In the teaching of the early religions leaders Jesus, Mohammad, Confucius and Prince Gautama, there are similarities and differences. It is the purpose of this essay to compare and contrast the teachings on the topics of salvation, virtue and goodness, sin, social responsibility, and the afterlife.
Buddha (Prince Gautama) taught that followers of his path would reach nirvana, or a complete release from the sufferings of worldly existence through a process of constant rebirth into various life forms (Greaves et al, 1997, p.172). This belief is popularly called reincarnation. Salvation and the afterlife are provided for through the endless process of reabsorption and rebirth. Jesus taught that there was forgiveness, salvation, and life after death in the kingdom of heaven. In Christianity, those who do not believe are condemned to a fire and brimstone type of hell after death, and those who do believe have a "heaven of blissful existence for the saved" (Greaves at al, 1997, p.375).
Confucius, roughly a contemporary of Buddha, taught more in the vein of philosophy than religion, but his teachings more or less became a religion. On salvation and the question of an afterlife, Confucius taught a deep respect for ancestors (Reilly, 2000, p.221). He thought that life on earth was important and that people should learn about the living before worrying about the dead. At the same time he believed in the sky-spirits above and the earth-spirits below. Islam has somewhat of a different view of death, that it can be very honorable if given in the name of Allah (Beevers, 2002, p.2). Early Muslims viewed death as a "divinely determined act, executed by an Angel of Death or other messengers of Allah" (Reilly, 2002, p.375). It was seen as something like sleep, although is one was not a believer, there would be some kind of agony in connection with death and the afterlife.
Buddha taught that virtue and goodness came through followin...