Buddhism and Hinduism, Christianity and Judaism

Hindus and Jews are totally different communities but they have different religions that are almost similar to each other. Among the Hindus, there is Hinduism and Buddhism religion. These two religions are rivals but they have similarities with each other. Among the Jews, there is Christianity and Judaism religion. The two groups of religion have similarities and differences in relation to their history, founders and theological doctrinal aspects.

Discussion

According to history, the leader or the founder of Buddhism is believed to have been born from a Hindu family. The founder of Buddhism is called Buddha. This means that most of the rules and values of Buddhism are adopted from Hinduism. However, Hinduism does not have a founder or a leader (Hinduwesite.com, 2010). Similarly, the Christian messiah, the son of God was born in a Jewish family. Although, Jesus was born in a Jewish family, He used to practice the values of Hebrews. This means that Christianity adopted most of their values from Judaism. Judaism does not have a founder or a set leader of the religion.

Another similarity between the two groups of religions is based on their history. Buddhism is believed to have evolved from Judaism where the founder was born from a Hindu family. In the early days, Buddhism came to relax the traditional rules of Hinduism. Buddhism values and rules were not as strict as those of the Hinduism thus converting many Hindus to Buddhism. Similarly, Christianity evolved from Judaism. Beginning with the messiah, Christianity values and teachings were borrowed from the Judaism. Similar to Hinduism, Christianity came to relax the strict rules of Judaism (Kreeft, 2011).

Another similarity is based on the different theological doctrinal aspects. In Buddhism and Hinduism, there are certain values and beliefs that are similar to one another. For instance, both religions believe in Karma, transmigration of souls and the circles of births and deaths for each soul (Hinduwesite.com, 2010). This is similar to Christianity and Judaism because most of their values and believes are similar. For instance, they believe that a messiah was to come and liberate the people from their sins.

However, there are differences among the different groups of religion. Those people who practice Buddhism and Hinduism are enemies. This is because Hinduism believes that Buddhism is corrupting the minds of the people. Moreover, they believe that Buddhism is a defector of Hinduism. On the contrary, Christianity is not a defector of Judaism despite what the Jews believes. This is because it is written in the Hebrew teachings that a messiah was coming to save the people from their sins. Additionally, their values and teachings follow the Bible and the Hebrew teachings (Religion Facts, 2010).   

Another difference is that the Buddhism and Hinduism believe in the worship of different gods. This is because there are instances where Hinduism believes in many gods to the extent of incorporating one Buddha as the incarnation of mahavishnu as one of their gods (Franz 2006). On the hand, Christianity and Jews believes in one God. The only difference is that in Christianity they pray to God for forgiveness and guidance while in Judaism they believe that they make conversion with God.

Conclusion

The two groups of religions are great rivals to the extent of killing another and yet they have certain similarities. It is clearly seen that most of the values and believes that Buddhism has are borrowed from Hinduism. This is similar to Christianity where most of the values are borrowed from Judaism. Additionally, the history of the two different groups is similar in how one religion evolved from the other. However, there are certain differences in the sets of religion where Hinduism and Buddhism worship gods as opposed to Christianity and Judaism who believe in one God.