The Major Religions: An Introduction With Texts

Rating:
Summary: No!
Review: I used this text for an introductory religion course. If you're looking for a really elementary and basic overview of the world's religions, then by all means get this book. If you're looking for more in-depth commentary and criticism of religions, and a deeper understand of various faiths, scour the Internet. This text gives the bare bones versions of religions; doing a poor job of explaining the variety of faiths. Twenty pages per faith is hardly enough space to cover the deep messages of Buddhism, or to cover everything Christianity was trying to accomplish.

This book is easy to read. You can read a chapter with little to no difficulty. The ends of chapters have a quick overview of major points along with some basic questions to get you thinking and for practice on exams or whatnot. This text includes various writings and passages from the holy texts of the various faiths, and that too, is basic. You may get some anecdotal story, a passage from the Old Testament, or some obscure poem that really doesn't show that religion in the light it deserves.

This book covers what the author considers "major" religions. To him, that only includes Hinduism, Buddhism, Confucianism, Taoism, Ch'an/Zen Buddhism, Judaism, Islam, and Christianity. That's it. No Shintoism, no Zoroastrianism, no Baha'i, no Jainism, no Sikhism, the list goes on and on. I'd think these faiths deserve some mention.

Scour the Internet. You'll learn a lot more online. It may not be as objective, but you'll get more out of searching the web.