In Christianity it is believed that Jesus Christ was the savior to all humanity and was sent to Earth by his father (God) to pay for the sins of all mankind. In Judaism on the other hand, Jesus was merely a prophet. Both Christianity and Judaism were established in Israel. Christianity was founded around 30 AD in contrast to Judaism which started around 1000 BC. Although a few sacred readings and the form that followers pray are similar in both religions they are also slightly different.
The Abrahamic religions, Judaism, Christianity and Islam, are the three key Western Religions that emphasize monotheism, achieving peace though justice, God’s love and mercy, all trace their lineage back to Abraham. Abraham provides legitimacy for the religions and also establishes the fact that there is a singular God worshiped by all three religions (Oxtoby). Although, in theory, the Abrahamic religions are supposed to act as siblings waiting for the arrival of the parent, God, there has been much conflict among the religions due to differing interpretations of faith and key religions figures though out history. The three Abrahamic religions all originated from the same geographical area and contain interrelated scriptural elements as well as similar, yet sometimes differing, views on ideological and practical topics. There is evidence to suggest that all three Abrahamic religions have been influenced by the paganism as well as other religions, especially Zoroastrianism, that preceded them.
He doth regulate all affairs, explaining the signs in detail, which ye may believe with certainty in the meeting with your Lord”. Islam and Christianity take a monotheistic (belief in one GOD) approach when it comes to religion. Muslims recognize Allah as the Creator and Christians recognize GOD as the Creator. Both religions believe that human beings have the ability (free will) to choose between good and evil. Another eye opener for me is that Muslims believe that Jesus Christ was born to the Virgin Mary and at the end of the world, Jesus Christ will come again.
In general, there are similar ethical beliefs amongst Christians due to Judaism being the only root of Christian ethics. In general Christian ethics is deontological and authoritarian and what is deemed right or wrong is based on belief in God. The ethics of Christianity is based on the holy bible, which is a library of books that expresses Christian faith. As the bible was written over a long period of time and includes many different teachings and morals, there is no overall biblical morality that can be chosen therefore different denominations choose different parts of the bible to support their beliefs. For instance in Genesis it says that ‘God breathed the breath of man into Adam’s nostrils’ and from this Roman Catholics can argue that as God has given life, only he can take it away so things such as abortion, euthanasia and murder are absolute wrongs.
It is also because the words express the deeply held views of a wide swath of conservative Christianity. Buchanan’s speech epitomizes the Religious Right’s general view of the “culture war”—as a “religious war”3 that manifests itself on many “cultural” fronts, most urgently abortion, homosexuality (especially, now, marriage equality), education privatization, and curriculum content of the public schools. So the culture war is not simply conflict over abortion or gay marriage. It is a one sided war of aggression against the civil rights advances of women and minorities and the rights of individual conscience that we generally discuss under the rubric of religious pluralism and of separation of church and state. For these political aggressors, war is not merely a metaphor or the equivalent of a sports analogy.
THE CRUSADES By: Patrick Downpoop Professor Schlomann 17 October 2011 INTRODUCTION When an individual thinks of Christianity it is more than likely that one of the thoughts that cross their mind is the Crusades which occurred over in Europe. While most people will think of the Crusades as being simple fights between knights and Muslims there was a much deeper rooted issues at hand. The first was the issue of religious rule and the second is that of regional rule. Both the Christians and the Muslims wanted to have ultimate power over both which led to the Crusades. In this paper I will attempt to discover why the Crusades began, what where the motives, and have the Crusades furthered the cause of Christ.
Polytheistic religion creates an ideology of coexistence, given the fact that everything has a soul. Hence, the outlook and respect for all life is an extremely different approach than we see in monotheism. From this, one can observe that many of today’s complex and urgent environmental issues stem from the cultural norms created from monotheistic religion. It is essential to first address where the notion of human domination comes from. Looking to the Bible – specifically in Genesis – God says, "Let us make man in our image, in our likeness, and let them rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air, over the livestock, over all the earth, and over all the creatures that move along the ground” (CITE).
The quality of individuality so important in western values, best expressed in classical liberals and even more so in radical liberals, can also be expressed in the religious traditions of Islam and Protestant Christianity. Both religious traditions place an individual’s personal relationship with the creator as the foundations of the faith. This individuality is extremely important in many postmodern political cultures. Tory corporatists however are the dominate cultural group for both Protestants and Muslims. Peace, however, as a tradition can be a quality more difficult to find.
However, the word fundamentalism, which originated in Christianity, can be misleading when it is used to describe Islam or Muslim countries. The conservative monarchy of Saudi Arabia, the radical socialist state of Libya, and clerically governed Iran have all been described as “fundamentalist,” but this description fails to take into account vast differences in their governments and policies. Political analysts prefer to use the expressions “political Islam” or “Islamism” when discussing Islam’s many-faceted roles in current social and
White noted that Christianity was a complex faith, and different branches of it differ in their outlook. But in general, he proposed that Christianity, and Western civilization as a whole, held a view of nature that separated humans from the rest of the natural world, and encouraged exploitation of it for our own ends. There has been much discussion of these ideas, and they have been both attacked and supported (some of this discussion is referenced below). But there is no doubt that this article raised some important questions. There is much literature on the influence of religious beliefs and traditions on a person's