Two of the world’s most important and magnificent religions share little in common on the surface. Yet as the Dalai Lama’s recent interfaith dialogues have shown, locating points of intersection between Christianity and Buddhism can be a more fruitful endeavor than focusing only on differences. Buddhism is older than Christianity, but only by about 500 years. From their points of origin, Buddhism and Christianity spread far and wide geographically: Buddhism to East Asia and Christianity to Europe. One of the things Christianity and Buddhism share in common most is that their respective faiths are not as entrenched in their places of origin as they are in the places that adopted these religions later. For instance, Christianity is more popular in the Americas, Africa, and Europe than in the Middle East, and Buddhism is more popular in the rest of Asia outside of India than in India, where the Gautama Buddha was born.The founders of Christianity and Buddhism also worked within their own cultures and communities, not necessarily intending to start brand new religions, but more to reform or revitalize their own. Gautama Buddha “was one of the many critics of the religious establishment” in his time: namely the Vedic religion that the world now knows as Hinduism (Violatti 1). Several centuries later, Jesus of Nazareth served a similarly disruptive role in his community, being leader to a movement that pushed for political change within the religious establishment of Judaism. The New Testament is filled with references...
Jesus says of the Pharisees, “So you must be careful to do everything they tell you. But do not do what they do, for they do not practice what they preach,” (Matthew 23:3). Unlike Jesus, Buddha did not have a core set of disciples that followed him around and write down his precise teachings. Therefore, less is known about what Siddhartha Gautama actually did to dismantle Vedic authorities, but the legends that sprouted up around this revolutionary figure do paint him as someone interested in solitary meditation and the pursuit of wisdom through the cultivation of the mind. Rather than ascribe to the rote rituals that dominated the Vedic traditions, the Buddha and his disciples sought a purer form of spiritual practice, which is what Jesus had also proposed to do, albeit in a completely different manner.
They both emphasize on the teaching of doing good and following rules to live right and happily. They both have vigorous missionary programs, in which they convert people to their religion. In the two religions, the people can worship in groups or individually. The religions have a leader of worship that is a monk in Buddhism and a Priest in Christianity. The two principles in the religion used parables
Very few lay people were exclusively Buddhist- that is, felt a commitment to Buddhism over against China's other religions" (Welch 1976, p.164). Moreover, Buddhism in China was largely an individual affair. The monastaries were not held together any type of hierarchy. "In China the largest unit was the monastery and the highest office was the abbotship. This meant that there was no mechanism for maintaining standards" (Welch 1976, p.175). As
This also means that it is the Sovereign God and not just Lady Luck that is the Lord of Israel. Since God is sovereign by nature, it means that His sovereignty even extends to the allocation of Gods to tribals and to pagans, and this also means that God did not simply hand over His very representation of Himself as the Father and as the Son and as the Spirit
It is through the process of death and rebirth that the knowledge is gained which will finally liberate the individual being from the central cause of all suffering itself - the cycle of death and birth. Essentially, it is only through knowledge that this can be achieved in most Buddhist schools of thought. The rationale behind the importance of reincarnation as a process that is required to escape the centrality
V. Conclusion Both Islam and Buddhism are great traditions that have contributed much to both history and religious development. In terms of morality, both religions make significant contributions. Buddhism teaches the learner that actions have consequences, and it is important to think about actions and consequences with one's own intellect in order to determine what actions should be taken. Islam, on the other hand, teaches that societal rights and wrongs are
The way they are different, is Christianity is not as strict in areas such as: the consumption of alcohol and sex. While Islam, forbids the use of alcohol and will allow men to have more than one wife. The combination of these factors is showing how the two religions are similar and different. (Malloy, 1942) (Shipp, 2002) (Shenk, 1980) (Kidd, 2009) Please read the chapter on Jehovah's witnesses in the
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