Comparative Religions: A Study Of Beliefs And Practices

BIBL105 : Biblical Studies

Best approach of study the religions

1. Comparative Religions

It is the branch of religious studies which is concerned with a systematic and scientific comparison of various doctrines as well as practices of the religions followed by people in the world in the past and the present. The comparative study offers a deeper and thorough understanding of several philosophical concerns of the religion. These concerns could range from ethics, metaphysics, nature and form of salvation. This study facilitates better understanding of the different beliefs of individuals and their practices regarding the spirituality and divinity (Hefner & Zaman, 2007).

2. Best approach of study the religions:

• Caution: In order to study a religion different from one’s own religion in the effective way, it is important for the religious investigator to exercise greater degree of caution.
• Openness: While studying about the other’s religion, this approach requires the scholar to enter into their aspirations or feelings.
• Sympathy: It requires an individual who is studying the religions to appreciate and sympathise the understanding of religion.
• Reverence: since a religion is a very holy phenomenon, it must be examined with proper orientation of the Lord.
• Interest: It requires the scholar to have an absolute interest and honesty in whatever they study about the concerned religion.
• Adaptability: It requires the researcher to adopt all the norms and traditions of the subject of the investigated religion (McCullough & Willoughby, 2009).

3. Goals of religion in Men’s life:

Religion helps the men to develop the positive qualities like mercy, generosity, love, affection, kindness and various other qualities. These qualities serve in generating a deeper connectivity with the spiritual nature of men and therefore religion is the vehicle that drives the spiritual development of a man. Religion aims to boost the men’s self-esteem and to heal the mind and body.

4. Hinduism teachings about sin, soul and salvation:

• Soul: Hinduism teaches that soul is everlasting and it shares the true essence of every living being such as plants, animals and human beings. According to Hinduism, body is the prison for the soul and hence the idea of body’s eternal unification is totally objectionable (Fuller, 2004).
• Sin: according to Hinduism, sin is not a personal guilt rather it belongs to metaphysical activities.
• Salvation: It is basically the separation of one’s soul from the magnificent world. As per Hinduism it is connection of soul to the God.

5. Caste system in Hinduism:

As per Hindu conception, people are different and therefore they fit well into several aspects of the society.  Hence, there are 4 main castes:

• Brahmins:  These people are considered as closest to Supreme Being (priests) and hence approached for the worshipping matters.
• Ksatriyas: They are the warriors and defend the integrity of Hindu Society. They are also represented as the kings of the society.
• Vaisyas: This group majorly constitutes eminent traders and owners of large properties like land. They are highly regarded in the society as they offer financial assistance to the government.
• Sudras: They are the people who own specialisations in professions like agriculture and other services

6. Karma, Samsara and Morksha in Hinduism:

• Karma: It is an action and it says that every action is an effect of some cause and in return it is a cause for an effect.
• Samsara: It is destined with the Karma. It signifies the re-birth of the soul. As per this theory, a soul has the capability of transmigrating from one body to another along with its Karma.
• Morksha: It is an escape, liberation or the release of soul. As per Hindu belief, until or unless, a series of cause-effect relationship is broken, there will be a permanent boding of soul to the events like birth, death or re-birth.

7.  Four truths of Buddhism:

• First truth: Suffering is omnipresent:  It asserts that sufferings are involved in very nature of the life and all types of existence are linked to it.
• Second Truth: Suffering is resulted from the desire of possession or/and self-enjoyment:The possession as well as self-enjoyment is the sole reason of sufferings. It will continue until the longing for possession is ceased.
• Third Truth: Suffering stops when desire stops: At this point the craving for possession and life’s lust will be renounced and the true peace of life is realised at this point.
• Fourth Truth: The Eight-folk way which causes extinction of desires could be found only in the disciplined mind:This path leads to termination of suffering and results in the moral perfection (Anderson, 2013).

8. Eight fold paths leading to Buddhahood:

This path leads to extinction of insatiable desires of an individual. There are eight steps to this path. They are:

1. Right views:  it involves both accepting the 4 truths and rejecting the inappropriate philosophical positions.
2. Right aspirations: It involves freeing up of an individual’s thought process from things like lust, cruelty etc. and one requires a strong resolution to achieve his highest goals.
3. Right speech: It requires a person to always speak truth and avoid telling lies and vain talks.
4. Right conduct: It covers charity and restraining from killing any of the living being.
5. Right livelihood’s mode:Each man should undertake such work that gives scope to his capabilities and usefulness.
6. Right effort:  The right efforts includes avoiding uprising of evil, overcoming evils, developing meritorious condition like detachment, maintaining the meritorious conditions and bringing to conditions to the perfection.
7. Right awareness: It involves contemplating on complete mastery of one’s own mental processes.
8. Right concentration: It contributes to the absolute one-pointedness of the thinking and concentration of mind on a particular object, having all obstacles been overcome.

