Buddhism and Christianity Compare and Contrast Essay

495 Words2 Pages
Compare and Contrast Essay: Buddhism and Christianity There are numerous similarities and differences between the spread of Christianity and Buddhism from their origins. One difference would be that Buddhism began much earlier than Christianity. Buddhism was founded in the 6th century BCE and Christianity was founded in the 2nd century CE. One of the major similarities would be that both of these religions appealed to the lower classes because they were religions of salvation. This is because people of the lower class had something to look forward to in the afterlife. There are many significant differences between these two religions. One difference was that the Buddhist religion was very popular among merchants, where Christianity wasn’t as much. Because it was so popular among them, it was spread to many different places that they went. The merchants had a major influence on the diffusion on Buddhism. Merchants were often allowed to stay in Buddhist monasteries when they traveled from place to place, and this is why many of them converted. Instead of being spread by merchants, Christianity gained more converts because of missionaries. These missionaries were sent out by the pope, himself. One of the most famous missionaries would be Gregory the Wonderworker. Another difference would be that Buddhism had one single founder and Christianity did not. The founder of Buddhism was Siddhartha Gautama and he was able to gain converts himself. Christianity, on the other hand was founded by the 12 disciples of Jesus of Nazareth, which is who the religion was based around. Another difference was that Buddhism did not attempt to force people into converting. In the Christian religion, popes tried forcing people into converting and the religion became very unethical and corrupt. The last difference between the two religions would be that Buddhism was spread by monks

More about Buddhism and Christianity Compare and Contrast Essay

Open Document