Buddhism is very different from Christianity. One teaches that all humans can achieve enlighten, the other that no one can reach heaven without Christ's sacrifice. The first teaches that humans are the highest form of being, while the other says that there is one God that created everything. Yet as different as they are in worldview, Buddhists and Christians practice many of the same behaviors in an attempt to be happy in this life and the next. Both believe they can emulate and teach each other, which bodes well for future religious tolerance and harmony.
Buddhism differs from most other religions, and especially Christianity, in the fact that it does not worship anyone in particular. The original guide, and thus "founder" of Buddhism, was Siddhãrtha Gautama (Robinson). It is unclear when he lived, but historians put it somewhere between the ninth and fifth centuries BCE. Buddha, which means enlightened one, is the title bestowed on him because he reached enlightenment. His followers follow his teachings in order to achieve this same state as quickly and easily as possible. They do not consider Buddha a God, but rather the epitome of what a human can become.
In his experience of enlightenment, Buddha discovered four noble truths.
4. There is a path that ends the suffering (Robinson)
Buddha spent the rest of his life imparting these truths upon his followers and developing a way of life to lead people on the path he had discovered.
Buddha was raised as a Hindu, and Buddhism borrows some of its precepts from Hindu faith. The most obvious is the cycle of rebirth. Hindu's believe in reincarnation, where a person is reborn as the same person in a different form. Buddhists believe that a person is reborn. It is the same soul, but the person is dealt a new set of cards. It is like a tulip that grows from a bulb every year. It is the same source of life, but the flower is different each time. Buddhists also...