Why doesn't God just destroy the devil?

[Tantum_ergo]

So basically you think that no person will ever remain completely evil. You think that God will (if they don’t get it right the first time) make them ‘come back’.

How?

They can’t possibly come back as the same person–(same parents, some situations to face).

So you’re saying God creates them as a ‘new person.’ Well, what of the ‘old’ person?

If they come back as a new person you’re saying that God makes mistakes and has to have a ‘re-do’?

Hey, if I got to come back in the ‘right’ circumstances I’d be Mother Teresa. If I got the wrong ones, I could be Messalina. You’re arguing that it’s not our ‘selves’ which make the decisions, it’s the situations. I don’t buy it.

 

[Biggie]

To address the OP, Satan is, in fact suffering eternal death. I would assume God does not annihilate Satan for the same reason he does not annihilate man. To do so would be contradictory to God’s nature, and would substantiate Satan’s false representations about God.

God, who knows the nature of his creations, made us by nature to be in union with him. The terms of our nature is that separated from God, we die eternally. It is not as if God failed to inform us how we were constituted. In Jesus, he gave us the opportunity again to unite with God but the consequence of rejecting that opportunity has always been the same.

 

[chessmane4e5]

prettylarge:

I know from your other posts that you are struggling with God, people going to hell, etc.

I think the Church has a very reasonable view of this. It was already stated before in this thread but here it is again.

According to the Church - In order for a sin to be a mortal sin 3 conditions must be met:

1. it must be a grave matter
2. the person must know that it is a mortal sin
3. the person must knowingly consent to the commit that sin.

All 3 must be present, if one of those is not true, then the Church believes that whatever the action was, it would not be a mortal sin.

I would also like to point out that the Church has never said that any specific person was going to hell. Only God knows 2 and 3. Even if we have knowledge of all 3, their is still repentance, which the Church teaches can be done right up until death. As highly unlikely as it is, Adolf Hitler could have said to God, “I’m sorry” as he pulled the trigger. If he truly meant it, then he could be redeemed. (I am tempted to erase my comment of highly unlikely, because I do not want to even judge Hitler, “Judge not, lest you be judged yourself”)

Fact is, only God knows who goes to heaven or hell. You could be right that so long as a person is good, they go do heaven. But why take that chance?

As for reincarnation: Tantum ergo did a really nice job answering that one. Reincarnation is not a Christian belief. There are lots of resources on the internet for this. If you want to believe it, then you will also find many people who also believe it. I will admit the theory is tempting, but it seems too good to be true. To me, reincarnation is like life without consequences. Live how you want, but if its not good enough, don’t worry, you get another try. This all doesn’t make sense if you accept that Jesus was God made man and died on the cross for our sins. This fact seems true given that He did appear to the apostles and Mary 3 days after his death. We also have the testimony of Paul, who was persecuting Christians but Jesus struck blind and Paul had a conversion.

 

[prettylarge]

So basically you think that no person will ever remain completely evil. You think that God will (if they don’t get it right the first time) make them ‘come back’.

How?

They can’t possibly come back as the same person–(same parents, some situations to face).

So you’re saying God creates them as a ‘new person.’ Well, what of the ‘old’ person?

If they come back as a new person you’re saying that God makes mistakes and has to have a ‘re-do’?

Hey, if I got to come back in the ‘right’ circumstances I’d be Mother Teresa. If I got the wrong ones, I could be Messalina. You’re arguing that it’s not our ‘selves’ which make the decisions, it’s the situations. I don’t buy it.

It is ourselves that make the decisions, but ourselves can be changed by situations. Are you going to do the same things you did when you were a teenager now? No, of course not, because you have changed since then. After you live enough lives, I think you will at some point be put into a situation where it is impossible to not see the truth of the universe and be worthy of heaven. I think that someone’s essence can be changed. How else can you explain an evil person that repents?

 

[prettylarge]

God, who knows the nature of his creations, made us by nature to be in union with him. The terms of our nature is that separated from God, we die eternally. It is not as if God failed to inform us how we were constituted. In Jesus, he gave us the opportunity again to unite with God but the consequence of rejecting that opportunity has always been the same.

What about people that become atheists or agnostics through reasoning and logic? I am not an atheist but I know enough of them and debated enough of them that I know their logic is quite sound. These people would argue that if there is a God, he certainly did not “inform us how we were constituted” or inform us how to live in a way that could not be argued. I believe in God because of a personal connection that I feel I have with Him…but if it wasn’t for that, and it was just based on what the Bible said, I would probably be an atheist too.

