I really don't think that the other people reviewing this were paying close enough attention. Their points may have been valid, but to me they missed your point entirely.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I saw a critique of the basis or religion, not the religions themselves. You chose to potray the fact that most, if not all of the world-wide religions have generally the same format, same worship styles and same belief systems. People seem to get angry when you say that, but the truth is that Christianity, Islam, Judaism and even Buddhism are all trying to acheive the same goal: escape from the mediocrities of mortal life.

All religions are tied together. We are all human therefore we experience the same things, and in that fact lies the truth that we literally can't experience anything entirely new.

I enjoyed reading this thoroughly, and as I am myself an agnostic, I wasn't particularly biased towards one certain group. None of them are right, because religion in all its splendour was created by humanity, and we can't do anything right.

You actually have a brain, please keep using it.

I took a comparative religions class last year, and learned a great deal of what you have said here. I agree with some of what you have pointed out, though not all. I appreciate the tone in which you wrote this, and I thank you for the time you took to put your thoughts to words. Most excellent.

Your diction in this essay really sets a good mood for your information, unfortunately, none of your information has anything to support your thesis statement, about man creating his own hamartia through religion. The only thing that came close to that was the extremist takes on some religions, but I doubt that will create the downfall of the world as we know it.
That being said, there was a bad flow to the body. You went from monotheism in the second paragraph to two religions that don't have a real god to be praised, but only main prophets to be followed. Then you went right back to monotheism, then to the necessities in forming a god. I think the body would have been better started by first naming the criteria of a god, before naming examples of religion. And I even have to say that some gods are indeed angerless, like the Christian God. He is not the one to condemn His people to Hell, they are the ones who put themselves there. And instead of becoming angry, He mourns them and still loves them. And if that is true for the Christian God, then as far as I know, it is also true for the Jewish God, and the Muslim God. Because anger is such a detestable trait in humans, I would tend to believe it would be left out of the making of a god to make the optimal supreme being. That being said, there are angry gods, mainly based on the affluence or lack of the native region in which they are created, but to say that all gods must be angry is fallacious.
This was very well written, but it could stand to be a little more concise.

Very good - nice examples, if a bit unrelated.

Good, but you spent a long time time building up to making a point but then did not elaborate or properly give evidence for or against your point.
You also forget that the main reason people become Religious is that they are born into thinking this is the truth as they are told by their family from an early age.
But still, excellent apart from that!

You write well, but your tone is a little sensationalist and over the top.
'And yet, all of this is based on blind faith, nothing more, nothing less.'
I'm an Agnostic, and I try to remain open minded about spiritual matters. While it seems to some of us that all religious people have to go on is blind faith, we can't actually know the reasons for their beliefs. They may be basing it on what they would consider evidence- things that had happened in their lives, witnessing miracles. Whether this is really evidence or they are just mistaken we don't know, but as far as they're concerned at least that's a little more than blind faith.
'There are many religions around the world, each boasting their own sacred texts, prophets and Messiahs.'
That's an innacurate statement, since many religions have only some, or none of those things, and the three monotheistic ones you go on to focus on do not boast a sacred text exclusive to them.
'And yet, when one looks at the world's three monotheistic religions,'
There are more than 3 monotheistic religions in the world. It would be more accurate to refer to them as the world's *largest* three monotheistic religions.
'The Buddha cult'
I object to Buddhism being labelled a cult. I'm not sure what the exact definition of a cult is, but I would tend to think of cults as being relatively small, whereas Buddhism is a major world religion, and somewhat dangerous, which Buddhism isn't.
'The first true monotheism occurred over two millennia ago in ancient Egypt.'
We can't actually know for certain that this is the first true monotheism. It is not only possible, but likely, that there were monotheistic religions around before that. It may, however, be the first monotheistic religion that we know of.
'Protagoras speaks as "Man [as] the measure of all things." It is true, at least in the eyes of Man, to compare everything to ourselves. We strive for intelligence, so we value it as a quality of a perfect God. We want omniscience, and so we award it to our deity. And anger takes hold of us like the primal beasts that we are, and so it is inconceivable for us to imagine a being without it.'
You make a good point here- it seems to make sense that if we invent deities we model them on ourselves. However, it is *not* inconceivable for us to imagine a being without anger. I'm doing it right this second.
'Today, religion has surrendered to monotheism, and the majority of religious people believe in a single God'
I'd like to see some statistics on that, because there's a *lot* of people in India, and many of them are Hindu or Buddhist, neither of which are monotheistic religions.
'The Ku Klutz Klan'
I'm pretty sure they're called the Ku *Klux* Klan'.
'On his 'glorious return' to Florence, he held a grand party in which a young boy of ten was painted in gold paint and was told to dance as part of the decor. He later died from asphyxiation of the skin'
I'm really interested to know where you got that info. As far as I know, 'skin asphyxiation' is a myth. I am a body painter, and have seen models completely covered in paint for considerable periods of time, who suffered absolutely no ill effects. I would think that if the boy died as a result of being painted it was probably due to toxic substances in the paint.
This is a good essay, but you should provide your sources, to back up your claims and allow your readers to do further reading on the subject.