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There are inherent and fundamental differences between Buddhism and Christianity, one significant element being that while Christianity is at its core monotheistic and relies on a God as a Creator, Buddhism is generally non-theistic and rejects the notion of a Creator God which provides divine values for the world. [3]
Most scholars believe there is no historical evidence of any influence by Buddhism on Christianity. [verification needed] Leslie Houlden states that although modern parallels between the teachings of Jesus and Buddha have been drawn, these comparisons emerged after missionary contacts in the 19th century and there is no historically reliable evidence of contacts between Buddhism and Jesus. [28]
Modern Theravada Buddhists have also written various critiques of a Creator God, which reference Christian and modern theories of God. These works include A.L. De Silva's Beyond Belief, Nyanaponika Thera's Buddhism and the God Idea (1985), and Gunapala Dharmasiri's A Buddhist critique of the Christian concept of God (1988).
A statue of Siddartha Gautama preaching. Since the arrival of Christian missionaries in India in the 1st century (traces of Christians in Kerala from 1st-century Saint Thomas Christians), followed by the arrival of Buddhism in Western Europe in the 4th and 5th centuries, similarities have been perceived between the practices of Buddhism and Christianity.
In Christian theology, God is the eternal being who created and preserves the world. Christians believe God to be both transcendent and immanent (involved in the world). [92] [93] Early Christian views of God were expressed in the Pauline Epistles and the early [b] creeds, which proclaimed one God and the divinity of Jesus.
As an "engaged Buddhist" the Dalai Lama has an appeal straddling cultures and political systems making him one of the most recognized and respected moral voices today. [323] " Despite the complex historical, religious and political factors surrounding the selection of incarnate masters in the exiled Tibetan tradition, the Dalai Lama is open to ...
By mid 19th-century, European scholars gave a new picture but once again in concepts understood in the West. They described Buddhism as a "life-denying faith" that rejected all the Christian ideas such as "God, man, life, eternity"; it was an exotic Asian religion that taught nirvana, which was explained then as "annihilation of the individual".
All Buddhist traditions hold that a Buddha is fully awakened and has completely purified his mind of the three poisons of craving, aversion and ignorance. A Buddha is no longer bound by saṃsāra, and has ended the suffering which unawakened people experience in life. Most schools of Buddhism have also held that the Buddha was omniscient ...