>This is my first non-selling point with pretty much every religion I know of. The hubris. The claim that they have The Truth and that all other religions are wrong. And then their urge to spread. Sounds so big-money capitalistic: you shall buy only from us, and more and more people should be buying from us. What are they doing, playing monopoly or being spiritual?

Perhaps the motive behind much of these claims is power and money. For example, it is my understanding that both Jesus Christ and the Báb were executed because certain priests were afraid of losing their power. (The Báb is one of the founders of the Bahá'í Faith.)

Now, that doesn't mean that certain participants in this thread are power-hungry themselves; but rather, that they may have been influenced by religious leaders, who for centuries have been giving a message of intolerance.