Comparison between Christianity and Islam (Essay Sample)

Religion Name Institutional Affiliation Christianity It is the world's largest religion and is based on teachings of the New Testament, after the birth of Jesus. One of the main beliefs of this religion is Jesus Christ, who according to them is the son of God (Eliot, 2014) He came to earth and lived among the people, preaching to them about the beliefs and practices that they were supposed to have adopted. Christians also belief that the main r5eaoisn he came to earth was so as to die for their sins. When he was crucified, all the sins of mankind were forgiven by God the father and everyone was to start afresh. They also belief that after his death, he resurrected and rose to heaven where he dwells with his father. They belief that he will be back again to judge them according to how well they have followed his teachings since he left. Those that will be found on the right side will dwell in heaven with God while the sinners will burn in hell. Although the birth, life and death of Jesus were predicted in the Old Testament, most of the teachings by which Christians live are found in the New Testament. There are some aspects of the Old Testament that were dismissed and revised in the New Testament (Eliot, 2014). These teachings are referred to as the gospel. The religion first came into existence in Judea and slowly spread to the rest of the world. It has had a lot of influence in the western culture in the earlier years. The religion began as a single unit, but over centuries, several denominations began to come about. Most of these were as a result of disagreements on some aspects of the religion that led people to have their own factions. The first major Christian church was catholic, but after disagreements with the hard stance of Catholicism, many churches began to crop up, earning the general title of ‘Protestants' (Eliot, 2014). Islam The second largest religion the world, Islam lives on the teachings that are provided in the Quran, which is the sole reference for Muslims (Leaman, 2013). They believe that God is only one and cannot be compared to anyone and anything, and the only reason man was created was so that he could serve God. Muslims believe that Islam is the true religion and that its revelation existed a long time before Christianity. Some of the main people in the Bible are said to have been the ones sent with the message of Islam. They include Moses, Abraham, Noah, Adam and even Jesus, who to them, is just another of God's prophets. They thus believe that the reason other religions exist with different beliefs is that there was a lot of message misinterpretations that took place over a long time. The five pillars of Islam are a list of commandments that all Muslims are expected to live by. These often given guidance on how they would carry out themselves in many aspects of their day to day live such as in family, worship, banking and general relationships with the environment (Leaman, 2013). Muslims believe that God is only one and that all people should worship him. He is also the one who brought into existence all that is one earth, an action he carried out only by ordering it to be. Muslims also believe in the existence of angels. These are creatures that were brought into being by God and serve the purpose of worshipping and obeying him, just like humans. They have additional roles of communicating messages from God to humans and recording all the actions of humans, which shall be the point of reference on the Day of Judgment. Comparison Although Christians and Muslims do not agree on certain facts, there are many similarities that exist between the two religions. For starters, they both believe that there is only one God and that he is supreme to all living things. Both religions also give respect God and acknowledge that humans were created so that they worship him. Both religions believe in the existence of special people whom God used to communicate with the ordinary humans. The main difference comes in the one they see as the main one. For the Muslims, it is prophet Mohamed, who was the main prophet to whom God entrusted a lot of things. In the Christian faith, God used his one and only son, Jesus Christ, to save the human kind. Jesus is also mentioned in Islam, but he is just one of the prophets as has been explained earlier. To them he is not the son of God. The main similarity between these two religions and the Greek philosophical tradition is that all of them have certain theories that try to explain human existence and what happens after they die. Islam and Christianity believe in God and that he is the one who will determine who will have done right or wr...