 

[prettylarge]

Fact is, only God knows who goes to heaven or hell. You could be right that so long as a person is good, they go do heaven. But why take that chance?

As for reincarnation: Tantum ergo did a really nice job answering that one. Reincarnation is not a Christian belief. There are lots of resources on the internet for this. If you want to believe it, then you will also find many people who also believe it. I will admit the theory is tempting, but it seems too good to be true. To me, reincarnation is like life without consequences. Live how you want, but if its not good enough, don’t worry, you get another try. This all doesn’t make sense if you accept that Jesus was God made man and died on the cross for our sins. This fact seems true given that He did appear to the apostles and Mary 3 days after his death. We also have the testimony of Paul, who was persecuting Christians but Jesus struck blind and Paul had a conversion.

Ok, let me first address the question “why take that chance?” Well to be honest, maybe you guys are taking a chance by not being Muslims or Hindus. As you said, we don’t know.

I don’t think that reincarnation is like life without consequences. Think about it. One more life of not going to heaven and living on earth, considering how amazing heaven is said to be, is punishment enough…package that with all the pain and suffering one goes through in life, and I am pretty sure that another lifetime, as opposed to heaven, is quite a punishment.

And I kind of doubt that the reason Jesus was here was just to die for us. I think he was a teacher and his death was a result of this. I asked one of my teachers about this, saying that Paul’s whole argument was based on Jesus dieing for our sins, and was curious if this was made up by Paul or if it was corroborated with other passages from the Bible. He gave me a list of passages that also support it, and said it was not at all unique to Paul. But I am not sure.

 

[PJM]

=prettylarge;6055387]If you commit a mortal sin do you automatically go to hell? Anyway, by those standards, atheists are not committing mortal sin because they do not know what they are doing is wrong. If you don’t believe that God exists, then how could you know that it is wrong to believe that?

People aren’t choosing hell, just as prisoners don’t choose religion. Judges and juries send people to jail, not the prisoner themselves.

***As Paul Harvey sr, a man I greatly admired would say: “AND HERE IS THE REST OF THE STORY”

We must be mindful that God by Nature must be Fair and Just. God is also all-Wise and all-Knowing.

The error in your thinking is critical. *

God will JUDGE everyone NOT SIMPLY ON WHAT THEY KNOW…

BUT ALSO ON WHAT THEY COULD HAVE AND SHOULD HAVE KNOWN

We know again because God MUST BE Just, that God must provide sufficient grace, knowledge and opportunity for everyone to accept salvation. Many say “no to god” and because they refused the opportunity to know, embrace and love truth, will condem themselves to hell by virtue of rejecting the God provided opportunity to be saved. And God’s Justice is fair. Such is the working of Divine Justice. **

Love and prayers,

Pat

 

[Tantum_ergo]

So Jesus was only a teacher? Then why does St. Paul say that if Jesus did not die on the cross for us, if Jesus did not truly die and then be raised again, that we were, to paraphase, the most pitiful of fools?

No, you can’t have the "he was just a great moral teacher’ position.

First of all, He wasn’t ‘simply’ a teacher. The man claimed to be God (and you can find this in several of the gospels, please do not insist that I do your homework for you though if you want a quick help, just do a search here on Catholic Answers in the “Faith” section as opposed to the forums). People love to cherry pick ONLY the Scriptures that support their claims, like making Jesus ONLY about social justice and ignoring, for example, the Scripture where he told the Samaritan woman that He wouldn’t help her because “it is not right to throw the children’s food to the dogs’ (and dogs were not viewed with respect by Jews then). Or they make Jesus only about 'peace and love” and ignore the Scripture where he says he has come to bring 'not peace but a sword" and how he has 'come to set a fire to the earth and how I wish it were blazing" and that “daughter will be against mother, father against son”, etc.

This man Jesus was either who He claimed to be --God–or else he wasn’t even a fairly harmless guy with a gift for gab, he was a lunatic. Imagine if Billy Graham–a saintly man–suddenly started saying, along with his happy talk of love and God, “and you shall see Billy coming from the clouds at the right hand of God” or “before Abraham was, BILLY IS”. . .you’d probably think twice about Billy’s sanity.

