Top Five Religions

Top Five Religions


Yesterday in class we talked about NATO ( The North American Treaty Organization) which is a group of countries that signed a treaty where if any of them got in trouble the other countries would come to help. After we viewed NATO, we started to review the top five religions in the world, Christianity, Islam, Hinduism, Buddhism, Judaism. Christianity has 2.2 billions adherents and is the largest religion in the world. You call them Christians and they are located in Europe, the Americas, Southern Africa. There many different nominations of Christianity; The Catholic Church, Eastern Orthodox Church, Protestants (Lutherans, Baptists, Anglicans....) And the Pope is the head of the Catholic Church, there is head of the protestant churches. Christians believe that Jesus is both human and divine- He is The Son of God and he lead a virtuous life, and he reigns with God in Heaven. Islam is the second biggest religion with 1.5 billion adherents, and they are referred to as Muslims. They are located in Indonesia, Middle East, and North Africa. The denominations are Sunnis (75-90%) and Shiites ( 10-20%). There founder was Muhammad and the holy book is the Qur'an. Their beliefs are monotheistic, and Abrahamic, they believe in the five pillars and in a life of serving and submitting to Allah. The third largest religion is Hinduism with 1.1 billion adherents, and they are referred to as Hindus. Their geographic location is Nepal and India, and their holy book is the Vedas-the eternal truths revealed to ancient sages;composed in verse form. Their is no distinct founder- it is a series of intellectual or philosophical points of views, rather than a rigid, strict set of beliefs. We will continue to learn about the other religions on Tuesday when we have class next.