Buddhism vs Christianity

This is an “on-balance” discussion that compares the eastern asian religion of Buddhism and the western religion Christianity. I am representing buddhism, Con shall support and defend christianity. Both sides share two goals.:

If neither side meets their burden, then whoever provides more evidence makes the more compelling case and therefore wins. 

Now I shall make two defensive core arguments, and two aggressive.:

The first one is that buddhism offers the solution which is the ultimate goal of life, and the second contention is that the supernatural forces and stories are very plausible.

Third contention is that christianity perpetuates suffering, and my fourth contention is that christianity’s teachings are partly inspired by buddhism.

As relevant as it is for us to clash the weight and transgressions of the teachings, so too is it equally important to discuss the founders. 

The Father of Buddhism is Siddhartha Guatama. He was the prince and son of a warrior-king, and being born a royal caused him to live a life of pleasure and indulgence. Despite yielding to these desires, Siddhartha was unsatisfied with the current lifestyle he was leading, so this led him to abandon his lifestyle of privilege and travel in search of wisdom.

It was through his experiences that he learned that suffering exists and that suffering is inevitable. But through meditating, he discovered how to free himself from suffering, and so it was that he gave up the responsibilities of his royal duties and renounced his title of prince to become a monk. Siddhartha would continue to spread his teachings to others in India.

While buddhism doesn’t provide answers to every issue, the four noble truths are among the basic tenets of buddhism. Of which I intend to use this fourth round to explain the basics and fundamentals. These are what they are.:

Buddhism identifies two different kinds of suffering.: Physical and mental. 

Aging, sickness, and death are recognized as inevitable, and the pursuit of pleasure is temporary. The first truth is about identifying and acknowledging that there is suffering, the second is about identifying the reason, the third is that recognizing the end of suffering is accomplished through achieving nirvana which is the what, and the fourth is the way in how to achieve nirvana AKA The Eightfold Path.

The rules for the eightfold path are right understanding, right thought, right speech, right action, right livelihood, right effort, right mindfulness, and right concentration. Following this course is thought to yield a positive karmic balance, diverting from it of course would lead to a negative karmic balance. Engaging in neutral karma likewise has no rewards or consequences. 

There are six realms that are determined by the karmic balance, which are divided in two categories: Positive and negative.

Every religion other than Christianity is either atheist, has hypocrite gods who claim to be benevolent while they watch humans suffer, or has gods that admit they don't care about us. The Christian God makes us suffer sure, but he actually came down and suffered FOR US unlike any other God. The Christian God in doing so proved that he has unconditional, self-sacrificial love and that he was willing to put his money where his mouth is in terms of human suffering.

Buddhism has a system of "karma" but no God that determines what brings good or bad karma. It's kind of weird for reality to be governed by morality when there is no source for that morality and this alone debunks buddhism if it can't be adequately addressed.

The end result of Buddhism and Christianity is more or less the same except for a key difference. In essence both are saying "you are born into a world of suffering but if you follow our religion you go to a perfect place with no suffering when you die and if you don't you go to an even worse place". Sure, in Buddhism there are extra worlds between humans and hell but if you do bad enough you still end up in hell. The really important difference though is that Nirvana is a vague, mindless state of bliss and heaven is an actual kingdom where you live a life and don't just float in a state of emptiness. I have trouble getting behind a religion where the ultimate goal is floating all alone in vague, impersonal, nihilistic emptiness instead of one where you experience the infinite greatness of God and live forever in perfect harmony with your brothers and sisters in heaven.

There is actual evidence of the supernatural in Christianity, can Buddhists say the same? We have:

1: Shroud of Turin

2: eucharistic miracles

Those are just the main ones. We have the alleged burial cloth of Jesus Christ which no one has been able to prove as a hoax and we have communion wafers that literally start bleeding and growing cardiac tissue which have been confirmed in laboratories.

Christianity has done the complete opposite overall, unless you cherry pick specific instances where INDIVIDUALS did bad things and blame it on Christianity as a whole. Christian churches have done way more good than harm, including more charitable work than any other type of institution in history and literally inventing the modern hospital system.

You could argue that because hell lasts forever in Christianity, it quite literally "perpetuates" suffering in that way sure. Lets face the facts though, there are people who literally deserve to burn forever and don't deserve a second chance. The fact that Buddhism allows Hitler to go to Nirvana eventually is a flaw, not an up side.