Religion has a great influence on the formation of personality and way of life, food culture, daily life, interaction with others, and way of life. Some people see religion as a terrorist group, but that’s just looking at a part of things and interpreting them. Religion is very important. For those who live abroad, do business internationally, understanding religious views is like basic education. This time, I would like to look at the differences and similarities between Buddhism and Christianity.
Note: This is written by easy-to-understand way like kids can understand.
Three major religions in the world
There are various religions in this world, but the three major religions in the world are Christianity, Islam, and Buddhism. There are approximately 2 billion Christians, 1.6 billion Muslims, and 400 million Buddhists in the world. Hinduism is not counted as one of the world’s three major religions since it isn’t speeded across national borders and it’s in India only although there are approximately 1.1 billion believers,
Judaism came before Christianity and Islam came after Christianity. Although they believe in different gods and originated at different times, they are sibling religions on the same line. Judaism uses the Old Testament, Christianity uses the Old and New Testaments, and Islam uses the Quran. Buddhism is a religion popularized by Buddha in the 5th century BC. It spread from India to China, Korea, southeast Asia countries and Japan.
Christianity
Christianity believes that God created this world. The idea is that difficulties and happiness are gifts from God. To put it simply, difficulties are trials from God, happiness is grace from God, and destiny is determined by God. Divorce is not allowed in Christianity. The vows made as husband and wife in front of God are eternal, and because God chose them to be husband and wife and allowed them to meet. It cannot change until they die. Also, the individual soul and body are only once time, and there is no reincarnation. Therefore, they have a spirit of cherishing and enjoying one’s life.
Buddhism
In Buddhism, it is believed that all things are created by ties and actions. The ties refer to people’s social ties such as parents, children, siblings, relatives, neighbours, couples, colleagues and friends. The actions refer to people’s actions. In short, the results are brought by the human connections and one’s own actions. Difficulties and trials are not given by God. It’s due to the results of incidents caused by the relationships and the actions. When things go wrong, people look back on their own actions and think about it. If the cause is some relationship, they may cut off it. If the cause is some actions, they examine themselves, then try to improve it.
Social ties and own actions are thought to be a cycle of reincarnation (reincarnation) that connects the previous life, this life, and the next life. This is big differences from other religions including Christianity. All the seeds that we have sown are brought to us by our own actions, whether good or bad. Buddhists people consider humble attitude as a virtue. Also, Buddhism believes that even if the body perishes, the soul remains eternal through reincarnation. The right mind and the beauty of the heart are virtues in Buddhism.
Summary
- Three major religions in the world are Christianity, Islam and Buddhism
- Christianity believes that everything from the world to human life is decided by God.
- Buddhism believes that life is the result of people’s connections and their own actions.
- In Christianity there is no reincarnation, but in Buddhism the soul reincarnates.
In the past, I’ve lived together with different religious people, such as Christianity, Islam, and Buddhism. Although there were some principles of not using some ingredients in their meals, we lived happily together. In international workplace, there have also been business dinners with different religious people, such as Christianity, Hinduism, Judaism, Islam, Shintoism and Buddhism all together. My Hindu colleagues were concerned about the presence of beef in their dishes, while my Muslim colleagues were concerned about ingredients derived from pigs (such as gelatin collargen). It was impressive to see how they all took care of each other so that we could have wonderful time. “Your god and my god must be wonderful.” Although the world peace is not easy, we live in a same planet.
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