
The World Religions Tree (huge visualization) - dirtyaura
http://000024.org/religions_tree/religions_tree_4.html
======
ars
This 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
It 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
Even 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)

------
fastball
Is 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.

~~~
lqndlwq
It 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.

~~~
ars
> 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
Maybe 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
>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
I'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.

~~~
ars
Your own links don't support such a strong claim. At best the strongest claim
you can make is that the _name_ might have some correspondence with the name
of Canaanite Gods, but you have zero information on the direction of the
influence.

Your own links make no claim at all that the religion itself has any
relationship with the Canaanite religions.

Regarding the direction, do not forget that Abraham was very active in the
region, and proselytized extensively. It is hardly surprising if the
Canaanites took some concepts from him.

~~~
lknwfdlknfd
That article has been restructured quite a bit after it was made part of the
Judaism portal, compared to when I first found it and then looked into the
subject a couple of years ago. Just because one wikipedia article is
incomplete doesn't mean it's not an accepted fact.

~~~
burgreblast
> Accepted fact

Whoah. Be careful slinging around the F-bomb, bro.

When talking about causation of events where there is no data, much less
reproducible data, you certainly have room to disagree with some evidence and
prefer others, but it goes too far to claim "Judaism is actually derived from
ancient Babylonian polytheism" is unassailable fact.

That may your belief--and you may interpret some evidence to support your
belief--but as you'll be quick to point out to others, having a belief doesn't
mean it's true.

The bar for something being a fact is higher than that.

------
bennettfeely
This 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.

~~~
maxerickson
According to the key, they are listed as "adherent branches".

Schisms are shown by ovoids with white fill and appear to make some sense.

I guess the chart is trying to show practices that have a lot of adherents,
not just a diagram of religions. Much of the problem is probably just using
the word "branch", which isn't a great description of what is shown.

------
kiliancs
Nice 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)

------
egwynn
This 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
(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
You 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
I 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
Nice 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)

~~~
acheron
An atheist, a vegan, and a CrossFitter walk into a bar.

I only know because they told everyone within two minutes.

~~~
gonvaled
Really? How many official atheistic rituals are performed per week? per month?
per year? How many atheistic personalities do you see/hear on the radio /
television (talking about atheism, not about pizza)? How many atheistic
politicians do you know (probably very few, since it is political suicide)?
How many times per year is an atheist ringing at your door to tell you the
wonders of atheism? (I get several calls per year from the jehova's witness
and other groups, trying to convince me - very educately - that their religion
is "the good one - tm")

I heard people are going to the church (or synagoge, or mosque, or whatever)
every Sunday (Saturday / Friday) (or they should ...), and they are very
freely and openly telling everybody how much they believe in their choice of
god.

Compared to the publicity with which believers are living their faith,
atheist's non-faith is very introvert.

Which is according to the nature of the thing - why would you be talking about
your non-beliefs all the time? Basically, we all have so many non-believes (an
atheist has only one more than a believer) that there is no material time to
talk about them.

Of course whenever an atheist breaks this code of silence (like poor madengr
just did above) with a single sentence (not a three hours prayer - mind you!),
it clearly proves that atheists are exhibitionists.

All this makes your joke a very stupid joke (since its logic is broken)

EDIT: added more ranting

~~~
cup
Based on your response I think the joke was actually critically perfect.

You feel hook line and..

~~~
gonvaled
Sorry, I must be dense, I do not get it

~~~
nemo
The joke was that atheists (along with the others listed) are inclined towards
outspoken rants at everyone. You responded with an outspoken rant to the joke.

~~~
gonvaled
A) the joke was that atheists are exhibitionists, not that they are ranters.
BAD joke.

B) In case the joke was meant to include ranters, the same case can be made
that religious people are generally more ranting inclined. BAD joke.

C) I do not say anywhere that I (the ranter) am an atheist, which makes the
whole point moot

------
DrinkWater
I checked some random branches and found a lot of errors and inaccuracies.
Nice visualization though

~~~
egwynn
Truth. It has “Taoism” mispelled near the root. :-\

------
31reasons
Krishnamurti 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.

------
kghose
I always thought Buddhism was an off-shoot of Hinduism - a kind of cleaned up
version by the Buddha, who was born Hindu.

------
FiReaNG3L
Anyone knows what software was used to make the visualization?

------
transfire
Early history provided is not very accurate. And it is missing religions not
generally believed any more.

------
panglott
This 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
> 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)

------
A_COMPUTER
If 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.

------
caipre
Some 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
I 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.

------
droithomme
It 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.

------
ryan-c
The 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).

~~~
gtirloni
You could also host it on CloudFlare for free.

~~~
ryan-c
We just made changes to run it through cloudflare, but that'll take some time
to go through. It's on a faster server in the meantime.

------
poizan42
The 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.

------
Cogito
Couldn'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
That's the first link at the result of the redirect, the text "World Religions
Tree".

~~~
Cogito
Thanks, I went through three or four links looking for the original!

Must have missed it on first parse.

------
willf
The Anabaptist/Baptist branches are also pretty inaccurate.

------
SocksCanClose
Looking 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.

------
afsina
I 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.

------
vorg
The 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

------
firepoet
Question for the author: Where is Shambhala Buddhism? It emerged from the
Kagyupa and Nyingmapa branches of Tibetan Buddhism.

------
neaanopri
Where is Manichaenism?

------
jplur
(for Europe and Asia)

------
jonloldrup
Who made this?

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cjsthompson
As expected, European native beliefs (and their link to hinduism) are not even
mentioned.

~~~
hereandthere2
Im 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
In 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

------
FrankenPC
Wow. Nice taxonomic work.

It sure is a good thing there is only one true religion eh? /s

