There are more than 8,000 Christian sects, many different Buddhist schools of thought and even Islam and Judaism have many interpretations. It is not possible to make a quick list of differences in major points of belief and practice without overgeneralizing. We do not intend to treat different sects of the major faiths differently here, just a quick gloss over the main points they all have in common to some or other extent. This page will be very guilty of that. Please keep this in mind and cut us some slack, yet, please do help clarify points when grossly overstated or misrepresented. Of course we are biased, it comes with the territory, but we are not wholly uninformed of world religions and their major tenants. Again, please keep in mind that we are biased, this is a Wayist site.

Christianity: Monotheism has been defined as the belief in the existence of only one god that created the world, is all-powerful and intervenes in the world. Read more about Monotheism at wikipedia.org
Wayism: Panentheism, a little bit of Panendeism, and maybe a little bit of Spiritual-deism.
In order to make sense of their world and their place in it, humans want to put things in boxes or at least label all things. This tendency is worse, (its almost a mental disease) in the west. It is difficult for us to put Wayism into one of those western boxes. We feel that a seeker may find his/her own place by looking at the top mentioned labels. We like panentheism but you may want to add certain elements of others as well. While doing this, you will notice that the new consciousness of the era, which Wayism heralds in, is already in process creating many new definitions and labels. Wayists are well advised to resist these academic exercises as much as possible. Keep in mind that “God is not the universe”, the One created the Two, the Two created the Three creative forces, the Three created the multitude of things. Like so many other things regarding the ultimate reality, humankind simply does not know, does not have the language and does not have the rational abilities to do it. And, in typical Wayist fashion, what the heck does it all matter. Life matters. Live it. Stick a label called Wayist on it and get on with the job and enjoy it.

Christianity: Evolution is denied because of the belief in a creator God that once created all things perfectly and then stepped back.
Wayism: Evolution is embraced as the natural order of things, part of the Plan of the Divine. Human bodies evolve. Human souls evolve. Wayism does however believe that about 10,000 years ago beings from Heaven made synthetic changes to human DNA that ‘gave birth’ to the human body form we have today.

Christianity: God is not omnipotent because he is being opposed by other forces that mess with his plans and his people. God creates all people individually, therefore miscreants are mistakes (perhaps) or in the least, is not in God’s control.
God is not omniscient because if he were he would not have created Satan who has been waging war against him and his people for thousands of years.
God is not omnipresent. That idea is an affront to this faith, as it is with Islam. God is not in a dead fish, in pigs, or in other ‘vile’ places.
Wayism:
The Divine is omniscient.
The Divine is omnipotent.
The Divine is omnipresent.
Divine (to say it simplistically) created nature and that process, that flow, continues as it will with its ups and downs, its seeming imperfections, its waxing and waning, its seeming imperfections, the coming and going of stellar systems, etc. All that happens are conducive to the Plan of the Divine. This so-called ‘nature’ is the educational system within which we study and aim to graduate one day.~~

Christianity: A personal God who creates individuals and is directly involved in their lives in terms of granting boons, forgiveness, monitoring transgressions and meets out punishment and reward.
Wayism: The Divine One is unknowable by our small minds. The Divine One emanates a Force we call The Way through which all things are created and upheld.
We can know The Way by experiencing It. It flows through us, we cannot exist if that Force is not present.
Laws of The Way, likes laws of nature, are in motion to help us along the purpose of life. These laws are reincarnation, karma,dharma, maya, free will, etc.

Christianity: God is male, gets jealous and angry, declares war and shows favoritism.
Wayism: God is ineffable, largely unknowable but we do know It is benevolent. The Divine has no ‘needs’

Christianity: God needs sacrifices. He sacrificed his son Jesus so that his blood offering would appease God, and once appeased he forgave us our sins and did not annihilate us.
Wayism: The Divine has no ‘needs’. The Divine is not directly involved in our lives, but a Bodhisattva and his/her so-called “angels” may be available to help with guidance.

Christianity: The purpose of life is to worship God and follow his rules.
Wayism: The purpose of life is to evolve as souls, gathering wisdom over many reincarnations until we qualify to metamorphose (2nd birth) into spiritual being. At that point we have fulfilled the purpose of life, we graduate from earth and continue our existence in heaven.

Christianity: We can get forgiveness of sins, the penalty of which is eternal torture in hell, by confessing that Jesus is our Lord.
Wayism: There is no hell. We believe in a Benevolent Divine.

