REL 1510 Lecture Notes - Lecture 3: Rastafari, Caodaism, Gautama Buddha
Document Summary
World religions are grouped into two broad categories. These categories are not necessarily geographical, but reflect similarities in where they originated, philosophies that influence world views, and beliefs, such as conceptions of deity. Eastern religions include: hindusim, buddhism, taoism, confucianism, shinto. Major religions of the world ranked by number of adherents (sizes shown are approximate estimates, and are here mainly for the purpose of ordering the groups, not providing a definitive number. The oldest of the four main religions is hinduism. Hinduism has the oldest recorded roots in dravidianism. Dravidianism was estimated to have been practised around 6000 to 3000bce and as such predates sumerian, egyptian. Christianity was founded by jesus christ approximately 1,971 (33ce) years ago. As for buddhism, it was founded by an indian prince siddhartha gautama in approximately 566bce (before common era), about 2500 years ago. Islam is actually the youngest of the world"s large (more than 300 million members) religions.
