In the study of the world's religions, religious groups are divided into two categories: Western (mostly Abrahamic religions), and Eastern (almost everything else). We're going to unpack these labels in this episode and chat about the similarities and differences between the two big categories. We also chat about everything that's left out (surprise, it's a lot).
All of the world’s religions come from Asia. Regarding the terms Eastern and Western, we are just referring to where in Asia they are from. The Abrahamic religions (Judaism, Christianity and Islam) are from Western Asia (Middle East), whereas religions like Buddhism, Sikhism, Hinduism and Shinto are from Eastern Asia.
The labels of Eastern and Western aren’t handy anymore. You can be any religion anywhere in the world. These labels also only apply to a handful of unified world religions. It doesn’t include Indigenous religions, Animism, or other smaller pagan groups.
Eastern and Western religions can be broken down by their theological model. Eastern religions are more spiritual, typically polytheistic and have gods with niche stewardships. Their deities are very involved with specific things, but rarely involved with everything. Western religions are monotheistic, with Islam and modern Judaism being truly monotheistic while Christianity and the trinity are ideal monotheism.
In this episode, we also talk about Henotheism and how it is present in the Old Testament.
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