Thursday, December 15, 2011

Final paper


How do Islam and Buddhism influence people’s life, and what is the difference between them?

Religion has all kinds of definitions, some of them are the faith and devotion to the gods, or in general, religion is a set of beliefs, and the interpretation to the existence of the universe, each known culture contains more or less religious beliefs, which lay a deep imprint in history at different levels. For example, most of people in Asia believe in Buddhism, but most of people in Africa believe in Islam. Both of them influence people’s life in education, policy, morality, literature and peoples’ views based on their different concepts and rules.

Nowadays, the prosperity of a country depends on the development of education. Society selects talented person through the education degree, and people can change the social status through education. As America's Dewey said:"education is life." It not comes singly but in pairs, British spencer said: "education for future life of preparation." There is no doubt that countries without developed education will remain poor. However, education is more or less influenced by religion for thousands of years until now. I used to have interviewed a Somali people, who believed in Islam. He told me that they had two kinds of school, one was normal school as the schools in U.S. and another was religion school, where they learned their religion, Islam. They also had a school, where they learned the basic knowledge about Islam, it was their former education, and they learned it in early age about 3 years old.

Since they learned the books of Islam so early, it has big influenced in their future views. I have interviewed some of Somali people, who are all Muslim, and all of them are very nice to person, they all have the similar opinions to the life, which are based on the views of Islam. They told me that they followed the teaching of the Islamic book every day, the book of Islam told them to help poor people, to be nice and respect to other people and whether you are rich or not, they are equal. What’s more, they all pray at the same time side by side.
Quran


Due to the peoples’ views are affected by Islam in deeply, they have a set of moral standard, which reflects the relationship between the ethics of people. The Koran, as a religious moral ancient book, teaches people to be good, fair and give to charity. Just as my interviewees’ opinions. In addition, the Koran admits that women have the choice of freedom and rights in marriage, but it is not to say that marriage choice in men and women are both have equal right. No matter what, it still have big impact on policy.

Islamic family law is the foundation of Allah enlightenment. At the beginning of Islam, the traditional Arab society is during the transition from the primitive communes to unified national, so it really needs a new marriage law to restrict the behaviors of family life. In order to establish stable family relationship, the Koran clears: limit polygamy, encourage practice polygamy, and give the essential limit to the men's casual divorces to his wife at that time. In order to improve the status of women, the Koran rules both men and women have the same right to have each part of inheritance. In addition, the Koran also rules many aspects in marriage and family life, which is the foundation of Islamic family law. It benefits for the family and social stability.

       Unlike other religion, Islam does not focus on absolute asceticism, so Muslims are looking for the life of reality, which leads them to praise the real life through literature. The most well know fiction was the book called One Thousand and One Night (Arabian Nights), which was a compilation of many earlier folk tales told by the Persian Queen Scheherazade [1].

       Since Buddhism is widely religion as Islam. Buddhism also influences people’s life in education, peoples’ views, morality, policy and literature. Education is the mainly tool of human growth. Yet nowadays, everywhere, no matter in the developing world or in the developed world, formal education has serious trouble. Classroom instruction has become so routinized that students often consider school as a place to do exercise rather than a place where we can learn some interesting things. Thus many students are attracted by drugs, sexual experimentation and outbursts of senseless violence to run away from the normal routes. In my view, the most important factor in education is the improvement in mind and character. In a Buddhist country like Sri Lanka, the schools’ mainly responsibility is to teach students to concern about the five qualities, which are faith, virtue, generosity, learning and wisdom. Thus Buddhist education aims at a parallel transformation of human character and intelligence, holding both in balance and ensuring that both are brought to fulfillment [2].

       In China, Buddhism has great influence in peoples’ views. For example, the view of life and death, Buddhism thinks that all living, which is not free, is in the life and death circulation: heaven, humanitarian, the asuras, animal, hungry and hell. According to Buddhism, all laws in the world are born in Karma. In Buddhism, karma specifically refers to those bad or good actions (of body, speech, and mind) that will bring about bad or good consequences and results. After Buddhism was introduced into China, it made people believe that it had soul after death; people can ascend to heaven or rebirth to be cattle because of living with the good or evil. Due to the influence by Karma, people not only paid attention to their behaviors, also paid attention to the home of the soul after death.

Budda


       Because people believe in Karma, it is effective for Buddhism to teach people in morality. For instance, Buddhism claims that we need to respect to the old people, and appreciate the kindness of parents. As the Chinese people lay stress on filial piety, they pray to Buddha for their dead relatives’ souls, which became the special characteristics of Chinese Buddhism. The ancients think everything, including society, family and rulers, is based on the filial piety. Buddhism said filial piety not only serve parents to feed, but also follow their willing, more important thing is to make them stop to do evil things, and then taking suffering off them in order to gain happiness. That is to say, Buddhist filial piety expands and enriches the content of the Chinese filial piety, which lays the foundation of Chinese filial piety for thousands years.

Krama


      Generally speaking, Buddhism mainly focuses on understanding the truth of life and universe without confusing. Therefore, Buddhism does not refer to the policy; it does not influence the policy.

       Even if Buddhism has not impact on policy, it has varieties aspects in literature. Specifically, mainly in the following aspects: first, Buddhism promotes the birth of the popular novels; Second, many contents of Chinese novels include Buddhist thought; Third, Buddhism riches the imagination of Chinese novel world; Fourth, Buddhism strengthens the Chinese novel narrative. For example, the Chinese traditional novel called Dream of the Red Chamber, which is based on the Karma. The content of the novel is that: one day, a man saw a dying grass, and then he saved the life of the little grass, so the grass was filled with thankful in its heart. In order to repay the man’s kindness; the grass became a woman and approach to the man.

       Islam and Buddhism are different in concepts and rules. First of all, Buddha is the person who is able to achieve after humans’ efforts. Buddha is more likely to be a mentor who guides them to cultivate their moralities. For the liberation of the monks feel Buddha is a good teacher, helpful friend, and the guide of Buddhahood. Buddha never dominates their fate. But Islam is different, Muslims follow only one god. Islam asks Muslims to keep on praying, and pray god to bless them. Next, according to the religious rules, in the views of Buddhism, the only difference is between teacher and pupil, but they all have the same goal to be Buddha, who is the wisdom person, and everyone is equal that they can share the results of previous people. However, Islam thinks that their clergy is an angel of god, in order to convey the willing of god, the believers are all the servants of Allah. There is only one God; therefore the Lord or Allah is the true God.
      
Religions often have a moral standard to adjust the human own behavior, and Marxism believes that: Religion was first to the sigh and protest of the oppressed, who was suffering in reality, and then be used by the ruling class, and become the thought tools of the oppressed by the ruling class. So some people think religions are trying to control our minds, but are that information the religion really want to tell us? Religions have existed thousands of years, people are constantly trying to understand the real meaning of the religion. However, how many people can really understand the truth behind the holy books? Just as a person fingers month, the point is not on the fingers, but on the month. Anyway, in my view, Positive religions tell people to be good and be full of hopeful, so they give people great influence in good aspects. That is enough for us.

Islam and Buddhism are both popular religions in the world; they have many adherents all over the world, so they both influence people’s life in education, policy, morality, literature and peoples’ views. Even though they have different concepts and rules, in my opinion, they are same, because they both teach people to be honest, respect and have a kind-hearted to others, which I think it is good enough for people to have a better life.



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