Comparing the religions

 

When I read about a particular religion, I look for answers to two questions:

1) where did I come from?

2) where am I going?

The answer to the first question is far more important than the second as it reveals the depth and understanding of that belief.    When comparing religions on the answers to the first question, the current religion today falls into two groups:

A)  The belief that man is eternal in nature.

B)  The belief that man is mortal and limited by death.

Interestingly, the religions that fall into set A are:  Buddhism, Hinduism, Scientology.  The religions that fall into set B are: Christianity, Islam, Judaism.

Getting the answer from set B is easy, as all three religions are founded on the same text:  "In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth," but getting the answer to this simple question from set A is not easy because the answer is buried under tons of cultural and philosophical dialogue (a lot of which are psychobabble).  For example, when someone asks a straight question, "how do I attain eternal life?" in the Upanishads, you won't find the answer in the next paragraph, but you need to dissect the poetic parable that follows which sounds a lot like what you'd read in a fortune cookie... sounding deep and thought-provoking, but ultimately useless.  Compare this to set A, it's easy as pie:  follow these ten rules, and you'll attain eternal life.

But anyway, the answer to "where did I come from?" in the religions belonging to set A is:  nowhere.   A man's soul is eternal by nature, and that the goal of life is to attain immortality.  

In Hinduism, attaining immortality is done by "realizing the Self."   HUH?  WHAT? You ask?   It may make more sense to tell you that in Hinduism, every living thing is made from the same primordial substance -- I call it, THE STUFF.   This STUFF is what gave birth to Brahma, the Hindu god of creation.  Brahma, in turn, gave birth to other gods, although I'm not clear as to how Brahma pro-creates.    This STUFF is actually called Brahman in Hinduism.   "Realizing the Self" is another way of saying "finding the Brahman in you"-- i.e.   if you look deep enough into yourself, you'll find Brahman.  But you need to be extremely "enlightened" to do this, and all the text in Hinduism aims for this purpose -- enlightenment of the mind.    So, where did I come from?   the answer is nowhere... you're made from the same "stuff" as the gods... but unfortunately, you're not enlightened enough to realize this.  Get it?  No?  you're not enlightened enough!   (BTW, you might be interested to know that the STUFF, in Star Wars cosmology, is called The Force).

While we're on enlightenment, lets now turn to Buddhism.  The religion of buddhism has been polluted with Hindu gods, so even some Buddhists believe in the same "gods" as Hinduism.  But Buddhism in its true sense has no "gods" at all.   So, where did I come from?  again, nowhere.  We've always existed,  being born and re-born through a cosmic force called Karma.  Suffering in the world, according to Buddhism, exists because of our attachments to our thoughts and emotions-- and, in this way, we become selfish and cause harm to others.   The goal of Buddhism is to realize these harmful things that we do through our thoughts and actions, and become "empty of inherent existence" -- in fully achieving this emptiness, you're one step closer to reaching Nirvana -- i.e.  the ultimate state of enlightenment where you become free of suffering and individual existence.   Siddhartha Gautama was born a man and supposedly reached "Buddhahood" at the age of 35.    It's implied that once you reach the state of Nirvana, you're free from the cycle of rebirth.   Since the earth itself is not eternal in nature, presumably there's some point in the past where the cycle of birth began and human beings started out as unenlightened idiots, until the first Buddha (Siddhartha Gautama) came along.  I can't find anything in Buddhist texts that tells me when this cycle of birth began and more importantly, why.

The last religion in this group is Scientology.  This religion was created by science fiction writer L. Ron Hubbard in the 1950s.    In scientology, man was originally an eternal, spiritual being called a thetan.    Thetans created the world, but somehow, they become attached to their creations (man) and assumed their identifies, and live their lives as man.   The suffering in the world causes the creation of "engrams," mental images which is harmful to the reactive mind and causes thetan to drift further away from their true state of being.     In order for a person to move closer to their true state of being (the thethan), he (or she) goes through a set of training (called dianetics) so that these engrams can be purged from the mind.    Once this is done, the person is said to be in "Clear" state.   How do you get these trainings?  By paying money to the church, of course! --- what?  you expect to reach this state through "enlightenment" like the Buddhists and Hindus?

The story of how the thetans became living bodies is worthy of a science fiction movie.   75 million years ago, an alien called Xenu (a ruler of the "Galactic Confederacy"), brought people  together to Earth aboard a spaceship that looks a lot like the DC-8, stacked them around volcanoes and detonated hydrogen bombs in the volcanoes.   The thetans then clustered together and stuck themselves to these people.

The story about Xenu was supposedly not given to ordinary scientologists, but given only to high-ranking individuals (read: people who donated a LOT of money to the church) under the claim that this knowledge can be harmful for people at lower levels of clarity -- i.e. those farther away from their thetan self.    Personally, I think this information was kept secret because most people who heard it would probably think L. Ron Hubbard finally had a psychotic break, and I do still smile silently whenever I pass a scientology church.

Now, let's compare the religion of group A with group B, all of which are based on Judaism.   Where did I come from?   I was created.  Where am I going?  eternal life.  How do I get there?  Follow 10 rules.   No enlightenment or money needed (although some churches/mosques/synagogues would have you think that!).  Straight to the point.  I like it.

Posted via web from Herry's posterous