God - One and the Same - Term Paper Example

God: One and the Same Introduction More often than not, in this Christian-founded nation, when people think or speak of God their mind automaticallyswitches to the concepts of God that have been presented by the Christian or Catholic churches: this invisible, omnipresent being who answers prayers, touches hearts, and instills His fear into those that follow and oppose Him. However, if one were to travel to other countries, to different parts of the United States, or even to their next door neighbor’s house, they may find that a contrasting image of God exists there (Fisher & Smart, 1998). Although God is considered to be a part of just the Christian-based religions, there are many people that would be shocked to find that even in religions where God, as Himself, does not exist, the deities of that religion take on the same purposes and qualities of God. Even in the religions that do not acknowledge any form of a god still has a deity or religious being that fulfills the same duties and requirements. Religions such as Buddhism, folk religions, and Hinduism regard God in ways that are entirely unique and beneficial to their religious paths, with many of these beings not considered God-like, or god-like, at all. Buddhism Buddhism is a religious path as well as a philosophical lifestyle that, despite its age, has found itself the center of most New Age practitioners. Unlike most organized religions, Buddhism does not recognize a supreme, invisible being in the same sense that the Christian-related religions do. In Buddhism, the person honored and followed is Gautama Buddha, the original founder of Buddhism. Gautama Buddha was also a teacher of Buddhism, promoting and teaching peace, harmony, and enlightenment through meditation, yoga, and other activities to help center and ground the mind and body. While the Buddha did not perform miracles, and nor was he worshipped or prayed to, just merely honored and regarded in the highest light, he still fulfilled what it meant to be the god or deity of a religion (Armstrong, 2004). He was the person that his followers looked up to and viewed as their leader, as well as the one who could direct the practitioners onto their individual paths of enlightenment. As previously mentioned, Buddha was not worshipped in the typical sense that God or a deity would be worshipped. He was simply viewed as the founder and teacher of this spiritual and philosophical path. After his death, his monks, similar to the apostles of the Christian faith, took over passing on the information, knowledge, and teachings onto those that wished to follow this peaceful path to enlightenment. Buddha, before and after his death, never required people to worship him and his teachings; unlike many other religions, organized or otherwise, he wanted his place to be only that of a teacher to his students and nothing more; instead of being the path to enlightenment, he wanted to be a light or a signpost to help guide the way. Indeed, all of the teachings and information that followers were given by Buddha, all of which is still being shared and practiced today, only dealt with the care that a person should have for themselves and for others. Nothing was to suggest that they should worship Buddha as anything more than a teacher or to view anyone else as being in a higher position. Furthermore, there is no other deity within Buddhism, nor does Buddhism encourage the worship of others outside of one’s own self. There are many religions that focus on praising the person who is most often the founder or the principle icon behind the religion, but Buddhism brought about the idea that religion should not involve looking for some external god to tell a person whether or not they are worthy or if they have reached enlightenment. Buddha believed that the path to enlightenment could be found within a person, therefore depleting the purpose for an outside deity. However, given the role that Buddha played in his religion as both the creator and the key teacher, he is still considered to be in a similar position as God would be in Christianity, minus the typical aspects of deity worshipping. Buddha is not considered to be a savior, but simply a leader. Folk Religions As different religions are becoming less of a taboo subject and more of a welcome concept, many people are turning to nature-based religious and spiritual paths, such as paganism, shamanism, and druidism. Although each branch of nature-based spirituality includes within themselves even more branches for practitioners to decide from, the majority of them focus on a polytheistic, pantheistic, or animistic view of deities (Higginbotham, 2002), though there are some practitioners that choose to only follow one deity; the acceptance of more than one deity is quite common, even in the event that only one is applied to practice and worship, which is known as being henotheistic. Regardless of how many deities are believed or followed, they each fulfill similar purposes, if not the same, as God does in a Christian-based religion, though they are often not worshipped in the same manner. However, the concept of deities in folk religions is similar to Buddhism, with the deities only acting as guides or leaders rather than as saviors or as the only means of enlightenment. As folk religions are nature-based, many of them involve the worshipping of nature or an element of nature as opposed to an actual deity; Mother Earth or Mother Nature are often the concepts that are worshipped and praised, as these are some of the sole reasons for the existence of such religions. Depending on the branch of folk religion, the mythological gods and goddesses that are connected to certain aspects of nature and earth are praised in similar fashions as nature and earth. Some of the deities are simply called God or Goddess, though many go by specific names, especially those based on gods and goddesses from