9. Basic concepts of Hinduism reject by Buddhism:

• The God’s concept:Hinduism believes that there exists a supreme being known as Brahma and he governs the overall universe. Buddha neither accepted the fact of existence of Brahma nor did they denied from the fact.
• The denial of temples, angels and spiritual beings: Hindus adores the god by statues and idols but Buddha typically denied to those forms of god. He believed that these statues and images have been assumed to protect the Brahmin’s exploitative position.
• The priesthood’s institution: Priests are regarded as the most influential as well as privileged caste because of the fact that Brahmins are supporters of Hindu scripture whereas Buddhism straight away opposed the priesthood and rejected the system of caste as he believed that a priest’s help is not necessary to achieve salvation.
• Re-incarnation: Hinduism believes in Karma (action) and believes at the time rebirth an individual goes to the class that it deserves on the basis of his actions and deeds of previous birth but Buddhism totally rejected this Karma belief

10. Key elements of Shinto Worship:

• Purification:Whether the worship is national or domestic, purification is the first step. Before worshipping, the worshippers have to wash their mouth and hands.
• Prayer:The prayer is generally said inwardly and as the prayers are said non-vocally, they are confined to petitions to Kami.
• Sacred Meals: The meals are generally taken with Kami and these meals are the source of communication between the worshipers and Kami (Ono & Woodard, 2011).

11. Themes of Confucius Thoughts:

• Relationship: It is one of the central themes of Confucianism. Individuals have different duties towards different people and their duties are associated with them on the basis of the degree of relationship hold by them with other people.
• Humanity: The humanness concept has been best explained in Confucian version of the golden rule what you do not wish for yourself, do not to others. This is called the ethics of reciprocity (Yuhan & Chen, 2013).

12. Basic Beliefs of Zoroastrianism

• Belief in universal god
• Belief in dual existence
• Belief in spirituality of creation
• Belief in world and its human’s spiritual nature
• Belief in pantheism
• Belief in the goodness of humanity

13. Distinguishing features of Jewish from other nations:

• Jewish son becomes the son of commandment at an age of 15 years.
• To read Torah, Jewish son is called up to Sabbath on the day followed by his birthday.
• On that day, Jewish son is given the lesson that Israelites are only people who are chosen by God.
• As a distinctive feature of Jewish, they hold the belief that all the people and realms are god’s creation through Adam but Jew is his only son through Abraham and therefore Jews belong to redeemed community.
• Jews are also considered as covenanting partners of the God.

14. Talmud and Torah in Judaism:

• Torah: It is the full body of written as well as moral law. To the Jew people Torah signifies the entire mystery and God’s physical appearance. Torah is the private possession of Jew people. It is regarded as the source of the life of Jew people.
• Talmud: It is commonly known as “Savings of the Fathers’’. Like Torah, it also has a great importance in the Jewish life. Talmud is the discussion or decision of scholars of Jew and Rabbis in the matters of Torah. It is constituted by a large structure of commentary material (Chilton & Neusner, 2006).

 

15. Feast of Passover

 Feast of Passover: It is an important festival and commemorates intervention of god on behalf of the people, an exodus from Egypt. This feast was a itinerant one and was designed to take away the foul spirits from the herds.

This feast was celebrated by Israelites in April month to signify their relationship with god. As a part of this celebration each Israel family had to select one blemish a lamb. The lamb was to be killed by them to eat and its blood was robbed at the home’s lintel with the motive of consecrating their houses and protesting the inmates (Colautti, 2002).

16.  Origin of Christianity:

This religion was started in 1^st century of AD in Jerusalem. It was initially spread near east and ultimately became the American’s state religion in 301 or 304. It was also accepted as the religion of Ethiopia in 325 and in Georgia in 337 and then in Rome in 380. During exploration age, the Christianity religion expanded globally and became the largest religion of world (Kautsky, 2014).

Goals of religion in Men’s life

17. Mode of worship in Christianity:

Christian worships involve Jesus’s praising with music, speech, readings of scripture and the prayers of various types. It also involves holy ceremonies which are commonly known as sacraments and the sermon.

