Buddha Vs Jesus
Buddhism and Christianity both teach that there is interconnectedness throughout all of creation, but they have different views on what that means regarding the nature of God.
on Interconnectedness
This topic I believe is especially DEEP as well as controversial among pretty much everyone: interconnectedness – Buddhism teaches that all of reality is interconnected, which is their basic way of “proving” that spirituality exists.
Buddhists believe that everything in the universe is interconnected, and they basically believe that everything is all part of God, therefore we are all God. But if Buddhism is correct when they believe that we are all gods and part of the greater collective consciousness called God, and we will all eventually merge together into that greater consciousness after we achieve enlightenment and die, why would we even need to learn a standard of goodness (aka morals) such as the eightfold path? If we are part of a greater collective consciousness, shouldn’t we all intuitively know this and know how to be good?
Christianity on the other hand states that we are all inherently selfish and we should follow the standard for goodness created by God, starting with the 10 commandments and ending with having the love of Jesus and following the golden rule (treat others as you would like to be treated - Matt. 7:12). The Bible says that our good works are like filthy rags compared to a perfectly good and holy God who has never had an evil thought in His entire existence (Is. 64:6). By comparison, even the “best” human being is closer morally to the Nazis than they are to a perfectly good God.
So a big difference between the 2 religions is that Buddhism tries to be good through a set of rules (just like devout Jews who do not believe in Jesus still do to this day), yet Christians are supposed to rely on Christ’s sacrifice and His help through the Holy Spirit to love God, love others, and love themselves so that they can be more like God Himself, in whose image we are all created.
Many Christians do not fully understand Jesus’ grace (undeserved favor) and mercy (undeserved forgiveness) for them, so they rely on their own good works to get them into heaven, not realizing that all they really need to do is believe in Jesus and seek to know Him like you would a loving Father – then prove their love and obedience to Him by changing the way that they think and behave. Unfortunately many Christians truly do not understand how much God loves them so they skip out on the relationship part, thinking God is distant and uncaring, and they focus only on their good works. But that is a huge mistake because first and foremost, God is a person. Simply following the rules without getting to know Jesus does not earn one’s way into heaven, no more than following the 8-fold path will earn one’s way into heaven.
Quantum mechanics is a very real science as evidenced by quantum computers which are the most powerful computers in the world today. They run based on the math of quantum mechanics so even though some of the things quantum mechanics says are very hard to comprehend, we know that it is a legitimate science. The Bible says that God is light. Quantum mechanics literally shows through repeatable experiments that light is conscious of our awareness of it, and can change its location based on whether we are looking at it or not. Scientifically speaking we also know that electrons are the most basic unit of light and they are contained in all atoms. Therefore, it appears that God is light and God is literally in everything. Just let that sink in…
The Bible states that in God we live and move and have our being (Acts 17:28), and that apart from Jesus we can do nothing (Jn. John 15:5). Furthermore, the placebo effect shows that the power of belief can literally heal our bodies and the placebo effect works for everyone, not just Christians. Like the Bible says, God “makes his sun rise on the bad and the good, and causes rain to fall on the just and the unjust.” (Matt. 5:45) But Christians have a more personal form of God in them (the Holy Spirit) and that is how amazing miracles can happen through their prayers.
Quantum mechanics actually proves that Buddhism is correct in teaching that everything is interconnected, because God has literally put Himself into everything, and that is probably how He knows everything. But God is not alive and working great miracles in non-Christians because they do not believe in Jesus, therefore they have not been given the Holy Spirit to work in and through them. The Holy Spirit is the One who does miracles through the Christians faith.
Buddhism teaches that everything is interconnected, and if God is in everything in the form of electrons then that would be true – and what an amazing truth they discovered many years before quantum mechanics found out the crazy awareness that light (God) has! But Buddhism does not teach that we can accept Jesus and have the Holy Spirit given to us so that we can have God in person living in us and working through us.
