Excellent observation - “Don’t just do what I say, but live as I live, be as I am”
Perhaps someone should pop back a millenia or two and shoot the translators of the gospels…
I think Religion is compelled to engender exclusivity for a numbers of reasons:
I’m not a very theistic person, but if I’m wrong and there is anything resembling the traditional big-guy-in-the-sky knocking about, and he does do great deals on the afterlife vis-a-vis you and me - I think the BGITS must be a fairly magnaimous entity - there is no hell, and everybody gets a ticket to heaven, though perhaps the nastier element of humanity gets the evangelical equivalent of a crappy apartment and a dead-end job. But that’s another thread subject.
No - I think God’s fairly neutral on the subject of sin. Think about it. You’ve got ants in your back garden - yes…? They’re all tiddly, black and busy. Now - some of the those ants must be bad ants (they carry slightly less than their share of the leaf, they sometimes post the wrong trail-marker pheremone, and snicker into their antennea when their friends walk into a wall…) … Bad, bad ants… But I daresay the thought has never even crossed your mind. You could pick up the worst serial ant killer ant in the entirety of ant history between your finger and thumb, and feel absolutely zero connection. Ant sins mean nothing to humans.
So why should human sins mean anything to god…? If God is the light and the way to a non-physical continuance/semblence of life after death, and perhaps the door, the support medium and the generator motor too… Does he stand at the gate with a list and a bow-tie…“Sorry mate, but yer not gettin’ in…” How can the heavenly bouncer make value judgements on beings of a lower order it really can’t feel an empathy with…? Would you be able to sort out the good ants from the bad ants…? Okay - suspending disbelief for a second - perhaps Jesus was God’s attempt to obtain some basis for empathy with us, fine and dandy, time for an update don’t you think…? I mean they didn’t even have i-pods back in year 0AD… Society changes, sin changes. Nothing is static. The Heavenly Bouncer’s dress-code(x) is out of date.
Anyway - sorry, I digress. It’s all very well for God to be magnanimous and allow the most miserable into heaven along with the most pious, but a Religion cannot afford to be so… forgiving. It needs rules, it needs carrots, it needs sticks. [Just a thought, but God should be ALL carrot in my book, and no stick, otherwise, well - God’s no better than us.]
Imagine how long a Religion would last if it preached:
Jocular Chap:“Yeah, well, like there’s this God-bloke, up in the sky, and he, y’know - deeply loves your ass… And when you die… He’ll replace your batteries and take you into, like, this really cool cosmic club, wiv angels and stuff…”
[the great unwashed]: “Tell us O teacher - what must we do…?”
JC “Er… Do…? Well, er - whatever you were doing before I suppose…”
[the great unwashed]: “Tell us O teacher - what must we not do, for fear of God’s wrath…?”
JC: “Wrath…? Er… Look - you guys… You guys ain’t gettin’ me here, God, like doesn’t judge… No Godly Justice - He just is. Just do what you think is okay… Okay…?”
The people would just go okay, I’m a “Just-Is-ian” -then hedge there bets by joining the “raving-kill-every-sucker-who-looks-funny-ians” down the street… People eh’ (as God says) - gotta love 'em.
No - Religions need rules and sticks and carrots, and exclusivity, because a carrot, freely munchable by all, has no worth. And no useful leveredge over the muncher.