The Only Way out Guide for Truth Seekers

THE ONLY WAY OUT 23
A Working Classification of World Religions
In the forthcoming pages, the reader will be introduced to
two forms of religion: Conventional Religion and True
Religion. As you can see, this classification is not value-free
because it deliberately marks one form of religion as false
(Conventional Religion) and another as genuine (True
Religion). We will expound on this classification when we
reach it, but for now it might be helpful to adopt a value-free
classification of major world religions into two categories.
The first category includes what can be called 'prophetic
religions' while the second embraces what are sometimes
known as 'non-prophetic religions' (1) . The former primarily
refers to the three major religions: Judaism, Christianity and
Islam. Sometimes these three are called the three 'monotheistic
religions' or the 'Abrahamic religions'. They are called
'prophetic' because they believe in a divine guidance revealed
to their Prophets.
The second category includes all the other major religions:
Hinduism, Buddhism, Sikhism, and Zoroastrianism. Although
the latter are considered non-prophetic, there is the
unsubstantiated claim that Zoroastrianism has a Divine origin.
Sikhism is a branch of Hinduism and the nature of the latter is
very confusing, to the extent that A.S. Woodburne was
compelled to write:
"Polytheism, henotheism, pantheism, and monotheism are
all to be found within Hinduism, so that a thoroughgoing
treatment of Hindu theology from the historical viewpoint
would be a task for a corps of scholars who could devote years
to the study" (2) .
(1)
Naik, Zakir (2007) The Concept of God in Major Religions.
Darrusalam Publications, p. 9.
(2) Woodburne, A. S. (1925) The Idea of God in Hinduism, The Journal
of Religion, Vol. 5, No. 1, January, p. 52, University of Chicago Press.