A MORAL COMPARISON BETWEEN CHRISTIANITY

AND BUDDHISM
HOW DO THE PERCEPTIONS OF GOOD AND EVIL COMPARE AND CONTRAST IN TWO
DIFFERENT RELIGIONS, CHRISTIANITY AND BUDDHISM, AND WHAT GREATER
CONCLUSIONS CAN BE MADE FROM THIS?

IB SUBJECT: WORLD RELIGIONS

Personal Code: ftr777

WORD COUNT: 3,232 WORDS

The research question being investigated in my Extended Essay is: How do the perceptions

of good and evil compare and contrast in two different religions, Christianity and Buddhism, and

what greater conclusions can be made from this? The scope of the investigation that I conducted

upon trying to analyze data to answer this question, included eight sources. I gathered information

pertaining to the Christian and Buddhist religions that pertained to their ideas and perceptions of

ethics and what is good and evil or right and wrong. The information that I researched showed

many differences between the two, such as each religion has a different way of interpreting good

and evil and had alternate paths to follow. However, I found many similarities, such as the role of

behavioral conduct on the outcome of each follower’s spiritual goal in each religion. This led me

to believe that there is a greater meaning and truth behind the two religions and their correlation.

I concluded that we should all pay attention to the differences but most importantly the similarities

between religions because it reveals great lessons about morality that can be universally applicable.

189 Words

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 Table of Contents

Abstract .................................................................................................................... 1
Table of Contents..................................................................................................... 2
Introduction ............................................................................................................. 3
What is Religion?..................................................................................................... 3
Christian Perception of Good and Evil ................................................................. 5
Buddhist Perception of Good and Evil .................................................................. 6
Key Differences ........................................................................................................ 9
Similarities and Greater Meaning ....................................................................... 10
Conclusion .............................................................................................................. 11
Bibliography........................................................................................................... 13

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 Introduction

Religion has been a prevalent topic from the time when the first people roamed the Earth.

The roots of this subject are derived from essential questions that concern ideas such as our origin,

our surroundings, how things came to be, and what might happen after our deaths. Many people

all across the world and throughout time have come up with their own answers to these questions

and several of them look to various religions to answer these questions for them. A religious group

can be comprised of thousands upon thousands of individuals or at times, even just one. Regardless

of size, it is an organization of people that, together, focus on their beliefs and perceptions about

life. Two of the largest and most popular religious groups of our current time are called Christianity

and Buddhism. Each religion teaches its followers to focus on its own way of thinking and has

different ideas about spiritual and other-worldly forces.

Since religion is such an abstract topic, it is important to explore it further so that we, as a

society, can have a broadened understanding of how the world works and be knowledgeable about

what our experiences of life really are. One key concept is that the basic constructs of each religion

can correlate with others in many ways. Two completely different world religions, Christianity

and Buddhism, for example, intertwine as much as they separate. Ethically speaking, they each

provide their own set of values to their followers and amazingly enough some of these moral ways

of thinking are, in fact, the same.

What is Religion?
Time has yielded a variety of different perspectives about religion. One man named J.M.

Yinger says that religion is “a system of beliefs and practices by means of which a group of people

struggle with the ultimate problems of human life,” while another, Arnold Toynbee, says that it is

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“the presence in the world of something spiritually greater than man himself.” (Crawford, 2) This

eight-letter word is commonly used to refer to both.

Religion describes one’s beliefs and practices concerning the world around us and, most

importantly, the world beyond us. It focuses on defining the most common and yet most difficult

questions about life. “Systems” have been created to provide clarity to these questions. (Eliade)

These systems refer to individual religions and they encompass the intricacies of human behavior

and the social institutions which have been developed to give understanding and organization to

the world around us.

Belief structures can be classified by their celebrations, degradations, and theories which

each have a direct link to the culture from which they originated. (Partridge, 32) They can also be

known “to bind a worshipper to the deity by the observance if cultic ceremonies and acts of

devotion.” (Crawford, 8) This spawns the idea that a significant relationship occurs between the

culture of the people involved and the principal pieces and leaders of each religion. This connection

can be seen through how the massive variety of the religions found in modern society have

derivations from the same root foundations and also, how these traditional ways influence the

moral standards of today's belief systems. Morality typically serves as a guide to a religion’s

followers to show them how they should live their lives. The mindsets of individual participants

are normally altered or developed based off of the principal concepts that their religion supports.

A common theme in every religion that is especially influential on its followers is the distinction

between good and evil and what human behaviors deem a person to be fundamentally “right” or

“wrong.”

