Christianity, Judaism, Islam Summary free essay sample

Christianity is centered around an extraordinary amount of fundamental beliefs. These beliefs are all found in the bible; there is only one God (Isaiah 43:10, John 17:3), God is omniscient (Acts 15:18, John 3:20), God is holy (Peter 1:15), God is love, true, spirit (John 4:8, Romans 3:4, John 4:24). Since the Bible makes it abundantly clear that there is only one true God and the multitude of gods created by man are idols, then there is  only  one  acceptable doctrine of God. The deity of Christianity has  always  been identified as three persons in one divine Godhead, as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. The three great Christian creeds explain this. There are many misconceptions on what happens when you die, some say that good people go to heaven and bad people go to hell (what makes you good or bad? ), others believe that immediately after death you go into a state called â€Å"soul sleep†. Based on what the bible says, Christians do not believe in an after-life. They believe that once you die, your soul goes to heaven, and then, if youve accepted Jesus into your heart, you will live on forever in heaven. But if youve denied Christ, you will not be welcomed into his kingdom and will stay in hell for eternity. They believe that Gods kingdom is pure wonder. It has streets made of gold, you will never go hungry, there is no sickness, and all you know of is joy. So rather good people going to heaven and bad going to hell, your final destination is based on whether you accept or deny Christ. The bible is the only book of worship for Christians. Most Christians meet in churches, but recently a new fad has taken over, church in a movie theater. The local leaders of the churches are the priests. Priests conduct masses, confirmations, baptisms, etc. Priests are not the only leaders in the church; there is a whole Christian leadership hierarchy. First is the Pope, then the Cardinals, Bishops, Priests, Deacons, and lastly the Laity. Christians believe that the holy city is Jerusalem because Jesus Christ held the Last Supper, was tried before Pilate, was crucified, and rose victorious from the dead in Jerusalem and its nearby hillsides. There is a large debate on whether Jesus or Paul created the religion of Christianity. Many philosophers have come to the conclusion that Jesus was merely a preacher, telling the Jews that he was the last prophet. Never once in the bible does it state that Jesus had any intentions on creating a religion. Next to Jesus, Paul was the person most responsible for the spread of Christianity. More than any human being, it was Paul who turned a religion full of Jews into a religion made up mostly of non-Jews. He took the story of Jesus on the road for approximately 10,000 miles and wrote over one-fourth of the New Testament. Judaism Some people define the Jewish religion as not having a belief in Jesus as Messiah. However, this is a common misconception. Judaism was around thousands of years before Jesus was born. The Jewish belief is to love HaShem (God) with all your heart, soul and resources (Deut. :4-9). This takes the form of the 613 commandments, all of them listed in the first five books of the Bible, written by Moses, which is called the Torah. Jews show their love and faith to HaShem by obeying him. The deity of Judaism is the one and eternal creator of the universe. There are many titles for God, all of them trying to describe some attribute or attributes, but no real name. The te rm YHVH is a complex construction of the verb to be intended to try to express the eternal and infinite nature of God. It is only pronounced by the High Priest, after very specific rituals. There is very little consensus among Jews on what happens after death. This is mainly because there is very little on the subject in the Torah. Some Jews depict life after death as a return to the dust from which man was created. In Ecclesiastes 3:20 it states that â€Å"All go unto one place; all are of the dust, and all turn to dust again†. The book that contains Jewish prayers and prayer services is called the Siddur. The Siddur is primarily used when worshiping in the synagogue. Rabbis are the ones usually conducing readings and rituals in the synagogue. However, Jews do not worship this book, they merely use it for prayer. The Torah is the book of god. It consists of precepts of the religion and many other things. To be clear, Jews to not worship any book, they explicitly refrain for the worship of physical items. Jerusalem is the center of Judaism. It is important to Jews because it was the site of the Akeidah (Binding of Isaac, in Genesis 22) and was later the seat of the Davidic Kings when King David, Israels greatest king, founded the dynasty that ruled Judah for much of its history. Most importantly, it was the location of the First and Second Temples, where offerings were made to God. There is much controversy over who was the founder of Judaism. Although, a majority of Jews believe that Judaism began with the covenant God made with Abraham, which is talked about in the book of Genesis in the Bible, starting in chapter 17. The different branches of Judaism were founded later by different people, but the religion itself was started with the covenant between God and Abraham. Islam Islam religion is based off of the five pillars; there is one God, The prophet of this God is Muhammed, Prayer (five times daily), almsgiving, and lastly pilgrimage to Mecca. The deity of Islam is known as  Allah  in Arabic, but is not the same as the God of Judaism and Christianity. According to the faith and deeds performed by that person, a different place is fixed for the soul to remain. It stays in that place until the Day of Resurrection. The Islam book of worship is Quran. God revelation of the first verse of Quran to prophet Mohamed, through the Angel Gabriel, was in year 610 AD (when prophet Mohamed was 40 years old). The Quran revelations continued until year 632 (when Prophet Mohamed died). Ilams are the ones that normally conduct prayer services at the mosques. They usually conduct these services on Friday prayer days. The first holy city of Islam is Mecca, the second is Medina, the third is Jerusalem. Mecca is most important because it is where the religion of Islam was originated, in Mecca, Saudi Arabia. Muslims pray five time a day facing Mecca. Islam is not something to be founded or established. Islam is a revelation to people and mankind through prophets and messengers from Allah, the almighty who created this universe and created mankind.