Religions Explained

By Anita Ganeri, Marcus Braybrooke,

Book cover of Religions Explained: A Beginner's Guide to World Faiths

Book description

An illustrated history of world religion ranges from the ancient beliefs of Egypt, Babylonia, Greece, and the Americas to the origins and practices of modern faiths, discussing the worship, festivals, and tenets of each religion.

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Why read it?

1 author picked Religions Explained as one of their favorite books. Why do they recommend it?

I like this book because it tries to be nonjudgmental and to explain why certain religions have the beliefs, practices, rites, rituals, and ceremonies that they do. It is, however, a little judgmental and Christian-centric in places. For example, it presents some ancient transcendent beliefs as "superstitious" but not other, modern ones, and it presents core beliefs of Christianity, such as the resurrection of Jesus Christ as a matter of fact, i.e., without qualifying text such as "Christians believe that…" but for similarly central Muslim beliefs, such as that Allah made revelations to the Prophet Muhammad, it uses the appropriately qualifying text,…

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