Religion 101 – From Allah to Zen Buddhism, an Exploration of the Key People, Practices – Free Download

Religion has, for 5,000 years, been an essential part of the human condition. Spiritual beliefs of all kinds have sought to shape the human psyche and leave a lasting imprint on our souls.
In the pages of this book, you’ll stroll through the temples of the Greeks and Romans, marvel at the soaring spires of medieval Christian cathedrals, stand astonished before the graceful minarets of the Blue Mosque in the ancient city of Istanbul, and gaze in wonder at the Borobudur Buddhist temple in Indonesia. You’ll read about saints and sinners, heroes and heretics, and the great thinkers, visionaries, and mystics who shaped our spiritual landscape.
Religion is a complicated subject, partly because there are so many shades of religious belief and partly due to the difficulty of actually defining what religion is.
The Concise Oxford Dictionary characterizes it as “the belief in a superhuman controlling power, especially in a personal God or gods entitled to obedience and worship.” That’s a pretty loose definition and it covers a lot of ground.
Today, there are five major religious traditions: Judaism, Christianity, Islam, Buddhism, and Hinduism. There are countless smaller groups, some of which are subsections of these five and others that have no connection to them. While we can’t possibly cover all of them, this book will be a crash course in the main elements of world religion…