The Birth Stories Of Christ And Buddha Research Paper

The Birth Stories Of Christ And Buddha - Research Paper Example The young Gautama was engaged in an excessive consumption and indulgence of sensual pleasures and he gave all these up only in his thirties as he must have gotten tired of temporary and fleeting pleasures. Jesus Christ lived a poor life as a young child and adolescent because his father Joseph was just an ordinary carpenter while the prince Gautama Buddha lived in a palace with all its luxuries and extravagance such that he himself got exhausted with all these pleasures. In the story of Jesus Christ, he forswore all material things in life and made the conscious or deliberate decision to live a life of poverty and humility because he knew early in his life he was destined for a work of proselytizing the unbelievers and pagans at the time. In contrast, Buddha realized his mission in life only much later when he saw an extremely old man and became worried about his own fate when he himself will grow old someday. Jesus Christ preached a gospel of love and brotherhood in order to gain en try to the Heavens through a life of sacrifice, denial, and re-connection with God the Father while the Gautama Buddha preached his teachings based on the so-called "Four Signs" to attain a level of enlightenment that is free from material or bodily desires. Both preached the twin virtues of humility and renunciation of all material things in order to attain eternal bliss in the next life. Christ promised redemption through atonement while Buddha pledged release from material torment through a series of rituals to suppress karma.