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 Christian Perception of Good and Evil
A predominantly popular religion in today's world is called Christianity. This system is

comprised of an acceptance, belief, and worship of the Holy Bible, which is a book of collected

written accounts. It describes the history of God, a divine and omnipresent being, His people’s

lives, and Jesus Christ, who was the Son of God. The story of how Jesus revealed God to the

human race by sacrificing himself on a cross to relieve His people of their sins is also in this book.

The Bible is viewed as a testament from God that comes through spiritual channels, whom were

its physical authors. It is split into two major pieces, those being the Old Testament, which focuses

on revealing God’s acts, mind, and will, and the New Testament, which hones in on Jesus Christ

and his life and teachings.

The concepts of “good and evil” are strewn throughout the entire Bible but a main reference

of definition is witnessed in the Old Testament where the Ten Commandments are held. These

phrases were messages from God that were inscribed into stone and given to Moses, a prophet.

They gave instructions to his people to deem what the moral views of a diligent, obedient Christian

should be. God tells his followers to honor their parents and outlines the boundaries that one “shall

not” cross. These include killing another, committing adultery, stealing, bearing false witness

against another, or coveting. God punishes his followers that go against these rules that he has set.

An example of this occurs in the Bible when Cain killed Able. God chastised Cain and said, “Now

you are under a curse and driven from the ground, which opened its mouth to receive your brother’s

blood from your hand. When you work the ground, it will no longer yield its crops for you. You

will be a restless wanderer on the earth.” (New International Version, Genesis 4:11,12)

Other recordings of God’s wishes and expectations of his followers, are presented

throughout Scripture especially in the form of Jesus’ teachings and through today’s leaders of the

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religion, such as the Pope, a priest, or a pastor. Pope Paul VI reiterates God’s command to not kill

by saying, “The life of man is sacred; no one may dare offend it.” (Schultz, 103) If one follows the

moral standards that God has declared, they are viewed as being “good” and in turn, closer to the

Lord. God rewards those who do what he says. When Job’s belongings, hard work, and family

were destroyed, God was testing him. Finally, when God saw that Job would not sin He, “restored

his fortunes and gave him twice as much as he had before.” (New International Version, Job 42:10)

In addition, there are concepts of an entity named Satan, who was a “fallen angel” and

became opposed to God and His teachings. He rules the realm of Hell which is the place that is

said that people will descend to if they have sinned or if they go against God’s law or these rules.

To have sinned is to have committed an act of evil in the eyes of God or to go against his word.

Christian followers know this to be true from the verse from Romans 3:20, “Therefore no one will

be declared righteous in His sight by observing the law; rather, through the law we become

conscious of sin.”

Christianity revolves around pleasing God and acting in whatever way that He believes is

commendable. When a Christian does “good” by following God’s wishes, they believe they will

receive salvation from Jesus Christ and go to Heaven. However, when a Christian goes against

what God wants, they are doing “bad” by Him and are committing sins. Even a non-Christian who

does not believe in His word is deemed be sinning as well. Those who have sinned and have not

confessed their sins, have been deemed to go to Hell. Essentially, the Christian view of morality

is set up around salvation and God’s word.

Buddhist Perception of Good and Evil

called Buddhism. Siddhartha Gautama was a human who lived in North India during a scholarly
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estimated fifth century BCE. He was known as the “Buddha” or the awakened one. This refers to

what he discovered in his lifetime, which was the Dharma, or the “way things are”, and how he

proceeded to teach it. Buddhism focuses on teaching its followers how to recognize “the truth” of

life so that they are able to overcome “dukkha”, or pain and suffering. The primary goal of a

Buddhist is to become enlightened and to follow the path necessary to reach this spiritual level.

In his lifetime, Buddha came upon and then preached the Four Noble Truths which

essentially discuss how existence comes with dissatisfaction and pain due to one’s selfish cravings

or thirsts and how dukkha cannot be eradicated without the elimination of these cravings. He

created the Eightfold Path which serves as a sort of guide and moral doctrine to Buddhist followers.

The words “right” and “wrong” or “good and evil” have very broad meanings in this context.

