OK, this is my first post in this forum, but I am looking into world religions lately, and would like to get some informed takes from informed people on this.

From what I have read and know, the Eastern world religions (ex. Hinduism, Buddhism, Taoism, etc...) seem to be much more based in logic than the Western religions such as Christianity, Judaism, etc...

From what I understand of the Eastern world religions, they seem to preach to find your internal happiness, and that you will be rewarded by god or the gods if you are a good person in life. This is in contrast to the Western religions that seem to be much more controlling in a social aspect. They seem to preach that you must be absent of sin, and if you do commit specific sins, you must repent. I have limited information as of right now, so some responses from informed people would be appreciated.

i've been in both directions, i could write up something more detailed later, once i'm off work or it finally dies down.

this is just a fair warning to you man, expect a long read.

Western religions are focused on finding peace with the world through a relationship with God, and Buddhism (the only eastern religion I know extensively) is focused on finding peace with the world through an understanding your own mind.




Buddhism does not speak exactly of reward, but of karma. If you live a morally good life (by Buddhist standards) you will be reborn as a human, or even as a rich human. If you do bad, you will be reborn as a lower life-form (or even in hell, depending on which form of Buddhism). But gods don't control karma or hand out its results.


Interesting note: just like the Bible says it is harder to pass a camel through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to get into heaven, I have read Buddhist writings talking about rich men and karma. Basically the idea was that if you have lived a superb life you will be reborn as a rich man, but as a rich man you will find in nearly impossible to live a good life, and will be reborn as a goat or something. Gautama Buddha himself was born wealthy though.....but he eventually gave up every material thing he had, ALMOST including his own body.

OK, I guess I don't get the rich man thing personally. Why should you be punished for being rich? I guess they would feel that you are too wrapped up with material possessions, but I guess I just don't feel like that has any effect on whether or not you are a good person.

Hanguk, I look forward to it.

I know Christianity better, but not Buddhism so I won't try and explain Buddhism.

I don't think being rich is condemning you to "hell." I just think it's being reasonably realistic when Jesus said that the rich will have trouble being good people/giving everything up for God. Rich people have the most to lose, so accepting an idea/faith/belief system that being rich doesn't make you better/more important is far more difficult to accept for them.

And I'm not saying that rich people go around telling others how superior they are. But most, not all, do believe it to a degree. It isn't hard to see it either. All you really have to do to see it is open your eyes (metaphorically).

Buddhism is the same way. Like I said, Buddha himself was born wealthy. But the point is that wealthy and powerful people don't often live up to the Buddhist moral codes/ways of thinking.

I suspected it was similar, but I wouldn't dare try and speak for Buddhists without having much knowledge on their beliefs, so thanks for clarifying.