Religion (from O.Fr. religion "religious community," from L. religionem (nom. religio) "respect for what is sacred, reverence for the gods,"[1] "obligation, the bond between man and the gods"[2] is the belief in and worship of a god God is the English name given to the singular omnipotent being in theistic and deistic religions who is either the sole deity in monotheism, or a single deity in polytheism or gods A pantheon is a set of all the gods of a particular polytheistic religion or mythology, or more in general a set of beliefs explaining the existence of and giving meaning to the universe, usually involving devotional and ritual observances, and often containing a moral code governing the conduct of human affairs.[3]

Aspects of religion include narrative The term mythology can refer to either the study of myths or a body of myths. For example, comparative mythology is the study of connections between myths from different cultures, whereas Greek mythology is the body of myths from ancient Greece. The term "myth" is often used colloquially to refer to a false story; however, the academic, symbolism A symbol is something such as an object, picture, written word, sound, or particular mark that represents something else by association, resemblance, or convention. For example, a red octagon may be a symbol for "STOP". On maps, crossed sabres may indicate a battlefield. Numerals are symbols for numbers . All language consists of symbols, beliefs, and practices that are supposed to give meaning to the practitioner's experiences of life. Whether the meaning centers on a deity A deity is a postulated preternatural or supernatural immortal being, who may be thought of as holy, divine, or sacred, held in high regard, and respected by believers, often religiously referred to as a god or deities, or an ultimate truth Truth can have a variety of meanings, from the state of being the case, being in accord with a particular fact or reality, being in accord with the body of real things, events, actuality, or fidelity to an original or to a standard, truth "behind" everything, the ontological truth. In archaic usage it could be fidelity, constancy or, religion is commonly identified by the practitioner's prayer Prayer is a form of religious practice that seeks to activate a volitional connection to God, or any deity, through deliberate practice. Prayer may be either individual or communal and take place in public or in private. It may involve the use of words or song. When language is used, prayer may take the form of a hymn, incantation, formal creedal, ritual A ritual is a set of actions, performed mainly for their symbolic value. It may be prescribed by a religion or by the traditions of a community. The term usually excludes actions which are arbitrarily chosen by the performers, or dictated purely by logic, chance, necessity, etc, meditation Meditation is a holistic discipline during which time the practitioner trains his or her mind in order to realize some benefit, music Music is an art form whose medium is sound. Common elements of music are pitch , rhythm (and its associated concepts tempo, meter, and articulation), dynamics, and the sonic qualities of timbre and texture. The word derives from Greek μουσική (mousike), "(art) of the Muses." and art Art is the process or product of deliberately arranging elements in a way to affect the senses or emotions. It encompasses a diverse range of human activities, creations, and modes of expression, including music, literature, film, photography, sculpture, and paintings. The meaning of art is explored in a branch of philosophy known as aesthetics, among other things, and is often interwoven with society A Society or a human society is a group of people related to each other through persistent relations such as social status, roles and social networks. Human societies are characterized by patterns of relationships between individuals sharing a distinctive culture and institutions. Without an article, the term refers either to the entirety of and politics Politics is a process by which groups of people make collective decisions. The term is generally applied to behavior within civil governments, but