And again, if you have reincarnation, WHICH ONE OF YOU is going to be feeling the grief and the punishment? If I was Chloe of Greece in 200 B.C., and Damaris of Thracia in AD 300, and Aislynn of Chester in AD 900, and Meg the tavernkeeper’s daughter in AD 1550, and Mme. Fifi in the Follies Bergere in AD 1910, and now Tantum Ergo in AD 2009–all those other 'me’s are dead and gone. They didn’t ‘choose wisely’ and so I got ‘recycled’. Where is Chloe’s grief? She doesn’t EXIST anymore! What of Damaris? She isn’t just dead–her atoms have been completely redone. How do any of those ‘past lives’ have existence NOW or EVER AGAIN in your theory? They don’t.

So Chloe had what, a second’s grief that she ‘lost’ before she was 'transformed to Damaris, etc. etc.? It just doesn’t make sense you know.

 

[bleh_confused]

No one is at the gates of heaven and say “you know what, I think hell is a better fit for me actually.” God doesn’t allow them into heaven (according to the church), thus sending them to hell. You could make the argument that by doing bad things someone “chooses” hell, but given the choice between heaven or hell, no one would choose hell. So really they didn’t choose, God did. That is like saying people in prison chose to go to prison. No, I can assure you that many people would have rather not gone to jail. So they didn’t chose to go to jail, they just chose to do the thing that sent them to jail.

And there is one fatal flaw about that analogy…people that are breaking the law enough to go to jail almost always know that what they are doing could make them go to jail. Many people that are sent to hell (according to the church) don’t even believe in God and don’t know the (supposed) actions to their consequences.

firstly, if i may point out that God is pure love, he doesn’t send people to hell. when they say "people send themselves to hell’ it means they chose to do actions God didn’t like, and they knew God didn’t like those actions. when you look at it that way, then the fatal flaw you point out is just the side effect of a less than perfect analogy. if these people don’t know God exists, then how can they choose to do actions that they know He doesn’t like? there in a state of ignorance, which diminshes if not totally gets rid of their moral responsibility for their actions.

And to your original question…i don’t know, and i doubt anyone does. God could destroy evil in the blink of an eye. why doesn’t he? i suppose you could dig up some 12th century Italian philosopher who could give you a 500 page argument explaining it, but the only explanation i can provide is that he has a pretty good reason for not; God is all love, if he’s letting evil exist he has to have a good reason for doing so.

 

[Brendan]

If you commit a mortal sin do you automatically go to hell? Anyway, by those standards, atheists are not committing mortal sin because they do not know what they are doing is wrong. **If you don’t believe that God exists, then how could you know that it is wrong to believe that? ** .

Note that the criteria for mortal sin doesn’t say anything about what a person believes, but rather what the KNOW.

If the athiest was told that Christ said that unrepentented fornication will result in the loss of Heaven. They now have knowledge of it.

And when they stand before Christ in Judgement, they cannot deny that they knew it. It didn’t matter if they belived it or not.

If an auto dealer told me that the speedometer was calibrated in miles per hour. Let’s say I was really stupid and chose to believe that it was actually calibrated in millimeters per hour.

So when I get arrested for going 120 mph on the highway, could I really tell the judge that I believed I was really going 120 millimeters per hour? What would my chances of getting out of the ticket be?

 

[chessmane4e5]

Ok, let me first address the question “why take that chance?” Well to be honest, maybe you guys are taking a chance by not being Muslims or Hindus. As you said, we don’t know.

I suppose everyone is taking chance, no matter what they believe. But I like my chances in Christ

It is ourselves that make the decisions, but ourselves can be changed by situations. Are you going to do the same things you did when you were a teenager now? No, of course not, because you have changed since then. After you live enough lives, I think you will at some point be put into a situation where it is impossible to not see the truth of the universe and be worthy of heaven.

As for reincarnation. Can you tell me how many times you have been reincarnated? What did you do in your past life? What mistakes did you make that you are now correcting?

You do not have answers to these questions, so your point doesn’t make sense. If you don’t remember your past life, how can you live it differently?

 

[PJM]

=whm;6055467]No you go to hell if you die with unrepentant mortal sin.

You and I don’t know what athiests know in their hearts when they made the choices they made, only God knows this. Nor do we know the state of their soul at the time of their death. Some atheists may very well make it to heaven we won’t know during this lifetime.

