The purpose of this section is to bring together a hub of scholarly resources and reference material relating to the religions of the world. Here, religion is understood in the traditional academic sense: a system of beliefs, practices, moral codes, and community structures oriented toward what practitioners regard as ultimate reality — whether that is understood as a personal God, an impersonal absolute, natural forces, or the achievement of an enlightened state of consciousness.
A high degree of organisation is typically involved in what we call a world religion — rites, doctrine, clergy or equivalents, canonical texts, and institutional structures — even where different sects within the same tradition may disagree sharply with one another. Every effort has been made to make comparative-religion.com a repository for accurate information about the religious texts and traditions of the world.
Defining Religion: A Note on Scope
The category of "religion" is itself contested. Western scholarly definitions have often been shaped by assumptions drawn from Christianity — the primacy of belief, the role of a founding figure, the distinction between sacred and secular — that do not always transfer cleanly to other traditions. Hinduism, for example, is not a religion in the sense of a single doctrinal system with a founding moment and a creed; it is better described as a family of related traditions sharing certain scriptural inheritances and philosophical concerns. Confucianism occupies a position somewhere between religion, ethical philosophy, and social order. Shinto is inseparable from Japanese cultural identity in ways that complicate any simple Western categorisation.
This site uses "religion" pragmatically, to refer to the traditions conventionally grouped under that heading in academic religious studies, while acknowledging that these traditions differ enormously in their self-understanding. The coverage here is neither exhaustive nor definitive — it reflects the traditions most extensively treated in the comparative religion literature and most widely studied at university level.
The Major World Religions
Buddhism
Founded in the fifth century BCE in what is now Nepal and northern India, Buddhism traces its origins to the teachings of Siddhartha Gautama, the historical Buddha. Its central insights — the Four Noble Truths, the Eightfold Path, the doctrines of impermanence and non-self — have generated an enormous body of philosophical and contemplative literature across its Theravada, Mahayana, and Vajrayana schools. Buddhism spread across much of Asia, and a 2025 Pew Research Center analysis counted about 324 million Buddhists worldwide in 2020.
Christianity
The world's largest religion by adherent count, Christianity emerged from first-century Judaism in the eastern Mediterranean and is centered on the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth, understood by Christians as the Son of God and Messiah. Its canonical scripture is the Bible, comprising the Hebrew scriptures (Old Testament) and the distinctly Christian New Testament. Christianity's major branches — Roman Catholicism, Eastern Orthodoxy, and Protestantism — together account for roughly 2.4 billion believers.
Hinduism
Known internally as Sanatana Dharma (the Eternal Law), Hinduism is the world's oldest living religious tradition and the third largest by adherent count. Rooted in the Vedic literature of ancient India, it encompasses an extraordinary range of philosophical schools, devotional traditions, ritual systems, and regional practices. Its canonical texts include the four Vedas, the Upanishads, the Bhagavad Gita, and two great epics — the Mahabharata and the Ramayana.
Islam
The world's second-largest religion, Islam was established in the seventh century CE in Arabia through the prophethood of Muhammad, understood by Muslims as the final prophet of the one God (Allah). Its scripture, the Quran, is held to be the direct and unmediated word of God. Islam's Five Pillars — the declaration of faith, prayer, fasting, almsgiving, and pilgrimage — structure the daily and annual life of approximately 1.9 billion Muslims worldwide.
Judaism
The oldest of the Abrahamic religions and the tradition from which both Christianity and Islam emerged, Judaism traces its origins to the covenant between God and Abraham. Its central scriptures are the Torah (the first five books of the Hebrew Bible), the broader Tanakh, and the Talmud — the vast rabbinic compilation of legal analysis and commentary. Judaism's major contemporary movements include Orthodox, Conservative, Reform, and Reconstructionist Judaism.
Sikhism
Founded in the Punjab region of South Asia in the fifteenth century by Guru Nanak, Sikhism is a monotheistic tradition that emphasises devotion to the one God, equality of all persons, and service to others. Its scripture, the Guru Granth Sahib, is accorded the status of the living Guru of the community. With approximately 25 to 30 million adherents, Sikhism is among the world's youngest major religions.
Taoism
A Chinese philosophical and religious tradition rooted in the Tao Te Ching, attributed to the sage Laozi (sixth century BCE), Taoism centres on the concept of the Tao (the Way) — the underlying principle of the universe, ineffable and beyond definition. Taoist practice ranges from the philosophical quietism of classical Taoism to elaborate ritual and alchemical traditions. Taoism has deeply influenced Chinese culture, medicine, martial arts, and aesthetics.
Zoroastrianism
One of the world's oldest monotheistic religions, Zoroastrianism was founded by the prophet Zarathustra (Zoroaster) in ancient Iran, possibly as early as 1500 BCE. It centres on the worship of Ahura Mazda (the Wise Lord) and a cosmic struggle between good and evil. Zoroastrianism profoundly influenced the Abrahamic religions through concepts of apocalypse, judgment, heaven and hell, and a messianic figure. Its scripture is the Avesta.
Religious Populations, 2010-2020
Population estimates offer another perspective on these traditions. A Pew Research Center analysis published in June 2025, drawing on more than 2,700 censuses and surveys across 201 countries and territories, compared religious identification in 2010 and 2020. It estimated that 75.8% of the world's people identified with a religion in 2020, while 24.2% did not. These categories concern affiliation; they should not be read as measures of how often people worship or how closely they follow particular teachings.
The study also distinguishes the number of people in a group from its share of the world's population. Christians increased in number over the decade while their global share fell; Hindus increased in number while their share remained steady. Muslims had the fastest numerical growth among religious groups, while Buddhists were the only major religious group with fewer people in 2020 than in 2010. Such comparisons describe population change without passing judgment on any tradition's beliefs or significance. The figures, categories, and limits of this approach are explained in the guide to religious demography.
Ancient Mythologies and Alternative Spiritual Systems
Beyond the conventionally listed world religions, this site also addresses ancient mythological traditions — Greek, Roman, Norse, Egyptian, Mesopotamian — which represent earlier human attempts to account for the cosmos, the divine, and the human condition. These traditions are treated with the same scholarly seriousness as living religions. They shaped literature, philosophy, and art across millennia and continue to influence Western thought in ways that are frequently underestimated.
For a comprehensive academic treatment of how world religions are classified and studied, the Encyclopaedia Britannica's article on the classification of religions and the Wikipedia overview of major religious groups are both valuable starting points. The sacred-texts.com archive provides free access to primary texts from all the traditions listed above.