politics has been observed in other group interactions, including corporate, academic, and religious institutions. It consists of "social relations involving authority or power" and refers to. It may focus on specific supernatural The term supernatural or supranatural pertains to being above or beyond what one holds to be natural. In the case of one who has strong scientific and atheist beliefs, the supernatural is anything unexplainable by natural law or phenomena. While one who holds mystical or heavenly beliefs may have no conception of supernatural phenomena, he or she, metaphysical Metaphysics is a branch of philosophy that is not easily defined. It is concerned with explaining the fundamental nature of being and the world. Someone who studies metaphysics would be called either a metaphysicist or a metaphysician, and moral Morality is a sense of behavioral conduct that differentiates intentions, decisions, and actions between those that are good (or right) and bad (or wrong). A moral code is a system of morality (for example, according to a particular philosophy, religion, culture, etc.) and a moral is any one practice or teaching within a moral code. Immorality is claims about reality Reality is the state of things as they actually exist, rather than as they may appear or may be thought to be. In its widest definition, reality includes everything that is and has being, whether or not it is observable or comprehensible (the cosmos In its most general sense, a cosmos is an orderly or harmonious system. It originates from a Greek term κόσμος meaning "ordered world" and is the antithetical concept of chaos. Today the word is generally used as a synonym of the word Universe . The words cosmetics and cosmetology originate from the same root. In Russian and and human nature Human nature is the concept that there is a set of inherent distinguishing characteristics, including ways of thinking, feeling and acting, that humans tend to have) which may yield a set of religious laws In some religions, law can be thought of as the ordering principle of reality; knowledge as revealed by a God defining and governing all human affairs. Law, in the religious sense, also includes codes of ethics and morality which are upheld and required by the God. Examples include customary Halakha and Hindu law, and to an extent, Sharia (Islamic and ethics Ethics is a branch of philosophy that addresses questions about morality—that is, concepts such as good vs. bad, noble vs. ignoble, right vs. wrong, and matters of justice, love, peace, and virtue and a particular lifestyle Lifestyle is a term to describe the way a person lives, which was originally coined by Austrian psychologist Alfred Adler in 1929. The current broader sense of the word dates from 1961. A set of behaviors, and the senses of self and belonging which these behaviors represent, are collectively used to define a given lifestyle. The term is defined. Religion also encompasses ancestral or cultural traditions A tradition is any established routine. Usually, routines established in order to preserve a wide range of culturally significant ideas. The word tradition comes from the Latin traditio [meaning: giving up , surrendering, instructing, relating] Today, the word tradition is commonly used to designate specific practices and the various methods used, writings, history, and mythology The term mythology can refer to either the study of myths or a body of myths. For example, comparative mythology is the study of connections between myths from different cultures, whereas Greek mythology is the body of myths from ancient Greece. The term "myth" is often used colloquially to refer to a false story; however, the academic, as well as personal faith Faith is the confident belief or trust in the truth or trustworthiness of a person, idea, or thing. The word "faith" can refer to a religion itself or to religion in general and religious experience Religious experience is a subjective experience where an individual reports contact with a transcendent reality, an encounter or union with the divine. The development of religion has taken many forms in various cultures, with continental differences.