18. Functions of church leader or pastor

The church pastor provides a spiritual leadership to the members of the church. They prepare the sermon for every week. They preach for Jesus and conducts worship. As a pastor, they have the responsibility of interpretation of biblical scriptures for all the people present at the church for the worship of god. Also they are expected to undertake the decisions regarding the financial matters related to church.

19. About Martin Luther:

Martin Luther was one of the German monks, who were born on 10^th November, 1546. In 16^th century he initiated protestant reformation and became the most influential as well as controversial personalities of Christian history. He became the most popular theologian when he translated Bible into various languages to let people feel more close to Jesus. Sir Luther published a long list of 95 theses as the firm critique of indulgences of people and the good works that could be granted to people to cancel the penance for the sins, corrupting the faith of the general public. As a particular disdain of philosophy of Aristotelian and the developer of his own theology, he had to face conflicts with the holistic scholars. Consequently, he initiated the development of his personal theology on justification or the process through which a person is ‘made right’ in the eyes of god (King, 2010).

20. Main objectives of Ecumenism:

The main objective of ecumenical movements was to incorporate the degree of unity for the churches that are divided through the dialogue. Also it works for the denominations to be the one. Further, it aims at expansion of James Christ’s Gospel (Vuola, 2002).

21. Protestant reformation:

The initiation of protestant reformation is usually recognised with Sir Martin Luther and also with the posting of 95 Theses on Wittenberg’s castle church. The protestant reformation can be classified into 2 different but concurrent movements i.e. Magisterial Reformation and Radical Reformation. The reformation had touched the limits of Northern Europe but it did not end in some particular areas like Ireland and various parts of Germany. The catholic reaction to the reformation movement is called as Counter Reformation.

22. John Wycliffe attempt of reformation:

John Wycliffe is known as the “morning star” or the “grandfather” of reformation. He was the biblical reformer. The political views of Wycliffe provoked him to criticize papal system particularly their appointment and taxation methods. He issued a series of pamphlets to prove his view that State should intervene and also it must look after the properties of the Church for the interest of deprived people. This view was readily accepted by the nobility and middle class people but the bishops of the state and wealthy religious orders. Later, Wycliffe was charged to plea before London’s Bishop as he was accused for his heretical teachings. After his death, the flame of reformation was kept burning by his preachers to whom he named poor priests.

Hinduism teachings about sin, soul and salvation

23. Martin Luther:

Martin Luther was one of the most famous monks of an Augustinian community. He was also the professor of theology at the Wittenberg’s University. He was particularly in contempt of Aristotelian philosophy and after publishing a long list of his Theses on the men’s indulgence, he formed his own theology. Since then, he was consistently been in protestation of the holistic scholars majorly the Cardinal Cajetan. Through his scripture’s studies, Luther finally achieved the religious entitlement. After his publication of 95 Theses, Sir Luther declared it on the public scale that Bible could not give popes the privileged right of interpretation of scripture and it was a straight attack to the papacy authority.

24. Ecumenism order:

Ecumenism primarily refers to the movements among the Christian groups to instil the unity through the dialogue. The term Ecumenism is originated from Greek that is known as oikounmene and implies the ‘inhabited world’ and “universal oneness”. The Ecumenism order was aimed at promoting the unity of divided church and the expansion of James Christ’s Gospel. This order was distinct from catholic as well as protestant movements.

25. Muhammad’s life and call for prophet-hood

Mohammad was the child of an Arabian family who was renowned for the religious endeavours as well as the political activities undertaken by him. He took birth on 12th of Rabi’ Awwal i.e. April 20, 571AD. As per the Arabs customs, Mohammad was sent to the Arabian Desert for some time, away from the home to survive in the stifling climate. At his childhood, Muhammad had often travelled on the caravan journeys and at his Syria journey a monk named as Syria identified the features of prophet in Muhammad. At his youth stage, he almost spent his life in the humble situations working as the shepherd. With his growing age he was more recognised with his wisdom. His distinguishing features like refined manners, extreme shyness and chastity as well as his habit of avoiding easy pleasures as pursued by other youths of his generation. He participated in the furious competition of lifting the black stone. In his late 30 years, he was dedicated to the god’s worship and taught the teachings of truthfulness to his believers. To turn as prophet, he shifted to a cave of Hira which was a quite isolated place, to distant himself from the bustled and noisy place and at the age of 40, he achieved the extremely decisive divinity and this event changed his life completely.

