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The World Religions Tree (huge visualization)
- caipre 11y agoSome sort of minimap for navigation would be useful. Also a zoom, the text is a bit small for my eyes. Edit: browser zoom works well. There's a legend in the lower left.
- krick 11y agoI wouldn't say it does. The very first thing I did was to zoom out, and then understood that I cannot really use it without magnifying glass. So I installed xzoom to find out (unsurprisingly) that I cannot use it as well, because on that scale pixelation is strong enough for text to be unreadable, so the only solution would be to actually implement that feature in js. Or to have 50" display.
- fastball 11y agoIs Greek / Roman / Norse mythology (basically everything Western that isn't Christianity) not considered religion? Because maybe I'm just blind but I can't seem to find those anywhere in the tree.
- davyjones 11y agoSimilar for Africa(n) which leads me to believe that the periphery covers only what is extant and only the roots of those are traced back to their origins.
- lqndlwq 11y agoIt seems to be incomplete and inaccurate in a lot of ways. For example, Christianity borrows elements of Zoroastrianism and Judaism is actually derived from ancient Babylonian polytheism. Maybe I just didn't see it, but Confucianism seems to be missing too.
- mgraczyk 11y agoConfucianism can be found near the center. It's the thick brownish-green branch that goes left near 0 AD.
- ars 11y ago> Judaism is actually derived from ancient Babylonian polytheism. That isn't true. At best, and even this is debated, there are some traces, but it's not in the slightest "derived from".
- lqndlwq 11y agoMaybe not derived from, but certainly descended from. Yahweh was the national god of the Israelites, who were part of the Canaanite polytheistic system. In the context of Yahweh being a warrior deity in a polytheistic system, the phrase "there are no other gods like our god," and also the crusades against neighboring settlements seem to take on more meaning. Interesting reading: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yahweh https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yahweh
- burgreblast 11y ago>Certainly descended from Also no. Yahweh is clearly at a level "above all gods", i.e. on his own level as omnipotent creator of all things. Angels and fallen angels (aka demons/ heavenly hosts and other "gods") are on a second level of power/influence, and then earthly creations below that. As such, Yahweh doesn't "compete" against other (lower-case) gods, because they're not omnipotent creators and he is. Although the Israelites were pretty famous for rejecting him and worshiping lower-case gods, (and subsequently incurring Yahweh's wrath), there's never a question that he is the I AM and not any derivation.
- lknwfdlknfd 11y agoI'm talking about the historical and anthropological record, not the Hebrew mythology. Of course the religion's modern texts would paint themselves in an infallible light. So yes, Judaism is descended and evolved from Canaanite religion.
- krick 11y agoBasically it lacks everything which is not a part of some "mainstream" religion today, for which it has, conversely, very impressive list of local (sometimes even hardly distinguishable) denominations. I cannot find any animistic religions, no shamanism, virtually no polytheistic religions outside of hinduism. But it isn't really because the map isn't "complete enough", I'd say the whole taxonomy is a bit weird. It makes it look like there were several "major" religions like "Chinese folk Taoism" and "Japanese Mythology" which produced everything else, when if fact they are not "major" at all: it would be more accurate to start from general spiritual cults, where every concrete local religion would be thin line as well. Of course it wouldn't look like real tree, and it shouldn't. Wikipedia, as always can provide somewhat decent insight: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_religion http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_religion
- transfire 11y agoEarly history provided is not very accurate. And it is missing religions not generally believed any more.
- FrankenPC 11y agoWow. Nice taxonomic work. It sure is a good thing there is only one true religion eh? /s
- FiReaNG3L 11y agoAnyone knows what software was used to make the visualization?
- jonloldrup 11y agoWho made this?
- afsina 11y agoI think there are many inaccuracies. Many branches are dead but seems to be alive. Some branches are actually should not be separated. Nice try tough.
