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by photochemsyn 1213 days ago
The presented breakdown of religions isn't very coherent. There might be three primary branches, with further leaves:

1) The Abrahamic tradition is the progenitor of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, in that rough chronological order, all arising in the same geographical region (the Middle East/Meditteranean zone) - from there you get into various orthodoxies, e.g. Protestants & Catholics, Sunni & Shia, etc.

2) Buddhism is something of a bridge between India and China, hence can be grouped roughly with Hinduism, Confucianism, Taoism, and Shinto.

3) There's not even a mention of the various paganistic/shamanistic/animistic traditions of Northern Europe/Siberia, North/South America, Africa, etc.

Also, compartive queries should be built in, then people could see how beliefs differ between different groups (and perhaps a 'strict' vs. 'relaxed' view as well).

1 comments

> The presented breakdown of religions isn't very coherent.

They are atheism plus the top four in the US by number (when excluding “unaffiliated”), which may not be your preferred basis for a selection, but is clearly a coherent one.

> The Abrahamic tradition is the progenitor of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, in that rough chronological order

Rough?

Atheism also isn't really a coherent religion, it's more like checking 'none of the above' on a multiple-choice test. I suppose there are the "New Atheists" who'd disagree, but they're pretty insufferable IMO.