Saturday, July 27, 2013

Describe how Buddhist, Christian and Islamic culture can be traced back to Buddha, Jesus and Muhammad/How Buddha, Jesus and Muhammad’s teachings shaped their respective cultures, and how their teachings affect how their followers view and treat the followers of the other religions. (Example: How the teachings of Muhammad has influenced how a Muslim person views and treats a Christian etc.)

There are innumerable ways in which Christianity, Islam and Buddhism have not only shaped their own cultures, but how their cultures interact with other cultures. While there are plenty of similarities on the surface of each religion, to fully understand and appreciate the ways in which they differ fundamentally and religiously is something that could fill volumes upon volumes of books.
A few examples of this we can see between Christianity and Buddhism. Right from the get go we see that a fundamental principle of Christianity is the acceptance of Jesus Christ as one's personal savior, and to devote their lives to the teachings of this person as well as the embodiment of the person himself, whereas in Buddhism there is no one savior, but rather an adherence to the ideals and an adoption of those ideals through meditation rather than prayer, and one must personally achieve through hard work and dedication in action to embody those ideals in the attainment of nirvana.
Analytically we see that based solely on this one example that Buddhism favors personal action and a focus on the ideals, whereas Christianity focuses on the person and a recognition of achieving the enlightenment embodied by Christ as unachievable in totality. How much impact this has had culturally is hard to say without having a full analysis of Asian cultures where Buddhism is a core mainstay of life, but one thing that is known is that western cultures are more focused on the individual and personal achievement, whereas Asian cultures are more focused on the collective, and how the individual impacts those around them. It's not unreasonable to say that a basic view into that fundamental analysis of their religions manifest in that macro difference in cultures.
Islam is an entirely different beast all together. It focuses more on the afterlife and the supernatural, even more so than many Christians or buddhists. It also rank orders aspects of life in terms of importance, placing religion as the highest priority. We see that Islamic culture has thus a hard emphasis on religious rituals and practices, with a daily requirement of 5 prayer sessions (thus a need for buildings for mass prayers amongst Islamic communities), a rigid and total belief that God is perfect and that their scriptures perfectly encapsulate the will of God, an emphasis in showing your devotion to God in your actions to those around you, and the annual Ramadan fast, designed to remind people what life is like for the poor who have little to nothing.
One can note that the biggest differences between all three religions is the way in which people are instructed to practice their faith. Islam has a focus on appearance and strict religious rituals, whereas Christianity is a bit looser about rituals and more about the pinnacle person and their teachings. Buddhism is all about the personal journey and has a great deal more flexibility in how one achieves enlightenment than either of the aforementioned religions.
How this manifests in culture again is hard to say, but given the current events in the world we could say that the emphasis on personal achievement and celebrating the individual is a staple idea in western culture as derived from a focus on the Jesus the person in Christianity. The west tends to exemplify individuals who have overcome many great challenges and achieved great things despite the difficulty, and those ideals are utterly reflected and personified in the figure of Christ.
In Islamic culture it's merely how dedicated to the religion you are, both in word and action, and as Islam spreads around the world that could indicate why so much conflict around Islam and foreigners exists. If one believes one's God is perfect, and that the scripture one has perfectly encapsulates God's will exactly, combined with elements of public dedication to God's will, it's not too much of a stretch to say that those people who do not follow one's sayings that one would have much in conflict with those people.
The existence of Buddhism itself is hard to see at all in many ways, as such emphasis of the personal journey through life as opposed to a higher focus on the specific characteristics of the religious culture, thus creating a much more subtle influence on life through a de-emphasis on the individual themselves and a higher emphasis on their actions on the community. Achievements of the group are generally ordered higher of praise rather than the individuals in question, though the individual is also celebrated through how their actions pushed the group towards higher accolades and accomplishments.
There are many other ways to analyze how each religion's different focuses have impacted culture. From economics to architecture to music to the very food they eat, and far more ways to characterize their impacts on cultural attitudes on the whole than is described here.


Buddhism originated in the Indian sub-continent approximately 500 years before the introduction of Christianity with the teachings of Siddhārtha Gautama. In Buddhist dogma, the soul is in an almost endless cycle of birth and rebirth and the material world is largely illusory. The termination of this cycle of rebirth is achieved by the cessation of desire which is the source of suffering. Because Buddhism does not have a concept of a creator deity it is generally not rational for a Buddhist to be offended by the differing dogma of Christians or Muslims. While Christianity and Islam are essentially incompatible with the core tenets of Buddhist thought, they are—from the view of the obeisant Buddhist—tolerable as there is no commandment that exists to be broken.
Christianity originated in Palestine approximately two thousand years ago with the revelation of the Jewish carpenter Jesus Christ as the prophesied son of God. It teaches a personal relationship with a creator deity and Christians are encouraged to be active participants in a coming salvation that will occur in an end times. At the same time, however, the New Testament also teaches a form of religious tolerance (2 Corinthians 10:12):

We do not dare to classify or compare ourselves with some who commend themselves. When they measure themselves by themselves and compare themselves with themselves, they are not wise.

Christians may view Buddhists and Muslims as persons needing salvation by the acceptance of Jesus Christ.
Islam originated in fifth century Arabia with the teachings of Muhammad. In Islamic doctrine, Jesus Christ was a prophet of God, but not a divine being and Christians are confused followers of God who should be offered the opportunity of conversion but, as "people of the book," must be tolerated failing that (Qur'an 3:64-71):

O people of the Book! Come to common terms as between us and you: that we worship none but Allah; that we associate no partners with Him; that we erect not from among ourselves Lords and patrons other than Allah." If then they turn back say: "Bear witness that we (at least) are Muslims (bowing to Allah's will)."

Buddhism, however, is viewed with greater skepticism in Islam because it rejects the notion of a unitary, monotheistic God and such rejection is a blasphemy.

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