Is God too big to fit into one religion?

Using "Is there a God" and "Religion: What is it"?, I tried to come to a conclusion that there is a God or a Supreme Being, and humans use religion to reach out to God. But there are so many religions in this world, and most of them are in existence to help human beings to guide the way - to point them to God. Monotheistic religions such as Judaism follows a God who is high up there  - simply uttering His name in vain could be considered as blasphemy. The glory and grandeur of this Jewish God is so frightening that you might get the sense of a highly impersonal god.

Then you have religions such as Hinduism on the opposite end which lacks a unified system of belief encoded in a declaration of faith. It grants absolute freedom of belief and worship to its followers and is devoid of concepts such as apostasy, heresy and blasphemy. Having such an open belief system also created 330 million versions of the Supreme Being in the form of avatars, 'devas' (celestial entity) and 'devis' (feminine form of deva). The God is so personable and easy-going here.

What is confusing about having too many religions with such a wide range of ideologies is that they make mutually exclusive claims. Any religion that points to god also offers a clear path to this god through rituals, traditions and liturgy. But these paths are so diverse, just like the nature of the Supreme Being they are professing about. The rational explanation to this issue is that God is so big that it is impossible for any one religion to accommodate him into its belief system. So every religion is right and every religion is wrong also, and that we should have an open mind as believers when faced with difference in opinions. I must confess that I was okay with this explanation for a long time. But, as it turned out, I had a tendency to side with wrong things in the past to avoid conflict and to steer any and all unwanted attention away from me. And that is reason enough to re-evaluate my position on this issue. 

Though it seems unlikely, it is a fact that the current generation of technologically advanced and information savvy crowd are all too willing to accept the existence of a Supreme Being. Unlike the stubborn and atheistic generations of not so long ago, these people acknowledge that there are things beyond what meet the eye. The problem, however, is that the god that is "in" today is also a much rational being. We perceive god as a supreme authority who accepts almost everything - much more tolerant than made out to be by the religious folks.

An "open door" view of god put religions into jeopardy because religions expect its followers to believe in a god they profess, not the other way around. Hence a person with a certain understanding about the existence of god might find it difficult to find a religion that supports his view of god in its entirety. To match his idea of god with a religious belief, it is quite possible that a person may have to "broaden" his religious views. This means I might like the concept of a monotheistic god as in Judaism, but can also be tolerant to the idea that celestial bodies such as the sun, moon and stars also deserve some reverence because of the way they affect human life like a Hindu might believe. It is easy for a person with such a view on god to fall prey to the rational thinking that God is too big for any one person or religion to understand and accommodate. 

Here is the problem with the logical thinking that "God is too big for one religion": When I make such a statement I am claiming that I have figured god out, thus creating a religion of my own. This thought process is not acknowledging god as this enormous being, but rather something very small. I think I am being rational and tolerant when I make such a claim or hold such a belief. In reality, all I am doing is making god the way I like him, her or it to be. I take the role of the creator - making a god in an image of my preference. This god thinks exactly like me, therefore I find myself agreeing with him all the time. This way I am not justifying all of my actions myself, but I am being justified by the god I have created. I am right because my god said so because I said so. 

When we acknowledge God as the Supreme Being, we must also lose the belief that existence of God depend on us. God doesn't owe us anything; He doesn't need to fit into a mold created for Him by us. He didn't get to be who or what He is by winning a popularity contest and His existence is not in jeopardy if we stop believing in Him. To understand it better, next we will try to ponder the question, "Who/What is God?".