Christian vs. Chinese

Basic Beliefs

Chinese

• Taoism, Confucianism, and Buddhism
• Three rivers of thought
• Yin and yang

Yin and yang

• The push and pull of the universe
• Dark and light
• Preserves all being and life
• Not seen as Gods-natural forces within nature
• From which everything was created

Christianity

• God created the universe and everything in it
• Holy Trinity- God, son, and Holy Spirit

Jesus

• God's only son
• Came to earth to teach God's will
• Died on the cross to save the sins of humanity
• Will return to gather his people

Common ground

• Believe in morals and goodness
• Care for the Earth

Creation Story

Chinese

• Two strong forces came
• P'an Ku shaped the Earth-took thousands of years
• Died and became the sacred mountains
• Hair-plants, blood-river, sweat-rain, 
• Parasites of the body- human beings

The Chinese creation story emphasizes the importance of caring for the land

Christian

• God spoke
• Adam was made in God's image
• God realized that Adam was alone
• Crafted Eve from one of Adam's ribs 
• God worked for 6 days- rested on the seventh

The evil One

• Adam and Eve-do not eat from the Tree of Knowledge
• Evil one appeared to them in the form of a snake
• The snake tempted them to eat from the tree
• They ate-realized that they were naked
• God cursed them and banished them from the garden

The Christian creation story is an example of how the evil one can tempt human beings

Common Ground

• Earth was formless
• Man-directly or indirectly created from the Earth

literary structure

Chinese

• "...that chaos was like a mist and full of emptiness."-simile
• "So there was the Earth, floating like a jellyfish on water."-simile
• "But the Earth was just a ball without features."-metaphor
• "...yang like a dragon-hot, fiery, male, full of energy."-simile
• "...yin as a cloud-moist, cool, female, drifting slowly."-simile        

Christian

• Repetition- "God saw that it was good."
• Parallelism- "On the __ day..."
• ^Sentences started in the same way
• ^to make simple/emphasize

Common Ground

• A lot of the language focused on opposites

works cited

• "Christian Creation Story." Christian Creation Story. N.p., n.d. Web. 16 June 2014.
• "Chinese Creation Story." Chinese Creation Story. N.p., n.d. Web. 19 June 2014