by Judy Waller

Created on: July 05, 2007

What is the right religion and where can one find it? I believe those questions need to first be answered. I truly believe that one needs to first ask themselves with all honesty, "What are my personal values in life?" A person can never find the right religion without first knowing themselves and what their personal values are. When examining your personal feelings on this matter, one needs to be honest and really face up to what they truly feel and believe in their hearts.

If you are going to follow a religion simply because of family tradition, then you are just following family tradition, and family values. But what are your values? Your relationship with the Creator of the universe should be of the deepest importance and the religion you belong to should reflect that importance. I personally am against being forced to belong to any religion simply because member of my family belonged to and practiced a certain religion. Though the handing down of a religion from one generation to another is on the decline nowadays, the majority still remain attached to the religion of their family. But is it always right to stick to the religious values of one's parents? What does the Bible say?

Joshua who followed in Moses beliefs referred to his forefather Terah, the father of Abraham. The Bible does not reveal much about Terah, apart from the fact that he worshiped other gods. Joshua 24:2 His son Abraham, while not having full knowledge of God's purpose, was willing to leave his home city when God commanded him to do so. Abraham chose a religion different from that of his father. For so doing,
Abraham received the blessings that God promised him, and he became the person whom many religions recognize as the "father of all who believe in God." Romans 4:11, Today's English Version.

The Bible also relates in a positive light the story of women called Ruth, an ancestress of Jesus Christ. Ruth was a Moabite woman who was married to an Israelite, became a widow and was faced with a choice: stay in her own country or return with her mother-in-law to Israel. Recognizing the superior value of Jehovah's worship compared with the idolatrous worship practiced by her parents, Ruth declared to her mother-in-law: "Your people will be my people and your God my God." Ruth 1:16, 17.

Commenting on the place of this record in the Bible canon, the Dictionnaire de la Bible explains that this account shows "how a woman of foreign birth, born among a pagan people hostile to and hated by Israel,

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