Differences Between Christianity And Buddhism

Jesus’ life and Buddha’s life were very different. Jesus is said to be the Son of God, and was born from the Virgin Mary. He was also born a Jew, who were the people already saved by God. His father was a carpenter, and so before he left home he was a carpenter. For most of his later life Jesus

If a Christian follows Buddhist traditions, then one must assume that there is an overlapping of similarities in both teachings; a Christian’s worldview must be complementary to that of a Buddhist’s. Though I am arguing the similarities between Christianity and Buddhism, I do not completely shut down the obvious differences between the two traditions. Christians are devoted the Jesus Christ’s teachings, while Buddhists believe in the Buddha’s teachings. Jesus is God in human form while Buddha was a human being who reached supreme insight under the Bodhi tree. Roderick Ninian Smart, a Scottish writer and university educator of religious studies, argues in his book, Buddhism and Christianity: Rivals and Allies, “Jesus saved humanity through his deeds and death, while the heart of liberation for Buddhists is through the Eightfold Path” He then continues to defend

Two of the most widely practiced religions around the world today are Christianity and Buddhism. However, they did not start off with such a large following. Christianity, was a small cult that branched off of Judaism and was being strongly prosecuted against. Buddhism was just a single person trying to find a reason for and an end to the universal suffering that he had just newly encountered. Even though the following of Christianity and Buddhism had started off small, by developing their core beliefs as rejections of Judaism and Hinduism, they were able to better fascinate and convert others.

Every Religion believes in either a God(s), a leader, or supernatural forces. Unlike Christians who believe in Jesus Christ, is the divine savior of God, who died upon the cross to save others from their sins, Buddhists believe in an enlightened man referred to as Buddha. Buddha is believed to have lived between circa 563 to 483 BCE and believed to have taught in northeastern India. Buddha’s teachings are based upon his life, and provide guidance and support to his followers.

Buddhism is seen as a way of life rather than a form of religion that needs to be closely followed and constantly practiced. The idea of “enlightenment” carries through one’s entire lifetime in an attempt to reach nirvana, which is an end to all suffering. A person’s lifetime is spent being faithful and relying on karma to eventually achieve nirvana and enlightenment, in which people embark on the path of awakening. The awakening is a very crucial aspect of the Buddhist religion, as it was Buddha’s own personal awakening and understanding of how the world works, in which he passed it on to be believed and understood by others. It’s closely related to other religions in the way that rebirth and reincarnation are the beliefs surrounding the idea of the afterlife, however Buddhism in particular is an anatta tradition, or ‘not-self,’ which often sets it apart from other religions.This complex ideal entails that one’s external self, consciousness, feelings

A second important similarity is Christianity uses the Jewish holy texts, called the Five Books of Moses or the Torah. They took these books and made them into what they call the Old Testament of their holy book, The Bible. This also means that the creation story is shared between both religions. They both believe that, according to the text, everything was created out of nothing in six days by God and on

Christians believe in Jesus Christ as their savor, while the devil is the enemy of Jesus and try to get Christians to commit evil acts. Angels and demons come into play when good and bad things happen in the world. [Angels=good and Demons=bad] Jesus or God controls Heaven, while the devil controls hell. Heaven is where good souls end up and Hell is where the damned souls end up. People usually use the Holy Spirit as the divine power that enters the person bodies and Virgin Mary is the woman that gave birth to Jesus. Now Buddhist believed in Anatman, Karma, and The Four Noble Truths. The Four Noble Truths are: all of life is marked by suffering, suffering is caused by desire and attachment, suffering can be eliminated, and suffering is eliminated by following the Noble Eightfold Path. Anatman is when Buddhism analyzes human existence as made up of five aggregates or "bundles" (skandhas): the material body, feelings, perceptions, predispositions or karmic tendencies, and consciousness. And Karma is a person's acts and their ethical consequences (2007)

Religion is a fundamental element of human society. It is what binds a country, society or group of individuals together. However, in some instances it destroys unity amoungst these. Religion is a belief in a superhuman entity(s) which control(s) the universe. Every religion has its differences but most strive for a just life and the right morals. The three major groups are the primal regions which consist of African, Aboriginal and Native American religions, Asian which consist of South Eastern Asian religions and Abrahamic religions which consist of Middle Eastern religions. The foci of this essay are the differences between the Abrahamic religion, Christianity, and the Asian region Buddhism as well as making reference to the Islamic

God is the one and only sovereign Creator of everything and everyone in the universe. Some of the first-order points of doctrine include strong convictions in the Trinity which is believing that God exists in three persons; the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit (Diffey, 2014). Although this can be interpreted as three people, every part of the Trinity is equally God, just in different forms. They all had a vital role in the creation of the universe. Since God existed before all of His creations, he has the ultimate power and authority over everything. His presence is felt everywhere in everyone who believes, and is the source of all wisdom. He is the beginning of wisdom and should be worthy of all worship and praise for everything

One major difference between these religions is the view of Jesus Christ. To Christians, Jesus was

Religion has existed for countless centuries. Christianity is one of the major religions in this world, which had people be criticized, battle in wars, and killed for, but it still survived to this day. The purpose of this paper is to study the source of the religion, recognize the teachings, observe its spread throughout the world, and to identify how it stands among people today. Approaching this paper by a factual report I will explain these major points and why we need to know about this religion and other religions that existed before our generation.

Traditional Christian beliefs include the belief in the one and only true God, who is one being and exists as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, and the belief that Jesus is the divine and human Messiah sent to the save the world. Most Christian denominations teach that Jesus will return to judge everybody, living and dead, and to grant eternal life to his followers. He is considered the model of a virtuous life. The basic teachings of the Buddha are contained in the Four Noble Truths, which are concerned with the realisation that our objective in life is the pursuit of happiness through the elimination of the factors that create suffering.

The Buddha neither accepts god nor rejects the existence of god. It’s sometimes believed that Buddhists worship the Buddha, but they don’t. “The Buddha was not, and did not claim to be a God. He was a man who taught a path to enlightenment from his own experience” (A Basic Buddhism Guide: 5 Minute Introduction, n.d.). They do pay respects to images

God: God in Christianity is the eternal being who created and preserves all things. Christians believe God to be both wholly independent of, and removed from, the material universe and involved in the world. Early Christian views of God were expressed in the Pauline Epistles and the early creeds, which proclaimed one God and the divinity of Jesus, almost in the same breath as in 1. Christian teachings of the immanence and involvement of God and his love for humanity exclude the belief that God is of the same substance as the created universe but accept that God's divine Nature was hypostatically united to human nature in the person of Jesus Christ, in an event known as the Incarnation. Buddhists seek to reach a state of nirvana, following the path of the Buddha, Siddhartha Gautama, who went on a quest for Enlightenment around the sixth century BC. There is no belief in a personal god. Buddhists believe that nothing is fixed or permanent and that change is always possible that is why they don’t believe in a God.

As Madhu Bazaz Wangu indicates, Buddhism is a path to spiritual discovery (8). Being Buddhism, a non-theistic religion, their disciples follow the monotheistic doctrine demonstrating they believe in only one deity. Siddhartha Gautama, mostly known as Buddha––the enlightened––, is the one deity Buddhists believe in. As Wangu writes, Siddhartha practiced severe self-denial and meditation before he could reach Nirvana (state of mind that ends the path of suffering) (8). Siddhartha came to the conclusion that in order to reach Nirvana one should be able to eliminate desire by doing right and thinking right. This could be done by following the Dharma (the law of Buddhism). Because the Buddha never wrote down any of his teachings, his disciples