Christianity: God is being opposed by Satan, a demigod that steals souls away from God and breaks God’s world and pesters God’s children.
Wayism: The Divine is omnipotent

Christianity: God created humans to worship him.
Wayism: The Divine has no ‘needs’. The idea of a god with ego-issues is rather distasteful to us.

Christianity: Jesus is the son of God. He promised that he would return to earth after the crucifixion in a glorious celestial way. Christians believe that Jesus broke his promise, and for the past 2,000 years they are still expecting he will return, any time soon.
Wayism: Jesus returned, as promised, within the time frame he indicated. He returned as Avalokitesvara, greatest spiritual presence on Earth available to all human beings and sentient beings in the most glorious form imaginable. Like the Magi from the East who knew about Jesus birth before the west, at the second coming, again, the west is in denial and the east is, again, telling them about the glorious good news

Christianity: Humans are created individually, one by one, by God. Humans are bodies with a soul/spirit, the two words are used interchangeably for the same thing. Humans live once only. Lifetimes range from seconds to decades.
Wayism: Humans are soul beings that evolved over thousands of years to the human state. Humans incarnate in biological mammalian bodies to live on earth as human beings for any amount of time ranging from seconds to decades at a time. Souls reincarnate many times.

Christianity: Heaven is an undefined place where God lives and where only the devout of one of the monotheistic religions (there can only be one, the others are therefore false and their devotees are being deluded and will go to hell) go to after death. Resurrection is when, in heaven, the devout will have their human bodies restored but in a beautiful way and they will live forever.
Wayism: Soul-heaven is where souls abide between incarnations. It is in another dimension on the earth plane.
Spirit-heaven is where spiritual beings exist. It is a multidimensional domain where spiritual beings of our kind carry on full lives and careers as social change-makers, helpers, and spiritual guides to other planets in the galaxy with similar soul-life than on planet earth.

Christianity: Hell is where all sinners and unbelievers go to after death to be tortured for eternity.
Wayism: Hell is a state of mind in the here and now, also described as the nature of one’s future incarnations should one live terrible lives that can only be corrected by learning lessons from being born in terrible situations. Its just a way of describing a future karmic lessons. No karma is negative, all have the purpose of educating us and advancing us in soul growth, but some of those lessons are ‘hell on earth’. Best is not to have to repeat them.

Christianity: Escatology. At the end of times God make all who died alive again, then send down his angels and wage war on Satan and slaughter all unbelievers and sinners while plucking out his devout to go to heaven.
Wayism: The Divine’s plan for creation will be fulfilled. We don’t know what it is and we don’t care, but we do know that the Divine is omnipotent, omniscient and omnipresent, therefore whatever the Dive plan is, it is being fulfilled.

Christianity: Salvation is required because the human state is considered evil. Salvation is acquired through orthodox worship only. Cutting oneself off from life and society is a sure way to sin less and therefore win salvation. Many moral sins (very patriarchal) can exclude one from salvation.
Wayism: There is nothing to be saved ‘from’. The Benevolent Divine creates and upholds a system that provides all opportunity for us to fulfill the purpose of life.
Morals are determined by one’s wisdom, which affects one’s dharma (duty). Going against one’s dharma will trigger karmic responses aimed at teaching us a better way.
The moral codes of religions and societies imposed on us (like having one marriage partner only) are not recognized but we are charged to law abiding citizens, and if we don’t like the rules of the land we are charged to either help change the rules or go live somewhere else.

Christianity:  What happens to humans who don’t make the grade? They are punished by torture in hell.
Wayism: What happens to humans who don’t make the grade? Souls can ‘starve’ to death. Souls that don’t have sufficient wisdom, joy, beauty loving-kindness and peace as nurture, wither away over several lifetimes and die. They cease to exist. The little bit of energy left in them is returned to the source as a decaying body returns nutrients to the environment.

Christianity:  Nature. In the book of Genesis it states how humankind should lord over nature and subject the earth to its control. Good stewardship is implied.
Wayism:  Nature is where we come from, where we exist, where our neighbours (other creatures) live. We are charged to be good neighbours, to love our neighbours as ourselves. In nature we sense the presence of the Divine. In nature we experience The Way. Nature and creation is our greatest source of mystical awareness of the presence of the Divine and through that we learn about the human condition, which is the purpose of life. We eat and co-exist with others in gratefulness for their contributions. See Gaia hypothesis

Christianity:  Sex is a defiling sin unless used for procreation to please God. Sensuality is considered worldly and therefore an evil.
Wayism:  Sex, sensuality and sensuousness are all regarded as most important tools to learn about the human condition, to sense the presence of the Divine in all things. We appreciate that in the past there was no birth control and that large families were detrimental to women (unless for pensions) and that unwanted pregnancy was a major social hazard, and that is why sacred sensuality could teach devotees to have sex without penetration in those days. Wayism understands that sexual ecstasy as important, but only as important as other forms of sensuality and sensuousness, things we should never go without. To sense the wonder of the Divine in the feeling of wool or silk, to sense the Divine in flavourful healthy food, to sense the range of experiences in the touch and smell of a loved one’s skin, etc. are all important aspects of being human.

