The Three Great Religions
When it comes to choosing cosmologies, there's safety in numbers: people take herd-reassurance from worship within the world's most established traditions. So pick your own favourite Top Three, on condition that each proud dogma should be venerable, absolute, and in mortal conflict with the other two. In making your selections, you might also wish to direct your spiritual nose toward G. K. Chesterton's surefire rule of thumb: "It is a test of a good religion whether you can make a joke about it."
Jews and heathen away! is the tolerance of the Christian.
Christian and heathen be damned! murmurs a Jewish beard.
Christians ought to be stabbed, and Jews consigned to the flames!
Thus sings a Turkish child, scorning both Christians and Jews.
Which of these is the wisest? Decide it! But as long as these
fools abound in your palace, Godhead, I pass it by.
- Goethe, "Venetian Epigrams" (1790)
TITLE - "The Three Great Religions"
WHERE - Muséum National d'Histoire Naturelle, Paris, France (2015)