IS BUDDHISM A RELIGION? Buddhism is one of the world’s largest major religions with an estimated 360 million followers all over the world (Adherents‚ 2008). Its main focus is the reflection of human suffering and how to overcome it; an experience that all of humanity share. However‚ there is an argument being made that Buddhism is not a religion because it does not worship or even recognize the actuality of a deity. But religion is not the practice of worshipping a god but rather it is a way of
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Religion is the people’s beliefs and opinions concerning the existence‚ nature‚ and worship of a deity or deities‚ and divine involvement in the universe and human life. This is my definition of religion before I started this class. On the first day of the class‚ a young man walked inside the class room. He has dark hair‚ facial hair‚ not really tall but good looking. I thought he was one of our classmates until he introduce himself as our professor. My jaw dropped and was at awe. I was expecting
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Buddhism is a religion that focuses on ones’ spiritual connections and paths that may come from this. They focus purely on the nature of living and their goal is to do this in the most humane way. Abortion is a medical issue that is widely known. It is defined as being the deliberate termination of a human pregnancy and it is most often performed within the first 28 weeks. It can be hypothesised that the extent at which Buddhism’s ethical imperatives enable a dynamic moral balance for adherents when
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Buddhism is a nontheistic religion. It was founded in India in the 5th-6th centuries B.C.E. by Gautama Buddha. He was also called Shakyamuni. Gautama was very much familiar with this philosophy of Upanishads‚ because Indians practiced a Basic Religion as we know Hinduism. They worshipped many gods and goddesses. After his awakening‚ he established a philosophy of reality had a great impact on his teaching based on the Upanishads. In this paper‚ there will be the explanation of how Buddhism has
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all of my friends never knew what Buddhism was. Even I barely knew what Buddhism was. All I knew and all they knew was Buddha seemed to look like based off my necklace. This always left the question in my head: What exactly is Buddhism? I began asking my family members what Buddhism was really about and they all responded that Buddhism was a religion. Later to find out is that they never really knew what Buddhism was‚ they were just told that is was a religion and just went along with it for the
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REL 2011 MIDTERM EXAM Essay 1 Buddhism is essentially an atheistic religion. And yet it is one of the major religions in the world today. How can Buddhism be used to illustrate Durkheim’s and Geertz’s point that religion is really not about “God‚” but about “us‚” that is‚ about human society and culture. In order words‚ in what sense would it be true to say that religion will not go away or disappear (as the radical Enlightenment and Marx believed
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World Religions 101 Dr. Sushil Mittal March 3rd‚ 2015 Reflection of Buddhism While learning about Buddhism‚ I have learned that is more complex than I thought‚ as it suggests that they do not really have a God as such. Through the help of the textbooks “The World’s Religions” by Huston Smith and “Religions of South Asia” by Sushil Mittal and Gene Thursby‚ and thanks to the teacher’s explanations that helped me be on the same wavelength‚ leading me into the path of understanding Buddhism; a religion
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Buddhism Religion and Afterlife The idea of death and the afterlife is a topic that everyone can relate to. Whether one has a bigger belief towards western religion‚ eastern religion‚ or no religion at all (atheism)‚ the idea of life after death exists in the minds of many. All the major world religions teach that life continues after death. As for my religion‚ Christianity; the beliefs can be generally classified as a linear‚ whereas the faith traditions such as Buddhism and a few others can
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Buddhist ethical teachings on the expression of Buddhism as a living religious tradition. Ethical teachings have long been the ongoing guidance and discipline for all humanity. Ethics can be defined as a system of moral principles dealing with values relating to human conduct‚ with respect to the rightness and wrongness of certain actions. The impact of Buddhist ethical teachings has been extremely effective throughout the world of adherents. Buddhism exists as living religious tradition and continues
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On Sunday October 24‚ 2010‚ I attended a Buddhist service at the Buddhist Church of Florin. The service was held at 10:00 a.m. and it lasted for about an hour. The morning service began with the ringing of the kansho. The reverend and his assistant entered bowing to the area where the Amida Buddha Statue was and they placed fruits and flowers in the table that was in front of the statue. They chanted a nembutsu‚ “Namo Amida Butsu”‚ which means “I rely upon Amida Buddha”. This was followed by
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