# World Religions / The Major Answers Canonical URL: https://shipslides.com/d/catalog-culture-religions Raw viewer URL: https://content.shipslides.com/d/catalog-culture-religions/raw Category: Cuisine Slides: 13 Updated: 2026-05-17T20:56:00.226Z Tags: catalog, culture, religions ## Summary A comparative survey of how humanity has answered the oldest questions: who are we, why are we here, and how should we live. Key sections include: WORLD RELIGIONS / The major answers; Hinduism; Buddhism; Judaism; Christianity; Islam; Sikhism; Bahá’í, Jain, Zoroastrian & Indigenous Traditions; Common Patterns Across Traditions; Conceptions of Divinity, Salvation, Time. ## Slide Outline 1. WORLD RELIGIONS / The major answers 2. Hinduism 3. Buddhism 4. Judaism 5. Christianity 6. Islam 7. Sikhism 8. Bahá’í, Jain, Zoroastrian & Indigenous Traditions 9. Common Patterns Across Traditions 10. Conceptions of Divinity, Salvation, Time 11. The Rise of the Religiously Unaffiliated 12. Religion’s Persistence 13. Closing & References ## Slide Transcript ### Slide 1: WORLD RELIGIONS / The major answers - An Illuminated Atlas of Faiths - A comparative survey of how humanity has answered the oldest questions: who are we, why are we here, and how should we live. - ✿ - Thirteen Folios · Comparative Overview ### Slide 2: India · c. 1500 BCE → ongoing - Folio II · Of the Sanatana Dharma - Hinduism - Adherents~1.2 billion - ScriptureVedas, Upanishads, Bhagavad Gita - OriginIndus Valley · South Asia - Dharma — right conduct, duty woven into the order of the world - Karma — action and its echo across lives - Moksha — liberation from the wheel of rebirth - Many paths (bhakti, jnana, karma yoga) toward one ultimate reality (Brahman) - “You have the right to action, but never to its fruits.” — Bhagavad Gita 2.47 - WORLD RELIGIONSHINDUISM ### Slide 3: India / Asia · c. 5th c. BCE - Folio III · The Middle Way - Buddhism - Adherents~500 million - FounderSiddhartha Gautama, the Buddha - SchoolsTheravada, Mahayana, Vajrayana - Four Noble Truths — suffering, its cause, its end, the path - Eightfold Path — right view, intention, speech, action, livelihood, effort, mindfulness, concentration - Anatta & Anicca — no fixed self; all things impermanent - Nirvana — the unbinding from craving and rebirth - “All conditioned things are impermanent — work out your own salvation with diligence.” — the Buddha’s last words - WORLD RELIGIONSBUDDHISM ### Slide 4: Levant · c. 2nd millennium BCE - Folio IV · The Covenant People - Judaism - Adherents~15 million - ScriptureTorah, Tanakh, Talmud - BranchesOrthodox, Conservative, Reform - Covenant — a binding relationship between God and Israel - Torah — the law and teaching, foundation of life and ethics - The Prophets — voices of justice (Isaiah, Jeremiah, Amos) - Shema — “Hear, O Israel: the Lord our God, the Lord is one.” - “Justice, justice shall you pursue.” — Deuteronomy 16:20 - WORLD RELIGIONSJUDAISM ### Slide 5: Roman Levant · 1st century CE - Folio V · The Three Branches - Christianity - Adherents~2.4 billion (largest) - ScriptureOld & New Testaments - FounderJesus of Nazareth - Trinity — one God in three persons: Father, Son, Holy Spirit - Atonement — Christ’s death and resurrection reconcile God and humanity - Love of God and neighbor — the great commandment - Catholic - ~1.3B · rooted in Rome · sacraments, papal authority, apostolic succession - Orthodox - ~220M · rooted in the East · iconography, conciliar tradition, mystical theology - Protestant - ~900M · born of the Reformation · sola scriptura, sola fide, many denominations - WORLD RELIGIONSCHRISTIANITY ### Slide 6: Arabia · 7th century CE - Folio VI · The Way of Submission - Islam - Adherents~1.9 billion - ScriptureQur’an, Hadith - ProphetMuhammad ﷺ - Five Pillars — Shahada (testimony), Salat (prayer), Zakat (charity), Sawm (fasting in Ramadan), Hajj (pilgrimage) - Tawhid — the absolute oneness of God (Allah) - Sunni (~85%) and Shia (~15%) — differing on succession after the Prophet - “In the name of God, the Most Compassionate, the Most Merciful.” — Bismillah, opening of the Qur’an - WORLD RELIGIONSISLAM ### Slide 7: Punjab · 15th century CE - Folio VII · One God, One Humanity - Sikhism - Adherents~30 million - FounderGuru Nanak (1469–1539) - ScriptureGuru Granth Sahib - Ik Onkar — one God, formless, present in all - Equality — rejection of caste; the langar (free communal meal) for all - Seva — selfless service as devotion in action - Lineage of ten Gurus, culminating in the eternal Guru: the scripture itself - “There is no Hindu, there is no Muslim — only the path of God.” — attributed to Guru Nanak - WORLD RELIGIONSSIKHISM ### Slide 8: Bahá’í, Jain, Zoroastrian & Indigenous Traditions - Folio VIII · Further Lights - Smaller in number, vast in influence — these traditions illuminate corners of the human conversation with the sacred. - Bahá’í - ~8M · Founded 19th c. Persia by Bahá’u’lláh. Unity of religions, oneness of humanity, progressive revelation. - Jainism - ~5M · Ancient India. Ahimsa (radical