Czarist times. Greek Orthodoxy sanctioned the corruption of the Byzantine court and is today bitterly nationalist in Greece's disputes with Turkey. No Protestant Church and no Jewish Synagogue ever officially condemned and attacked the Ku Klux Klan before 1945 in America, though individuals did. Judaism, Christianity, and Islam have practiced the double standard in this matter...

Thus the three religions have not been witnesses to the truth. All, it is true, have developed an exalted vocabulary, and a very impressive manner of announcing their own grandiose claims. All three have excelled and excel in words, as distinct from actions. All three have an impressive ritual and have refined psychological approaches to man. Yet the witness of words, mere words, has never changed men's minds, nor has mere theological subtlety helped men to be better men. The witness of the three religions have been faulty, at times perniciously false and erroneous. The three of them have witnessed to the uses of hate for the love of a god. And all three have disposed of the lives and happiness of millions of human beings without any real feeling for human suffering or any genuine concern for the concrete realities of life.

It is clear, first of all, that today all three religions lack any authoritative note for man. They have, as yet, each one of them, sufficient number of adherents to give the impression of continuing strength, and this glosses over for them and for the outside world at times their terrible weakness. For each of them, when scrutinized closely, is blackened with sufficient failures to prevent any thinking man from believing in them. And, above all, all three persevere in making a claim which cannot possibly be valid and true: that they are, each single one, the true religion.

Each one of them, however, hides from the ultimate test of its validity and truth behind a wall of unknowing and expectation. All three chorus that only on the “Last Day,” when the “End” comes, when “God” decides, will it be clear that the “other two” and all others besides were false, and it (the claimant) was all along the true community of the one “God.” ”

Malachi Martin, The Encounter,
Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1970, 329-32.

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