- DrinkWater 11y agoI checked some random branches and found a lot of errors and inaccuracies. Nice visualization though
- egwynn 11y agoTruth. It has “Taoism” mispelled near the root. :-\
- ars 11y agoThis is very inaccurate. It invents splits in Judaism (for example) that simply don't exist. For example it has a bizarre split of Beit Hillel and Beit Shammai and even more bizarrely continues the lines to modern times as if there are actually two separate branches. When the parts that I know best are inaccurate, it seems likely to me that everything else will be just as bad.
- wbillingsley 11y agoIt seems to be attempting to list the church organisations rather than the faiths -- for instance, the Anglicans and Presbyterians have an entry for each country. If you were to list the faiths, you would have something very much smaller.
- a_c_s 11y agoEven so, the part on Judaism (about which I have the most knowledge) is still highly inaccurate: marking divisions that do not exist, branching in the wrong places, over-branching in some places, under-branching in others. It seems like an compelling idea undertaken by somebody vastly under qualified to implement it properly. (Which is not altogether surprising given the enormity of the task)
- larsiusprime 11y agoThere's a similar thing going on with other traditions -- with Eastern Orthodoxy, a lot of the various national jurisdictions (Russian, Greek, etc) are listed out separately even though (most) of them are in full communion with one another. It is cool to see all the "branches" laid out like this but it does lend itself to presenting more divisions than are actually there because that's what we naturally think of when we see a tree structure.
- kiliancs 11y agoNice visualization! I feel like there's room for many improvements both technically and in accuracy, though. For example, the Bahá'í Wold Center is not a branch, though. It's just the spiritual and administrative center of the Bahá'í Faith [0][1]. Likewise, the Universal House of Justice [2][3] is the supreme governing institution of the Bahá'í Faith (and its seat is located at the Bahá'í World Centre), so it's not a branch either. [0] http://www.bwc.org/ http://www.bwc.org/ [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bah%C3%A1%27%C3%AD_World_Centre http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bah%C3%A1%27%C3%AD_World_Centre [2] http://universalhouseofjustice.bahai.org/ http://universalhouseofjustice.bahai.org/ [3] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Universal_House_of_Justice http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Universal_House_of_Justice
- cjsthompson 11y agoAs expected, European native beliefs (and their link to hinduism) are not even mentioned.
- hereandthere2 11y agoIm interested in this link between hinduism and European native beliefs. A quick google search didn't lead to anything authoritative. Do you know where more info could be found?
- skissane 11y agoIn theory Hinduism, Zoroastrianism, and the ancient Greek, Roman, Germanic, Celtic, Norse, etc, religions, are all descended from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proto-Indo-European_religion https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proto-Indo-European_religion - however, that is so long ago, by the time we get to the historical period, they have diverged a lot, both due to their own organic development in different directions, and also due to the influence of differing non-Indo-European cultures - such as Dravidian culture in the case of Hinduism; Semitic and Sumerian cultures in the case of Zoroastrianism; Etruscan culture in the case of the Romans
- egwynn 11y agoThis could be awesome, but instead it falls very flat. If the author is reading this, I think my advice boils down to: 1. Cite sources 2. Make it an SVG
- ryan-c 11y ago(I am a friend of the author and host the site for him) Sources were cited, the submitter deep-linked. A redirect is now in place to the page that has more information. Edit, for clarity: * 000024.org is owned by my friend, Alex Fink * The 000024.org website is hosted on one of my servers, along with a few other static sites belonging to friends. I have been doing this for free as a favor to those friends for many years. * The submitted link was not the intended landing page, but is now redirecting to it. * The intended landing page explains where the images came from.
- maxerickson 11y agoYou should rephrase to be a little more careful about who the creator of the image is. (at least, if I understand correctly, you are friends with the person hosting the jpg of the image that was extracted from the pdf that had the image that was pieced together from the original). edit: You've made an edit, but you missed what I meant. Alex Fink is not really an author here where the point of the link is the image, he is the "page owner" or something like that. There is plenty of attribution and I don't mean to imply any attempts at obfuscation, but egwynn was talking to the original creator of the image, not to the hoster of this version of the image.
