Religion

Part of a series on
Religion
Outline Lists Category Index History Portal
Religions Abrahamic Judaism Christianity Islam Baháʼí Faith Mormonism Mandaeism Samaritanism Indic Hinduism Buddhism Jainism Sikhism Yungdrung Bon Zoroastrianism Eastern Taoism Confucianism Shinto Tian Shangdi Hongjun Laozu
Schools Acosmism Agnosticism Animism Antireligion Apatheism Atheism Creationism Dharmism Deism Divine command theory Dualism Esotericism Elite religion Exclusivism Existentialism atheist Christian Feminist Fideism Folk religion Fundamentalism Gnosticism Henotheism Hermeticism Humanism Christian religious secular Ietsism Ignosticism Inclusivism Kathenotheism Lived religion Monism Monotheism Mysticism Naturalism humanistic metaphysical religious New Age Nondualism Nontheism Omnism Pandeism Panentheism Pantheism Perennialism Polytheism Process theology Shendao shejiao Spiritualism Shamanism Taoic Theism Transcendentalism Transtheism Unitarianism
Concepts Afterlife Anthropopathism Apophatism Aseity Belief Brahman Cataphatism Demiurge Divinely simple Eschatology Enlightenment Eternalness Euthyphro dilemma Existence of God Faith Form of the Good Gender of God Gnosis Holy Spirit Intelligent design Liberation Maltheist Miracle Names of God Omnibenevolence Omnipotence Omnipresence Omniscience Pandeist Personal Prayer Problem of evil Process theology Religious belief Religious language Reincarnation Religious faith Revelation Scripture Soul Summum bonum Tawhid Theological veto Transcendence Trinity Supreme Being Unmoved mover Spirit Worship
Founding figures Jesus (Christianity) Muhammad (Islam) Abraham (Judaism) Siddhartha Gautama (Buddhism ) Guru Nanak (Sikhism) Mahavira (Jainism) Zoroaster (Zoroastrianism) Hamza ibn Ali (Druzism) Laozi (Taoism) Confucius (Confucianism) Baháʼu'lláh (Baháʼí Faith)
This is a subseries on philosophy. In order to explore related topics, please visit navigation.
v t e

Part of a series on
Spirituality
Outline
Religion History Timeline
Traditional Elite religion Jewish Merkabah Kabbalah Hasidism Christian Catholic Mysticism Sufism Folk religion
Modern Buddhist modernism New religious movement Secular spirituality "Spiritual but not religious" Syncretism
Spiritual experience Lived religion Mystical experience Oceanic feeling Religious experience Religious ecstasy Spiritual practice
Spiritual development Ego death Individuation Self-actualization Spiritual activism Spiritual development
Influences
Western General Divine illumination Pantheism Panentheism Antiquity Gnosticism Hermeticism Neoplatonism Western esotericism Medieval Mysticism Early modern Perennial philosophy Jakob Böhme Emanuel Swedenborg Pietism Modern Romanticism Transcendentalism Universalism New Thought Theosophy Anthroposophy Occultism Spiritualism Esoteric Christianity New Age
Orientalist Comparative religion Neo-Advaita Nonduality Orientalism Theosophical Society
Asian Pre-historic Proto-Indo-Iranian religion Iran Zoroastrianism India Advaita Vedanta Buddha-nature Enlightenment Kevala jnana Madhyamaka Moksha Neo-Vedanta Tantra Yoga Yogachara East-Asia Taoism
Other non-Western Animism Shamanism Totemism
Psychological Humanistic psychology Mindfulness Positive psychology Self-help Self-realization True self and false self
Research
Neurological Mystical psychosis Cognitive science of religion Neuroscience of religion Geschwind syndrome Evolutionary psychology of religion
Category
v t e

Religion is a range of

The term religion comes from both

In classic antiquity, religiō broadly meant

Roman general Julius Caesar used religiō to mean "obligation of an oath" when discussing captured soldiers making an oath to their captors.^[26] Roman naturalist Pliny the Elder used the term religiō to describe the apparent respect given by elephants to the night sky.^[27] Cicero used religiō as being related to cultum deorum (worship of the gods).^[28]

Threskeia

In Ancient Greece, the Greek term threskeia (θρησκεία) was loosely translated into Latin as religiō in late antiquity. Threskeia was sparsely used in classical Greece but became more frequently used in the writings of Josephus in the 1st century CE. It was used in mundane contexts and could mean multiple things from respectful fear to excessive or harmfully distracting practices of others, to cultic practices. It was often contrasted with the Greek word deisidaimonia, which meant too much fear.^[29]

History of the concept of the "religion"

Religion is a modern concept.

The Sanskrit word dharma, sometimes translated as religion,^[46] also 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.^[47][48]

Though traditions, sacred texts, and practices have existed throughout time, most cultures did not align with Western conceptions of religion since they did not separate everyday life from the sacred. In the 18th and 19th centuries, the terms Buddhism, Hinduism, Taoism, Confucianism, and world religions first entered the English language.^[49][50][51] Native Americans were also thought of as not having religions and also had no word for religion in their languages either.^[50][52] No one self-identified as a Hindu or Buddhist or other similar terms before the 1800s.^[53] "Hindu" has historically been used as a geographical, cultural, and later religious identifier for people indigenous to the Indian subcontinent.^[54][55] Throughout its long history, Japan had no concept of religion since there was no corresponding Japanese word, nor anything close to its meaning, but when American warships appeared off the coast of Japan in 1853 and forced the Japanese government to sign treaties demanding, among other things, freedom of religion, the country had to contend with this idea.^[56][57]

