ABSTRACT
BY 'world religions,' we understand the five religions or religiously determined-systems of life-regulation which have known how to gather multitudes of confessors around them. The term is used here in a completely value-neutral sense. The Confucian, Hinduist, Buddhist, Christian, and Islamist religious ethics all belong to the category of world religion. A sixth religion, Judaism, will also be dealt with. It is included because it contains historical preconditions decisive for understanding Christianity and Islamism, and because of its historic and autono~ous significance for the development of the modern economic ethic of the Occident-a significance, partly real and partly alleged, which has been discussed several times recently. References to other religions will be made only when they are indispensable. for historical connections.1
