Five Major Religions - a study guide

Christianity

Number of adherents: around 2.2 billion (largest in the world)
Call them: Christians
Geographic location: Europe (almost all European countries), the Americas, Southern Africa.
Denominations: (most) Catholic Church, Eastern Orthodox Church(Russia), Protestants (Lutherans, Methodists, Baptists, Anglicans, Presbyterians, Episcopalians, many more) - same guy and same religion
Founder: Christ (it's Abrahamic in origin)
Holy book: The Bible, especially The New Testament (the difference between Christian and Judaism)
Beliefs: Jesus is both human and divine - the Son of God; he led a virtuous life, he was crucified, died, buried, and resurrected; he ascended into heaven where he reigns with God the Father.
Spend time with poor people, women
Mary is a virgin and give birth to Jesus because he is the Son of God (prove that Jesus is special)
Clergy: the Pope is head of the church, priests are local authorities.

Islam

Number of adherents: 1.5 billion (the second largest)
Call them: Muslims
Geographic location: Middle East, north Africa
Denominations: Sunnis (75-90% at least 3 quarters) Shiites (10-20%)
Founder: Muhammad (570-632)
Holy book: Qur'an
Beliefs: monotheistic, Abrahamic
Five Pillars (testimony, prayer, alms-giving, fasting, pilgrimage)
Muslims see their purpose in life as serving and submitting to Allah (God), and observing Islamic law

Hinduism

Number of adherents: 1.1 billion (the third largest)
Call them: Hindus
Geographic location: India, Nepal
Denominations: the vedas - eternal truths revealed to ancient sages, composed in verse form (meant to be sung and easily memorized)
Founder: no distinct founder (too old) - it's a series of intellectual or philosophical points of view, rather than a rigid, strict set of beliefs - probably the oldest religion, although Hinduism is less a religion than a way of life, or a faith.
example: "As a person puts on new clothes and discards old and torn clothes, similarly an embodied soul enters new material bodies, leaving the old body."
In other words... reincarnation