Good books/sources for Lesson 6 of the IP: "World Religions"?

Hi everyone

I know I'm getting ahead of myself here (I'm only halfway through lesson 2!!!) but I wondered if anyone could share what they found to be good references for each of the world religions listed in Lesson 6?

I guess what I'm after are books or other sources that act as an overview of the particular religion.

Looking in the TOTJO library, it's a bit scattered. Buddhism has a stack of books, Hinduism has none. Christianity (is that Abrahamism???) has The Bible which is hardly an objective starting point for unpacking a religion!

I thought I'd read "The God Delusion" for the Atheism section, but I'd love to hear what others have found for the rest.

I notice that a fair amount of people simply resort to Wikipedia for this section of the IP which I find unsatisfying. If we followed that action for the rest of the IP I could simply rely on "Plot summaries" for each of the books we're meant to read!!!

While it's not good as a primary source, Wikipedia can be invaluable at listing other sources for you to check out.

Also, if you type "[name of religion] overview" into Google, you'll get a slew of sources to read. Obviously, you'll have to replace "[name of religion]" with whichever one you're researching. And, as Steamboat said, you can start at Wikipedia and review the sources for more info.

This is a short academic book about Buddhism: http://www.amazon.com/Buddhism-Very-Short-Introduction-Introductions/dp/0199663831

World Religions in general
http://www.bbc.co.uk/religion/religions/
http://www.sacred-texts.com/
http://www.has.vcu.edu/wld/academics/relstudies/index.html
http://www.has.vcu.edu/wrs/index.html

religion and ethics
http://www.bbc.co.uk/religion/0/

Buddhism
http://www.buddhanet.net/
http://www.buddhismtoday.com/index/index-eng3-texts.htm

Indigenous Religions of North America
http://www.sioux.org/
http://www.cherokee.org/

Daoism
http://daoisopen.com/

Judaism
http://www.ou.org/
http://urj.org/
http://www.jewfaq.org/index.shtml

Islam
http://sunnahonline.com/

The Hindu monk Baba Rampuri apparently said;

"In general, ideas of “Hinduism” or “Buddhism” appeared no more than 100 years ago. The idea about the existence of some religion called “Hinduism” was created by western imperialists from a desire to describe the world according to the system of their values. It is impossible to estimate the ancient world from the point of view of the modern one. If you look a couple of hundreds years back, borders between Buddhism and Hinduism disappear. There is a concept of Dharma, a spiritual doctrine. If you look at Tibet with its tantric lamas and yogis, they are much closer to Indian babas, rather than, for instance, to the monks of Sri Lanka or Thailand."

I thought that was an interesting perspective!!!

The IP question is a chance to show what you already know, and spend some time exploring a bit more and sharing what you've learnt. We'll all have our own points of view and there is countless perspectives on it