12 Major World Religions: The Beliefs, Rituals, and Traditions of Humanity’s Most Influential Faiths
It is the last Sunday of the month, so it’s time to look at religion again, making this weeks book 12 Major World Religions: The Beliefs, Rituals, and Traditions of Humanity’s Most Influential Faiths by Jason Boyett. So let’s do this.
First off...THIS is exactly the sort of primer I was looking for on world’s religions. Last months general topic book left me...ambiguous….about my intended field of study, if you will. This one made me excited to see what I could learn.
It is EXACTLY as advertised. It is a brief overview of the 12 major religions that have shaped the planet earth we live in, plus 3 bonus religious overviews that were sort of the precursors to western civilization. What does that mean?
Well, he starts with overviews of Ancient Egyptian religious practices, Ancient Greek practices, and Norse practices, calling these the foundations. Which...is sort of fair? Like, from Mesopotamia, you can follow the progression of humanity and religion across Egypt and then north into Greece and up into Europe. And each of these religions are fascinating in their own right, but they are, neo-paganism aside, NOT active religions.
And yes...anyone worshiping Egyptian, Greek, or Norse pantheons is engaging in Neo-Paganism. There is no unbroken lineage of witches going back to the Eleusinian fields. Or rather, there is no smoking gun that definitively proves it. Kind of like all the people out there who are 1/16th Cherokee, only to be deeply disappointed with their 23 and Me results.
So, with Egypt, Greece, and Scandinavia, the chapters all followed the same basic outline, going over the creation myth, major deities, how practice was carried out, death and afterlife, and how these religions ended. Christianity. Christianity killed each of them.
From there, he goes into the 12, based on most practiced to least practiced. So in order, we cover Christianity, Islam, Hinduism, Buddhism, Sikhism, Taoism, Judaism, Confucianism, Baha’i, Shinto, Jainism, Zoroastrianism. And includes an INCREDIBLY useful chart:
Useful Chart
Which includes base statistics and more than anything helped me realize the scope of the task I have assigned myself. Like...my reading list the next two months have bought me a little time to figure this out and how I want to do this. Because there are 66 books in the bible, old and new testaments. Which means, covering one book a month for JUST the bible, would take me more than 5 years. And that’s not even taking into account the literally thousands of literary contributions of the over 20,000 sects and subdivisions of Christianity. TWENTY----THOUSAND! So, clearly I will not be reviewing all the Christian subdivisions.
Each chapter started with a brief...and I mean, one page brief….overview of the religion under discussion, followed with a, again very brief, timeline of key events within that religion. Each chapter has a quick facts, which tells you the percentage of the worlds population that practices that religion, both in percentage and numbers, so for example, 29% of the world practices Christianity, which Is 2.2 billion people. A regional distribution is provided, how many in Europe, America, Latin America, Africa. Largest branch, which is Catholicism, when it began, and what is the primary text. A little bit of the culture that birthed the religion is discussed, before going into the major figures of the religion, which will include the founding prophet, in the cases of Christianity, Judaism, Islam, Bahai’, Buddhism, Confucianism...basically who started it. The only one without a grand founder is Shinto, which was basically always there.
The major tenets of the religion are discussed, what is their creation myth, primary deity or deities, scriptures, ethics, general beliefs. Major texts include not just the scripture that each uses as a foundational text, but, again, literary contributions from those who practice the faith. How is each religion practiced? What are considered sacraments, what are the major subdivisions. Yes, there are 20k+ versions of Christianity, but broadly, how are those broken down? What are the festivals and holy days of the religion? And what might the future look like for those who practice this faith?
And all the chapters follow this format. Which was incredibly helpful as an overview. All chapters include side bars with information that is specific to a religion, like the chapter on Judaism explains how Judaism is not, historically, ALWAYS the underdog. In the sidebar titled “In the Name of the Lord” he includes the historical tidbit that “God promised the land of Canaan to the people of Israel, but the territory was occupied by others at the time, and God commanded the mass slaughter of these men, women, and children.” And this was thousands of years ago and the Jews way back when were cool with it because those Canaanites were pagans. Polytheists, not worshippers on the One God. But Boyett points out that this act, sort of set the stage for 3,000 years of violence in Israel.