The term "religion" refers both to the personal practices related to communal faith and to group rituals and communication stemming from shared conviction. "Religion" is sometimes used interchangeably with "faith Faith is the confident belief or trust in the truth or trustworthiness of a person, idea, or thing. The word "faith" can refer to a religion itself or to religion in general" or "belief system",[4] but it is more socially defined than personal convictions, and it entails specific behaviors The religions of the world consist of religious images and religious behaviour. The religious images of the religions from the past and of present day religions, like gods, ghosts and worshipped ancestors, concepts of guilt, dogmatic teachings and ideas of the hereafter, are generally quite well known. Religious behaviour on the other hand, the, respectively.

Religion is often described as a communal system for the coherence of belief focusing on a system of thought, unseen being, person, or object, that is considered to be supernatural The term supernatural or supranatural pertains to being above or beyond what one holds to be natural. In the case of one who has strong scientific and atheist beliefs, the supernatural is anything unexplainable by natural law or phenomena. While one who holds mystical or heavenly beliefs may have no conception of supernatural phenomena, he or she, sacred, divine Divinity and divine are broadly applied but loosely defined terms, used variously within different faiths and belief systems — and even by different individuals within a given faith — to refer to some transcendent or transcendental power, or its attributes or manifestations in the world. The root of the words is literally "godlike" (, or of the highest truth. Moral codes In its "descriptive" sense, morality refers to personal or cultural values, codes of conduct or social mores that distinguish between right and wrong in the human society. Describing morality in this way is not making a claim about what is objectively right or wrong, but only referring to what is considered right or wrong by people. For, practices, values, institutions, tradition, rituals, and scriptures Scripture is that portion of literature deemed authoritative for establishing instructions within any of a number of specific religious traditions, especially the Abrahamic religions. Such bodies of writings are also sometimes known as the canon of scripture. They are often associated with the belief that they were either given directly, or are often traditionally associated with the core belief, and these may have some overlap with concepts in secular For instance, eating and bathing may be regarded as examples of secular activities, because there may not be anything inherently religious about them. Nevertheless, both eating and bathing are regarded as sacraments in some religious traditions, and therefore would be religious activities in those world views. Saying a prayer derived from philosophy Philosophy is the study of general and fundamental problems concerning matters such as existence, knowledge, values, reason, mind, and language. It is distinguished from other ways of addressing fundamental questions by its critical, generally systematic approach and its reliance on rational argument. The word "philosophy" comes from the. Religion is also often described as a "way of life Lifestyle is not a term to describe the way a person lives, which originally coined by Austrian psychologist Alfred Adler in 1929. The current broader sense of the word dates from 1961. A set of behaviors, and the senses of self and belonging which these behaviors represent, are collectively used to define a given lifestyle. The term is defined" or a life stance A person's life stance or lifestance is their relation with what they accept as being of ultimate importance, the presuppositions and theory of this, and the commitments and practice of working it out in living.

Contents

Etymology

Religion is derived from the Latin Latin is an Italic language originally spoken in Latium and Ancient Rome. With the Roman conquest, Latin was spread to countries around the Mediterranean, including a large part of Europe. Romance languages such as Aragonese, Corsican, Catalan, French, Italian, Portuguese, Romanian, Sardinian, Spanish and others, are descended from Latin, while religiō, the ultimate origins of which are obscure. One possibility is derivation from a reduplicated *le-ligare, an interpretation traced to Cicero Marcus Tullius Cicero was a Roman philosopher, statesman, lawyer, political theorist, and Roman constitutionalist. He came from a wealthy municipal family of the equestrian order, and is widely considered one of Rome's greatest orators and prose stylists connecting lego "read", i.e. re (again) + lego in the sense of "choose", "go over again" or "consider carefully". Modern scholars such as Tom Harpur Born in Toronto, Ontario in 1929, Harpur earned an Honours B.A. in 1951 at the University College, University of Toronto, where he won the Jarvis Scholarship in Greek and Latin, the Maurice Hutton Scholarship in Classics, the Sir William Mulock Scholarship in Classics, and the Gold Medal in Classics. He went on and studied Lit.Hum. at the and Joseph Campbell Joseph John Campbell was an American mythologist, writer and lecturer, best known for his work in comparative mythology and comparative religion. His work is vast, covering many aspects of the human experience. His philosophy is often summarized by his phrase: "Follow your bliss." favor the derivation from ligare "bind, connect", probably from a prefixed re-ligare, i.e. re (again) + ligare or "to reconnect," which was made prominent by St. Augustine Augustine of Hippo (November 13, 354 – August 28, 430), also known as Augustine, St. Augustine, or St. Austin was Bishop of Hippo Regius. He was a Latin-speaking philosopher and theologian who lived in the Roman Africa Province. His writings were very influential in the development of Western Christianity, following the interpretation of Lactantius Lactantius, a Latin-speaking native of North Africa, was a pupil of Arnobius and taught rhetoric in various cities of the Eastern Roman Empire, ending in Constantinople. He wrote apologetic works explaining Christianity in terms that would be palatable to educated people who still practiced the traditional religions of the Empire, while defending.[5][6] However, the French scholar Daniel Dubuisson notes that relying on this etymology "tends to minimize or cancel out the role of history"; he notes that Augustine gave a lengthy definition of religio that sets it quite apart from the modern word "religion".[7]

History

Religious history The history of religion refers to the written record of human religious experiences and ideas. This period of religious history typically begins with the invention of writing about 5,000 years ago in the Near East. The prehistory of religion relates to a study of religious beliefs that existed prior to the advent of written records. The timeline founding figures This article lists historical figures credited with founding religions or religious philosophies or people who first codified older known religious traditions. It also lists those who have founded a specific major denomination within a larger religion

