Religions in Depth
11 pieces · 8.7 hours of reading
How Religion Began: From the First Burials to the Axial Age
Graves dug 100,000 years ago, a lion-headed figure carved from mammoth ivory, stone pillars raised by hunter-gatherers, and a century and a half of arguments about why almost every human society has had gods, spirits or ancestors to answer to.
Long read48 min02The Vanished Gods: Egypt, Mesopotamia, Greece, Rome, the Norse and Mesoamerica
Six great religious worlds that shaped billions of lives over thousands of years, what their followers actually did and hoped for, how we know (and why some of our sources were written by their enemies), how each one ended, and the people bringing their gods back today.
Long read42 min03Hinduism: The World's Oldest Living Family of Traditions
Hymns memorised for three thousand years, a philosophy of the self that still unsettles readers, gods beyond counting and one reality behind them, a social order argued over for as long, and 1.2 billion people who live it in their own ways.
Long read52 min04Judaism: A People, a Covenant and a Conversation Across 3,000 Years
A small people with a very large book, a Temple lost twice, a law argued over for two thousand years, a catastrophe in living memory, and about fifteen million people today who still disagree, in good faith and at length, about what it all means.
Long read48 min05Zoroastrianism: The Ancient Faith of Iran and the Ideas It Gave the World
A prophet no one can date, hymns older than writing in Iran, three empires, a long decline, a refuge in India, and a community of perhaps 120,000 people still arguing about how to survive.
Long read37 min06Buddhism: The Path of Awakening, From the Ganges to the Whole World
A prince who walked away from a palace, a diagnosis of suffering and a cure for it, and the 2,500-year journey of an idea that has been a monastery, a philosophy, a devotion, a state religion, a political weapon and an app on your phone.
Long read50 min07Jainism and Sikhism: India's Paths of Non-Violence and the Saint-Soldier
One tradition asks its followers to harm no living thing, not even an onion. The other asks its followers to defend the defenceless, sword at the hip, after a shared meal open to anyone. Two minority faiths of India, and the long histories that shaped them.
Long read46 min08Christianity: From a Galilean Teacher to More Than Two Billion People
A Jewish preacher executed by Rome around the year 30, a handful of followers who said he had risen, and two thousand years later the largest religion on Earth, now more African and Latin American than European.
Long read46 min09Islam: From Mecca to Two Billion People
A merchant's revelation in a mountain cave, a book carried in memory, a community that split over who should lead it, empires from Spain to Bengal, and two billion people today, most of whom live nowhere near Arabia.
Long read58 min10China and Japan: Confucianism, Daoism and Shinto
Two civilisations where most people say they have no religion, and then visit the ancestors' graves, burn incense for a goddess of the sea, buy a charm for exams and bring their newborn to the shrine. How that makes sense, from oracle bones to the Yasukuni question.
Long read46 min11Religion in the Modern Age: New Faiths, Secularisation and What People Believe Now
Sociologists once predicted that modern life would dissolve religion. In some places it has. Elsewhere faith is growing, new religions keep being born, and the real picture turns out to be stranger and more interesting than either side expected.
Long read46 min