What Do You Believe?: Big Questions About Religion

First let me start by tooting my own horn a little, because I think it adds merit to my review. I have 3 degrees (History, Religious Studies, and History Education), I teach social studies in (which we cover many of these religions), and I am an atheist. I think this book is a great tool for kids, young adults, and even adults to learn some of the most basic and important aspects of various religions. It is essentially a kid friendly coffee table book that is easy to consume (you could open to any page and quickly find an interesting fact) and a fairly quick read if you chose to sit down and go from cover to cover. It is true that when it comes to religions very little is cut and dry/black and white, because when studying many religions what is myth and what is historical can be hard to separate. Still, this book does a good job of representing a "birds eye view" of these religions without pandering or being overly bias. I think the best aspect of this book is that it is informative enough to use as a teaching tool to a student or the casually interested without overwhelming the reader with the grittiness of a detailed scholarly work. At the same time I hope it encourages readers to ask questions, start conversations, and seek out more information.

We are not a religious family but we respect religion and belief, and want our kids to choose their own path. When the 6yo and 3yo started asking “what is a god?”, I got many books about religion and belief for children. My favorite by far is “What do you believe?” It is similar to the kid encyclopedias by National Geographic. It explains the concepts of belief and deity academically, without judgment (including atheism). It covers the main belief systems (eg, ancient Egyptian, christianity, sikhism, atheism, native religions, new movements like rastafaris, etc), main traditions, main rites, main practices, different answers by various religions to the same question, etc. All organized in simple 1-2 page “chapters” such as “Why do you wear that?” “What happens when you die?” It’s probably best for 7yo and up, but even my 3.5yo was fascinated by it as long as we only read one short section at a time. Other books presuppose that the child is religious (“god is what we feel when...”), or place judgment in certain belief systems (“people believed that the sun was god, but now we know that that is wrong”), or have inaccurate information (“Buddhists believe that god is...”). Even in the best of cases, they only focus on explaining what a specific belief is about without dealing with the concepts of belief and deity. “What do you believe?” is accurate, academic, straightforward, and nonjudgmental.

I feel like I should have given this 5 stars because I really liked it. However, I bought it for my 6 year old daughter and she was rather uninterested in it. She is starting softball and I found out they have to pray before they play. So, she needs to understand something about the faith of others. Perhaps her interest in this book will increase over the years and she will enjoy it. There were many pros to this book. I particularly enjoyed the comparison pages. The chart of religions was fantastic along with the who's who pages. Again, if my daughter showed more interest, it would have been a 5 star rating.

This book. What can I say? I recently started to question my religion and what it actually was. I wanted to learn more about what others believed since I was deprived of the knowledge of world beliefs. This book made it interesting for me and I read it front to back. It includes the main religions and smaller lesser known ones. I was particularly interested in the religion and science part which was mentioned briefly. It starts with the origin of religion and where it started and why we have religion or beliefs. This book mentioned native American beliefs, science, atheism, agnosticism, earthly understandings, and Hindu/Buddhist type beliefs. If you're interested at all in why people dress, act, or worship the way they do this is for you. If you're interested in the afterlife(or lack of),the meaning of life to people, or any big questions like that, this book will tell you religions or non religions view on the tough questions of life. This book is great for conversations as well. It informs you on your friends religion that you know nothing about. You can have knowledgeable discussion on religion with people who believe or don't believe in something. It includes charts comparing beliefs, comics, and blurb boxes with further info to go deeper into things. I feel like I've gained so much knowledge from this fun, educational book.

This book packs a lot into just under 100 pages and it does so comfortably. Although there are other books that are better focused on the important issue of religious literacy, I like that this book specifically includes several aspects of religious literacy as defined by the AAR, such as the fact that all religions are internally diverse, not monolithic, and that we all have a particular perspective, a situatedness, from which we see and interpret our world . In addition to familiarizing readers with common features of common religions, this one goes further than many other books in this genre and includes sections on philosophy of religion, religion and violence in our world, and religion and science, all topics that encourage valuable thinking and reflection. The book does a good job of meeting the stated goal of promoting understanding and respect of different types of belief and nonbelief.

I bought this book for my kids, but I found myself completely absorbed in it. There are lots of pictures, interesting stories, and even comic strips. I love the way the chapters are broken up and how it has different types of comparisons between religions plus more in-depth spreads on several major religions. It even has a spread for atheism! I think the content is appropriate for my kids (8 and 9), but I would recommend reading it together. This book is a must read for kids of any faith (or non-faith) to learn more about diversity in the world. Thank you so much for writing it!

This book is incredible. In a sensitive, comprehensive, entertaining, informative, and intellectually honest way, it covers the basics of the world's major religions and belief systems, and many others. It also delves into philosophy and gives a nice treatment of nontheism, atheism, and agnosticism. We learned A LOT (Did you know devout Jains are vegan, and don't even eat root vegetables because digging them up could harm insects?). One of the best features of the book is it addresses head-on those pesky questions thoughtful kids are likely to ask, like "Why do bad things happen?" and "Can all religious be right?" and "What does God look like?". And it does it in a way that is accessible and respectful! You can't go wrong with this book! Highly recommended for kids, and really everybody.

I think this does a good job of outlining the major religions and giving an overview of social and historical context. Based upon the description, I expected more content on different philosophers, but there was very little - just single quotes scattered throughout. I also have issues with the way certain opinions are presented as facts. Most of the book clearly states that the different beliefs are just that... BELIEFS of certain people. But some sections, such as the "What IS God" page, have lines like " God is unlimited - far greater than anything humans can truly understand or describe." Lines like this obviously indicate the author's assumption that there is, in fact, a God. This goes against several of the beliefs discussed in the book - such as Atheism, Agnosticism and even Buddhism. It's subtle, but it's definitely enough to influence young readers. I do still find it valuable, and I haven't found a better compilation of info for this age group, but there's room for improvement.

good information about all the major religions and faiths and beliefs .. very informative for children to know and form an informed view on the subject ..

This books cover major religions. It's not suitable for kids self reading especially younger than 12 years old as carries complex content for them to realize. At the same time good for adults to know the various religions. Doesn't show a way to teach children

Although I chose to keep the book as it covered religion quite adequately, it DOES NOT offer an introduction to any of the philosophers mentioned in the description at all. There may be a quote attributed to one philosopher or another or a name might be mentioned, but other than an explanation of Atheism and Agnosticism, there is no philosophy of substance (or at all in my opinion). I would strongly recommend that the description be re-written to replace "from ancient philosophers such as Socrates, Aristotle, and Plato, to modern thinkers such as Kierkegaard, Nietzsche, Kant, and Sartre" with "atheism and agnosticism." Without the misleading description, I would have given this more stars.

A good book for primary aged children to understand the different beliefs.