Consideration of Faith Diversity when Providing Health Care

Consideration of Faith Diversity when Providing Health Care Name Institution Course Introduction When it comes to health care provision, different groups of people have different systems of belief that ought to be put into consideration. According to Puchalski et al., (2014), health care practitioners like doctors, pharmacists, and nurses ought to be aware of the religious background of their patients. Puchalski et al., (2014) posits that religion and spirituality plays a significant role in a person’s worldview. Worldview refers to a framework of ideas as well as assumptions that people have towards the world and life (Shelly & Miller, 2006). Study after study has revealed that seventy percent of Americans identify themselves as Christians, and on the other hand, 6% of them are non-believers in Christianity (Brown et al., 2013). It is worth noting that out of the six percent who non-Christians; one percent of them are Buddhists. Therefore, for healthcare practitioners to provide proper care to their patients, it would be vital for to understand the worldview of Christianity and Buddhism. Based on the above background, this paper would, therefore, offer an insightful comparison between Christianity and Buddhism. Comparing the Worldview of Christianity and Buddhism When comparing the worldview of these two religions, there seven distinctive questions on a worldview that would provide a clear view of the world through the prism of Christianity and Buddhism (Shelly & Miller, 2006). The first question is about prime reality. From the Christians’ perspective, the prime reality is a Super Natural Being called God (Tan & Castillo, 2014). Christians widely believe that God comes first in their daily duties, and he has to come first in everything. This point of view is grounded on the biblical verse in the book of Colossians 1, that state that God is the head of the body, which in this case is the church: who is the first one to have resurrected (Tan, 2013). Conversely, the Buddhists strongly believe in the idea of Samara, which means that there is an endless existence of lifecycle, death, and even reincarnation (Epstein, 2013). The main objective of Buddhism is for people to be set-free from Samara, to achieve nirvana through practicing and obeying the teachings of their god called Buddha (Jackson &Makransky, 2013). The second question is concerned with the external reality; which is the world around humanity. Christians are of the belief that, God created the universe and everything in it and human beings depend on him for survival. According to the Biblical Book of Genesis 1, God created heaven and earth and everything in it. That Chapter of Genesis, further state that God created human beings in his image and likeness. While, Buddhists widely believe that the material world that exists around people is not real, and for people to free themselves from nirvana (sufferings); they ought to liberate themselves from the physical world and mental connections to the physical world (Jackson &Makransky, 2013). The third question is about understanding the meaning of human beings. The Christian faith teaches that God created human beings in his image and likeness. As Shelly and Miller (2006) argue, God had purposed for human beings to take care and have full authority on the rest of his creation. Based on that reasoning by Shelly and Miller (2006), it is believed that humans were created with a lot of wisdom and knowledge to enable them to care for the ill and less-fortunate people in the society. In comparison to Buddhism faith, there is no single permanent body and soul; as a result, the existence of humans is made of five combined components (khandas): feelings or sensations, physical form, ideations, consciousness, and formations of mental (Epstein, 2013). According to Buddhism, these five components do combine at birth to develop a human being. The fourth question is to do with what happens to humanity upon his or her death. For Christians, what would happen to a person after his or her death highly depends on his or her actions when he or she was still alive; these actions and decisions would determine whether they will be with God or not. In a nutshell, Christians are believers in life after death, as taught in th...