believe that one has some control over their rebirth, as outlined in The Great Liberation upon Hearing in the Intermediate State, also known as the Tibetan Book of the Dead. Hinduism believes that one has less control of the process. Both believe that one is reborn in a form reflected by the actions of a person in life, and that one can be eliminated from the cycle by being born as an animal.
Christians consider Buddhism to be a religion. Buddhists do not necessarily see it that way, for they do not worship anyone in particular. According to Wikipedia, "A religion is a set of tenets and practices, often centered upon specific supernatural and moral claims about reality, the cosmos, and human nature, and often codified as prayer, ritual, or religious law." Buddhism offers a worldview that generally falls into this category.
Followers of Buddha are more inclined to treat his teachings as a philosophy. Buddhists see the teachings of the Buddha as a handbook that will quicken their path to enlightenment, though there are other paths to get there. Embracing a religion also tends to require rejecting others. Jesus, for example, warns of trying to get into heaven through the back door. Buddhism in contrast teaches that nearly all religion holds truth that will lead to enlightenment and encourages its followers to seek the path that is easiest for them. Buddhists do not believe that Siddhãrtha Gautama was necessarily the only human to reach enlightenment. In fact some have speculated that Jesus Christ reached it at the end of his life, and that he taught as he did to make the path available to his Jewish compatriots.
In his writings, Buddha spelled out fi
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