Question

In what way is Buddhism a Religion, reflecting the linguistic root of Religion and not a theological movement?

Book: The Search for God at Harvar

Author: Ari L. Goldman

Answer 1

Note: This response is in UK English, please paste the response to MS Word and you should be able to spot discrepancies easily. You may elaborate the answer based on personal views or your classwork if necessary. Also, the book isn’t available for free online. Therefore, this response is based on general knowledge about these religions.

(Answer) The linguistic root of a religion does not necessarily concern just the language but, also cognate ideas that are common to several religions. It is essential to understand that Hinduism is the oldest religions of the world, followed by Judaism, Jainism, Buddhism, Christianity and Islam, in that order. All of these religions originated in the continent of Asia.

A linguistic root in a religion would be something like Christianity advocating “as you sow, so shall you reap.” While Hinduism would advocate “Karma,” that follows the similar ideology. Similarly, Buddhism also has linguistic roots with major religions.

According to Buddhism, the main cause of human dissatisfaction is ignorance. Furthermore, the Buddhist ideology believes that to attain ‘Nirvana’ or salvation, one must detach themselves from worldly pleasures. Here, salvation is the highest states of happiness and satisfaction that a soul can achieve.

Therefore, satisfaction, we can believe comes from overcoming ignorance. The highest form of satisfaction that is salvation comes from purging worldly pleasures. Accordingly, we can equate the thirst for worldly pleasures to ignorance. When we are ignorant of the needs of our soul, we do not know what brings us true happiness. This is when we seek out happiness and satisfaction in worldly pleasures. The pursuit for worldly pleasures by ignoring the needs of our soul is ‘avidya’.

This is very similar to the ideology of the Bible. Where a Christian is asked not to indulge in worldly pleasures and seek salvation through acceptance of the “cross” (worldly burdens) and asking for God's grace.

According to this theory, an untrained or unrestrained mind will seek worldly pleasures if left unchecked. In the Buddhist ideology, one is to train the mind to seek salvation through the knowledge that comes from giving no importance to worldly pleasures.