The Five Religions

Christianity was founded in the first century to account for Jesus' eyewitness accounts and teachings. Currently, there are around 2.2 billion followers that are often called Christians. Christians can be found all over the world but, mostly found in the Americas and Europe. These followers abide by the Bible and the many writings within the Bible. The Bible surrounds Jesus, making Christianity monotheistic. The beliefs include that Jesus is the son of God, Jesus is human and divine, lead a virtuous life, crucified, died- buried- resurrected, and ascended into heaven. These major beliefs are currently taught by the Pope (head of church), priests and bishops.

During the seventh century, the second largest religion was founded. This religion is Islam which was founded by Muhammad. Islam has roughly 1.5 billion followers (Muslims) that are located mainly in Indonesia, Middle East and North Africa. Within these billions of people there are two denominations- Sunnis (75%-90%) and the Shiites (10%-20%). The major belief of the Muslims is the Five Pillars- testimony, prayer, alms-giving, fasting and pilgrimage. There are three other major beliefs that can be found in the Qur'an (Islamic holy book).

Hinduism was founded on philosophical points of view therefore, there is no one person to give credit to as the founder. With this being said, there are roughly 1.1 billion people who agree with these view points and they are called Hindus. The book in which the point of view is found and spoken in the Vedas. Rather then just being a legit book, the Vedas are poems and songs that are meant to be sung and memorized as a big group.

Buddhism is a very old religion and encourages a life of happiness and peace. The total number of followers (Buddhists) is very unknown to people but it is somewhere in the range of 500 million and 1.5 billion. These people are typically found in Southeast Asia, China, Nepal, Japan and there are supposedly around 1.2 million in the United States. The Four Noble Truths (1. there is suffering 2. attachment to desire is origin of suffering 3. cessation of suffering and 4. eightfold path leads to cessation)  and the Eightfold Path (right- view, intention, speech, action, livelihood, effort, mindfulness, and dedication) are the two absolutely crucial beliefs of Buddhists.

Judaism was once a fairly large religion but it has fairly rapidly decreased in size. There are currently 14-18 million Jews (follower name) and this number is predicted to decrease. Majority of the followers are found in Israel but there are a few to be found in America. Under the founder Abraham, the holy book (Torah) was created and contains the main beliefs of the Jewish. The two biggest beliefs are the Ten Commandments and the 13 Principals of Faith.