26. Basic beliefs in Islam:

• Belief in Allah: It is belief in Allah and his existence, unity and his perfection.
• Belief in Angels: It requires the belief in Jinn and Soul also. The Quran defines angels as the super-natural being. The functions of angels are associated with spirits as well as souls.
• Belief in Messengers:  The god’s wisdom demanded directing messengers to the people in order to direct them to the correct way.
• Belief in scriptures: Scriptures are the Allah’s messages to humans. This belief is more logical result of last two beliefs.
• Belief in end day: Quran describes the last day is the Resurrection’s last day for, the very Day of Judgment and the Hereafter.
• Belief in destiny for the good and the evil: It is the last and basic most belief of Islam. According to it man selects the good or evil things on his own discretion and he is rewarded or censured by god (Berkes, 2013).

27. Hijrah in Islam:

• Hijrah is the migration of Muslim followers from the Mecca to the Madina. Prior to this, Muslims could not form a community and the nation as well. It is the pilgrimage undertaken by the followers of Allah to adore them (Comparative Study of Religions, n.d.)

28. Religious and social tenets of Bahai Faith

It was believed by Bahaullah that Bahai faith is the attainment of all the religions of the world. Following are the religious and social tenets:

• God is creator: According to it man was created through the love of god.
• God is unknowable: Possibly nothing can bind god to his own creatures.
• Mankind’s oneness: Unity is found in almost every creature of god.
• Unity of religion: It helps to bring super peace, unity as well as contentment to world.
• Elimination of prejudice: It is the characteristic of an individual where he decides on something before knowing the true facts about it.
• Harmonisation of science and religion: Religion comes to an individual through the divine revelation.
• Equal treatment for all men and women: Humanity can be regarded as a bird with two wings called men and women and hence they should be treated equally (Amanat, 2011).

29.  Differences between Christianity and Baha’i faith

Basis	Christianity	Baha’i
Origin	Ordinated by god. However, historically it was introduced by Judaism.	Islamic Origin
Identity of God	They believe Jesus is the God incarnate.	They belief Jesus is a mere prophet.
All religion’s unity	Jesus Christ taught them that there exists only one path to the God.	Unity of all the religions is necessary as per Baha’i belief

References:

Amanat, M., 2011. Jewish identities in Iran: resistance and conversion to Islam and the Baha’i faith, Vol. 9. IB Tauris.

 Anderson, C., 2013. Pain and its ending: the four noble truths in the Theravada Buddhist canon. Routledge.

Chilton, B. and Neusner, J., 2006. Judaism in the New Testament: Practices and beliefs. Routledge.

Colautti, F.M., 2002. Passover in the Works of Josephus, Vol. 75. Brill.

Comparative Study of Religions, n.d. Retrieved from: < file:///C:/Users/System04091/Downloads/2377796_1075316783_2.ComparativeStudyofReligions%20(4).pdf> Accessed on 30.06.2018.
Berkes, N., 2013. Introduction. In The Development of Secularism in Turkey (pp. 35-54). Routledge.

Eliade, M., 2012. Occultism, Witchcraft, and Cultural Fashions: Essays in Comparative Religion. University of Chicago Press.

Fuller, C.J., 2004. The camphor flame: Popular Hinduism and society in India. Princeton University Press.

Hartz, P. 2009. Baha’i Faith. Infobase Publishing.

Hefner, R.W. and Zaman, M.Q. eds., 2007. Schooling Islam: the culture and politics of modern Muslim education (Vol. 37). Princeton University Press.

Jackson, R., 2013. Rethinking religious education and plurality: Issues in diversity and pedagogy. Routledge.

Kautsky, K., 2014. Foundations of Christianity (Routledge Revivals): A Study in Christian Origins. Routledge.

King Jr, M.L., 2010. Stride toward freedom: The Montgomery story, Vol. 1. Beacon Press.

McCullough, M.E. and Willoughby, B.L., 2009. Religion, self-regulation, and self-control: Associations, explanations, and implications. Psychological bulletin, 135(1), p.69.

Ono, S. and Woodard, W.P., 2011. Shinto The kami way. Tuttle publishing.

Vuola, E., 2002. Remaking universals? Transnational feminism (s) challenging fundamentalist ecumenism. Theory, culture & society, 19(1-2), pp.175-195.

Yuhan, X.I.E. and Chen, G.E., 2013. Confucius’ thoughts on moral education in China. Cross-Cultural Communication, 9(4), pp.45-49.