Bearnabas--
Be careful with your understanding, both of Christianity, and of other faiths. There were two things I noticed in your post.
1. You said that Christianity "is a faith that tends to promote a singular path to heaven." That much is true. However, it does not follow from that that no other religion does the same thing--Islam does, at least in some interpretations. There are even strains of Hinduism that teach that one cannot have a happy afterlife without being a member of their particular group, and believing and following their teachings. (Oh...and as a precaution...I hope that you are not permitting conservative Fundamentalists to claim the "Christian" title all to themselves...they don't recognize even mainstream Protestants, let alone Anglicans, the Eastern Orthodox, or Roman Catholics as being Christians *at* *all.*)
2. You also said that Christianity "tends to focus on the afterlife, instead of the life here." That's half true. Christianity does, indeed, focus on the afterlife. But (...and this is especially true of Eastern Orthodox and Roman Catholic Christians...) Christians believe that the judgement of their souls for all eternity rests in part on how they have treated their fellow man. (See in the Gospel of St. Matthew, I think it's chapter 25, "Whatsoever you do to the least of my brothers....) So, for Christians to focus on the afterlife, *is* to focus on the here-and-now. The two cannot be separated.
Just my $0.02.
Wanderer
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