Buddhism Explains Christianity

I grew up in a Christian family and was taught to believe in Jesus and the Christian God. I truly tried to do so. I wanted to experience a connection, but it was an unfulfilled wish. I thought I ought to continue to persevere, so this I attempted, but it was never real to me, inside.

After the birth of my son and loving a man of depth, I learned to question what I had been taught. This lead me to attempt a personal relationship with the Christian God on a "Bible, God, and me" basis. I saw the church as a list of outdated rules, which did not seem to fit with life any longer. I then spent a few years as an Atheist, believing in love, nature, and truth, rather than an entity of creation or control. In 2007, I began to explore Buddhism. It seemed parallel to the route that I was taking. On further study, I became a practicing Buddhist. It felt right to me, and that was more important than what my family had declared to be true.

Recently, I looked at the faith I had been brought up in, to ascertain my viewpoint of it now. I believe that since becoming a Buddhist, I can see more in the Christian faith than I could whilst a Christian. I lost all faith in a creator god, and I still do not believe in such a being. However, I do recognize a godly existence and heavenly realm. I had to really; when someone I knew died and became a god, I had no other choice.

Accepting the Buddhist ideas of reincarnation and heavenly realms allowed me to recognize the possibility of gods. Understanding of the vastness of the universe and believing in life on other planets - as on ours, not little green men and monster style - I explored further. When I first found a contact with a dead man, I thought he was reborn on this earth. Then I discovered he had been upgraded to god status, and could now be looked upon as a guide. He gave me spiritual sanctuary by leading me to rest on a peaceful planet, when this earth failed to provide peace for me.

I look at all the major religions, with their various God or gods and it makes me wonder. Perhaps they all began when someone had contact with a god. Maybe they grew out of one person's experience of someone in the godly realms. If so, the Christian faith could have grown from Jesus having contact to someone he had known as a father in a former life, who had now become a god. It was his god, and he tried to share him with everyone around him, recognizing the value of a heavenly guide and friend. If this is the case, then the Christian god was a personal god for Jesus rather than for everyone forever. Jesus lead us to look for his God, because it was the one that he knew.

Over time, maybe the God that Jesus had connected to was no longer a god. This may be where the dropping away from the Christian religion has stemmed. If we recognize the Buddhist belief of different realms, where one moves between differing levels, we can see the opportunity for some beings to become gods for a time. When one personally has known of someone who has gone that way, it brings clarity to this theory.

Perhaps one should simply try to connect to a god, rather than the god of a set religion. If gods spend considerable time, but not permanence, in the heavenly realms, then we need to find someone who has recently become a god, rather than rely upon one who was there many centuries previously; they may now have moved to a new level. If all religion's gods are only in reign for a few centuries, then we need to look for a recent god rather than to a religion, in order to find our personal guide and a spiritually assisting friend. We, the people of today, should perhaps not look to the past for our belief and guidance, but to the present time and more recent tenants of heaven. Taking this viewpoint, I can see where the world religions fit, and also where they fail.

It amuses me that practicing and learning about Buddhism has opened my eyes to understanding the faith I was born into but could not then fathom. With my new understandings, I can see how the major religions could all have set themselves upon someone's personal experience of a god, perhaps thinking it the only one. I can therefore respect and accept most other religions as being, or having once been, valid. Having personally found a recently instated god, I need no religious rulings to live by; I am free to follow my goals of love, truth, and naturalness, with the god-guide I personally connected to. Whereas Buddhism helps me reconstruct my life in a way where I can find peace and purpose, it has no set boss-deity.