According to Osho, there is virtually no significant theological difference between Catholics and Protestants: both accept Jesus, the virgin birth, and the resurrection. Protestantism, he says, began as Martin Luther’s political protest after failing to become pope. The only notable devotional variation is Catholic veneration of Mary. For Osho, such sectarian splits are superficial; his critique addresses Christianity as a whole.
They share the same beliefs about Jesus; Protestants split after Luther couldn’t become pope, while Catholics also honor Mary.
From the Discourses
Passages where Osho speaks to this question — each links to the complete discourse.
Osho, what is the difference between surrender and blind imitation?
So be careful: the freedom you allow yourself, allow the other too. You have no right to judge another as blindly credulous or as a surrendered being. Drop that concern. You cannot judge anyway—how will you enter another’s heart? How will you know? Think only about yourself. See within whether, up to now, you have lived by blind belief or by surrender. Decide only there; leave worrying about others. Otherwise, all your judgments will be wrong. Jesus said: Judge not; do not set yourself up as a judge in relation to another. To the friend who has asked: if you are asking for yourself, good. Drop worrying about others. Look within and see: whatever I have been clinging to till now—have I ever staked my life to hold it? Have I meditated for it? Have I loved for it? Or am I just clutching what culture, society, civilization handed me?…
Beloved Osho, you said that italians are the most pagan among the european people. Do you think the catholic religion destroys the pagan soul less than other religions?
The virgin birth of Jesus Christ... there is no way to prove it; it is so unscientific. The concept of God as a trinity: God the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost... and this "holy ghost" made the poor girl Mary, Jesus' mother, pregnant -- without any license -- and still he is holy? Then what is unholy? And in this trinity there is no place for any woman? A strange family, three men. It is just to humiliate womankind. Even Jesus' mother -- although they put up her statues, they worship her statues -- she is not part of their ultimate trinity. Their ultimate trinity is a gay group -- and I have every suspicion that the disease AIDS has come from the trinity. Everything has arisen from God -- why not AIDS? I know so many Italians that I feel perfectly at ease that they will be…
Osho, are you against all the religions? What is their most fundamental mistake?
We have come very late; there was nobody present as an eyewitness. And there is no way for us to separate ourselves completely from existence and become just an observer. We live, we breathe, we exist with existence -- we cannot separate ourselves from it. The moment we are separate, we are dead. And without being separate, just a watcher, with no involvement, with no attachment, you cannot know the ultimate mystery; hence it is impossible. There will remain something always unknowable. Yes, it can be felt, but it cannot be known. Perhaps it can be experienced in different ways -- not like knowledge. You fall in love -- can you say you know love? It seems to be a totally different phenomenon. You feel it. If you try to know it, perhaps it will evaporate in your hands. You cannot reduce it to knowing. You cannot make it an…
Beloved Osho, you are against the pope so much -- is that because the roman catholic religion is the most organized religion?
Religion is something so high, and politics is so low that one thing has to be remembered: whenever there is a mixture of something lower with something higher, it is always the higher which becomes polluted -- not the lower. It is always the higher which loses its quality of being higher. The lower has nothing to lose; it cannot fall any more -- it has already fallen to its uttermost. Religion and politics should be separate. And the moment religion becomes organized, it becomes politics. Hence religion should not be organized at all; it should be everybody's private, personal, intimate search. At least some area of life should be left to the individual where he is totally free, without anybody else deciding for him, where he can open his wings like an eagle and fly across the sun -- no chains, no bondages, no hindrances. Religion blossoms only in…
Osho, are you partial to different creeds and doctrines? Can we not abolish sects—the Buddhists of Buddha, the Jains of Mahavira, the Christians of Jesus, and so on—and establish a single religion of humanity?
I have not the slightest partiality toward creeds and sects. There are no Jains, no Buddhists, no Hindus, no Christians, no Muslims. In the world there are only two kinds of people: the religious and the irreligious. And one who is religious can be a Buddha, a Mahavira, a Krishna, a Christ; but he cannot be a Hindu, a Jain, a Muslim, a Christian. The religious person reaches the source; once one has reached the source, there remains no reason to be sectarian. Two kinds of people, I said: religious and irreligious. The religious person becomes what Buddha or Mahavira became. The irreligious person cannot become a Buddha or a Mahavira, so he becomes a Jain or a Buddhist! Sects belong to irreligious people; the religious person has no sect. You can even put it this way: religion has no sects; all sects belong to irreligion. The irreligious person cannot…