***There seems to be an incomplete [and therefore wrong] idea of the independent value of “repentence” alone.

While repentence is a necessary element for the forgiveness of sins, it is but half of the necessary action.

God say’s in the Bible [yes even in the KJB] the following…

1 John 1: 8-10 " If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just,* and will forgive our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness. If we say we have not sinned, we make him a liar, and his word is not in us.

Two points: 1. All men are sinners 2. We MUST confess our sins not simply repent of them.

1 John 5: 16-17 "If any one sees his brother committing what is not a mortal sin, he will ask, and God will give him life for those whose sin is not mortal. There is sin which is mortal; I do not say that one is to pray for that. All wrongdoing is sin, but there is sin which is not mortal. **

***By virtue of the fact that some sins “are NOT Mortal,” other sins MUST BE Mortal [as in causing death to souls].

Mortal sins MUST BE both repented and Confessed in order to be forgiven.

FYI… The priest does NOT Forgive ones sins. ONLY God can and does that. [Notice “and the HS desended upon them”… this also happens in Confession.] The priest uses the words; “I absolve you” from your sins" [not I gorgive you]. Do your Penance and go and sin no more.

[At Pentecost]… John 20: 19-23 in th clearest possible words mandate Confession of sins…

[19] On the evening of that day, the first day of the week, the doors being shut where the disciples were, for fear of the Jews, Jesus came and stood among them and said to them, “Peace be with you.” When he had said this, he showed them his hands and his side. Then the disciples were glad when they saw the Lord. Jesus said to them again, “Peace be with you. As the Father has sent me, even so I send you.” And when he had said this, he breathed on them, and said to them, “Receive the Holy Spirit.* If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven; if you retain the sins of any, they are retained.”

Also the power to Bind and loose are given to Peter and his successors in Mt. 16:18-19, and Mt. 18:18.

One needs to lie to themselves and deny God’s mandate in ignoring this.**

Love and prayers,

Pat

 

[prettylarge]

So Jesus was only a teacher? Then why does St. Paul say that if Jesus did not die on the cross for us, if Jesus did not truly die and then be raised again, that we were, to paraphase, the most pitiful of fools?

Because he was a religious philosopher that had an opinion…one different than my own. Although Paul did meet Peter and other people that actually knew Jesus, he boasts of only seeing them for a short amount of time in Galatians, and says his message is directly from Jesus…so I don’t really think his views are much more valid to mine.

No, you can’t have the "he was just a great moral teacher’ position.

First of all, He wasn’t ‘simply’ a teacher. The man claimed to be God (and you can find this in several of the gospels, please do not insist that I do your homework for you though if you want a quick help, just do a search here on Catholic Answers in the “Faith” section as opposed to the forums). People love to cherry pick ONLY the Scriptures that support their claims, like making Jesus ONLY about social justice and ignoring, for example, the Scripture where he told the Samaritan woman that He wouldn’t help her because “it is not right to throw the children’s food to the dogs’ (and dogs were not viewed with respect by Jews then). Or they make Jesus only about 'peace and love” and ignore the Scripture where he says he has come to bring 'not peace but a sword" and how he has 'come to set a fire to the earth and how I wish it were blazing" and that “daughter will be against mother, father against son”, etc.

Well quotes like this make me think that the Buddha was a better moral teacher than Jesus. I personally think that Christian values push many people away because they perpetuate guilt. I mean half the questions on this forum is about someone feeling guilty about something inconsequential. You should always look to better yourself and not dwell on the bad, only try to increase the good that you do. Learn from the bad, don’t dwell on it…and the church doesn’t necessarily say “dwell on the bad things you do” but its teachings lead to that result. I don’t agree with that and I think it does not benefit anyone.

This man Jesus was either who He claimed to be --God–or else he wasn’t even a fairly harmless guy with a gift for gab, he was a lunatic. Imagine if Billy Graham–a saintly man–suddenly started saying, along with his happy talk of love and God, “and you shall see Billy coming from the clouds at the right hand of God” or “before Abraham was, BILLY IS”. . .you’d probably think twice about Billy’s sanity.

