Christianity Vs Buddhism

At the center of Christianity is a poor man who claims to be God. At the center of Buddhism is a wealthy prince who claims he is not a god, but a man. In this short space I will compare and contrast some aspects of Christianity and Buddhism, knowing that doing real justice to the topic would take volumes of books. Such is the influence of both religions – that a true comparison could take a person’s lifetime.
Buddhism starts in India, as an offshoot of Hinduism based on the writings of a wealthy prince Siddhartha Gautama Buddha around 400-500 BCE. Buddha is disillusioned with his princely life and leaving his palace sees true suffering. He rejects much of the Vedas (the important writings of Hinduism along with the elements of animal
sacrifice and other practices, as well as the priestly class as abusing their positions. In a similar fashion Jesus Christ rejected the Sadducees and the Jewish hard line interpretation of the Torah around 25-30 CE and threw a fit in the Jewish Temple upon finding it being used for commercial sales and exchanges. However Jesus does not toss out the Torah (the Old Testament) but instead points to a way to actually fulfil the spirit of the religious law through love of God and love of one’s fellow man. In this sense both Jesus and Buddha are rejecting corruption inside religion.
A key difference between the religions is that Christianity is certain that an omnipotent and omniscient God exists and that Jesus is the early representation of God as the Son of God. Buddhism asserts that God may or may not exist but that is not the focus of the religion, but a striving to improve one’s self and reach nirvana or a state of satisfaction. In Christianity this state of satisfaction would be salvation through Jesus. This salvation is the key to going to Heaven and staying out of Hell when you die. However in Buddhism the belief is that you are on a potentially endless cycle of death and rebirth and that where you are reborn is based on your deeds and actions in the previous life. In short there is no deathbed conversion that results in a “get out of jail free card” in Buddhism. Christianity began in Judea, a Roman occupied colony and migrated to the center of the Empire before being displaced by Islam in the Middle East. Buyddism begins in India as a displacement of Hinduism and is itself displaced by a restoration of Hinduism. Both developed a number of branches that continued splitting into more and more sects or denominations. Buddhism thrives in China and Southeast Asia and a little in the Steppe areas of Asia. Christianity until recent times, was tolerated in much of the Middle East and it’s belivers were treated as “people of the book” – a result of the Ottoman Empire’s policy on religion. There is an eastern analog to this as sometimes Hindus and then Buddhists are treated as “people of the book” by some Islamic sects, which is to say that most any one God concept that can be wedged onto one of the Abrahamic religion roots was better than being a pagan. The singular God concept is the crucial to Abrahamic religions although many Muslims would say that Christians are crazy to worship God in three forms – Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Perhaps the most important similarity between Jesus Christ and Siddhartha Buddha are the concepts of mercy, goodness, common sense, and humility, and that it is after their deaths that they are elevated to status of divine.
The great early patrons of Christianity and Buddhism come along about 200 or so years after their respective religions start gaining ground.
The first Christians were really Jews and did not need to see to see Jesus as God on Earth to follow his message as they applied it to Judaism. This presented a problem within Christianity that was resolved under Roman Emperor Constantine in 325 CE. Constantine converted to Christianity based on a claimed battlefield vision, although during his reign he built memorials to other Roman Gods and even the Sun. His support of Christianity was very political as evidenced by the near 2000 people he invited to the Counsel of Nicaea to determine various religious argument within Christianity, not the least of which was declaring Jesus as part of trine
God.
Ashoka, the great promoter of Buddhism, took up the religion after seeing what a war did to the people. Upon seeing the results of a winning campaign that resulted in several hundred thousand dead, he turned to Buddhism and then proceeded to attempt to promote the religion throughout the Mayuran Empire and even back toward Greece. He pushed it with what seems to be a real personal belief. Constantine by contrast, seems to have picked Christianity because he needed a religion and this was the new popular religion as he did not profess to have converted after seeing the horror of war, but was prompted to believe from a positive sign during a campaign. I would imagine Buddha and Asoka would not be impressed since Constantine is essentially claiming God picks winners and loser. However, that is exactly what was done at Nicaea and afterward, the sects of Christianity on the losing side were persecuted by Roman policy.
By all accounts Asoka and Constantine were successful rulers and their empires did well during their reign, but they seem to have little in common beyond that similarity.
Constantine comes across as a careful politician and tactician while Ashoka appears to be a man deeply affected by the consequences of war. Perhaps that’s appropriate to the two religions because as time moved forward, Christianity would be thrust into the forefront of wars of conquest from the Romans to the Nazis, with all such regimes claiming God was on their side. The Buddhists, without a specific belief in God, don’t seem to be using their religion to justify their military
actions.