To sum up, Christianity and Buddhism are two famousreligions and believed by millions of people. Despite being two distinctivereligion, they all have some similarities. The most recognisable is the teaching of life from Buddha and Christ, TheDharma Wheel and The Bible respectively. They both share the same quality ofmorality but in a different way. However,there are some characteristics which make Buddhism and Christianity unique. Thefeature to distinguish them is between the salvation from God and liberationfrom Buddha. People believing in God think Christ is the mightiest and can savetheir soul from the evil. Buddhism followers also think the Buddha is powerful, however, the Buddha does not have the power to change everyone fate and hope.
Buddhismfollowers believe they must work by themselves to live happier. Furthermore,the life after death between Christianity and Buddhism is also different, one is rewarded by eternal life in the Heaven, and the other istrapped on the life cycle of deathand rebirth. Even though there are a lot ofreligious faiths around the globe, each religion has their special featurewhich distinguish them from others. Wecan not judge them by their rituals and activities, instead, we investigate what makesthe religion believed by many people. Tobegin identifying the differences between Buddhism and Christianity, Pettinger(2013) clarifies that followers of God seek for the salvation from the Christ and Buddhist believers considerthat individual must work for their liberation. For example, Christ followers assumetheir God shall reign the world once again; theywill bow the God and respect him as a King. They believe when they pray theirGod and live correctly, Christian will reward them eternal life in the Heaven with happiness.
In contrast, theBuddhist worshiper thinks they need tolearn the Dharma Wheel to live correctly. They assume if they made anything badsuch as cheating, murderer, they will be punished in the Hell. However, if they live nicely at present, they will be rebirth after theirdeath. More interestingly, Weldon (2001) indicates that Buddha does not believe in infinite-personal God who could create human and forgive theirsins, Buddha just simply provide the lessons of life, and it is ourselves to fulfilif we want to live in happiness. In Christian faith, they require faithfulnessand passionate; every church member has to come to church and pray for their God,so they can be forgiven and purify from the evil. However, Buddha followers do not have to come to the temple every week; they only go to the temple on a special event such as Chinese New Year. Buddha teaches the followers about the difficulty andmeaning in life, so we can stand up whenever bad situations affect us. Buddhismand Christianity are the largest religions amongthe world; they were both found by the ancients who sought to the path.
The obvioussimilarity of these two religions is they all have believers and prayers. Thesereligions teach prayers the meaning of life, showing their path is wrong orright. Even though the activities from these distinctive religions are different, they are both show that peopleneed to live their life correctly, so they do notfeel anxiety for the rest of their life.Furthermore, Giordano (2016) states that there is a slight similarity betweenthe Bible and The Dharma Wheel. For example, the teaching of loving others fromthe Buddha is “Let your thoughts of boundless love pervade the whole world”. And the teaching of loving others from theChrist is “This is my commandment that you one another as I have loved you”.They both share the same meaning of loving others, but in different words.
Buddha taught you that your love shouldcover the Earth, and the Bible told youto embrace everyone as the Christ love you. In fact, someother lessons have the same qualityof meaning but express differently such as love yourenemy, do not judge others. Overall,Buddhism and Christianity are both famous religions and believed by manypeople, they all have some slight similarities when comparing to each othersuch as the lesson of life, the history…However, there are some significant differencesthat make their religion unique and distinctive. Firstand foremost, what makes the religiousfaith decline throughout 1966 to 2016? According to Relss (2015), people inAmerica tend to live their lives in aspiritual way instead of believing in religion. In other words, nonbelieverseems to search for the meaning of life intheir way and their choice; no one caninterfere them. Therefore, the proportion of religious faith decreases gradually in developed countries. In addition, religions are sometimes put heavy upon the family.
Forinstance, raising their child religiouslyand make them become the new church member. Thiscould make the children feel uncomfortable and overwhelming with religiousteaching. On the other hand, people in the East following the religions are rising because they think God as theirsalvation or the lesson from the Buddha makestheir lives better.
The person who hasbeen through a tough time, they follow the specific religion because they thinkthe Lord or Buddha is the one who savesthem from the evil and brings them backto life again. Having a belief in yourselfis not a worse thing at all, it makes us feel that we are connected to thesociety and live correctly unless wedepend on it too much. The next paragraph is going to identify the similaritiesbetween two religions that are Buddhismand Christianity. Itis said that religious faith is decliningin developed countries such as Australia, Europe. Nevertheless, this is nothappening in developing countries, in fact, people following religion isincreasing.
There are abundant ofdifferent religions around the world. Withdifferent religion shares different cultures, rituals and activities.Not only does religious faith give people hope and belief, but it also shapesus in the society and make us who we are today.
This report is focusing on analyzing the differences and similarities oftwo popular religions, that is Christianity and Buddhism.