Perspectives on Faith:
A Web Site for Inquiry about Religion
Humankind's Major Religions

The major developed religions are listed below in alphabetical order. The links listed are among the best I have found. All have links to additional sites.

There are at least two ways by which the world's major developed religions can be categorized. We first need to note that not all of humanity's religions fall into our broad category of developed religions. The indigenous religions of Africa, Australia, and the Americas (including the native peoples' religions of the United States) comprise a large and extremely diverse category in themselves. These are religions that have not spread beyond their area of origin and do not have written scriptures. For this reason, these communities of faith are sometimes referred to as oral traditions.

Developed religions, on the other hand, have spread--some more and others less--beyond their points of origin. They also have written scriptures and have developed an elaborate sociological structure as they have spread and adapted to a variety of cultural settings. It should be pointed out here that the term developed simply indicates that these religions have undergone considerable differentiation and evolution throughout their history. We should not read into it our typical Western ideas about progress and "more developed is better."

One categorization system, then, is to place the major missionary religions--Buddhism, Christianity, and Islam--in one category, and the non-missionizing religions--Judaism, Hinduism, Jainism, Sikhism, Confucianism, Taoism, and Shinto--in another.

A second categorization is based on geographic area of origin, since the religions that began in the same general geographical area often share similar characteristics that underlie their particularity. Introductory world religions textbooks often employ this method. Done this way, there are three categories: the religions that began in what is now called the Middle East [Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, in historical order, along with Zoroastrianism and Baha'i], the religions whose origin is in India [Hinduism, Buddhism, Jainism, and Sikhism], and the religions that began in Eastern Asia [Confucianism, Taoism, and Shinto].

For a more detailed description of the features of these geographical groupings, please see "A  Brief Tour of Humankind's Religions."
 

Baha'i

Brahma Kumari World Spiritual Organization

Buddhism

Christianity

Confucianism

Hinduism

Islam

Jainism

Japanese New Religions

Judaism

Shinto or The Way of the Gods (Japan)

Sikhism

Taoism

Zoroastrianism
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