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MAJOR WORLD
RELIGIONS
World History
World
Religions
Social Studies
Geography
A LOOK AT THE NUMBERS
PIE CHART
RELIGIONS BY FOLLOWERS
Christianity
Islam
Hinduism
Buddhism
Sikhism
CHRISTIANITY
 Roughly 2,120,900,550
followers
 Monotheistic
 God is three persons
 Bible- main teachings
BRANCHES










Roman Catholic
Eastern Orthodox
Protestant
Anglican
Amish
Baptist
Lutheran
Presbyterian
Quaker
Seventh-Day Adventists
MAJOR HOLIDAYS
 Christmas – Celebrations of Jesus, their messiah’s birthday.
On December 25
 Easter – Celebration of Jesus, their messiah’s resurrection
from the dead which their religion is based around.
LIFE STYLE
 Very normal lifestyle, family life is encouraged.
 Charity and good deeds are expected from followers
 Followers may sometimes be religious sisters and brothers.
ISLAM
 About 1 ,280,780,150 followers
 Monotheistic
 Based on revelations of their
prophet Muhammad.
 Founded in Mecca Saudi Arabia in
622 CE
 Sacred text is the Qur’an(Koran)
 “There is no God but God, and
Muhammad is his Prophet.”
MAJOR PILLARS





Faith
Prayer
Fasting
Pilgrimage
And Alms
 One day everyone will be
judged and go to either
Paradise or Hell.
HOLIDAYS
 Ramadan: month long
 Eid ul-Fitr: festival of
breaking fast
 Eid al Adha: festival of
sacrifice
SOME BELIEFS
 There prophet Muhammad they do not believe to be divine.
 There life goal is to submit to the will of Allah and make it
into the afterlife.
AFTERLIFE
 The soul continues on when
the body dies.
 There is a final judgment
that decides between
Paradise and hell
 There will be a resurrection
and day of judgment
HINDUISM
 Approximately 860,690,890
followers
 Has no single founder, Scripture,
and no commonly agreed set of
teachings.
 Elements of it stretch back
Many thousands of years.
 80% of Indian population
Identify themselves as
Hindu.
 Supreme god whose qualities
and forms are represented by the
multitude of deities.
BELIEFS
 Existence is the cycle of birth, death,
and rebirth governed by Karma.
 The soul passes through a cycle of
successive lives and its next
incarnation is dependent on how the
previous life was lived.
 Believe in complete freedom of belief
and
worship.
 Main texts are the four Vedas and
their
supplements.
 Veda is a Sanskrit word meaning
knowledge.
 Contain dharma which means
code of conduct, law, or duty.
DEITIES
 Brahman- supreme god
 Trimurti:
 Brahma- creator of the universe
 Vishnu- preserver of the universe
 Shiva- destroyer of universe to be re-created
 Triumvirate consorts are Saraswati, Lakshima, and Paravati
 Other gods: Ganesh, Murugan, Krishna
 Other goddesses: Durga, Kali, Radha
HISTORY
 Earliest evidence of religion in
India dates back to the late
Neolithic in the early Harappan
period (5500–2600 BCE).
 Beliefs and practices of the preclassical era (1500–500 BCE) are
called the “Historical Vedic
Religion.”
 Fire-sacrifices, called yajña are
performed, but no temples or
idols are known.
 ‘Hindu’ is derived (through
Persian) from the Sanskrit word
Sindhu, the name for the Indus
River which is first mentioned in
the Rig Veda.
DEFINITION
 Does not have a declaration of faith or a creed.
 Is an umbrella term comprising of and based of the Vedic
traditions.
 This makes it dif ficult to define it as a religion according to
traditional Western conceptions.
 Hinduism is a traditional way of life to its followers.
 The World’s oldest, most complex, and most diverse religion
 Some Hindus are even atheists
BUDDHISM
 Around 381 ,610,980
followers
 Also a philosophy
 Founded by Siddhartha
Guatama
 Buddha- comes from
budhi which means
“To awaken”
 Son of an Indian
warrior-king
 Became a monk
BELIEFS
 Four Truths
 Life is suffering
 Craving and aversion cause suffering
 It is possible to end suffering
 Being moral is the path that leads to the
end of suffering
 Cycle of rebirth is based on Karma
 Fortunate Realms- Demigods, Gods, Men
 Unfortunate Realms- Animals, Ghosts, Hell
 Man is the highest realm because it of fers
Nirvana or enlightenment.
BRANCHES
 Two Main Branches:
 Theravada- "The School of the Elders“
 widespread following in Sri Lanka and Southeast Asia (Cambodia, Laos,
Thailand, Myanmar etc.)
 Mahayana- "The Great Vehicle“
 found throughout East Asia (China, Korea, Japan, Vietnam, Singapore, Taiwan
etc.)
 Vajrayana
 Also recognized as a part of Mahayana
 practiced mainly in Tibet and Mongolia, and adjacent parts of China and
Russia
*Buddhism recognized as the fastest growing religions in the world
THE THREE JEWELS




The Buddha
The Dharma (the teachings)
The Sangha (the community)
Taking "refuge in the triple gem" has traditionally been a
declaration and commitment to being on the Buddhist path,
and, in general, distinguishes a Buddhist from a non-Buddhist.
SIKHISM
Around 25,140,910
followers
Not very well
known
Most people would
think that Judaism
is more popular but
it’s about
10,000,000
followers short.
BELIEFS
 One god that can’t be in
the form of a human
 Goal in life is to be with
God
 Cardinal vices (or sins) are:





Kam (lust)
Krodh (anger)
Lobh (greed)
Moh (worldly attachment)
Ahankar (pride)
THINGS TO REJECT
 Fasting
 Religious
vegetarianism
 Pilgrimages
 Superstitions
 Worship of idols
TEACHINGS
 Celibacy is not needed for Eternal Life
 The Guru Ganth Sahib is their holy book
 Deny distinctions like gender or race
WILL CHRISTIANITY REMAIN?
Some people
believe that
Christianity will
continue to the
hold the majority in
world religions.
While looking at
the map on your
right, this would
seem to be true.
JUDAISM
 About est. 13.5 million
followers world wide,
mostly in Israel, the
United States, and Russia
 Founded by Abraham
around 2000 BCE in
Israel
 1 st known monotheistic
religion in the world
 Jews have a covenant or
agreement with god
created by Abraham
JUDAISM
Moses leads the Jews out of slavery
Delivers the Ten Commandments
The most sacred writing in Judaism
is the Torah (first 5 books of the
Bible)
The Talmud contains the oral
traditions of Jewish law in written
form
WHAT’S NEXT?
 Some believe that all
major world religions
will merge into one
super religion.
 Others believe that the
current trend will be to
Atheism.
 Religion has been
around for over 5,000
years and during all of
human civilization. If
Atheism were one day
to reign supreme, it
would likely not occur
for thousands of year s.
 What do you think?
MAJOR WORLD
RELIGIONS
World History
World
Religions
Social Studies
Geography