Religions Summary - Compares Major Religions

Religions Compared

Religions Summary - Compares Major Religions

This major religion comparison table includes Judaism, Christianity, Islam, Hinduism, and Buddhism.

The chart below compares selected religion characteristics such as prophets, adherents, founders, origination date, deity names, afterlife, path to redemption, place of worship, holy book name, and main sects.

Summary of Major Religions Table (or, where were you born?)
Religion Millions of Adherents	One God - The Monotheistic Religions (Also called the "bloody" religions)				Many Gods	No God
Religion Millions of Adherents	Judaism 13	Christianity 1,955	Islam 1,126		Hinduism 793	Buddhism 325
Origination	Egypt - Israel	Israel - Rome	Arabia		India	India
When	586 B.C.	32 A.D.	622 A.D.		1500 B.C.	500 B.C.
Prophets	Adam, Noah, Abraham				No prophets
Adherent	Jew	Christian	Moslem		Hindu	Buddhist
Founder	Abraham/ Moses	Jesus	Mohammed		Many	Siddhartha Gotama
God	Yahweh, Elohim	Christ, Jehovah	Allah		Many: Brahma, Vishnu, Shiva	none
Devil	No (adversary)	Devil, Satan	Satan		Iblis, Shaitan	Mara
This Life's Purpose	Now, plus test	Just a test	Just a test		One-of-many	This is it!
Afterlife	Eden, Gehenna	Heaven-Hell	Heaven-Hell		Reincarnation	Nirvana
Redemption	Prayer, Study	Confession Repentance	Faith, Works Pray 5 times/ day		Karma Eliminate passions	Enlightenment Eliminate passions
Place of Worship	Synagogue	Church	Mosque		Temple	Temple
Holy Book	Tanakh (Torah) Talmud	Bible	Quran plus Sunna (sayings)		Bhagavad Gita	Tipitaka
Seeks Converts?	No	Yes	Yes		No	No
Main Sects (worldwide)	8% Orthodox 34% Conservative 23% Reformed 35% Secular (est.)	52% Catholic 17% Protestant 19% Orthodox 2% Anglican	83% Sunni 16% Shiite		70% Vaishnaites 25% Shiavites 2% neo-Hindu	56% Mahayana 38% Hinayana 6% Tantrayana

Characteristics	Judaism	Christianity	Islam		Hinduism	. Buddhism
Circumcision	Required Abraham introduced	Traditional	Traditional		No	No
Capitol Punishment	Murder	Murder	Murder, Adultery		No	No
Kill for God	Yes	Yes	Yes		No	No
Race Equality	Chosen by God	Equal	Equal		4 Castes	Equal
Original Sin	No	Yes - Baptism	No		"saddled with past"	No
Alcohol	OK	No - Yes	No		No	No
Women's Status	Far Improved	Not Bad	Supressed		Poor	Ambivalent
185	120	120	120	15	120	120

Main Religion Books Comparison
Religion	Sacred Book Name	Rough Equivalence
Judaism Judaism Judaism	Torah Hebrew Tanakh Talmud	Pentateuch - 5 books by Moses Old Testament Books - 39 Talmud Tractates - 63
Catholic Protestant	Rheims Bible King James Bible	Books (46 + 27) Books (39 + 27)
Islam Hinduism Buddhism	Qur'an (Koran) Bhagavad Gita Tipitaka	Koran Suras - 114 Bhagavad Gita Chapters - 18 Canonization
	Books of the Bible Summary - The books and chapters of the Jewish Bible, the Catholic Bible, and the Protestant Bible compared.

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This Vaughns Major Religion Summary Table web page was updated on 2009-09-16.