How did it all begin? There was so much early people could not explain that they began to try to work out ways that things might have happened. And slowly, they began to devise answers. These answers grew and changed as knowledge changed, as social structures changed, and as people reached out to the unknown and sometimes seemed to find a relationship with something that lay beyond human knowledge. Struggling with the ideas of death, good and evil, rewards and punishments that often seemed deserved and not forthcoming, helped to define the natures of the various religions that developed, as did certain leaders who codified beliefs in new ways.

As time passed, religions absorbed other religions; gods changed names but not natures; systematic observances, priests, places of worship, holy objects, sacrifice, liturgy and dictates for living all became a part of different religions in different ways at different times and for different reasons. Scriptures spelled out the nature of belief. And religious laws circumscribed religious lives.

Today, some of what religion has done in the past seems good and right to people. And some seems bad. Yet, the good and the bad are not the same for all people. Even now, religion divides as well as unifies the world as we know it. No matter what one believes or does not believe, it is impossible to understand human society without a knowledge of religion. For those who want that knowledge, this book is a beginning.