Spiritual Forums - Did god inspire all religions

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Quote:

Originally Posted by 17glory01

@BigJohn, No! The Messiah was not born on December 25

Not everybody celebrates Christmas on December 25.

Religions are all man made, but I think it's possible that many religions were inspired by 'revelations' of a sort that hinted at a spiritual 'reality', so in that sense it's possible that ''god'' inspired religions (though all religions would still be a bold statement).

Quote:

Originally Posted by sky123

Then they are not following Buddha's Teachings....

There are different types of worship. When someone worships a god, they praise and honor him or her, make offerings and ask for favors, believing that the god will hear their praise, receive their offerings and answer their prayers. Buddhists do not indulge in this kind of worship. The other kind of worship is when we show respect to someone or something we admire. When a teacher walks into the room we stand up, when we meet a dignitary we shake their hand, when the national anthem is played we salute. These are all gestures of respect and worship and indicate our admiration for certain persons or things. This is the type of worship Buddhists practice. A statue of the Buddha with its hands rested gently in its lap and its compassionate smile reminds us to strive to develop peace and love within ourselves. The perfume of incense reminds us of the pervading influence of virtue, the lamp reminds us of the light of knowledge and the flowers which soon fade and die, remind us of impermanence. When we bow, we express outwardly what we feel inwardly; our gratitude to the Buddha for what his teachings have given us. This is the nature of Buddhist worship.

In which case I suspect that many Buddhists are not practising Buddhist worship, instead praying to Buddha to hear and answer their prayers.

And those who follow other beliefs are not necessarily just wanting their god to answer their prayers. They too may be striving to develop peace and love and other virtues.

The way that I see it is that it is not a question of which belief we follow, but more a question of where we stand in our own development. Many people, whatever their particular religion (including Buddhism), will pray to their deity to improve their material circumstances and bring about particular events. Others, whatever their particular religion, will use worship as an opportunity to praise their deity and express their devotion without thought of reward. The particular deity they pray to usually just depends on the culture they were born into.

Peace

No, unless you want to. I personally believe the deities develop as people change cultural conditions so the deities change based on cultural change. For example in language the name of gods like Perun and Wodan change to things like Parom, Piorun, and going back to earlier roots with the Balts Perkons, Perkuns, Perkunas, Balts and Slavs have different stories about the same deity because the cultures changed so the deities developed along side them. Wodan changes mainly by name like Woden, Wotan, Oðinn, Odin, Godan and so on. You can do linguistics further and see that the deities grow from earlier forms for example Dyeus Pater is the linguistic ancestor of Deus Zeus, Djous Jupiter, Tyr/Tiw/Tiwaz, Dagda, Dievas, Svarog, Papaios, Daeva, Dyaus and many many more deities with similar linguistic origins.

So no I do not believe that there is a singular deity inspiring all religions but that deities live in our culture and words and thus transform with us.

It's more probable that religions inspired and created god.

At the time the biblical Christian god appeared on the scene London was already a walled city, the Pyramids were getting on in years and the Chinese had discovered gunpowder.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Busby

Very true and good.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Busby

The Christian God is the same God of Judaism which extends back in time....... which some say was before the Big Bang.

Quote:

Originally Posted by BigJohn

The Christian God is the same God of Judaism which extends back in time....... which some say was before the Big Bang.

That's known as splitting hairs.
Nor do we have to consider what 'some say'.

Inspiration from God

Quote:

Originally Posted by Rickswordfish

Lately ive been wondering if I should accept the belief that all religions are inspired by god, is there any merit to this belief?

Yes it true for most religions. God or to give it more acceptable word universe inspired all religions.