Sacred history: what happened

This category holds the specific things traditions believe and require: articles of faith, dietary rules, prohibitions, obligations and taboos. Where a religion entry describes a whole tradition, a belief entry isolates a single tenet or rule (the oneness of God, the prohibition of certain foods, an obligation of charity, a taboo on certain acts), and states it plainly.

Each entry names the tradition that holds the belief, states it in that tradition's own terms, and gives the reason the tradition itself offers, so that comparable beliefs across traditions can be set side by side.

Beliefs and the rules that follow from them often mark the boundary of a community, what its members affirm and how they must live, and small differences in them can distinguish one tradition or denomination from another. The atlas treats each as the tradition presents it, without ranking or refuting.

The beliefs group by kind (core tenets, cosmological beliefs, moral precepts, dietary restrictions, prohibitions and taboos), so a browser can compare, for instance, the dietary rules of several traditions together. The enacted side of religious life, rites, practices and festivals, is treated under its own categories.