The vast mass of conflict in the world stems from people seeking to impose their beliefs and ways of life on others. The deep tragedy of this battle of beliefs is that there is ultimately no way of proving any one belief to be better than any other. All beliefs are equally valid. We all have our own truths, just as we all have our own definitions of what "truth" is. It's all a matter of your point of view. Of course, throughout history there have been many people who claimed to know the universal Truth: that is, a belief that is true for everyone. Convinced that they had found ultimate reality, these people set out to make others accept it. Typically, they ran into people who already had what they claimed was the real universal Truth and it was a different one. So starts a war, revolution, schism, or whatever. If people could just realize that evey culture and each individual has their own "truths," we could avoid a lot of bloodshed. The best reason for believing something is that it works for you. An ancient philosopher wrote: "Man is the measure of all things." It is like what happens when three people see an accident. All three may give different descriptions of what happened. That's because each is seeing the situation from their own perspective. Each has his/her own unique set of perceptions and those perceptions are true for the individual. So there is no point in asking what "really" happened. What each person percieved is true for them. It is worthwhile to study the different beliefs of the world, because to understand them helps us to better respect them. But there is no use in comparing these beliefs or seeking to find which is "truest." If everyone could just temper their belief with tolerance and humility, the world would be a much happier place. The bottom line is: There are no absolutes.