No, of course not, but there's the very great problem of some adherents taking the words of their allegedly Holy Texts to mean, "kill those who don't believe in exactly what we believe in" (all the while proclaiming that they believe in a "religion of peace").

And before anyone jumps in and says that by "adherents" I mean Muslims, recall the Christian Crusades and the Inquisition, and the more recent example of the Mountain Meadows Massacre perpetrated by the early Mormons.

I am alternately amused and horrified by the notion of various Christian sects, all of whom read the same text, all claiming that their path to the Lord (or whatever) is the only path, and that everyone else is going to Hell.

Perhaps it's best to look at this obvious conundrum (how can all, or indeed any, of the so-called One Truths be "the" One Truth?) through Kurasawa's lens. Consider it the Rashomon effect of religious beliefs. In the film, four witness see the same crime, yet their recollections are mutually exclusive. Obviously there can't be four versions of the same truth. So it is with religion. Different believers all claim to know the One Truth, yet all of these "Truths" are different. How is this possible?

-a