Storytime Tapestry Newsletter

The newsletter devoted to spreading love and cultural awareness around the world.

Beyond The Mirror – A Bill Allin Column

January 26, 2007

What Is The Truth? (Part 4)
by Bill Allin

[Caution: What follows may be offensive to some people because it is based on fact, reason and probability, not on an established belief set (religion). If you are offended by anything that does not support your belief set, you should choose to not read this article.]

In Part 1 we discussed the origins of modern religions in the tribal past of our ancestors. In Part 2 we saw how some parts of tribal society moved forward to today while others were dropped. In Part 3 we saw what happened when religions made the same transition to modern times.

In this part we return to the elements that almost all religions have in common with each other. Before that, let’s look at belief sets that some people do not consider to be religions at all. The most prominent example would be Buddhism.

In Buddhism, there is no supreme being, no God or gods, no heaven as the Abrahamic religions think of it. Some people say that Buddhism is nothing more than a philosophy of life, a prescription for how to live a good life. Some Buddhists agree, though they follow the prescription with religious fervour.

But then, all religions prescribe how to live a good life. Above all, that is what religions do. Buddhism simply puts that part of its collective purpose ahead of all others. Monotheistic religions ostensibly place prayer, rituals and rules ahead of how to live a good life. Yet the prayer, rituals and rules all centre around how one should life a good life.

Buddhists do not conflict with other religions on this purpose because all religions share that same purpose. Buddhism tolerates other religions because they all share the same purpose.

But no God to worship? How could it then be a religion?

Buddhism agrees with the early Christians, in effect, those we now call the Gnostics. Both said that what some people call the divine being is within each of us. There is no one God, but there is a one-ness of the universe. Change a few words around and you have the omnipotent and omniscient God of the Christians who is in everything and part of everything.

Christianity and the other Abrahamic religions (Judaism and Islam) objectify God as a distinct being that is separate from themselves so that they can pray to him. Buddhists say to raise yourself up because you have the divine within you. Buddhists don’t have to pray to God because they focus on realizing the potential of the divinity or goodness or one-ness within themselves.

Christians ask God to act on them and through them. Buddhists seek to activate the divine within themselves so that they can fulfill the same kinds of purposes that Christians ask God to help them to do. Buddhists seek perfection, while Christians want God to help them be perfect through their actions.

Two different ways of seeking the same goal.

Hinduism is another belief set that many call a philosophy of life (Buddhism branched out from Hinduism) while others say that it is a polytheistic religion. Hindus believe that God is in everything, not significantly different in practice from what Christians and Buddhists believe, that everything is sacred. Only Hindus give the part of God that is in each thing (living or otherwise) a name, and an icon. This upsets those who believe in one God.

A majority of Hindus believe in one supreme God who shows himself in everything that "is." Hindus may pray to each of several of these God-parts, while Roman Catholics pray to (or through) saints who were once humans who walked the earth. Muslims, Protestant Christians and Jews pray directly to one God, though the Protestants pray through Jesus (whom they believe is one with God in heaven). Different rituals, same effect.

Ask a Sikh what kind of life God would like him to lead (I did, thank you Surinder) and his reply would be little different in effect from that of a Hindu, a Muslim, a Roman Catholic or a Buddhist, though the wording of the answers would be considerably different.

Some spiritualists, who don’t necessarily believe in any god, believe that we can awaken the spirit within us to live the kinds of lives that we should. Again, different words, same effect.

It would serve us well to consider the kind of life we believe we should lead, then compare it to the life we lead today.