FLO 029 - Monks In Wat Pho
"Buddha" is a title that means "The awakened one". Buddha's real name was Siddhartha Gautama and came from a Hindu family.
The major difference between the two religions is that Hinduism is clearly a theistic religion, whereas Buddhism is mostly non-theistic. This means Buddhism is basically about Buddha's teachings, which aim towards reaching an enlighted life through humane thinking and acting, self-control and meditation.
Theravada Buddhism - or Southern Buddhism - is the most orthodox branch of Buddhism, claimed to be the closest to the original teachings. It is the main religion on the Indochinese Peninsula and Sri Lanka.
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Buddhism might possibly be the "most peaceful" religous philosophy. With modernity the western world seem to have overcome the dogmatic rule of the christian church. The idea was only to separate church from state, but the paradigm shift was so intense that western people not only have disillusioned with the Church itself, but basically gave up on the whole idea of God as a universal source of everything and became believers of matter, science and self. As Nietzsche morously stated: “God is dead. God remains dead. And we have killed him...".
If we look around the world today, we see where it leads us if we don't have any source of superior wisdom and morale at all. Science, matter and self are all important components of our universe but apparently way far from being enough for us to govern our own planet. On the other hand societies that are and were lead blindfolded by dogmatic religion certainly oppress individuals on many levels.
Morale and humanist goodwill can come from many sources: religious faith; philosophy; learnt discipline; altruism; even from sound scientific belief of a meaningful materialistic universe or from a clear self-conscience.
If you happen to be a path-seeker of morale and wisdom - someone of religious and philosophical disposition who believes "killing God" was a mistake, Buddhism well might teach you a thing or two. An ancient philosophy of peace and harmony between man and nature that explores the human soul and mind in order to make us noble governors of our planet and worthwhile creatures to the Universe.