And again, if you have reincarnation, WHICH ONE OF YOU is going to be feeling the grief and the punishment? If I was Chloe of Greece in 200 B.C., and Damaris of Thracia in AD 300, and Aislynn of Chester in AD 900, and Meg the tavernkeeper’s daughter in AD 1550, and Mme. Fifi in the Follies Bergere in AD 1910, and now Tantum Ergo in AD 2009–all those other 'me’s are dead and gone. They didn’t ‘choose wisely’ and so I got ‘recycled’. Where is Chloe’s grief? She doesn’t EXIST anymore! What of Damaris? She isn’t just dead–her atoms have been completely redone. How do any of those ‘past lives’ have existence NOW or EVER AGAIN in your theory? They don’t.

So Chloe had what, a second’s grief that she ‘lost’ before she was 'transformed to Damaris, etc. etc.? It just doesn’t make sense you know.

Why does she need grief? In my opinion you need to understand the way of the universe to go to heaven…as Gandhi would call it, “truth.” I don’t think you need grief for all your past misdeeds per say, but I think that you need to realize the truth and live accordingly. I think many people of other faiths understand the truth, and not all Christians do. Someone like the Dalai Lama understands the truth. I think that truth is the spirit that Paul was talking about. One must walk in the spirit. That is the truth. And I don’t think walking in the spirit consists of focusing on your misdeeds and dwelling on them. That is not beneficial to anyone. Learn from them and move on.

 

[prettylarge]

If you don’t remember your past life, how can you live it differently?

A better question is how can you live the same? If you have different parents, different siblings, different family, and different friends, you would be a different person.

 

[Tantum_ergo]

Hon, you seem to be missing the point. The point is, with your theory, Chloe would ‘not choose wisely’, Chloe would not choose heaven, Chloe would then just ‘disappear’ and POOF! Damaris comes on the scene to try to see what SHE can do.

So either Damaris has Chloe’s ‘memories’ (which of course would mean she would have some insight into various moral questions in that Chloe would have made choices that Damaris would either accept or reject in her own scenarios). . .and then, of course, though Chloe’s own separate ‘soul’ no longer exists, being either superseded by or ‘joined’ to Damaris’ soul) and so Damaris isn’t a ‘unique’ soul either; or else Chloe is completely gone. Damaris has a clean slate, no memory of Chloe. And in her Damaris likewise chooses wrongly (although not necessarily with the same sins) and gets zapped and POOF! along comes Aislynn. etc. etc.

So WHO is learning anything? Chloe? Before what, annihilation? Damaris, if she is somehow Chloe but now Damaris too? But then, which is she really? And is it fair for Chloe, who was the ‘first’ in the series, to get ‘zapped’, when Damaris is the second, and had the unfair advantage of having Chloe’s memories to 'tap?" Chloe didn’t have anything to go on. Is it fair for God to create some beings differently from others not just in soul, but in ‘souls’ --that is, some souls are ‘blank’ with no experience, and other souls have several ‘past lives’ to draw on for help and inspiration?" Sure doesn’t seem fair to me.

 

[prettylarge]

Hon, you seem to be missing the point. The point is, with your theory, Chloe would ‘not choose wisely’, Chloe would not choose heaven, Chloe would then just ‘disappear’ and POOF! Damaris comes on the scene to try to see what SHE can do.

So either Damaris has Chloe’s ‘memories’ (which of course would mean she would have some insight into various moral questions in that Chloe would have made choices that Damaris would either accept or reject in her own scenarios). . .and then, of course, though Chloe’s own separate ‘soul’ no longer exists, being either superseded by or ‘joined’ to Damaris’ soul) and so Damaris isn’t a ‘unique’ soul either; or else Chloe is completely gone. Damaris has a clean slate, no memory of Chloe. And in her Damaris likewise chooses wrongly (although not necessarily with the same sins) and gets zapped and POOF! along comes Aislynn. etc. etc.

So WHO is learning anything? Chloe? Before what, annihilation? Damaris, if she is somehow Chloe but now Damaris too? But then, which is she really? And is it fair for Chloe, who was the ‘first’ in the series, to get ‘zapped’, when Damaris is the second, and had the unfair advantage of having Chloe’s memories to 'tap?" Chloe didn’t have anything to go on. Is it fair for God to create some beings differently from others not just in soul, but in ‘souls’ --that is, some souls are ‘blank’ with no experience, and other souls have several ‘past lives’ to draw on for help and inspiration?" Sure doesn’t seem fair to me.

