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Religions of the world: Information about
40 organized religions and faith groups

The symbols of fourteen religions are shown. Clockwise from the North Pole, they are:
Baha'i, Buddhism, Christianity, Confucianism, Hinduism, Islam, Jainism, Judaism, Shinto, Sikhism, Taoism, Wicca, Zoroastrianism, and Druidism.

This graphic was donated to us along with the copyright. We are making it  available free of charge to anyone.

A menu with links to non-theistic beliefs, ethical groups,
philosophies, spiritual paths, etc is located elsewhere on this site.

Introductory thoughts:

	What is religion? There are many definitions for the term "religion" in common usage. On this web site, we define it very broadly, in order to include the greatest number of belief systems: "Religion is any specific system of belief about deity, often involving rituals, a code of ethics, and a philosophy of life." Thus we include here all of the great monotheistic religions, Eastern religions; Neopagan religions; a wide range of other faith groups, spiritual paths, and ethical systems; and beliefs about the existence of God(s) and Goddess(es). We recognize that most people define "religion" in a much more exclusive manner.
	Christianity: There are many  definitions for this term as well. Again, we use an inclusive definition: "An individual or group is Christian if they sincerely, thoughtfully and devoutly believe that they are Christian." This generates a lot of angry Emails from some visitors to this site who are insistent on excluding the Jehovah's Witnesses, Roman Catholic Church, the Mormons and some other denominations as sub-Christian, quasi-Christian non-Christian, or anti-Christian.    We treat Christianity in greater detail than other religions, simply because about 75% of North Americans identify themselves with that religion. Christians outnumber the next largest organized religions, Judaism and Islam,  by about 40 to 1 in the U.S. and Canada. We are not in any way implying that Christianity is superior or inferior to other religions. It is simply much more popular in our catchment area.
	Destructive, doomsday cults: These are fortunately few in number, and are listed elsewhere.

Information for these essays was extracted from reliable sources, and believed to be accurate and reasonably unbiased. Where possible, they have been reviewed by a group (typically 3 or more) of persons who follow the belief before the material is placed online. 

"World" Religions:

There are many, long established, major world religions, each with over three million followers. We have shown the five largest North American religions in bold:

	Baha'i Faith
	Buddhism
	Christianity;  Christian groups, denominations and families (Amish to The Way)
	Confucianism
	Hinduism
	Islam
	Jainism
	Judaism
	Shinto
	Sikhism
	Taoism
	Vodun (Voodoo)

₁ Neopagan Religious Faiths

Neopagan faiths are modern-day reconstructions of ancient Pagan religions from various countries and eras. They experience a high but diminishing level of discrimination and persecution in North America. They were once rarely practiced in public for reasons of safety. This is rapidly changing for the better.

	Ásatrú (Norse Paganism)
	Druidism
	Goddess Worship
	Wicca
	Witchcraft

Notes:

	Many followers of Asatru regard themselves as "Heathens" rather than "Neopagans. "
	Many followers of these religions refer to themselves as "Pagans." We use the term "Neopagan" because it is less ambiguous. "Pagan" has a variety of unrelated meanings.

Other organized Religions

These are smaller religions, with a well defined belief in deity, humanity and the rest of the universe. Of the many hundreds of faith groups in the world, we have chosen these because of their historical significance, or because of the massive amount of misinformation that has been spread about them in North America:

	Caodaism
	Damanhur Community
	Deism
	Druze
	Eckankar
	Elian Gonzalez religious movement
	Gnosticism
	Gypsies
	\ Hare Krishna - ISKCON
	Ifa, the religion of the Yoruba people of West Africa
	Lukumi
	Macumba
	Mowahhidoon
	Native American Spirituality
	Rom, Roma, Romani, Rroma, (a.k.a. Gypsies)
	Santeria Elian Gonzalez religious movement
	Satanism; The Church of Satan
	Scientology
	Unitarian-Universalism
	The Creativity Movement (formerly called World Church of the Creator)
	The Yazidi branch of Yazdanism
	Zoroastrianism

Related sections and essays in this web site:

	Ethical groups, philosophies, spiritual paths, etc. Atheism to Vampirism
	Comparison of beliefs among different religious groups
	General information about religion
	A glossary of religious terms
	A list of books on religion and spirituality
	Selecting holy texts from the world's religions for public meditation rooms, personal library, etc..

Find a faith group that matches your beliefs:

See the Religion Selector by SelectSmart.com and SpeakOut.com

Links to other web sites

	Patheos provides balanced views of religion and spirituality. Among other features, they have extensive list of comparisions between two different religions.
	ReligionFacts provides provides free, objective information on religion, world religions, comparative religion and religious topics.
	The Pluralism Project at Harvard University document "... the contours of our multi-religious society, explore new forms of interfaith engagement, and study the impact of religious diversity in civic life."
	Ernest Valea has created a website to provide "A comparative analysis of the major world religions from a Christian perspective." He compares various religions' teaching on ultimate reality, the human condition, salvation, the nature of evil, etc. See: http://www.comparativereligion.com/
	"The Comparative Study of Religion" is a blog by Professor Arvind Sharma at McGill University that deals with comparative religion and religious tolerance. See: http://comparativestudyofreligion.wordpress.com/
	A group of essays prepared by Sociology classes at the University of Virginia lists many unusual faith groups. This is archived at: http://web.archive.org and is currently being migrated to the University of Waterloo.
	"Religious Requirements and Practices of Certain Selected Groups: A Handbook for Chaplains," was published in 2001 for chaplains by the U.S. Department of the Army. It describes dozens of faith groups: Christian, Islamic, Japanese, Jewish, Wiccan, Satanic, Sikh, and individually distinctive groups. Read reviews or order this book safely from Amazon.com online book store. It received a rating of 4.3 stars out of 5 by three reviewers.

Additional links to religious information sites

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Images used:

Images used by permission.

1. Image courtesy of Jaz's Pagan Page
2. Image copyright © by Solar Web

Copyright © 1996 to 2009 by Ontario Consultants on Religious Tolerance
Last updated: 2009-OCT-05
Hyperlinks last checked: 2000-AUG-21
Author: B.A. Robinson

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