various mythologies. The names of these beings all depend on the individual practitioner; one may refer to the goddess Brigid as Brigid, while someone else might refer to the same being as simply Goddess. These deities are regarded as the creators of all things whether it be human or rock, animal or grain of sand. Therefore, everything in life has a deity attached to it. Through the earth, people have found their religion, and so they worship accordingly. Deities in nature-based religions are also worshipped based on the needs that an individual follower may have, depending on the spiritual path that they are on. The most notable difference between the gods and goddesses of folk religions as compared to other religions, especially those that are organized, is that they are regarded as the beings responsible for the creation of the world, weather, war, et cetera, but not for any salvation or enlightenment of humans. Many folk religions do not even acknowledge the concept of enlightenment, with their sole purpose of existence being to honor nature. The firm belief is that deities have created humans, now what humans choose to do with their own lives is their own business. The mindset is similar to that of Buddhism, in which enlightenment, or self-fulfillment, as is the case with the majority of folk religions, is only found within each individual person. Another difference between these unorganized religions is that the majority of practitioners choose to worship female deities, quite alike other religions that strictly aim towards masculine deities. Folk religions tend to have a heavy following of female practitioners due to this characteristic. Hinduism Hinduism is a fine mixture of the aforementioned religions and deity belief systems. Hinduism has a diverse and rather complicated system in regard to what is considered to be God or god-like, with each path or philosophy containing their own designated concepts. There are even some paths that practice atheism; again, it all depends on the path or what others deem suitable for themselves. Hinduism also comes with paths that focus on one deity, many, or none, maintaining the firm belief that the belief in deity should be fitting to whom they wish to believe in and follow, as opposed to the person having to change themselves to fit the expectations of the deity (Bedlani, 2008). However, quite similar to many folk religions, Hinduism can also be thought of as henotheistic, with some practitioners believing and following one deity while still acknowledging the existence of others. Henotheism in Hinduism has a lot to do with the fact that the scripture of this particular religion makes mention of specific supreme beings though, as previously stated, each individual follower can decide on whether or not they wish to implement these deities in their practices. In Hinduism, one of the most accepted beliefs is that the soul of each person is equivalent to Brahman, who is the supreme spirit. Therefore, quite like Buddhism, a practitioner of Hinduism can find the concept of god and enlightenment within themselves. Likewise, there is a school of Hinduism that believes Brahman to be the supreme being with no connection to the individual’s soul whatsoever, much like Christianity and God. Practitioners can choose which concept they believe, making their feelings dependent on what path they decide to follow. There are other schools of Hinduism that focus on other deities, as well as those schools that lean more towards atheism. Other common deities in Hinduism include devas, which are similar to angels, and avatars. There are only a select few that are categorized as either, as opposed to the folk religions that recognize thousands of beings and are open to more. Devas and avatars are beings from Hindu mythology and are often worshipped as deities, though they are not considered to actually be deities. It would be like worshipping God’s apostles as opposed to worshipping God himself. These devas and avatars, as well as the supreme beings, are only worshipped based on what they have done in their connecting mythologies. They are seldom praised or even turned to with prayers and hopes, though with reverence in regard to the experiences that they went through when they were living, physical beings. Hinduism is another path of self-enlightenment, if the practitioner wishes it to be, so the deities and mythological beings are not so much as God-like as they are helpers throughout the religion. Conclusion In the many religions that this diverse world has to offer, each one contains some image or other of God or a similar deity, or deities. Many people believe that a deity does not constitute as a God-like being if they do not offer the same things as the Christian God, of if their backgrounds are not similar to God’s. However, if people really focused on the concepts of each religion and the purposes and roles that their deities play, they would be shocked to find that a pagan god or goddess or a Hindu avatar has roughly the same foundation that the Christian God has. As many religions as there are, there is three times more the different concept of gods and deities. These beings all come down to the same thing: they are founders of the religion, they are from mythology or stories that define the religion, or they aid the follower in reaching their ultimate goal of enlightenment. Just because they are not referred to as God by name does not make them any less the part. Works Cited Armstrong, Karen. Buddha. Westminster, London: Penguin Group USA, 2004. Bedlani, Dr. Hiro G. Hinduism: Path of the Ancient Wisdom. Bloomington, IN: iUniverse, Incorporated, 2008. Fisher, Mary & Smart, Ninian. Religions of the World: Religion in the Twenty-First Century. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall, 1998. Higginbotham, Joyce. Paganism: An Introduction to Earth-Centered Religions. Woodbury, MN: Llewellyn Worldwide, 2002. Read More