Christianity: Asceticism is praised, fostered, beneficial and good.
Wayism: Asceticism is considered to be against the purpose of life but to experience it for part of one lifetime may be required for a particular soul’s karmic lesson plan.

Christianity: Highest qualities in a human: Renunciation of the sins and association with sinners, Materialism (God blesses good devotees with material prosperity), Orthodox devotion, Orthodox belief/faith.
Wayism: Highest qualities in a human: Living life to the full, Humility, Simplicity, Compassion

Christianity: Worship houses are established all around the world by religious organizations who employ priests, nuns, monks, and pastors to assist devotees in worship.
Wayism: Community information centers may be established but are not required.

Christianity: Happiness is defined as doing the will of God, as pleasing God.
Wayism:Happiness is defined as living a full life, experiencing the beauty of the Divine in all things, mysticism and in daily joy.

Christianity: -
Wayism:  Teaching about Jesus’ ministry is followed from birth when the eastern masters moved his family (and sponsored his ministry) to Alexandria in Egypt, to Judea (where his parents were settled) in his teens on his way to Persia, Parthia, Gandhara, and the Jammu/Kashmir parts of the Kushan Empire, on the way back to Judea up and until after his crucifixion and then his 2nd coming as the glorious Christ, the World Saviour Avalokitesvara.

Christianity: What determines where, and in which culture and religion a person will be born? God does.
Wayism: Karma.

Christianity: Why is the world’s population growing? Where do souls come from? God creates them individually and uniquely.
Wayism: The highest level of evolution of a soul is that of a human being. Souls evolve from other life forms.

Buddism: Atheism(1), Polytheism (deities)(2)
Wayism: Panentheism

Buddism: Does not acknowledge, neither speaks of a Divine One, Prime Mover
or Ultimate Being but has several demigod-like beings in its ‘pantheon’.
Wayism: Very aware of the presence of the Divine in all things. Our spirituality is absolutely rooted in mysticism and consciousness and heightened awareness of the Divine.

Buddism: Heaven. There are many many thousands of heavens.
Wayism: Wayism could go along with this but we choose to concentrate only on soul-heaven where souls on various planets abide between incarnations and spirit-heaven where we (our kind) are destined once graduated from here.
Soul-heaven is where souls abide between incarnations. It is in another dimension on the earth plane.
Spirit-heaven is where spiritual beings exist. It is a multidimensional domain where spiritual beings of our kind carry on full lives and careers as social change-makers, helpers, and spiritual guides to other planets in the galaxy with similar soul-life than on planet earth.

Buddism: Hell is expressed in more primitive symbolism but is in many ways similar to Wayism.
Wayism: Hell (see above) is expressed and understood in a more contemporary language and symbolism.
Buddism: Salvation. Salvation is required because this earth plane is considered ‘evil’. Salvation is obtained by devotion, repeating mantras, making supplications to demigods and/or bodhisattvas, and many other means.
Wayism: There is nothing to be saved ‘from’. The Benevolent Divine creates and upholds a benevolent system that provides all opportunity for us to fulfill the purpose of life.

Buddism: Moral codes are imposed by scripture.
Wayism: Morals are individually determined. See above.

Buddism: Nature is not very important. Buddhism is mostly about humans. This world is seen as evil by most schools and non-existent by other schools.
Wayism: Nature is good, beautiful and intertwined with our being, awareness, and spirituality. We cannot grow and fulfill the purpose of life without nature.

Buddism: Sex and sensuality are considered less than good, basically evil. Abstaining is considered superior.
Wayism: See above.

Buddism: Avalokitesvara, greatest spiritual presence on Earth available to all human beings and sentient beings in the most glorious form imaginable.
Wayism: Avalokitesvara, greatest spiritual presence on Earth available to all human beings and sentient beings in the most glorious form imaginable.

Buddism: Highest qualities in a human: Renunciation of desire (and sensuality), Orthodox devotion, Orthodox actions, Orthodox thinking.
Wayism: Highest qualities in a human: Renunciation of desire (and sensuality), Orthodox devotion, Orthodox actions, Orthodox thinking.

