The Buddha is saying not to follow something on the basis of externals, but rather on one's own self testing. That the Buddha arrived at the Four Noble Truths a

The Buddha is saying not to follow something on the basis of externals, but rather on one's own self testing. That the Buddha arrived at the Four Noble Truths and the Eightfold Path through such testing is of importance. If we return to the Pali scriptures, we can see that although the Buddha states that the question of God/gods is in the realm of "unanswerable questions," that even if they did exist they would ultimately undergo death and rebirth, albeit perhaps in an unimaginably long time frame from the perspective of humans. He considers debates over deities pointless, _because even they are subject to the truths he espouses_. Is this not a truth claim that contradicts most theistic religions? Is this not a truth claim to the supersession of Buddhist truth over others? (Forgive me, but my copy is in another location so I can't give an exact reference.) Although the view of deities in Buddhism differs between schools, the general understanding of Buddhism is that such belief is not conducive to enlightenment. This is indeed an exclusivist truth claim to the superiority of the Buddhist practice. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/God_in_Buddhism http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/God_in_Buddhism