Methods

Where does the information come from?

Each kind of statement has its own kind of source. What a faith teaches comes first from that faith's own authoritative sources: its scriptures, its creeds and official statements, and its classical teachers and commentators. History, dating, and scholarship come from university-press books, peer-reviewed articles, and standard references such as the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy and Encyclopaedia Britannica, plus museum and library catalogs for artifacts. Numbers come from the Pew Research Center, the World Religion Project, and each religious body's own reports, which the site labels as self-reported.

Where a faith's branches teach differently, the site names the branch, for example "in Theravada Buddhism," "in Catholic teaching," or "most Sunni scholars." It says what a whole faith holds only when a scholarly survey of its branches supports it, or when sources from at least two of its major branches agree.

The site never cites Wikipedia, AI-generated text, content farms, or polemical websites. It may describe a polemical argument, labeled as one.

How are sources shown?

On the guide, comparison, and Writings pages, every date, number, attribution, quotation, historical event, and statement of what a group believes or what scholars hold carries a numbered footnote. The numbers link to a Sources list at the bottom of the page, with a link to each source wherever one exists online.

How is each page checked?

Each page goes through three separate checks before a human editor reads it. AI assists with research and drafting, and the second and third checks are also run by AI, as separate passes that start fresh and never see the drafting.

1. Automated checks test the page for the site's naming and dating rules, its structure, its readability, and whether every quotation matches its source word for word.
2. An independent fact-check compares every claim with the saved text of the source it cites. The checker works only from the page and its sources. A claim the source doesn't support is corrected or removed.
3. A fairness review reads the page three ways: as an informed follower of the faith, as a critical scholar, and as a referee comparing it with the same page for the other five faiths.

A human editor then reads the page and approves it. Each page shows the date of its last review near the top.

What are the fairness rules?

The fairness rules require the site to describe every faith the same way and to take no side.

• Each faith is described in its own categories, as its informed followers would recognize it.
• Where tradition and historical scholarship differ, both appear, labeled ("Tradition holds..." and "Most historians date..."), at equal length. The site doesn't settle the disagreement.
• No sentence says or implies that one faith is truer, more reasonable, or more moral than another.
• The same verbs apply to every side: teaches, holds, believes, argues, responds.
• Disagreements inside a faith are reported without taking a side, and genuine uncertainty is stated plainly.
• All six faiths get the same structure, depth, and care, and appear in alphabetical order.

Which names and dates does the site use?

The site uses neutral dates and the names each community uses for itself.

• Dates use BCE (before the Common Era) and CE (Common Era).
• The site uses no honorifics in its own voice: it writes "Muhammad," "the Buddha," "Jesus," and "Joseph Smith." Quotations keep the honorifics their authors used.
• The site writes "God" in its own voice and introduces "Allah" as the Arabic word for God.
• The scriptures Judaism and Christianity share are "the Tanakh" when the site describes Jewish views, "the Old Testament" when it describes Christian views, and "the Hebrew Bible" elsewhere.
• Members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints are called "Latter-day Saints."
• Common English spellings are used without accent marks: Quran, Muhammad, Sharia, Hadith, Shabbat, dharma, karma, nirvana. A page may show the accented form once, in parentheses.

Which scripture translations are quoted?

Scripture is quoted only from translations that are in the public domain or released for free use (CC0), and only after the quotation has been matched word for word against the stored text. Otherwise the site paraphrases and gives the reference.

Latter-day Saint pages quote the Bible from the King James Version, the Bible that Latter-day Saints use; every other faith's pages quote the translation listed for it. Where no listed translation covers a text, such as the Mahayana sutras, the Talmud, or the Hadith, the site paraphrases and gives the reference.

How are followers counted?

Numbers of followers come from two kinds of count, and the site says which one it uses. Surveys and censuses count people who identify with a faith when asked. Membership records count the people a religious body has on its rolls. Because the two count different things, they can give different totals for the same group. Projections are labeled as projections, with the date they were published.

Which images does the site use?

Images are used only when they are in the public domain or carry an open license that lets anyone reuse and adapt them, including commercially, and each shows its credit line. The site never depicts Muhammad in any form, and it shows no images of Latter-day Saint temple garments or temple ceremonies. It uses no AI-generated images of people, artifacts, or places.

How do I report a mistake?

Email bk@godtheories.com with the page and the problem, and a source if you have one. When a page is corrected, it carries a dated note saying what changed. See also the Contact page.