Theories in Buddhism - I mentioned just briefly a minute ago that in Buddhist philosophy there's 32 different realms of existence. The human realm is one realm of existence, the animal realm and insects, that's another realm of existence. Then there's either 4 or 5 of what we would call hell realms, where there's very much suffering. Then there's about 25 so-called heaven realms. However, they still have elements of suffering, they're all impermanent, every single one is impermanent. All the beings in them are impermanent, even the ones in the very highest heaven realms that Buddhism calls gods. They are like gods, they have powers supposedly, but this is all theory and you don't have to believe this.
God, for Christians, for Jews, for Islamic people and all, is also a theory. You can't prove the existence of God. So with Buddhism, there's another theory which describes gods in different realms of existence. In the very highest realm, or in some of the higher realms, there are beings who can actually influence other realms. This is why some people pray and they actually get what they want. According to Buddhism this is possible. This is because there are some gods, some beings who will favor certain people down there on earth. This then influences people to have a belief system like Christianity and Judaism about a single god who's in control of everything. You can take that for what you want.
Now if you want the fine detail of Buddhist philosophy about the highest god named Brahma, the theory is that all the world systems shrink into nothing and evolve. It's a continual impermanent thing, it's like the sun coming up and going down, coming up and going down, but of course it takes eons of time. So this happens periodically, and earth type systems evolve, and then decay. Now when they've all shrunk into nothing, according to Buddhism, as the universe starts to expand one being named Brahma is born first, in one of the high heaven realms. And Brahma's all alone. Due to being alone there arises a wish in him, "I'm lonely, I wish there were other beings." Then all of the sudden other beings get born, and he believes he created the beings. The beings that are born realize that Brahma is first and Brahma informs them he created them and they believe him.
So this is another theory of creation and then the world systems continue to evolve.
Now this is all theory and you don't have to believe it. The benefit of knowing that there is another theory, is that it helps to counterbalance Judeo-Christian theories that we grew up with such as the belief that there is one eternal God. Buddhism gives another view that there are lots of gods and they are all impermanent.
Although their lifespan is very long, giving the impression of permanence they also are born and die. According to these stories, the Buddha was born as Brahma a few times in his past lives eons and eons ago.
So the benefit of this is that we can then throw out all theories, because we have these two theories that are quite different to each other. One theory says God is there forever, and the other says gods are just other beings just like you and me, who live for a long time but still come and go, and are born according to their own Kamma. If they stay a good god they'll get reborn in a good place again, if the do things that are not so good they'll get born in a lower realm.
Because we have these two theories that are quite different to each other, we don't have to believe either. One theory describes an eternal God and the other describes impermanent Gods who are born according to their own Kamma.
So because we cannot prove either of these theories, it is helpful to go back to the Four Noble Truths, something that can be observed and known in this world, here and now.
Which is a relief, because what happens with theories, which is quite real and happening all over the world, is that people fight about them, people have wars because "My god is better than your god" and "My theory is better than your theory," and they're all just theories.
If people could really let go of views, opinions and theories, the word "prejudice" might disappear from our vocabulary. If we were all just trying to be a good person, treating others as we really would like to be treated, there just wouldn't be prejudice, there wouldn't be all that stuff, but because human beings are what they are, they have these theories. So that's what happened to God.