I'm not so sure that's right, Slag, because as I understand it the Vedic (Hindu) tradition asserts that this entire reality is maya....illusion...and that the only thing that IS real is the Godhead which is, from our point of view, indescribable, limitless, indefinable, and eternal.

So I don't think that they would exactly say that the Divine made everything, since everything we see is in their terms an illusion. Our own individuality itself is among those illusions, according to both Hinduism and Buddhism, as I understand it. It's an illusion that results from the belief that one is separate.

To achieve enlightenment is to realize oneness with all...no separation...at which point the illusion that is this world passes away. Or...as an enlightened being, you can choose to "play" within the illusion, but aware while you are doing so that it is an illusion.

The whole purpose of seeking enlightenment in both Hinduism and Buddhism seems to be to free oneself from the illusion of this word and one's apparently separate existence in it.

Kind of interesting, because most Christian sects also seem to want, ultimately, to escape this world and its obvious limitations...only they want to escape it and retain their individuality.

One exception to that is the Jehovah's Witnesses, however. They do think that a select group of only 144,000 of the most faithful will get to live in heaven with God for eternity, yes...but they also think that all the other "good" people (many millions or even billions of them) will get to live forever on this physical world in a paradise free of poverty, suffering, and want...that the planet, in effect, will return to an Edenic state (only we would still have our modern lifestyles and conveniences) and that people will get to live forever and never grow old or get sick and everything will be just wonderful...sort of like a 7-day-a-week endlessly running episode of "Leave it to Beaver" or something like that. ;-) No more racial divisions, no more national divisions, no more political struggles, no more war or crime or drug addiction or anything nasty whatsoever.

And the "bad" people? Well, the Jehovah's Witnesses don't believe in Hell or punishment of bad people. They just believe those people will die, be in their graves, and cease to exist in any conscious way from that point on.

I don't think many people are aware that the JV's do not believe in the traditional Christian hell, hellfire, and all that. They don't. They translate from the Hebrew that Hell, "Sheol", simply means "the grave". Nothing more, nothing less.

Interesting, eh?

I find it fascinating the different beliefs that people can come up with.

Who's right about all this? Heh! ;-) Darned if I know. I tend to favour the Asiatic viewpoint somewhat (repeated reincarnations into a world of illusion until you finally realize one day that it IS an illusion and then you don't do that anymore), but I am going to wait and see...because only firsthand experience truly convinces me. Yeah, I know there are a million people out there who want to convince me that they already KNOW for sure what's coming...but I don't think they do. I think they are just repeating something some other people told them.

That's what a parrot does, and the parrot probably believes every word he says.