- ryan-c 11y agoI didn't miss what you meant, I just didn't want to remove the part of my comment that you were talking about because then someone reading your comment might be confused. I've been a little scatterbrained due to commenting while trying to get the bandwidth usage under control (sorted now), and I apologize for anything unclear in my comments here.
- madengr 11y agoNice chart. Glad to be an atheist. Now imagine the man-millenia wasted on all that hocus pocus. Anyway, you are here: http://i.imgur.com/WNkmN.jpg http://i.imgur.com/WNkmN.jpg
- rtz12 11y agotips fedora SCNR
- gillianseed 11y ago>Now imagine the man-millenia wasted on all that hocus pocus. my/mine imaginary deity/deities is/are the one true deity/deities, because, er, I say so, and so did my parents! how people can buy into the fairy-tales which is religion has always baffles me, atleast unless you are indoctrinated from a young age and shielded from critical thinking.
- hcarvalhoalves 11y agoYou're naive if you think that's all what religion boils down to. That tree includes Confucianism, for instance. Although it's considered a religion, it's secular and closer to philosophy. Most religions are also mixed with creation mythologies, which have a bonding function inside cultures and ethnic groups. So, the `religion` subject is much more complex than a simple pissing contest.
- the8472 11y agoIt also makes it a fairly fuzzy target, since at at any time someone might invoke but <criticism> does not apply to <placeholder religion>, therefore it's not really an argument against religion per se and i dismiss it entirely Exhaustive, lawyer-proof arguments are fairly tedious. Obviously some generalizations and shortcuts are taken. The "my imaginary deity" argument was (hopefully) meant as criticism regarding institutionalized denial of truth to uphold supernatural aspects and claims to power for various religions. Creation mythologies don't just have a bonding function, they may also serve as a justification for monarchy or caste systems if some people are descended from/treated preferentially by some aspect of that creation. X's chosen people. Of course religions did fulfill social roles, as glue for people who needed answers for things that could not be answered at the time. And maybe they still do to some extent to this day. But that shouldn't keep anyone from highlighting anachronistic aspects.
- ryan-c 11y agoThe site may go down entirely for a moment... This site belongs to my friend Alex Fink. Edit: Mods, please adjust link to point to http://000024.org/religions_tree/ http://000024.org/religions_tree/ I've done an emergency move of the images to another server that's better able to handle the load and re-written the image links (I host his site).
- jplur 11y ago(for Europe and Asia)
- 31reasons 11y agoKrishnamurti Foundation is not at all about religion. In fact Jiddu Krishnamurti was completely against any dogma to the point where he asked people to not even follow his words. And they still made it part of the Hinduism branch, which is funny.
- deleted 11y ago[deleted]
- bennettfeely 11y agoThis is interesting, but you would be naive if you think this is in any way comprehensive or accurate. My religion and main area of knowledge of Catholicism shows a limited number of picked and chosen orders of priests, (i.e. Franciscans, Cistercians, Capuchins). These are not separate religions by any means whatsoever; they are all members of the Catholic faith. They certainly don't belong on a chart that is meant to display different religions and schisms.
- deleted 11y ago[deleted]
- bennettfeely 11y agoThat's true I believe. However, my point is that at least in the Christianity (specifically Catholicism) sector of this graph, it's misleading. Specifically in the graph, different orders of priests aren't schismatic offshoots of the Catholic religion by any means. After looking at the graph a little more closely, I also see various Catholic traditions listed as separate religions (i.e. Syro-Malabar Catholic Church, Ruthenian Catholic Church, Melkite Greek Catholic Church). I understand the idea of listing these as separate from the Church, but they are in "full communion" with the Catholic Church and also shouldn't be mistaken as separate religions. We all believe the same important things, different cultures and traditions have brought their own gifts to the faith. Catholics profess the Nicene Creed each mass and in it are the "Four Marks of the Church", something every Catholic grade schooler has to memorize at some point. One, holy, catholic, and apostolic. The word "Catholic" itself is greek for "universal". http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Full_communion http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Full_communion http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Four_Marks_of_the_Church#.22Catholic.22_as_a_mark_of_the_Church http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Four_Marks_of_the_Church#.22Cat...
