Origins and Development: Comparing Christianity and Buddhism Essay

This essay provides a detailed comparison and contrast of the origins of Christianity and Buddhism, focusing on their development and how they address fundamental questions of meaning and purpose for humanity. The introduction provides a brief overview of the importance of religion in different societies and introduces the two religions chosen for the essay. The main body delves into the origins, teachings, and spread of both Buddhism and Christianity, highlighting their similarities and differences, including their founders, core beliefs, and practices. The essay analyzes the origins of Buddhism in India and Christianity in the Roman province of Judea, along with their respective impacts on culture and society. Furthermore, it examines the philosophical differences, such as the Buddhist focus on eliminating mental suffering and the Christian emphasis on salvation. The conclusion summarizes the key points, emphasizing the unique contributions of each religion while acknowledging their shared goals of promoting love, compassion, and ethical living. The essay concludes by highlighting the significance of these religions and their enduring influence on the world. The essay includes proper citations and a reference list.

Compare and contrast the origins of
the Christian and Buddhist faiths

Table of Contents
Introduction......................................................................................................................................3
Main body........................................................................................................................................3
Conclusion.......................................................................................................................................5
References........................................................................................................................................6

Introduction
Religious is one of the basic institution which are related to different societies across the
world. It is a universal approaches and system which is related to different societies at global
level. This is mainly related to common faith, worship, rituals, traditions and customs. Across the
world there are different religious which include, Hinduism, Buddhism, Sikhism, Jainism,
Christianity, Islam and Farsi (Campbell, 2016). To complete this essay, two religion are chosen
which are Buddhism and Christianity. Their similarities and differences are discussed, origin
stories and their religious tradition are used. All of these information are respond to fundamental
question which are effectively work on their supportive ideas to support religious. The use of
their basic faiths and ideas are relevant for the society and relevant for some major ideas about
Buddhism and Christianity.
Main body
Buddhism religion was founded from the teachings of Buddha which means “Awakened
One” (Buddhism vs. Christianity, 2020). This teaching was given in mid-6th and 4th centuries
BCE. The origin of this religion was India and it spread across China, South-east Asia, Japan and
Korea. This religion has provided a pathway for cultural, spiritual and social life (Wallace and
Harvie, 2016). It is analysed that ancient Buddhist scripture and doctrine was developed within
language of ancient India. Buddhism is known as the great period of intense religious activity
and social change. In India, there were big issues related to caste system. It was concluded that
personal and spiritual religious experience was given in Vedas. There were two different
directions given by various groups. One of which is “Hinayana” meaning lesser vehicle.
Buddhism spread across the world. Buddhism is the path of spiritual and practise development
that leads to insight of nature of reality. Buddhism is a non theistic religion which is known as
philosophy and moral discipline. Buddha was involved in developing belief system. The central
vision of Buddhism is quoted into four texts – “Life is shaped by an individual’s life and we
become what we think” (Walser, 2018).
Grief comes from desire and desire brings fear and the person who is free from desire
does not grief nor fear. On the other hand, Christianity is known as an Abrahamic monotheistic
religion that is based upon life and teachings of Jesus. According to this religion, Jesus is the
Christ and he came on earth as Messiah. Christianity was the second temple Judaic section

within 1st century. There are doctrine statements as well as confessions of religious that are
termed as creeds (Woolf, 2017). As per Christian religion, there are different beliefs including an
individual must have faith in God i.e. Jesus Christ. There are three sections of death resurrection,
hell and ascension. Christianity has become the largest religion for the geographically area.
There is constituency of of more than 3 million believers. Christianity is faith tradition which
focuses on Jesus Christ figure. Faith is defined as act of trust for believers which is fulfilled by
this religion. There is development of culture and set of ideas provided in Christian religion
which is for betterment of life. Jesus Christ said that practices and beliefs as well as practices for
managing the historic figure. There are few Christians who have enables content regarding
reference to be historic. This consists of other references such as tradition and it can be spoken as
human nature or god of nature. There is another element for faith tradit5ion of Christianity that is
having rare exceptions. There is plan for salvation or for redemption. The believers of Christian
community believes that Christ will rescue them from any kind of harm or problem (Yong,
2019). Essence is known as quality which provides something as identity and they are centre of
what is making things different from anything else. There are different believers of Christ who
involve essence of Christianity among them.
Buddhism and Christianity are both founded by great spiritual masters who actually work
and direct the path which are related to salvation. As these terminology having major differences
but at the same time there are lots of similarities which are needed to be discuss. Neither Buddha
and Jesus Christ wrote their own teaching, in both premiss, teaching style were written down by
many years later after they both left the world (Murayama and Miura, 2016. Some of the major
similarities are expressed below; Both religious are founded by religious masters who have
disciples. Their teaching style are simple as parables. Both are able to work to reform the
existing social practices that may work and make an impact on denigrated ritualistic focus. Here
Christ criticise the money lender in temples where Buddha criticised the caste system and
dissembling of Brahmin (Christianity and Buddhism: more similarities than differences, 2021).
They both are egalitarian which means they are always ready to help other people either they
belong to their caste or not. As Buddha accepted all other and small caste into his shelter.
Whereas Christ said that they are work for spreading his philosophy which are not for small race.
They share their values which are relevant for both the religions. They both highly work for
stress ethical living, compassion and love for each other. Further both are try to work in religious

