Add traditions, then weave the connections. Selected nodes and their shared lineage light up on the tree.
A pan-able map of humanity's belief systems across roughly fifty thousand years. Each luminous point is a tradition; the ink-lines between them trace mainstream scholarly views of influence, shared origin, and descent. Time runs left to right on a compressed scale, so the deep past and the present both stay legible.
· Drag the canvas to move; pinch or scroll to zoom. · Tap a point for its symbol, figures, core beliefs, rituals, connections, and an encyclopedic entry. · Use Compare to select several traditions and weave a report that traces their common ancestry and contrasts their ideas — the relevant lines light up gold on the tree. · Cast chooses traditions at random and weaves them for you. · Toggle families on and off in the legend.
Dates are approximate scholarly estimates; many are debated. Connection lines represent historical and cultural influence or shared milieu as understood by comparative scholarship — which often differs from a tradition's own account of its origins. Where a tradition regards itself as a wholly distinct revelation, that is noted in its entry.
Each tradition is anchored by a drawn symbol rather than a portrait of a holy figure — keeping the core map self-contained and respecting traditions, Islam among them, in which figurative depiction of sacred persons is discouraged. Where available, each pop-up also loads a few reference photographs — objects, art, and sacred places — live from Wikipedia, so an internet connection enriches the entries.
Switch to Atlas for a zoomable world map with two layers. Traditions places every belief on the globe at a defining sacred site or place of origin — tap a point for its details and a photo, or jump straight to its entry in the tree. Bible maps the places named in the Old and New Testaments with scripture references for each; archaeologically debated sites show the most plausible identifications and say so.
Timeline adds a draggable bar of time. Scrub through history and the map answers: traditions and sacred sites appear only once they exist, the era's great events surface, and you can lay translucent spread overlays for as many religions as you wish — each recolourable, each with its own opacity — to see roughly where they held sway. Those shaded reaches are careful approximations for orientation, not demographic statistics.
Two layers rest on firmer ground. Nations by faith (a toggle in Timeline) fills in every country by its majority or plurality religion today, drawn from Pew Research figures. And Future projects the global balance of belief to 2050 using Pew's demographic modelling — real projection, clearly flagged as such, never prophecy.
A speculative layer runs beside the scholarship. Every tradition's entry carries an alien-dimension reading — what ancient-astronaut proponents claim versus what mainstream scholars actually find, with an honest meter that usually reads "no real link." The Contact view charts documented UFO/UAP encounters, close encounters, abduction accounts, alleged retrievals and official inquiries as their own timeline, each with sources and a credibility label; the Aliens layer on the map plots them geographically. These are presented as reports and claims — records that exist — not as confirmed events, and ancient-astronaut theory is noted throughout as pseudoscience by scholarly consensus.