- michaelsbradley 11y agoSomeone shared a chart with me the other day that, while not quite the same thing, could be of interest to those wondering what happened to the core followers of Jesus who went on to found the early local churches: https://www.serviamministries.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/03/apostles-remains.jpg https://www.serviamministries.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/03...
- neaanopri 11y agoWhere is Manichaenism?
- SocksCanClose 11y agoLooking at this, I can't help but see a few original Gits, forking into hundreds, then thousands of moral software programs, installed across human history.
- A_COMPUTER 11y agoIf they wanted to they could break off LDS into LDS, Reorganized LDS/Community of Christ, and FLDS, and Church of Christ Temple Lot, as well as a handful of defunct schisms like Strangite.
- kghose 11y agoI always thought Buddhism was an off-shoot of Hinduism - a kind of cleaned up version by the Buddha, who was born Hindu.
- Cogito 11y agoCouldn't see it linked anywhere yet, but the original OpenMap version is at http://funki.com.ua/ru/portfolio/lab/world-religions-tree/ http://funki.com.ua/ru/portfolio/lab/world-religions-tree/
- maxerickson 11y agoThat's the first link at the result of the redirect, the text "World Religions Tree".
- Cogito 11y agoThanks, I went through three or four links looking for the original! Must have missed it on first parse.
- willf 11y agoThe Anabaptist/Baptist branches are also pretty inaccurate.
- firepoet 11y agoQuestion for the author: Where is Shambhala Buddhism? It emerged from the Kagyupa and Nyingmapa branches of Tibetan Buddhism.
- vorg 11y agoThe 4 most numerous religious groupings by number of followers in the world are each color-coded in the popular mind: * Green for Islam * Red for Hinduism * Yellow for Buddhism * Blue for Christianity
- droithomme 11y agoIt is astonishingly bizarre that this so called tree focuses only on a small number of recent religions and their sects and orders. There are thousands of religions not represented, most significantly older than the oldest concrete points on this graph. I do recognize though that this focuses on fairly modern religions of the last two millennia. Still, what a small, narrow, and uninteresting group of beliefs that is.
- deleted 11y ago[deleted]
- panglott 11y agoThis is less "inaccurate" than fundamentally conceptually flawed. Human ideological systems are not like biological systems that speciate through schism. They are creations of living human minds and societies that piece together ideas that they find meaningful and useful. So this chart lists a couple of major sources: Chinese folk Taoism, Japanese mythology, Shramana traditions (non-vedic), Early Vedic period, and Ancient Israelite religion. Most of these traditions have been cross-pollinating, merging, and re-dividing for millenia. Yet this kind of visualization can only depict schism, not influence.
- dragonwriter 11y ago> This is less "inaccurate" than fundamentally conceptually flawed. Human ideological systems are not like biological systems that speciate through schism. Given the existence of horizontal gene transfer [0], neither are the biological systems traditionally described that way. Nevertheless, the schism model can be a useful illustrative approximation even when its not a completely accurate model. [0] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Horizontal_gene_transfer http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Horizontal_gene_transfer
- poizan42 11y agoThe Ethiopian Jews do not observe Hanukkah, which would indicate that they split of from the rest of the Jews earlier than 167 BC. Also "Ancient Isrealite Religion" should probably be "Ancient Caananite Religion". And a lot of things happened there before 500 BC - such as Yahweh becoming the dominant deity and King Hezekiah forbidding the worship of any other gods.