I don’t really understand your argument. You obviously believe that everyone has a soul. Well that is what would be sent back to the earth. That is the hindu concept of it. In Buddhism, they have a belief of “annatman” or “no soul.” This doesn’t mean that people don’t have something that stays with them after death, but it just states that the soul, and everything else in the world, changes. Which goes into another one of their beliefs, annika, which means impermanence. Basically nothing stays constant. And just because I threw out 2 of the 3 truths, I might as well throw out the 3rd, which is that life is suffering. Everyone and everything suffers.

But, either way, if you believe in a soul, I don’t understand why you are having a problem with the concept. Your soul gets sent back to earth in another body. Usually you have no recollection of your previous lives, but it is possible to become aware of previous lives through meditation. If you are actually interested, you should do some research on Hindu reincarnation because many Hindus believe in one true God and believe in reincarnation. The believe that your soul is one with Brahman or God. So when you die you are either reincarnated or you achieve Moksha, and end the cycle of death and rebirth and basically go to heaven. That is pretty similar to my view of death and the afterlife.

 

[Norrin]

If you commit a mortal sin do you automatically go to hell? Anyway, by those standards, atheists are not committing mortal sin because they do not know what they are doing is wrong. If you don’t believe that God exists, then how could you know that it is wrong to believe that?

People aren’t choosing hell, just as prisoners don’t choose religion. Judges and juries send people to jail, not the prisoner themselves.

So as long as you truly repent the mortal sin, either by confession or through authentic sorrowfulness, then you are forgiven. Only Jesus has the power to determine who and who does not enter heaven. As for the atheist, it is quite possible for he/her to enter heaven. It all depends how he/she lived life. Again, only Jesus knows the heart of the person, and if that heart be good and just, then I believe Jesus will take that into consideration. In addition, atheists, like the religious, have the ability to live a highly moral and fruitful life. Their disbelief in God is simply another imperfection of the human condition, a big one if I may add.

 

[Norrin]

A better question is how can you live the same? If you have different parents, different siblings, different family, and different friends, you would be a different person.

It appears from your posts that you adhere to Eastern philosophies. Eastern philosophies (particularly Buddhism) have some nobility in them, as they contain some truth. However, Buddhism, in the eye of the Christian, has an inherent deficiency that cannot be reconciled with western religions–and that is, it is atheistic by its very nature. Does that mean that Buddhists cannot make it to heaven? OF course not. It simply means that their view of life and the afterlife is incomplete. And I agree with that belief. Man cannot solve all of his problems without the aid of God. He will always need God no matter what the atheist, the humanist, or the Buddhists say.

 

[prettylarge]

So as long as you truly repent the mortal sin, either by confession or through authentic sorrowfulness, then you are forgiven. Only Jesus has the power to determine who and who does not enter heaven. As for the atheist, it is quite possible for he/her to enter heaven. It all depends how he/she lived life. Again, only Jesus knows the heart of the person, and if that heart be good and just, then I believe Jesus will take that into consideration. In addition, atheists, like the religious, have the ability to live a highly moral and fruitful life. Their disbelief in God is simply another imperfection of the human condition, a big one if I may add.

I agree with this for sure. I just don’t think all those that aren’t deserving of heaven go through eternity enduring unbelievable suffering though.

 

[prettylarge]

It appears from your posts that you adhere to Eastern philosophies. Eastern philosophies (particularly Buddhism) have some nobility in them, as they contain some truth. However, Buddhism, in the eye of the Christian, has an inherent deficiency that cannot be reconciled with western religions–and that is, it is atheistic by its very nature. Does that mean that Buddhists cannot make it to heaven? OF course not. It simply means that their view of life and the afterlife is incomplete. And I agree with that belief. Man cannot solve all of his problems without the aid of God. He will always need God no matter what the atheist, the humanist, or the Buddhists say.

Hinduism is similar to Buddhism, but has Brahman, which is basically like the Christian God. Vishnu is an incarnation of Brahman, and supposedly he comes to earth when people forget about dharma, or the way one should live. Many Hindus actually consider Jesus to be an incarnation of Jesus. This is why Christian missionaries had such a hard time in India…most Hindus were like “why convert to Christianity? We can believe in Jesus through Hinduism.”

Anyway, many Buddhists are atheist, but I have no doubt that God was behind the Buddha’s revelations. If you actually study Buddhism, there are SO MANY similarities to Christianity…especially when it comes to morality.