Origins The evolutionary origin of religions refers to the emergence of religious behavior during the course of human evolution. When humans first became religious remains unknown, but there is credible evidence of religious behavior from the Middle Paleolithic era and possibly earlier Development Anthropology In the early 11th century, Abū Rayhān Bīrūnī , wrote detailed comparative studies on the anthropology of religions and cultures across the Middle East, Mediterranean and especially the Indian subcontinent. Biruni's anthropology of religion was only possible for a scholar deeply immersed in the lore of other nations. He carried out extensive, Psychology Psychology of religion is the psychological study of religious experiences, beliefs, and activities. It aims to inform understanding of religion through science. In the past couple decades, scholars have conceptualized religion as a way of living, rather than merely a belief system or institution . This conception of religion eases its Comparative religion Comparative religion is a field of religious studies that analyzes the similarities and differences of themes, myths, rituals and concepts among the world's religions. Religion can be defined as the human notions regarding the sacred, numinous, spiritual and divine Neurotheology Aldous Huxley used the term neurotheology for the first time in the utopian novel Island. The discipline studies the cognitive neuroscience of religious experience and spirituality. The term is also sometimes used in a less scientific context or a philosophical context. Some of these uses, according to the mainstream scientific community, qualify/God gene The God gene hypothesis proposes that human beings inherit a set of genes that predisposes them to believe in a higher power. The idea has been postulated by geneticist Dean Hamer, the director of the Gene Structure and Regulation Unit at the U.S. National Cancer Institute, who has written a book on the subject titled, The God Gene: How Faith is
Prehistoric

Ancient Near East · Ancient Egypt · Semitic Indo-European · Vedic Hinduism · Greco-Roman · Celtic · Germanic Axial Age · Vedanta · Shramana · Dharma · Tao · Hellenism · Monism · Dualism · Monotheism Christianization Islamization Renaissance · Reformation Age of Reason New religious movements · Great Awakening · Fundamentalism · New Age Postmodernism

Abrahamic · Judaism · Christianity · Islam · Bahá'í Faith Indic · Hinduism · Buddhism · Jainism · Sikhism · Ayyavazhi · Taoism Neopagan · Wicca
Further information: History of religions

The religious category is not transhistorical or universal; rather, Daniel Dubuisson writes that "what the West and the history of religions in its wake have objectified under the name religion is ... something quite unique, which could be appropriate only to itself and its own history."[8] Other languages, even though they may have terms which overlap with "religion", often use them to mean different things. For example, the word used to translate "religion" into modern Indo-Aryan languages is dharma, which means "law". Throughout classical South Asia, the study of law consisted of concepts such as penance through piety and ceremonial as well as practical traditions. Medieval Japan at first had a similar union between "imperial law" and universal or "Buddha law", but these later became independent sources of power.[9] The use of other terms, such as obedience to God or islam in the "religion" given that name, are likewise grounded in particular histories and vocabularies.[10]

The history of other cultures' interaction with the religious category is not about a universal constant, but rather concerns a particular idea that first developed in Europe under the influence of Christianity.[11]

Religion and the body politic

A good understanding of the meaning of Christianity before the word "religion" came into common usage can be found in St. Augustine's writing. For Augustine, Christianity was a disciplina, a "rule" just like that of the Roman Empire. Christianity was therefore a power structure opposing and superseding human institutions, a literal Kingdom of Heaven. Rather than calling one to self-discipline through symbols, it was itself the discipline taught by one's family, school, church, and city authorities.[12] At this point, too, the root of the English word "religion", the Latin religio, was in use only to mean "reverence for God or the gods, careful pondering of divine things, piety" (which Cicero further derived to mean "diligence").[13][14] Max Müller characterized many other cultures around the world, including Egypt, Persia, and India, as having a similar power structure at this point in history. What is called ancient religion today, they would have only called "law".[15]

At this point, Western Europe and the rest of the world diverged. As Christianity became commonplace, the charismatic authority identified by Augustine, a quality we might today call "religiousness", had a commanding influence at the local level. This system persisted in the Byzantine Empire following the East-West Schism, but Western Europe regulated unpredictable expressions of charisma through the Roman Catholic Church. As the Church lost its dominance during the Protestant Reformation and Christianity became closely tied to political structures, religion was recast as the basis of national sovereignty, and religious identity gradually became a less universal sense of spirituality and more divisive, locally defined, and tied to nationality.[16] It was at this point that "religion" was dissociated with universal beliefs and moved closer to dogma in both meaning and practice. However there was not yet the idea of dogma as personal choice, only of established churches.

