by R Shimoda

Created on: March 09, 2009

In looking at Christianity, Muslim, Judaism, Hinduism and Buddhism, I can say without any doubt...they are all the same with no one religion being any better than the other. What is at issue here, is which religion most accurately explains God (or some other superior being) and the After Life.

First, Christianity, Muslim and Judaism are all in agreement for man to be able to understand or even comprehend what God is, is impossible. For the Hindu and Buddhist religions, the idea of learning to become enlightened or one with the Universal Cosmic Awareness, is viewed in a similar vein. So none of the five have a single concise explanation of their principle Diety that one could say unequivocally is the truth.

How about the afterlife? Once again, Christianity, Muslim and Judaism all recognize a pleasant experience after death for all enternity for being good and a nasty place for those who don't. For the Hindu and Buddhists, it is becoming one with the Universal Cosmic Awareness if one is good and being subject to an endless cycle of birth and death on Earth until Enlightment is achieved. So once again, none of the five has a single explanation of the afterlife that one could say without question is the truth.

So in my opinion, they are all equally good in explaining a Superior Being and what happens after one dies. But what about the variation between the different religions? Interestingly enough, the Buddhist have a parable about six blind men encountering an elephant which an American poet, John Godfrey Saxe converted to a charming poem. He had each feel a different part of the animal (one touched the ear, another the tusk, another the tail, etc) and they tried to convince the others what the elephant was really like. In the end he points out that all were partly in the right but all were wrong.

I feel concepts that religions attempt to encompass are written in the same vein with each one capturing part of the picture and not the whol thing. Once again, they themselves admit for humans to truly understand the total concept is impossible because there are no words to accurately describe God or no way to verify the afterlife.

Would I say there was no God or an Afterlife? I wouldn't and think anyone that dismisses such beliefs is being foolish. To believe in our creation can be attributed to random events and not to some superior being, would then lead to the next intriguing thought. If life was so easy to create and didn't require any Divine Intrevenation, then with the thousand of Earth-like planets known to exist, one must believe in life on other planets. It boils down to simple probablilities.

Personally I would like to see more tolerance between the different religions as they realize that all of them work for the same goal. Namely, helping Mankind to remember there are bigger things in life then themselves.

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