Instead of using these terms, Buddhists use the terms kusala or akusala to describe what is morally

correct. Kusala roughly translates to skillful and akusala roughly translates to unskillful, but what

these words refer to is the law of karma. (Payutto) The law of karma is fundamentally an idea of

moral causation that believes that when a person does good and lives righteously, they will receive

good and live in a higher state. Alternatively, if one brings about pain and turmoil into their lives,

it is due to their own ignorance and evil behaviors. The Buddha said, “All living beings have

actions as their own, their inheritance, their congenital cause, their kinsman, their refuge. It is

Karma that differentiates beings into low and high states.” (Strong)

Kusala describes a state of being that is in alignment with positive and nirvana-seeking

behavior. Nirvana is a state in which all Buddhists hope to one day reach and is the state that the

Buddha finally entered. It is the place of “no-self” or when one has extinguished their individual

idea of themselves or their ego. (Cosby) It signifies when one has truly reached Enlightenment

which is the ultimate goal of every Buddhist and what they base their actions around. When a

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person is in alignment with the path to reach Nirvana they are said to be in a state of kusala. The

four connotations of kusala are derived from the Commentaries and they include “arogya,” or

having a healthy mind, “anavajja,” or having a clean, unstained mind, “kosalasambhuta,” or being

a state of wisdom and intelligence, and “sukhavipaka,” or being in a state of well-being. (Payutto)

One can know they are in kusala if they have these other four connotations.

Examples of behaviors that are in line with kusala and eventually nirvana include having

mindfulness, goodwill, mental clarity, an absence of greed, and zeal. The opposite is true with

akusala. Having sexual desire, ill will, sloth, anxiety, anger, or jealousy are behaviors that lead to

this negative state, or an unskilled place that is not conducive to a Buddhist’s goal of reaching

nirvana. Both of these ideas relate significantly with the teachings of the Buddha.

The elements that construct the concept of being in alignment with the Buddhist path

include having the “right” view, resolve, speech, action, livelihood, effort, mindfulness, and

concentration or meditation. These principles can be summarized by a quote from the

Dhammapada, V. 183, “The avoidance of evil, the undertaking of good, the cleansing of one's

mind; this is the teaching of the awakened ones.” (Partridge, 201)

In order to incorporate this core mindset into their lives and to, therefore, avoid what the

Dharma recognizes as evil, most Buddhists deem a certain five rules to be the centerpieces of their

daily living. Abstinence from “harming any living thing”, from “taking what is not given”, from

“sexual misconduct”, from “false speech”, and from “anything that clouds or intoxicates the

mind”, are these five precepts. (Partridge) However, even with diligent practice of the Eightfold

Path and perseverance towards the goal of Enlightenment, one typically does not reach this stage

in one lifetime. Buddhists believe in reincarnation of a being into five different realms. These

include “the hells”, “the animal world”, “the realm of the hungry ghosts”, “the realm of humans”,

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and “the realm of the gods.” (Partridge, 202) Constant reincarnation occurs until, finally, a being

surpasses all of these realms and attains nirvana, or a state free of all dukkha. This place of

liberation can only be reached by being “right” and following a specific moral path of consciously

choosing good over evil or kusala over akusala.

Key Differences
Christianity and Buddhism; two popular religions with followers all across the world. The

teachings of both belief systems are complex and intricate, but each has unique characteristics that

allow for some obvious differentiation. In the Christian religion, its followers believe in a form of

creator, God, who has made all that is and has the divine power to form and uphold Laws that his

followers should follow. His word is final and perfect and so a disobedient person is justifiably

viewed as “bad” and as a sinner. They believe in a soul and that one’s self needs to reach a state

of salvation so that they will not go to Hell in the afterlife.

Buddhists believe in something significantly different from this concept. These followers

of the Dharma see the teachings of Buddha as being the most divine form of understanding. The

way of life he discovered and preached, along with the most desirable goal of gaining

Enlightenment and eradicating suffering from one's life, is what Buddhists hold as being righteous.

Their perception of good and evil comes from a complex system of “the way things are” and from

ideas of kasula, akasula, and the law of karma rather than from other entities whom deem what

exactly is right or wrong. They do not believe in a soul and in fact a Buddhist’s goal is to find

Nirvana, or a state of non-self.

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 Similarities and Greater Meaning
Despite the differences in the origins of these religions’ moral standards, there is significant

evidence that supports a relationship of similarity between the two belief systems. Primarily, many

ethical behaviors of a dedicated religious person in either of these two religions will seem to be

the same. Each religion teaches the principles of honesty, abstinence from many evil-inviting

behaviors such as having greed or jealousy, and non-violence. When practitioners of these systems

follow the path of morality paved for them, each religion deems that person to be closer to some

divine state. In the case of a Christian, this would be being closer to the Lord or Jesus Christ. For

a Buddhist, this would look like one obtaining a state of Enlightenment or Nirvana, or even perhaps

a reincarnation into a “heavenly” realm after their current lifetime. These end goals cause followers

of these religions to want to incorporate and embody the ideals of the moral standards of each and

to become “good” and “right” by their beliefs’ definitions. This in turn would lead to similar

behaviors being present between those in each religion who are motivated from and fully engulfed

with the pathways that lead to their divinities.

