Table of Contents |
The three Abrahamic religions are Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. They are similar in that they claim the patriarch Abraham as a central figure in their family and spiritual genealogies. As a starting point for comparison, we have first of all a shared geographic origin, and then, on closer investigation, these three religions have a shared origin based on genealogy. However, if you look in more detail at the origin, you find that Judaism and Islam diverge.
This idea of origin is emphasized for several reasons. In comparative religion, you might want to know where religion begins in people’s lives, how it functions in their lives, and how it is maintained or forgotten. Origin is emphasized at this point as well because the Western Abrahamic religions share the belief that there is only one god. They are grouped together and referred to as the monotheistic traditions.
If you look at the second category of religions, the Indian religions, you notice that they don’t adhere to a single supernatural deity. Indian religions may be polytheistic, henotheistic, or non-theistic depending on the religion.
Two Indian religions that share a common geographic origin are Hinduism and Buddhism. While there is a lot of overlapping of ideology, belief, and practice, there are also many differences.
One point of commonality is that they share a linguistic origin. Most of the Hindu and Buddhist sacred texts were written in Sanskrit and Pali, closely related in the family of Indo-European languages. However, they diverge in terms of geography, such as where they migrated to and flourished at certain points in history. If you study this movement in more detail, you will find many interesting points of difference in terms of practice, ritual, custom, and belief.
The third category of religions is the Taoic religions. These are the religions of East Asia and include Taoism, Shintoism, and Confucianism.
What these religions share is a belief in the eternal flow and balance of the universe: the Tao. Living in sync with this universal harmonizing energy is the goal. Followers of these religions seek to see and live in the reflection of this ordering, balancing force.
Again, as with the other two main groups of religion, there are particular differences as well. In the Taoic religions, these variations can mostly be observed in terms of emphasis and priority given to certain principles and practices.
After tracing all that historically, sociologically, anthropologically, et cetera, you might just find yourself back with the question: where does religion begin in a life, in a culture, and in a people?
The question of origin that seems to pose such a problem from within the religions themselves in many cases is something to keep in mind when studying and comparing religions.
You can use the phenomenological approach to look at the origin. It emphasizes and gives value to the variety of experiences within the field of religion on an individual, collective, and global level. Investigating the types and forms of experience allows the phenomenologist to bracket unanswerable questions, such as questions about origin, and look at the ways the experience of origin itself is approached. This approach is very helpful in comparative religion.
Source: THIS TUTORIAL WAS AUTHORED BY TED FAIRCHILD FOR SOPHIA LEARNING. Please see our Terms of Use.