Of the 12 religions in this book, the two I had NOT heard of were Baha’i and Jainism. Baha’i is a 19th century breakaway religion from Islam. And the founders of this faith were executed for apostasy. And to basically no ones surprise, the largest temple for Baha’i is located in Illinois. Because...religious freedom.
Jainism is a spinoff from Hindu/Buddhism which takes non-violence to an interesting extreme. Not just strict vegetarians, practitioners will were masks to ensure they don’t accidentally inhale small bugs. They don’t do woodworking, or stone working, or basically any manual labor because it could cause them to do violence against another living thing. So how do they live? Well, here’s the irony. This is an EXTREMELY ascetic religion. Like, the faithful, when they move into retirement or monastic life or whatever the Jain version is, don’t even use dinner ware, only eating what they can hold in their hands. But BEFORE they reach this point, Jains tend to be among the very wealthiest among the Indian population. Because if you can’t work with your hands or do any kind of law enforcement or military service due to the non-violence of your religius beliefs, that pretty much leaves financier and banking as your only career options.
The other thing that was surprising to me was Zoroastrianism. Not that I hadn’t heard of it, I had and even knew some of the absolute basics of it. I was more surprised by two things. First off, there’s actually some controversy as to which came first, Zoroaster or Judaism. I just always assumed Zoroaster, as he’s called in Greek, or Zarathustra, as was his actual name, came first. Why? Well, Zoroaster, much like Judaism, is a monotheistic religion. But it’s a fairly straightforward philosophy, which can be summed up as do good things, think good thoughts, say good words. Good thoughts, good words, good deeds. Judaism is considerably more complex. Generally speaking...simple to complex is the building process. Dummy it down comes down as humanities attention span has whittled itself down to that of the average fruit fly.
So I was surprised that people think Judaism came first. But….on the other hand...we really don’t KNOW when Zarathustra lived. So, its certainly possible. It’s also possible, that the two religions developed at about the same time, but separate from each other. Kind of like how people in China and England and Peru all figured out spinning, weaving, and sewing, without having had contact with each other. Ideas can appear to more than one person and/or culture at a time. It’s only in the 21st century that people get super pissy about being first.
The second thing that really surprised me about Zoroastrianism is that there’s really only two famous Zoroastrians. I mean...There’s hundreds of Christian Saints, dozens of important imams and rabbis, major leaders in Confucian thought and Buddhist non-violence. But Zoroastrianism has TWO. There’s Zarathustra himself. And Freddie Mercury. Yep...Farrokh Bulsara...aka Freddie Mercury...aka lead singer of Queen...was Zoroastrian. Not sure how devout he was, but he definitely contributed great beauty to the world via his incredible singing.
So, as you can see, I have my work cut out for me. There’s a lot to learn on the matter of religion. And that’s just ACTIVE religions. That’s not including like, world myths and how they shaped culture and then later religions. I’m leaning towards doing one small religious reading per week on like Wednesday. But I’m not sure yet. I do think I should read the various religious texts, but I don’t want to read, for example the whole bible, then try and give the brief synopsis like I do with my usual reviews. But, like I said, I have a few more months. Next month I’m reading about the Indian side of the Cowboys and Indians equation of history, including a book about the Native American Church. Then in October I’m reading a book about modern Wicca, because while it’s not an old, continuously practiced religion and is absolutely neo-paganism, it’s….sort of witchy. I mean, it’s an organized religion. Not necessarily witch craft, but witch adjacent.
So I have a few months to figure out how I want to tackle the religious texts, without letting them take over my more enjoyable other reading.
Anyways, this was a great primer. Like, as I buy more books, I tend to take the books I’ve read and reviewed and shove them in the attic against the day I can afford a big beautiful victorian mansion with a dedicated 8000 book library, to make room for more and more books, because books equal happiness, THIS book, will not be shuffled into attic storage. Because I will want to reread the chapter on a given religion before I dive in. Plus, it conveniently compiled for me what religious texts I need to be reading for each religion, as well as what other books would have useful knowledge...yeah, this one will stay out and readily available.
It was eminently readable and included some of the pitfalls and pluses of each religion as it’s discussed in turn.
