10/12/12

Christianity, Islam, Buddhism, Hinduism, and Judaism are all major religions. All these religions were founded in different places. Christianity was founded in Palestine around 30 AD; Islam was founded in Saudi Arabia in the year 590, Buddhism was founded in India in the 5^th century (BC), Hinduism was also founded in India in 2000 BC, and Judaism was founded in Canaan in 2000 BC. Most of the religions are monotheistic. Judaism, Christianity, and the Islam religion are all monotheistic. The only religion that is polytheistic is Hinduism. All that leaves is Buddhism. Buddhism is surprisingly neither monotheistic NOR polytheistic because they haves more than one god. Most of these religions use some kind of book as a form to worship their God or gods. Christianity uses the Bible, Judaism uses the Torah, Hinduism uses the Bhagavad- Gita, Islam uses the Holy Qur’an, and Buddhism does not use a holy book.  Each religions has a lot of followers. Judaism has 14,000,000 followers, Christianity has 2,100,000,000 followers, Buddhism has 350,000,000 followers, Islam has 2,000,000,000 followers and Hinduism has 1,000,000,000 followers. Each religion has a central figure history. Christian’s central figure is Jesus, Muslims central figure Mohamed, Buddhists central figure is the Buddha, Hindu’s have several gods, Judaism’s central figures are Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob/Israel. They also all have geographical concentrations. Christianity’s is predominant in the Western World (North America, Europe and Oceania), Islam’s is Middle East, Northern Africa, Central Asia, South Asia, Western Africa, Indian subcontinent, Malay Archipelago with large population centers existing in Eastern Africa, Balkan Peninsula, Russia and China, Buddhism’s is Indian subcontinent, Sri Lanka, East Asia, Indochina, regions of Russia and The Netherlands, Hinduism’s Indian subcontinent, Southeast Asia, Fiji, Guyana, Trinidad, Mauritius, Suriname, Bali, Australasia, Northern America ,United Kingdom, France, Germany, Finland, Sweden, Malaysia, Switzerland, and Judaism’s is Israel, and small pockets of North and South America, Europe and Asia. Overall each religion is widely ranged in the interest of their followers.