Buddism: Atheism(1), Polytheism (deities)(2)
Wayism: Panentheism

Buddism: Temples and shrines are established worldwide. Priests and monks are employed to assist devotees in orthodox worship.
Wayism: Community information centers may be established but are not required.

Buddism: Karma is regarded as heavy matter that clings to the soul, keeps the soul from liberation from Earth.
Karma is negative. It is acquired by desire. All desires create karma. Desire for basic necessities to sustain life are also subject to karma.
Wayism: Karma is never negative, it is the lesson plan for our future opportunities to encounter issues about the human condition and learn the wisdom to required to fulfill the purpose of life, which is rebirth in spirit-heaven.

Buddism: Dharma is thought of as orthodox teaching, which is correct conduct, which becomes one’s duty.
Wayism: Dharma is a direct consequence of one’s wisdom. Wisdom gained results in dharma, which is defined as duty. Dharma is therefore “correct conduct”. A junior soul may have less dharma and therefore different duty obligations in its reaction to karmic tests than a more developed soul.

Buddism: Atheism(1), Polytheism (deities)(2)
Wayism: Panentheism

Buddism: Does not acknowledge, neither speaks of a Divine One, Prime Mover
or Ultimate Being but has several demigod-like beings in its ‘pantheon’.
Wayism: Very aware of the presence of the Divine in all things. Our spirituality is absolutely rooted in mysticism and consciousness and heightened awareness of the Divine.

Buddism: Maya is considered as veils of illusion that make us believe that creation is real and that bodily experiences do in fact matter. True reality lies beyond the veils of Maya.
Wayism: Maya is understood as veils of ignorance that limits memory when a soul or spirit is incarnated. We need that to go through birth, childhood, etc in every lifetime with only wisdom but no memory of past lifetimes because without that we would not treat each incarnation as a unique new experience and series of tests. We must pass the tests of each lifetime not because we have memory (which is knowledge) of past lives, as if learned by route, but because of our inherent wisdom, our inherent goodness. When the body dies all memory and knowledge vanish, only wisdom remains. In the end, we will take with us only our wisdom and it is our wisdom that will eventually get us to heaven, not knowledge or memories.

Buddism: Enlightenment happen in phases but the lower phases are rather high up already. Enlightened beings are less and less concerned or present in the world.
Wayism: Enlightenment is a process. It culminates in rebirth, or metamorphosis of the soul into a spiritual being. Enlightened beings are therefore not on earth any more unless they were specially trained in spirit-heaven to incarnate into human bodies again to do a certain job, like Jesus did. There are however millions of non-incarnated enlightened beings, spirit beings, in our sphere to help us. We may know them as angels, bodhisattvas, dakini, and by many other names. Wayists dont get involved in analyzing all levels and names of things supernatural. It is of no concern to us. To us, they are all the same. We concentrate.

Buddism: Why is the world’s population growing? Where do souls come from? In the absence of a doctrine about a Creator, Buddhism has problems to explain this.
Wayism: Souls evolve from lower life forms. I heard a certain Wayist the other day explain it to a group of people, that he believes a certain American president may have just recently been a soul of a trained houses pet but is now human. This is so wrong, by the sounds of it, but it does explain the doctrine in a way.

Buddism: Why do bad things happen to people? Usually punishment by God, or else it is because of Satan.
Why do the rich who are obviously not blessed by God getting richer? God is not omnipotent or omniscient but he is the ultimate judge and those people will fry in hell for eternity.
Wayism: It is sometimes because of nature gone seemingly awry (as nature goes). The process of creation is not stable, things happen and change all the time. People can also be victim to disease, it comes with the territory. People can also fall victim to other people. Those perpetrators triggered karma for themselves and may or may not one day be victims themselves to learn their lessons. It is not for us to judge. There are too many factors involved. Karma does a great job and we trust it.

Buddism: Why do good things happen to bad people? Because the devil rewards his pious so well…we think.
Wayism: We just don’t have the ability to know whether something is good or bad for someone, we cannot judge that. Will it be good for your soul development to inherit $50,000,000 tomorrow? Will that be a test that you end up failing because you are not yet prepared for it, and then you sit with several lifetimes worth of karma ahead of you? Is it a bad thing if I would lose my family in an accident? How would I know. Of course my family each have their own karma and lesson plan. Death is not traumatic for them (only for me, I will miss the heck out of them). I will be a mess, probably for many years, but who is to say that that was bad for my soul growth? So, what do you say to a person who won $100million in the lottery? You should say condolences, and if you really care pray for them; its a very very difficult test. Simply put, we don’t know, so we don’t go there.

