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The most important difference between Buddhism and other religions is that Buddhism is not a Club religion. In Club religions when you join the club, you become special in some way and closer to truth and God. You may begin to discriminate between those in your club and those outside and in the worst form of this is believers vs infidels. Infidels, which could include the animal kingdom are lower than believers ... Buddhism is not immune to this sort of thinking though the essence of enlightenment is beyond this kind of thinking. An enlightened person does not say that he/she is better than, or worse than or equal to me. In club religions there is a great need to get others into the club and save them, lest the non club members get punished in the afterlife for not being club members.

Firstly, Buddhism is different in that the Buddha was not out to found a club, but did create a form to help people realize freedom from suffering. All living beings need to be cherished with no discrimination between believers and non believers. Secondly, the Buddha said not to believe in anything just because it was in a book, or coming from a sacred teacher or by specious reasoning - and he applied this rigor to his own teaching. He said of himself that he was a teacher, only a pointer to the path, that we must tread the path ourselves. Buddhism is thus an open religion - you can try it to the extent it helps you. The message of Buddhism is pretty universal - generally, Buddhism tends to state what most sensible people know for themselves - that actions motivated by greed, hate and stupidity lead to trouble. Under these circumstances, Buddhism is not an exclusive teaching, but some of its teachings such as the 37 factors of enlightenment and the four noble truths are fairly unique. Buddhists show respect to the founder, the Buddha but actually they venerate and try to establish in themselves good states of mind. If you can have good states of mind, you are on your way to peace and freedom.

Insofar as there is a club it is the club of enlightened beings (Arya Sangha) of which there are four stages in the southern Buddhist tradition, or the club of Bodhisattas in the northern and southern traditions - most Buddhists don't belong to these clubs especially if they claim them. It is probably wrong to talk of these as clubs, rather lineages of beings who have cleared attachments and obstacles that bind beings to existence based on ignorance. Beings in these lineages cant turn away

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