Religious freedom

Main article: Freedom of religion

In the Age of Enlightenment, the idea of Christianity as the purest expression of spirituality was supplanted by the concept of "religion" as a worldwide practice.[17] This caused such ideas as religious freedom, a reexamination of classical philosophy as an alternative to Christian thought, and more radically Deism among intellectuals such as Voltaire. Much like Christianity, the idea of "religious freedom" was exported around the world as a civilizing technique, even to regions such as India that had never treated spirituality as a matter of political identity.[18] In Japan, where Buddhism was still seen as a philosophy of natural law,[19] the concept of "religion" and "religious freedom" as separate from other power structures was unnecessary until Christian missionaries demanded free access to conversion, and when Japanese Christians refused to engage in patriotic events.[20]

With the Enlightenment, religion lost its attachment to nationality, but rather than being a universal social attitude, it was now a personal feeling or emotion.[21] Friedrich Schleiermacher in the late 18th century defined religion as das schlechthinnige Abhängigkeitsgefühl, commonly translated as "a feeling of absolute dependence".[22] His contemporary Hegel disagreed thoroughly, defining religion as "the Divine Spirit becoming conscious of Himself through the finite spirit."[23] William James is an especially notable 19th century subscriber to the theory of religion as feeling.

In the law

There are laws and statutes that make reference to religion.[24] This has led to claims from some scholars that religious freedom is literally impossible to uphold.[25] Also, the Western legal principle of separation of church and state tends to engender a new, more inclusive civil religion.[26]

Modern issues in religion

Confucianism, Taoism, and Buddhism are one, a painting in the litang style portraying three men laughing by a river stream, 12th century, Song Dynasty

Religious studies

Main article: Religious studies

With the recognition of religion as a category separate from culture and society came the rise of religious studies. The initial purpose of religious studies was to demonstrate the superiority of the "living" or "universal" European world view to the "dead" or "ethnic" religions scattered throughout the rest of the world, expanding the teleological project of Schleiermacher and Tiele to a worldwide ideal religiousness.[27] Due to shifting theological currents, this was eventually supplanted by a liberal-ecumenical interest in searching for Western-style universal truths in every cultural tradition.[28] Clifford Geertz's definition of religion as a "cultural system" was dominant for most of the 20th century and continues to be widely accepted today.

Sociologists and anthropologists tend to see religion as an abstract set of ideas, values, or experiences developed as part of a cultural matrix. For example, in Lindbeck's Nature of Doctrine, religion does not refer to belief in "God" or a transcendent Absolute. Instead, Lindbeck defines religion as, "a kind of cultural and/or linguistic framework or medium that shapes the entirety of life and thought... it is similar to an idiom that makes possible the description of realities, the formulation of beliefs, and the experiencing of inner attitudes, feelings, and sentiments.”[29] According to this definition, religion refers to one's primary worldview and how this dictates one's thoughts and actions. Thus religion is considered by some sources to extend to causes, principles, or activities believed in with zeal or conscientious devotion concerning points or matters of ethics or conscience, and not necessarily including belief in the supernatural.[30]

Although evolutionists had previously sought to understand and explain religion in terms of a cultural attribute which might conceivably confer biological advantages to its adherents, Richard Dawkins called for a re-analysis of religion in terms of the evolution of self-replicating ideas apart from any resulting biological advantages they might bestow. He argued that the role of key replicator in cultural evolution belongs not to genes, but to memes replicating thought from person to person by means of imitation. These replicators respond to selective pressures that may or may not affect biological reproduction or survival.[31] Susan Blackmore regards religions as particularly tenacious memes.[32] Chris Hedges, however, regards meme theory as a misleading imposition of genetics onto psychology.

