A friend of mine is questioning his faith and wanted to research other religions. Since I felt I had to do the same thing when I was a seeker, I encouraged him to do so. But to help direct his focus and speed his research, I provided him with a few items to judge religions by to test their worth. Later, I remembered a few more things, so below is my full checklist.

These are things that all religions attempt to answer or address, and I think every person on the planet would agree, so they should be free of bias. I'm confident that Christianity is the only religion that handles all these aspects with unparalleled coherency.

All religions attempt to answer these 4 questions. Some may answer one with a fair degree of correspondance to truth, but with all 4, there needs to be a coherence.

• Question of Origin - How did I come to be?
• Question of Meaning - How do I find purpose and meaning in life?
• Question of Morality - How do I define & separate right from wrong?
• Question of Destiny - What happens when I die?

Other tips:

• A religion shouldn't have systemic contradictions.
• In a religion, there has to be a logical consistency.
• In a religion, there has to be a way to verify its truth claims.
• In a religion, there has to be experiential relevance.
• A religion should be able to explain other religions that are different or contradictory to it.