Why So Many Religions?

What of I told you that all the religions in the world originated from a single way of life sent by God to humanity over and over throughout the ages? What if I told you that, over time, people altered and changed what they had been originally taught by the prophets, creating new religions that were partly from God and partly from man.  What if I told you that that original way of life was Islam? See, Islam is not a new religion by any means. God has been sending prophets to teach it to us for as long as there have been people. However, just because God sends a prophet doesn't mean everything is guaranteed to go perfectly. For one, not all people accepted the prophets that were sent to them. Other times, prophets were accepted by their people, but after time went by, changes crept into the religion. Whether by a deliberate attempt to alter the teachings or through a sincere but misguided effort to do good, or even by knowledge simply being lost or forgotten or confused over time, parts of the religion were discarded and new foreign practices were added in, to the point that this was no longer the same religion. Even if new prophets were sent to correct these deviations, they may not have been believed by their people. Most of the major religions in the world today probably originated, at least in part, from a true prophet of God teaching this simple message of submission to God, the message of Islam. However, as changes and deviations occurred, and outside influences became dominant, over time it became so different, so removed from the original that new religions were formed. So when we look at the religions of the world today, we don't say all religions are all wrong except for Islam. Rather, we recognize the truth that exists in all religions from their origins, but see that Islam is the full truth, the universal message of God, and the only way to truly and completely live for God on His terms.