Jason Boyett

A brief primer covering the key points of major religions. While adequate as a primer, it appears not meant to be read cover to cover; the format of key beliefs, tracts, festivals and major figures, etc helps in comparison and definition but leads to frequent duplication of narrative. Also, the weighting of points selected for analysis seems to be unfortunately biased to appeal to the modern USA based reader , giving in my opinion an incorrect view of the history and impact of the various religions. Detailed analysis of the theologies is not given and makes differentiating Hinduism, Buddhism, Jainism difficult as it does Taoism, Confucianism and Shinto. There also seems to be the current western practice to emphasise the faults of Christianity while highlighting the virtues of non-Christian religions.… (mer)