This chart is interesting because obviously a lot of religions and religions-turned-myth are not on here. Also interesting is the fact that most of these are still being practiced. Though this chart doesn't show it, it seems that since the dawn of man, there has always been a yearning to understand the mysterious, and to name and personify it in some way by creating gods and stories.
And yet, most scientists and great thinkers, the great minds, are and have been atheists, agnostics or deists.
When and Where World Religions Began
4000–2500 BCE | Hinduism | South Asia |
1300–1200 BCE | Judaism | West Asia |
500–400 BCE | Buddhism | South Asia |
Confucianism | China | |
Zoroastrianism | West Asia | |
Jainism | South Asia | |
400–221 BCE | Taoism | China |
1st century CE | Christianity | West Asia, Europe |
3rd century CE | Manichaeism | West Asia |
6th century CE | Shinto | Japan |
7th century CE | Islam | West Asia |
11th century | Orthodoxy | West Asia |
15th–16th century | Sikhism | South Asia |
16th century | Protestantism | Europe |
19th century | Latter-day Saints | North America |
Babi and Baha’i | West Asia | |
19th–20th century | Pentecostalism | North America |
This chart is on page 1555 of The Encyclopedia of World History, volume IV.
I'd love to see something like this with all the sects and splinter groups and a little more detail.
ReplyDeleteI'm not sure there's enough documentation to accurately build something that massive but it would be damned interesting.
I agree FLance. I really hope to add a lot more detail to this as I gather more information. But this was just an appetizer, so to speak.
ReplyDeleteThe date for Islam isn't strictly true because although that's when the Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him) was alive and when God revealed the Quran, Muslims actually believe "Islam" essentially meaning submission to the One God, has been around since the dawn of time.
ReplyDeleteThanks for commenting, Umhana, that's good to know.
ReplyDeleteOf course, though, I don't believe in any god, so I stand by the relative date of islam's creation to be the 7th century CE.