There is a beautiful story from ancient China that talks about this problem; the story of the farmer and his son:

One day in late summer, an old farmer was working in his field with his old sick horse. The farmer felt compassion for the horse and desired to lift its burden. So he left his horse loose to go the mountains and live out the rest of its life. Soon after, neighbors from the nearby village visited, offering their condolences and said, “What a shame. Now your only horse is gone. How unfortunate you are!. You must be very sad. How will you live, work the land, and prosper?” The farmer replied: “Who knows? We shall see”. Two days later the old horse came back now rejuvenated after meandering in the mountainsides while eating the wild grasses. He came back with twelve new younger and healthy horses which followed the old horse into the corral. Word got out in the village of the old farmer’s good fortune and it wasn’t long before people stopped by to congratulate the farmer on his good luck. “How fortunate you are!” they exclaimed. You must be very happy!” Again, the farmer softly said, “Who knows? We shall see.” At daybreak on the next morning, the farmer’s only son set off to attempt to train the new wild horses, but the farmer’s son was thrown to the ground and broke his leg. One by one villagers arrived during the day to bemoan the farmer’s latest misfortune. “Oh, what a tragedy! Your son won’t be able to help you farm with a broken leg. You’ll have to do all the work yourself, How will you survive? You must be very sad” they said. Calmly going about his usual business the farmer answered, “Who knows? We shall see”. Several days later a war broke out. The Emperor’s men arrived in the village demanding that young men come with them to be conscripted into the Emperor’s army. As it happened the farmer’s son was deemed unfit because of his broken leg. “What very good fortune you have!!” the villagers exclaimed as their own young sons were marched away. “You must be very happy.” “Who knows? We shall see!”, replied the old farmer as he headed off to work his field alone. As time went on the broken leg healed but the son was left with a slight limp. Again the neighbors came to pay their condolences. “Oh what bad luck. Too bad for you”! But the old farmer simply replied; “Who knows? We shall see.”As it turned out the other young village boys had died in the war and the old farmer and his son were the only able bodied men capable of working the village lands. The old farmer became wealthy and was very generous to the villagers. They said: “Oh how fortunate we are, you must be very happy”, to which the old farmer replied, “Who knows? We shall see!”
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Islam: Islam looks a lot like Christianity and Judaism in many respects. It is monotheistic, has a creator God,
is similarly tribal in orientation and believes that the world is basically evil and there are powerful
forces who oppose God’s plans. They differ from their two sister religions in regards to the
person and status of Jesus and the Christ.. We wont repeat all the aspects they have in common.
Wayism: See above.

Islam: Escatology. Similar to Christianity, somewhat similar to Judaism. In brief: Jesus will come as Christ. He will notice how devout Muslims are compared to the Christians, upon which he will appeal to Allah to become a Muslim, and it will be granted. He will then slay all the pigs on earth. He will then convince Christians to stand with Muslims in the war against all Jews. Once all Jews are killed, he will appeal to all Christians to convert to Islam.
Once the conversions are done, he will declare war on the rest of the Christians and together with the Muslims will kill them all.
Once done, Mohammed will come again to govern as ruler of the peaceful and perfect world called Islam.
Wayism: We have nothing to compare to that.

Islam: Sufism is very small school of thought within Islam that is sometimes said to be tolerated by the mainstream rather than being regarded as orthodox. Within Sufism there are several schools of thought.
Wayism: Wayism understands the Sufi to have originated with the ancient eastern Bactrian/Ghandaharian Zoroastrian Magi.
They were on the fringes of Zoroastrianism because they convinced the authorities that they adapted their mysticism to their orthodoxy. Later, these people amalgamated with other traditions, mainly a form of Buddhist mysticism.
They were very influential in Wayism at the time. Formed part of the group that sponsored Jesus’ ministry and took care of his education and implemented his reforms in various schools of thought at the time. Several hundred years later when Islam came by to forcibly convert people, a group of them convinced the authorities that they can practice
their faith and lifestyle while being orthodox Muslims, they adopted the Koran. Over the past 1,500 years many things changed. We don’t have enough information about them in this day. Suffice it to say that we still have in common the existential experience of the Divine presence, the understanding that all life are held in place by Divine Energy from
the subatomic level to the various universes. We share some beliefs about our place in the universe, about joy and laughter and mysticism but that is about all we know for now.