The Periodic Table of the World's Religious and Philosophical Traditions: An Idea Whose Time Has Come?

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ABSTRACTThis paper introduces the reader to the Periodic Table of the World's Religious and Philosophical Traditions (PTWRPT). It summarizes its background history, the conceptual thinking that underlies it, and explains why and how it was created. Using the same thinking that underlies Mendeleyev's Periodic Table of the Elements, it sets out in clear form all the world's different categories of religious and philosophical beliefs, showing the relationships and connections that exist between them. Each box of the table, as in Mendeleyev's table, gives the reader at a glance information about the faith tradition in question: when it was invented, how many people subscribe to that faith at the present, how many people in the whole of history up to now have followed this tradition, and which of the overall 16 categories of world faiths it belongs to. The table provides a basic bedrock of solid factual information for students to go on and explore the inner details of these complex traditions. Most importantly, it gives students the realization that the world's faiths, and our religious and philosophical traditions are far more complex and interesting than hitherto simplistic presentations have made out and that the subject deserves to be treated with as much seriousness as, say, chemistry, physics, or mathematics. The paper poses important philosophical questions about the metaphysical unity of ideas possibly underlying all these traditions and how the table can be of great value to frontline teachers and academics trying to get across the complexity of religious studies and philosophy to young minds.