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Comparison and Contrast of the Religions of the West to the Religions of the East

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There are many similarities and differences between the different major religions of the eastern and western hemispheres. Regardless of what your belief is in some ways the religions between the east and west will most certainly be similar and different on certain spiritual ideas. Let us look at the different views on life and death in respect to the western religions such as Judaism, Christianity, and Islam compared to the eastern religions Buddhism and Hinduism. The western outlook on life and death is that you only get one chance or one go around compared to the eastern outlook of reincarnation. In western religions the goal of after life is to for the soul to be released from the body and the the self remains the same self through eternity. In the Eastern religions the goal of after life is to be released from ignorance, and ultimately, loss of self and merger with the Divine. So just on the outlook from the respected religions we can see the differences between them. Now we shall look at some of the similarities between the same religions between the eastern and western hemispheres. We can first look at the nature of reality for all of these religions they believe that there is more to reality than the things of this world. The soul is immortal, deathless, and eternal either merging with god, or living forever in god’s presence. For all of these religions salvation is through strict obedience to god’s will. With all of these religions eastern and western with the exception of buddhism they do believe that their is a supreme deity. All of these religions also believe that to become closer to god or your true spiritual potential that you have to live with good moral conduct because not doing so puts you further away from god’s

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