What is the difference between Buddhism and other religions?

The key point in which Buddhism differs from other religions is that Buddhism does not believe in the existence of a Personal God who creates, controls, and governs the life of all sentient beings, including human beings. According to the Buddhist view, suffering or happiness is created not by God, but by each individual person together with the karmic force, which is also the product of each person. The Buddha taught that a person becomes noble or servile not because of his or her origin, but because of his or her own actions.

Indeed, personal action makes a man or woman noble or servile. In addition, radical differences exist in the teaching of Buddhism and that of other religions. Buddhism considers all dharmas in this world to be conditional and exist in the mode of Dependent Origination. No dharma can exist independently and permanently as an immortal and invariable entity. Thus, all existences are non-self.

Similarly, no one—either human or non-human—is able to control and govern the life of another person, only the person him- or herself. Consequently, the most essential point in Buddhist humanistic teaching is that all sentient beings have their own Buddhahood; thus, each person has the ability to become a Buddha. Enlightenment and liberation, in the Buddhist view, are equal truths for all sentient beings, not a holy privilege reserved particularly for a certain person. This great view of equality in Buddhist doctrine is rarely found in any other religion.