Buddha was just an ordinary human that achieved enlightenment and preached his understandings. Jesus, however, plays a much more important role as a redeemer in Christian theology, who paid His life as ransom for human’s sin. Jesus is the most important and only living proof of God’s unconditional love. In this paper, I offer a detailed comparison of Jesus the Christ and Gautama the Buddha, focusing on the problem of suffering. To be more specific, I compare these two figures from following perspectives: the life experience of both, how do they understand the why there exists suffering and how to get rid of it; what is the final goal of life; what is the historic significance of each; the how they see themselves; as well as how their teachings complement each other.
Overall the Puritans were a religious group with a core of specific beliefs that are at the essence of the Puritan Faith. Those two beliefs are the belief that man is predestined or divided into two groups, the damned and the elect. The second core belief is that of free grace versus a doctrine of works. This means that man cannot save himself by changing his ways and doing good deeds. Instead it means than humanity is only saved by the free grace and mere good will of God and that whosoever believes in Christ and has faith may escape Hell.
• “It is the element within Tibetan Buddhism of magic and the supernatural, so remote from the original teachings and practices of Buddhism that has led to its designation as Lamaism, as if it were a separate religion.” (Lieberman, 2003) Conclusions concerning points of agreement and disagreement between Buddhism and Hinduism • Both Buddhism and Hinduism believe in reincarnation and salvation as the highest goal. • Buddhism is in opposition of the Hinduism Brahmanical religion. Brahmanism practices the value of sacrifice. • Hinduism & Buddhism have considerable influence in their practices and ideals, both strive for ultimate liberation and the correspondence of spirituality of renunciation. (Schmidt,2007) • Hinduism believes in Gods and Buddhism does not believe in Gods.
Hindu’s do not feel as sure about being able to break the cycle. - In order to break the chain of desire a Buddhist must give up ass sensuous pleasures, evil, sorrow and joy. ⃰ There is intense meditation that is to be followed and also a list of religious principles. ⃰ The meditation that is done is not a prayer to God but a prayer of self discipline. ⃰ It’s a focus to get the life force in line.
If we have rid ourselves of all suffering, there will be nothing to attach to, and we will go into Nirvana at death, which is the ultimate goal of a Buddhist. Part II: Comparison of Buddhism with a Christian Worldview 1. Origin - Because Christians live by the Bible, the question of origin can be found in Genesis 1:1, where it states that God created the heavens and the earth. Buddhists believe that the world just keeps destroying itself and reproducing itself. 2.
It instructed its followers to follow the Dharma, or the Buddha Doctrine. Ashoka Maurya further spread the influence of Buddhism when he switched to it after conquering Kalinga. Hinduism was the original religion of Classical India, until Siddhartha Gautama created Buddhism, his followers called him “Buddha” which means “Enlightened One,” most of what derived from Hinduism was a part of Buddhism. Buddha was a Hindu Mystic before; he changed some concepts of Hinduism around, such as believing that violent acts against nature and other are purely immoral. Both religions had this theory of reincarnation, , but stated that it was because of karma, if something needed to be fulfilled, a debt or curse, or simply one’s life was not lived to its fullest than they were reincarnated back on earth not always as a human, but sometimes maybe an animal.
Evaluate Maurice Wiles views on miracles Maurice Wiles is a 20th century philosopher of religion. He has written many books including "The myth of god incarnate" and "gods action in the world". He took the same idea as David Hume in rejecting miracle, however took a very different approach to him. Maurice Wiles believed that Christian teaching has always interwoven with prophecy and miracle: God being incarnated in Christ. He said for Christians the universe and the nature of its workings was in itself a miracle from God.
Paul Tillich argues against the literal theologians and the social scientists as well. He says that “religion has rediscovered its true place in man’s spiritual life, namely, in its depth, out of which it gives substance, ultimate meaning, judgment and creative courage to all functions of the human spirit.” (Tillich 9) In my opinion and it may be clouded by my religion, which is Christianity, is that God does exist and one will not
Buddhism is non-theistic, based on the philosophy of life, not God(s). It derived from the teachings of Siddhartha Gautama, the Buddha, around the 6th century BC. Christianity on the other hand is monotheistic, believing in one divine God. Christians consider the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit as a single combined deity. Christianity shares the same beliefs of God and the Old Testament with Judaism.
The incessantly interesting feature of Zen Buddhism is that there is no dogma, philosophy or doctrine one must believe in to be a Zen Buddhist (“Buddhist beliefs”). O’Hara describes Zen as a “practice of coming back to the actual right-now-in-this-moment self, coming back to the naturalness, the intimacy and simplicity of our true nature.” In A History of Zen Buddhism, Dumoulin quotes Bodhidharma, a highly regarded teacher of Buddhism, as describing Zen in the following way: A special tradition outside the scriptures; No dependence upon words and letters; Direct pointing at the soul of man; Seeing into one's own nature, and the attainment of Buddhahood. (67) Zen