Families of Religions

The term "family" describes one approach to  the relationship between religions of the world. A religion is any system of thought and practice that offers a sense of meaning to adherents.

This global family of religions is always changing and yet has a continuing identity. Religions know good times and hard times, victories and tragedies. Religions have names of persons, dates of births and deaths, and events that reveal how that religion deals with others and with outside events. Religion is like an "operating system" that has many "programs" called world religions.

 Taxonomy of religions is the placing of groups into orderly categories. In the field of religion, taxonomy is not well developed because of the complexity involved. The approach here is to try out a system and see how taxonomy can be applied to religions. 

So why should religions be interested in this approach?
 Go to http://www.unicode.org/standard/WhatIsUnicode.html
This site will display the code being developed to cover every character of every known language and assign it a number. Unicode is developed by a non-profit organization representing a "broad spectrum of corporations and organizations in the computer and information processing industry". These efforts have significant implications for the religions of the world. 

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