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BUDDHISM

Factfile: 

Beliefs: (The Four Noble Truths) 

  1. Life is basically
    suffering or dissatisfaction
  2. The cost and cause
    of suffering lie in the craving
  3. The cure for suffering
    is to eliminate craving
  4. Follow the Eight-Fold
    Path to eliminate craving

 

Practices: (The Eight-Fold
Path) 

  1. Wisdom – Right
    understanding and thought
  2. Ethical Conduct
    – Right speech, action and livelihood
  3. Mental Discipline
    – Right effort, awareness and meditation

 

Approach to Witnessing: 

  1. Establish ourselves
    as people of GOODWILL

 

    We need to build bridges
    of love     and develop genuine friendship with them. Pre-believers
    will understand what we say in proportion to how we understand them     

  1. Move from the known
    to the UNKNOWN

 

    • Start with things
      they already know about
    • Go step by step.
      Keep to one point at a time. When many issues are being raised,
      choose to dwell on the most useful subject.
    • Present our belief
      openly
    • Use names and expressions
      which are familiar to them

 

  1. Move from discussing
    Islam, Buddhism, Hinduism to JESUS

 

  • Learn to ask
    good questions
  • What do you know
    about Jesus?
  • Have you read the
    Bible before?
  • Do you know how
    a person can receive forgiveness from God?
  • Do you know how
    to have a personal relationship with God?
  • Stress the uniqueness
    of Jesus
  • His miraculous birth
  • His sinless life
    and extraordinary teachings
  • The fact that Jesus
    is returning

 

  1. Answer OBJECTIONS
    with GENTLENESS and KINDNESS

 

      • How do you know
        that the Bible is not true? Have you read it?
      • If you think that
        Jesus is not the only way, how sure are you that the god you believe
        in is the right way?

 

  1. Be a genuine LEARNER.
    Do not share as a “specialist” on their religion

 

  1. PRAY and PERSEVERE

Comparison Between Buddhism
And Christianity: 

  Buddhism Christianity
History
  • Few followers in
    origin of country (Buddhism – India; Christianity – Palestine),
    as majority of the followers belong to a race and linguistic group different
    from the founders of these religions.
Jesus
& Buddha
  • Both born in miraculous
    ways, great teachers, some of the Bible parables are also found in Buddhist
    scriptures
Values
  • Compassion, self-discipline
    and a moral life
  • Don’t do unto
    others what you don’t want others to do to you and vice versa
Practices
  • Meditation and Prayer
God
  • No absolute God,
    although Buddha did not deny the existence of God outright. Focus is
    on own spiritual paths of enlightenment, rather than relying on an outside
    support.
  • There are numerous
    but transient deities. A human being can also obtain ‘deity’
  • The Buddhist pays
    homage to Buddha without expecting that he hears him or does something
    for him.
  • There is only
    one     true God

 
 
 
 
 

  • The Christian has
    a personal relationship with God who hears our prayers.
Creation
  • Buddhism knows neither
    a first beginning nor a definite end of the world, nor of Judgment,
    nor of heaven and hell, but reincarnation and universal karma law.
  • God created the
    world from nothing “in the beginning…”, and he rules it
    according to a definite plan. There is one day when Jesus will come
    back again to judge the world.
Sin
  • Retribution for
    one's actions – We get what we deserve
  • Everyone accumulates
    his own evil and has to work out his own deliverance. The entire conception
    of sin is alien to the Buddhist. If man has to suffer in punishment
    for his misdeeds, it is not due to disobeying divine commandments, but
    because his actions are in conflict with the eternal cosmic law and
    produce bad karma.
  • We do not always
    get what we deserve – God’s grace & mercy
  • The suffering inherent
    in the world is the outcome of sin, which is disobedience towards God's
    commandments. Because Adam sinned, all his creation is afflicted with
    Original Sin. Man is too weak to free himself from sin by his own strength.
    Through Christ's sacrificial death all men can become free from the
    power of sin, by divine grace through his faith in Christ.
Eternal
Life & Salvation
  • Ignorance is the
    roadblock to salvation
  • Salvation = Nirvana
    (release from reincarnations and to arrive at the other shore as Buddha)
  • Buddhism believes
    in reincarnation in body, not in soul. Every morally good or evil act
    results in definite effects. The deeds performed in the passed life
    become the cause of a new and separate being's birth. The newly born
    is different from the being that had died, but it takes over the latter's
    inheritance.

 
 
 
 
 
 

 

  • Since any act can
    have only a retribution of limited duration, Buddhists do not believe
    in eternal bliss in heaven or eternal torments in hell, but believe
    that the inhabitants of heaven and hell are later reborn again on earth.
  • Sin is the roadblock
    to salvation
  • Salvation = eternal
    life with God in heaven

 
 

  • The soul continues
    after the dissolution of the body at death. At the end of time, God
    will cause a resurrection of all the bodies of both the believers and
    unbelievers, and unite again the souls with their former bodies. For
    the believers, resurrection is not simply a physical resuscitation,
    but their old bodies will be transformed to be like Christ’s glorious
    body (Phi. 3:20-21).1 All humans will then be judged by God.
    The believers will receive from God the rewards of their deeds in heaven,
    whereas the unbelievers their retribution in hell (Jn. 5:28-29, 2 Cor.
    5:10)
  • Either heaven or
    hell for eternity

 

Resources:

http://biblia.com/theology/buddhism7.htm - Differences between Buddhism &
Christianity 

http://www.christiananswers.net/evangelism/beliefs/ Questions & Answers and a biblical
perspective to various religions.