Major Religions of the World

Christianity
Judaism
Islam
Hinduism
Buddhism
 Christianity
 Based on the life and teachings of Jesus
Christ
 Originated in Palestine in the 1st century
AD
 Believe that Jesus was the son of God who
came and died for people’s sins and then
rose so that all people could be saved
 Believe in one God(monotheistic) who
created the universe and all things in it
 Christianity originally developed as a part
of Judaism
 Christian Way of Life

 Fellowship with God

 Our relationships with others
 Obedience to God's commands
 Discipline
Ten Commandments
 Important Days
 Ash Wednesday-Lent
 Palm Sunday
 Maundy Thursday
 Good Friday
 Easter
 Ascension
 Pentecost
 Advent
 Christmas
 Epiphany
 Judaism
 Is a monotheistic religion
 Judaism is the oldest and smallest of the
world's five great religions
 Being a part of a Jewish community and
living one's life according to Jewish law
and traditions is very important.
 The fundamental beliefs of Judaism are:

-There is a single, all-powerful God,

who created the universe and
everything in it.
-God has a special relationship with the
Jewish people due to covenant that
God made with Moses on Mount
Sinai, 3500 years ago.
 The Jewish place of worship is called a
Synagogue

 The religious leader of a Jewish

community is called a Rabbi

 Unlike leaders in many other faiths, a

rabbi is not a priest and has no special
religious status

 The Jewish holy day, or Sabbath(Shabbat),

starts at sunset on Friday and continues
until sunset on Saturday

 During the Sabbath, Jews do not

work(drive, cook, etc)
 7 Holy Days
 Rosh Hashanah-Jewish New Year
 Yom Kippur-A day of fasting and praying
which occurs 10 days after the first day of
Rosh Hashanah. The holiest day in the
year
 Sukkot-8 day festival of thanksgiving
 Hanukkah-The Feast of Lights is an 8 day
Feast of Dedication. It recalls the war
fought by the Maccabees in the cause of
religious freedom
 Purim-The Feast of Lots recalls the defeat by
Queen Esther of the plan to slaughter all of
the Persian Jews, circa 400 BC
 Pesa(Passover)-The 8 day festival recalls the
exodus of the Israelites from slavery in Egypt
circa 1300 BCE. A holiday meal, the Seder, is
held at home
 Shavouth-Pentecost recalls God's revelation
of the Torah to the Jewish people
 Islam
 Islam is the world's second most followed religion
 It began around 1400 years ago in Arabia, but swiftly
become a world faith, and now has around 1.2 billion
people
 "Islam" is an Arabic word which means “surrendering
oneself to the will of God”
 One will achieve peace and security by doing so

 A person surrenders to the will of Allah by living and

thinking in the way Allah has instructed.

 Islam is more than a system of beliefs. The faith

provides a social and legal system and governs things
like family life, law and order, ethics, dress, and
cleanliness, as well as religious ritual and
observance—Islamic Republic
 Where is Islam practiced?
 The countries with the largest Islamic
populations are not in the Middle East as
most would think
 The largest are Indonesia (170 million),
Pakistan (136 million), Bangladesh (105
million), and India (103 million)
 Islam's three holiest places, the cities of
Mecca, Medina and Jerusalem, are all in
the Middle East
 The present form of Islam began in Arabia in
622 AD
 It is based on the ministry of a man named
Muhammad and on the words that Allah gave to
the world through him
 Muhammad did not found Islam. Islam was
created by Allah at the beginning of time, and in
fact Muslims regard Adam as the first Muslim
 Muhammad was the final messenger through
whom Allah revealed the faith to the world
 There had been earlier messengers, among
them Adam, Noah, Abraham, Moses and Jesus.
 Other Info
 The Qur’an is the Islamic holy book
 The Qur'an is the actual word of God, and
contains the fundamental beliefs of Islam
 Mecca, Medina and Jerusulem are holy
cities
 According to tradition, the Qur'an was
dictated to Muhammad
 Two major sects
 Sunni-920 million people(everywhere else)
 Shiite-120 million people(Iran)
 Hinduism
 Hinduism includes a very wide range of
beliefs and practices, so there aren't many
things that are common to all Hindu
groups
 Hinduism has no founder, no single book
of faith, no creed, and no single source of
authority(such as Jesus)
 Hinduism is very individualistic but a big
part of a person’s everyday life
 There are 750 million Hindus in the world,
mostly in India
 For many Hindus, religion is a matter of practice
rather than of beliefs. It's more what you do
than what you believe.

 Behind Hindu practice is the belief that every

soul is trapped in a cycle of birth-death-
rebirth(reincarnation). Every Hindu wants to
escape from this cycle.

 Hindus aim to live in a way that will cause each

of their lives to be better than the life before.

 Whether one is reborn into a better life, a worse

life, or even to live as an animal, depends on
Karma, which is the value of a soul's good and
bad deeds.
 Dharma is a “cosmic natural law” that forms the basis
for Hindu philosophies, beliefs and practices and holds
everything together

 People that live in harmony with Dharma proceed more

quickly toward Moksha

 Hindus ultimate aim is escape from the life cycle

altogether and achieve the ultimate liberation—Moksha

 Hindus believe the universe doesn't have a beginning

and an end. It's a cyclical pattern, so once it ends, it
begins again.

 One attains Moksha when one has "overcome

ignorance" and no longer desires anything at all(and
yes, that includes the desire for Moksha)
 Hindu Beliefs
 All good things in life are gifts from God
 Finding out what your life’s calling is as
Dharma suggest/requires is a very
important goal
 Being a fair and decent person is very
important
 Wealth, power and material belongings
are good goals as long as they don’t
become all important
 Moksha is the ultimate goal
 Four Stages of Life
1. Ages 12-24 you get educated and trained
2. Ages 24-48 you get married, raise a family,
make money, get involved in many things
3. Ages 48-72 you become a mentor to a young
person and start isolating themselves from the
outside world
4. At age 72 you end ties to the outside world
and get rid of your worldly possessions. Prayer
and devotion become very important.
 Mostly aimed at men and is not followed as
much as it used to be
 Hindu Gods
 One would think Hinduism is polytheistic. Most
Hindus would say they worship one God.
 There is only one ultimate God, Brahman, but
shows itself in many forms
 The gods Brahma, Vishnu and Shiva, for
example, are different aspects of Brahman:
 Brahma reflects God's divine work of creating
the universe
 Vishnu reflects God's work in keeping the
universe in existence
 Shiva reflects God's work in destroying it
Buddhism
 Founded in India around 500 BC by
Siddhartha Guatama
 Became Buddha, the Enlightened One,
when he was 29
 He was trying to find the true meaning of
life and eventually, through four trance-
like stages of meditation, he was
enlightened to the Buddhist was of life
 His main teachings was to eliminate
human wants as they are the cause of
suffering in the world
 Buddhism has no unique creed, no single authority
and no single sacred book
 Buddhism focuses on each individual seeking to
attain enlightenment
 Key beliefs and values are contained in "The Four
Noble Truths“
 1. Life means suffering
 2. The origin of suffering is attachment to worldly
things
 3. The end to suffering is attainable through
eliminating physical wants/needs
 Eventually can achieve Nirvana(no wind)
 Nirvana means freedom from all worries and troubles
 4. The path to the end suffering and
achieve Nirvana is to follow the Eight
Fold Path
Submitted By

Jaagi Jindal