non-violence), asceticism, plurality of viewpoints (anekantavada). - Zoroastrianism - ~120K · Ancient Persia, prophet Zarathustra. Cosmic battle of light and darkness; good thoughts, words, deeds. - Indigenous - Hundreds of traditions worldwide — place-based, ancestral, oral. Land as kin, ceremony as remembrance. - ✿ - Also: Shinto in Japan, Cao Dai in Vietnam, Rastafari in the Caribbean, Yoruba and African diaspora religions, neo-pagan revivals — the world’s spiritual map is dense. - WORLD RELIGIONSFURTHER TRADITIONS ### Slide 9: Common Patterns Across Traditions - Folio IX · What They Share - Beneath the differences, religions tend to weave the same four threads. - Ritual - Marked time. Bodily practice. Festival, prayer, fasting, pilgrimage — the choreography of belief. - Ethics - Codes of conduct. Compassion, honesty, justice, restraint — the Golden Rule appears nearly everywhere. - Narrative - Sacred story: creation, fall, exile, return, awakening. We are creatures who locate ourselves through tales. - Community - Sangha, ummah, ekklesia, kehillah. Belief is rarely a private matter; it lives in shared life. - “Religions are not so much answers as they are habits of attention — ways a community has learned to look at the world together.” - WORLD RELIGIONSCOMMON PATTERNS ### Slide 10: Conceptions of Divinity, Salvation, Time - Folio X · Where the Roads Part - Conception of the Divine - Monotheist — Judaism, Christianity, Islam, Sikhism, Bahá’í: one God, often personal. - Non-theist or trans-theist — Buddhism, Jainism: liberation without a creator-deity. - Pantheist / pluralist — many Hindu schools, Indigenous traditions: divinity diffused through reality. - Salvation / Liberation - Grace — Christianity, Pure Land Buddhism: rescue from beyond the self. - Effort — Theravada Buddhism, Jainism: self-discipline as the path. - Covenant — Judaism: faithfulness to relationship. - Submission — Islam: alignment to God’s will. - Shape of Time - Linear — Abrahamic faiths: creation → history → consummation. - Cyclical — Hindu, Buddhist, Jain: aeons turning, rebirth and dissolution. - Mythic-present — many Indigenous traditions: the sacred time always now. - Population — Adherents (millions) - WORLD RELIGIONSDIFFERENCES ### Slide 11: The Rise of the Religiously Unaffiliated - Folio XI · The Quiet Tide - In many countries, “none” is now the fastest-growing answer to the question of religion. - Roughly 1.2 billion people worldwide identify as unaffiliated — atheist, agnostic, or simply “nothing in particular.” That makes the “nones” the third-largest grouping after Christians and Muslims. - The shift is sharpest in Western Europe, North America, parts of East Asia, and Australia — where institutional trust has frayed and individual choice in matters of meaning has become the norm. - Yet “unaffiliated” rarely means “unspiritual”: many of the nones still pray, meditate, or believe in something beyond. - WORLD RELIGIONSSECULARISM ### Slide 12: Religion’s Persistence - Folio XII · Why It Endures - Across centuries of prediction, the religious impulse has not vanished. It rearranges, but it does not retire. - Meaning - Humans seek a frame for suffering and joy that is larger than the self. Science explains how; religion has long answered why. - Community - Belonging is a need, not a luxury. Congregations, sanghas, ummahs — these gather lonely lives into shared ones. - Ritual - Birth, marriage, mourning, harvest. Even secular societies improvise rituals because the body needs marked time. - “A human being is the kind of creature that builds altars — if not to gods, then to ancestors, nations, ideals, or art. The forms shift; the gesture remains.” - Whatever the future holds, the questions religions ask — about love, death, justice, and what is worth living for — will outlast any particular answer. - WORLD RELIGIONSPERSISTENCE ### Slide 13: Closing & References - Folio XIII · To Read Further - A short bibliography for those who would walk further. - Books - Huston Smith — The World’s Religions - Karen Armstrong — A History of God; The Great Transformation - Stephen Prothero — God Is Not One - Diana Eck — Encountering God - Wendy Doniger — The Hindus: An Alternative History - Reza Aslan — No god but God - Sources of Data - Pew Research Center — Global Religious Landscape reports - World Religion Database (Boston University) - Encyclopaedia Britannica — comparative religion articles - BBC Religions archive - Watch - YouTube World religions, comparative - YouTube Religious traditions, overview - ✿ - “In the house of the Lord there are many rooms.” — and in the human spirit, many windows. - Finis · Folio XIII of XIII ## Related Decks - [GREAT CITIES / Ten that changed history](https://shipslides.com/d/catalog-culture-cities) - [FASHION / Garments and what they say](https://shipslides.com/d/catalog-culture-fashion) - [FOOD / a global history](https://shipslides.com/d/catalog-culture-food) - [INTERNET CULTURE / forums, memes, attention](https://shipslides.com/d/catalog-culture-internet)