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________________ All the theistic religions of the world recognize the existence of God. The Divine Being is referred to by various names due to different languages: Brahman (Hindu), God (Christianity), Allah (Islam), Buddha (Buddhism), Tao (Taoism), Yahweh (Judaism), and Ahur Mazd (Zoroastrianism). Generally, we speak of a religion with a belief in God as a theistic religion. Religions which do not have a belief in God would be called atheistic. Upon careful consideration, we can see that there are in fact two types of atheism: entirely atheistic and partially atheistic. The Belief Systems which do not have a belief in the existence of either God or soul are considered to be entirely atheistic. Those which do have a belief in the soul but not in God are considered partially atheistic. In modern times some people have interpreted the Buddha's silence on the issue of the existence of God as atheistic. In their opinion, Buddha refused to answer any questions regarding the existence of the Divine Reality and the Soul (Atman or Jivatman), and therefore they have concluded that Buddha was an atheist. However, in my opinion these kinds of conclusions demonstrate limited knowledge and ignorance about the essence of the 164
SR No.007668
Book TitleHarmony of All Religions
Original Sutra AuthorN/A
AuthorParmahans Maharaj, Veena Rani Howard
PublisherUSA Santmat Society of North America
Publication Year
Total Pages372
LanguageEnglish
ClassificationBook_English
File Size7 MB
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