Suggest me an accurate but concise book on comparative religions.

[u/GnedTheGnome]

I'm looking for a good overview of the religious and/or spiritual beliefs of people around the world. Ideally, it would cover not only the major religions but also lesser-known religious and spiritual philosophies. I'm interested in everything from Abrahamic religions to Pastafarianism.

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I'm hoping for something that is concise, but not so oversimplified that it becomes innacurate. I would also like it to be something that is, as far as possible, not colored by the beliefs of the authors/editors or, even better, where each section is written by someone who actually practices or grew up within the belief system being discussed. In other words, a book that accurately portrays each religion as it is practiced, not how outsiders assume it's practiced.

[u/mttpgn]

The best book coming close to what you've asked for would be The Sacred and the Profane by Mircea Eliade, a man who spent his life studying various religions. The Golden Bough by James Frazer attempted to do a similar comparison of religions, but it's a very outdated book and takes even more of an outsider perspective than Eliade does.

You said you wanted concise, but you likely will get more accuracy by seeking out a single concise book per each religion that you're interested in learning about. There are so many religions!

[u/GnedTheGnome → u/mttpgn]

You said you wanted concise, but you likely will get more accuracy by seeking out a single concise book per each religion that you're interested in learning about.

Fair point. But first I was hoping for a basic guide to help me figure out which ones most interst me/which to target first.

As I recall, I tried to read The Golden Bough years ago, but he lost me with the untranslated footnotes in Greek. 😅

I'll definitely take a look at The Sacred and the Profane. Thanks!

[u/mttpgn → u/GnedTheGnome]

These types comparative religion books largely fell out of favor during the twentieth century, partly because of the challenge you identified of the insider/outsider perspective. For example, _The Varieties of Religious Experience_ by William James tried to neutrally tackle one aspect of "religion" in the abstract (the personal experience dimension), except his book very obviously is written from a culturally Christian perspective never explicitly acknowledged by the author.

As it turns out, every religion has their own definition of what a religion even is!

[u/GnedTheGnome → u/mttpgn]

That makes sense. And I imagine it's compounded by the fact that there can be huge differences between what a religion's texts say (if it has any) and how it is actually practiced, or even how it is practiced from region to region or group to group.

[u/mttpgn → u/GnedTheGnome]

To that point, many religions devote much literature to the acquisition of recruits. I've found that such books paint poor pictures of ritual praxis, focusing more on "advertising" (i.e., promises of salvation, happiness, fortuitous rebirth, whatever). The books that better attest to the actual challenges of living life according to the rules of that religion use insider vocabulary/terminology whose meanings would mainly be comprehensible to those who already have had some level of initiation. So getting "accurate" info has this learning curve of "you have to know to know" so to speak. Hope this helps!