Bryan’s Reviews > Religions of the Axial Age: An Approach to the World's Religions > Status Update

Gotta' tell me about this when you finish!

I finished it this morning. It's good. An intro to the 6 major Eastern religions/philosophies (Zoroastrianism, Hinduism, Buddhism, Jainism, Confucianism, and Taoism). 24 lectures, 30 mins each. I got it for free from someone else. If you want, I'll send it to you.

never heard of that first one...is confucianism a religion?

Zoroastrianism was one of the first quasi-monotheistic faiths, the religion of Iran for centuries, before Islam.

Yeah, Confucianism is sort of a philosophy/religion hybrid. The dude talks a little about how in the East, there isn't a strong separation between philosophy and religion like there is in the West.

oh wow, huh.

religion gets a bad rap anyway since it's become synonymous with christianity here and i'd almost rather hear people identify as philosophical than spiritual.

>>religion gets a bad rap anyway since it's become synonymous with christianity

For sure. I was just thinking the same thing the other day. Seems like 99% of the time whenever I hear someone say they dislike "organized religion," what they really mean is they dislike "conservative Christians." Next time I hear someone slam "religion," I'm tempted to ask, "Oh? So what *exactly* bothers you about Buddhism or Vedanta Hinduism?"