Another similarity between these two religions’ concepts of “good” and “bad” include

beyond-Earth realms. Beings in each can either transcend to a more “evil” place, such as Hell in

the Christian religion or “the hells” after reincarnation in Buddhism, or a more “holy” dimension,

such as Heaven or “the realm of the gods.” The determination in both systems of where a being

will go to is based on that being's’ behavior and spiritual, moral performance during his or her life,

such as following Christ or being in a state of kusala.

The complexities of Christianity and Buddhism can reveal a deeper truth concerning the

connection that these two religions share. While having very different cultural roots and

foundations, the pair also have fundamentally similar views on morality. There is a subjection of

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and a heavy emphasis on the same basic values in both systems of faith even when the form of

which the practitioners in each are receiving their guides of right and wrong are significantly

different. Specifically, the ideas that murder is wrong, that sexual misconduct is wrong, that

stealing is wrong, that speaking falsely is wrong, that the avoidance of evil is right, and that divinity

cannot be reached without a follower's commitment to the religion, all uncover how there is a

significant link across humanity. Looking at the nature of both of these influential and distinct

ways of life that millions of people are submerged in, general truths can be extracted from these

beliefs and moral expectations of a religious person can be placed into a universal or “objective”

system that yields the moral code of all.

Conclusion
In the analysis of Christian ethics, it is found that the basis upon their moral evaluation

stems from an exterior entity or being named God and the teachings of his Son, Jesus Christ. One

is looked upon as being a good person and holding good morals if their actions and behaviors are

in line with the desires of God. The opposite is also true in that if one does not believe in God or

does not do as he wants, then they will be punished and looked down upon. Each person’s life, if

spent doing “good” things, will result in their entrance to Heaven whereas a person doing “bad”

things, or sinning, without repenting, will go to Hell, according to God and the Bible.

Buddhists on the other hand, do not believe in a soul and therefore have no system set up

for one to be punished for their wrongdoings in such a concrete way. When one is in alignment

with “good” and kusala and the Four Noble Truths, that is the distinction in being an ethical

Buddhist. In opposition, if one is committing acts of evil, such as murder, they will be sent to a

realm that mirrors their life choices and will not progress on the path to reaching Nirvana. The

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Buddha’s teachings reveal what morals and ways of life are most “skillful” and helpful to get

someone to the place of Enlightenment that they wish to reach.

In both of these wildly prominent religions, there are key similarities. First and foremost,

some of the rules that each religion has is very alike. Each religion condemns murder, ill will,

sloth, anger, disrespect, sexual misconduct, stealing, and many other behaviors. In Christianity, to

do one of these actions would result in one being a sinner and without repenting for these sins, a

line towards hell, which separates one from God which is the ultimate goal. In Buddhism,

committing one of these acts would make one a much less enlightened person and cause significant

distress in one’s spiritual life. This, in turn, would lead them farther away from their goal of

reaching a place of no-self, or Nirvana. Each religion has significant and severe setbacks, or

punishments, if a person were to not follow their ethical rules and guidelines.

It is important to recognize the similarities and differences for each religion because

society’s perception of good versus evil should have the perspectives of many religious structures.

The way in which people function and the ideas in which they hold about the world are important

for anyone to understand if they would want a higher knowledge of the world. The relationship

between Christianity and Buddhism is one of importance because they are two vastly unique

systems that stretch throughout the world. Two large organizations of people hold significant

ethical similarities between what is “right” and “wrong” and this is important because it reveals a

deeper truth that our societal moral norms are more directly related than we think and that they are

valuable.

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 Bibliography

1. Eliade, Mircea, Ioan Culianu P., and Hillary Wiesner Suzanne. The Eliade Guide to World

Religions. San Francisco: HarperSanFrancisco, 1991. Print.

2. Partridge, Christopher H. Introduction to World Religions. Minneapolis, MN: Fortress, 2005.

Print.

3. Strong, John. Buddhisms: An Introduction. London: Oneworld Publications, 2015. Print.

4. Crosby, Kate. "A Theravāda Code Of Conduct For Good Buddhists: The

"Upāsakamanussavinaya.." Journal Of The American Oriental Society 126.2 (2006): 177-187.

Web.

5. Paul, Pope, VI. Christian Values and Virtues. Ed. Karl A. Schultz. New York: Crossroad Pub.,

2007. Print.

6. Bible New International Version. N.p.: Zondervan, 2012. Print.

7. Crawford, Robert G. What Is Religion? London: Routledge, 2002. Print.

8. Payutto, Bhikkhu P.A. "Good and Evil in Buddhism." UrbanDharma.org. UrbanDharma.org,

n.d. Web. 01 Jan. 2017.

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