which are follower by charitable towards the poor people which are needed support most. In last
they both are related to Divine Consciousness, means as it clear that Buddha did not talk more
about god and he always said that the love and consciousness are not related to never expressed
in words.
While they have same lots of similarities all are working in significant manner. But there
are significant difference between these two societies and culture. Which are related to mainly
practices, as in Buddhism the main practice is on Meditation, right path view, livelihood, right
efforts and right concentration on life (Cooper and James, 2017). Where as Christianity say that
prayer, worship in church, reading and understand bible and many right ways to communicate
are discusser. Buddhism related to place of origin in Indian subcontinent, and subsequently
Christ origin are in Roman province of Judea. Further their human nature of Buddha, is
ignorance as it is related to the all sentiments and beings. On the other side, Christ is the man
who are inherited from Adam. He had a nature of forgiveness of sin. He act as per their own
action and relevant to some other aspects like fallen and broken race. The worship which are
mainly followed in Thailand, Sri Lanka, India, Nepal, Myanmar, Laos, Singapore, china Hong
Kong and many more minorities which are related to other small countries (Buddhism vs.
Christianity, 2020). The main difference of these two religious are their goal of philosophy. In
Buddha this is related to eliminate mental suffering, whereas in Christ it is related to objective of
reality. Buddhism stress on the endless cycle of life which are relevant for birth and rebirth
culture. Whereas Christianity focus on one life on e chance concept (Obadia, 2017).
Conclusion
From the above report it is concluded that there are lots of religion on world wide, all of
them have their own rules and regulation. Buddhism and Christianity are related to somehow
related to each other and as per their origin and birth stories. Buddhism is an atheistic person
whereas Christ believe on god and teach different things that are related to life and happiness.
But at the same time they both are work for the concept which are related to love and spirit of
compassion. These two terms and different in many terms but at the same time they are reliable
and similar in different context. They have several objectives which are related to their tradition
and culture.

References
Books and Journals
Campbell, W.S., 2016. 6 Reading Paul in Relation to Judaism: Comparison or Contrast?.
In Earliest Christianity within the Boundaries of Judaism (pp. 120-150). Brill.
Cooper, D.E. and James, S.P., 2017. Buddhism, virtue and environment. Routledge.
Murayama, A. and Miura, A., 2016. Two types of justice reasoning about good fortune and
misfortune: A replication and beyond. Social Justice Research, 29(3), pp.331-344.
Obadia, L., 2017. Comparing'religious diversities' Issues, perspectives and problems.
Wallace, H. and Harvie, K., 2016. Implementing'Worldviews and religions'
resources. Ethos, 24(4), pp.21-26.
Walser, J., 2018. When did Buddhism BECOME Anti-Brahmanical? The case of the missing
soul. Journal of the American Academy of Religion, 86(1), pp.94-125.
Woolf, G., 2017. Empires, diasporas and the emergence of religions. Christianity in the Second
Century. Themes and Developments, pp.25-38.
Yong, A., 2019. Discerning the spirit (s): a Pentecostal-charismatic contribution to Christian
theology of religions. Wipf and Stock Publishers.
Online
Buddhism vs. Christianity, 2020. [Online]. Available through:
<https://www.diffen.com/difference/Buddhism_vs_Christianity>.
Christianity and Buddhism: more similarities than differences, 2021. [Online]. Available
through: <https://international.la-croix.com/news/religion/christianity-and-buddhism-
more-similarities-than-differences/227>.