Interfaith cooperation

Because religion continues to be recognized in Western thought as a universal impulse, many religious practitioners have aimed to band together in interfaith dialogue and cooperation. The first major dialogue was the Parliament of the World's Religions at the 1893 Chicago World's Fair, which remains notable even today both in affirming "universal values" and recognition of the diversity of practices among different cultures. The 20th century has been especially fruitful in use of interfaith dialogue as a means of solving ethnic, political, or even religious conflict, with Christian-Jewish reconciliation representing a complete reverse in the attitudes of many Christian communities towards Jews.

Secularism and irreligion

Main articles: Secularism, Agnosticism, Atheism, Irreligion, and Antireligion

As religion became a more personal matter in western culture, discussions of society found a new focus on political and scientific meaning, and religious attitudes (dominantly Christian) were increasingly seen as irrelevant for the needs of the European world. On the political side, Ludwig Feuerbach recast Christian beliefs in light of humanism, paving the way for Karl Marx's famous characterization of religion as "the opium of the people". Meanwhile, in the scientific community, T.H. Huxley in 1869 coined the term "agnostic," a term—subsequently adopted by such figures as Robert Ingersoll—that, while directly conflicting with and novel to Christian tradition, is accepted and even embraced in some other religions. Later, Bertrand Russell told the world Why I Am Not a Christian, which influenced several later authors to discuss their breakaway from their own religious uprbringings from Islam to Hinduism.

The terms "atheist" (lack of belief in any gods) and "agnostic" (belief in the unknowability of the existence of gods), though specifically contrary to theistic (e.g. Christian, Jewish, and Muslim) religious teachings, do not by definition mean the opposite of "religious". There are religions (including Buddhism and Taoism), in fact, that classify some of their followers as agnostic, atheistic, or nontheistic.

The true opposite of "religious" is the word "irreligious". Irreligion describes an absence of any religion; antireligion describes an active opposition or aversion toward religions in general.

Criticism of religion

Main article: Criticism of religion

Critics of religious systems as well as of personal faith have posed a variety of arguments against religion. Some modern-day critics hold that religion lacks utility in human society; they may regard religion as irrational.[33] Some assert that dogmatic religions are in effect morally deficient, elevating as they do to moral status ancient, arbitrary, and ill-informed rules—taboos on eating pork, for example, as well as dress codes and sexual practices.[34] Irreligion and antireligion have increased as the sociopolitical changes of Western civilization have become more widespread globally.

Religious belief

Main article: Religious belief

Religious belief usually relates to the existence, nature, and worship of a deity or deities and divine involvement in the universe and human life. Alternately, it may also relate to values and practices transmitted by a spiritual leader. Unlike other belief systems, which may be passed on orally, religious belief tends to be codified in literate societies (religion in non-literate societies is still largely passed on orally[35]). In some religions, like the Abrahamic religions, it is held that most of the core beliefs have been divinely revealed.

Religious belief can also involve causes, principles or activities believed in with zeal or conscientious devotion concerning points or matters of ethics or conscience, not necessarily limited to organized religions.[36]

Specific religious movements

Main article: Major religious groups

In the 19th and 20th centuries, the academic practice of comparative religion divided religious belief into philosophically defined categories called "world religions." However, some recent scholarship has argued that not all types of religion are necessarily separated by mutually exclusive philosophies, and furthermore that the utility of ascribing a practice to a certain philosophy, or even calling a given practice religious, rather than cultural, political, or social in nature, is limited.[18][37][38] The current state of psychological study about the nature of religiousness suggests that it is better to refer to religion as a largely invariant phenomenon that should be distinguished from cultural norms (i.e. "religions").[39] The list of religious movements given here is therefore an attempt to summarize the most important regional and philosophical influences on local communities, but it is by no means a complete description of every religious community, nor does it explain the most important elements of individual religiousness.