According to the

Scholars have failed to agree on a definition of religion. There are, however, two general definition systems: the sociological/functional and the phenomenological/philosophical.^{[61][62][63][64]}

Modern Western

The concept of religion originated in the modern era in the West.^[33] Parallel concepts are not found in many current and past cultures; there is no equivalent term for religion in many languages.^[3][23] Scholars have found it difficult to develop a consistent definition, with some giving up on the possibility of a definition.^[65][66] Others argue that regardless of its definition, it is not appropriate to apply it to non-Western cultures.^[32][33]

An increasing number of scholars have expressed reservations about ever defining the essence of religion.^[67] They observe that the way the concept today is used is a particularly modern construct that would not have been understood through much of history and in many cultures outside the West (or even in the West until after the Peace of Westphalia).^[68] The MacMillan Encyclopedia of Religions states:

The very attempt to define religion, to find some distinctive or possibly unique essence or set of qualities that distinguish the religious from the remainder of human life, is primarily a Western concern. The attempt is a natural consequence of the Western speculative, intellectualistic, and scientific disposition. It is also the product of the dominant Western religious mode, what is called the Judeo-Christian climate or, more accurately, the theistic inheritance from Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. The theistic form of belief in this tradition, even when downgraded culturally, is formative of the dichotomous Western view of religion. That is, the basic structure of theism is essentially a distinction between a transcendent deity and all else, between the creator and his creation, between God and man.^[69]

The anthropologist Clifford Geertz defined religion as a:

... system of symbols which acts to establish powerful, pervasive, and long-lasting moods and motivations in men by formulating conceptions of a general order of existence and clothing these conceptions with such an aura of factuality that the moods and motivations seem uniquely realistic.^[70]

Alluding perhaps to Tylor's "deeper motive", Geertz remarked that:

... we have very little idea of how, in empirical terms, this particular miracle is accomplished. We just know that it is done, annually, weekly, daily, for some people almost hourly; and we have an enormous ethnographic literature to demonstrate it.^[71]

The theologian Antoine Vergote took the term supernatural simply to mean whatever transcends the powers of nature or human agency. He also emphasized the cultural reality of religion, which he defined as:

... the entirety of the linguistic expressions, emotions and, actions and signs that refer to a supernatural being or supernatural beings.^[7]

Peter Mandaville and Paul James intended to get away from the modernist dualisms or dichotomous understandings of immanence/transcendence, spirituality/materialism, and sacredness/secularity. They define religion as:

... a relatively-bounded system of beliefs, symbols and practices that addresses the nature of existence, and in which communion with others and Otherness is lived as if it both takes in and spiritually transcends socially-grounded ontologies of time, space, embodiment and knowing.^[72]

According to the MacMillan Encyclopedia of Religions, there is an experiential aspect to religion which can be found in almost every culture:

... almost every known culture [has] a depth dimension in cultural experiences ... toward some sort of ultimacy and transcendence that will provide norms and power for the rest of life. When more or less distinct patterns of behavior are built around this depth dimension in a culture, this structure constitutes religion in its historically recognizable form. Religion is the organization of life around the depth dimensions of experience—varied in form, completeness, and clarity in accordance with the environing culture.^[73]

Anthropologists Lyle Steadman and Craig T. Palmer emphasized the communication of supernatural beliefs, defining religion as:

... the communicated acceptance by individuals of another individual’s “supernatural” claim, a claim whose accuracy is not verifiable by the senses.^[74]

Classical

Friedrich Schleiermacher in the late 18th century defined religion as das schlechthinnige Abhängigkeitsgefühl, commonly translated as "the feeling of absolute dependence".^[75]

His contemporary

Edward Burnett Tylor defined religion in 1871 as "the belief in spiritual beings".^[77] He argued that narrowing the definition to mean the belief in a supreme deity or judgment after death or idolatry and so on, would exclude many peoples from the category of religious, and thus "has the fault of identifying religion rather with particular developments than with the deeper motive which underlies them". He also argued that the belief in spiritual beings exists in all known societies.

In his book The Varieties of Religious Experience, the psychologist William James defined religion as "the feelings, acts, and experiences of individual men in their solitude, so far as they apprehend themselves to stand in relation to whatever they may consider the divine".^[4] By the term divine James meant "any object that is godlike, whether it be a concrete deity or not"^[78] to which the individual feels impelled to respond with solemnity and gravity.^[79]

Sociologist

Echoes of James' and Durkheim's definitions are to be found in the writings of, for example, Frederick Ferré who defined religion as "one's way of valuing most comprehensively and intensively".^[82] Similarly, for the theologian Paul Tillich, faith is "the state of being ultimately concerned",^[6] which "is itself religion. Religion is the substance, the ground, and the depth of man's spiritual life."^[83]

When religion is seen in terms of sacred, divine, intensive valuing, or ultimate concern, then it is possible to understand why scientific findings and philosophical criticisms (e.g., those made by Richard Dawkins) do not necessarily disturb its adherents.^[84]

Aspects

Beliefs

The origin of religious belief is an open question, with possible explanations including awareness of individual death, a sense of community, and dreams.^[8] Traditionally, faith, in addition to reason, has been considered a source of religious beliefs. The interplay between faith and reason, and their use as perceived support for religious beliefs, have been a subject of interest to philosophers and theologians.^[85]

Mythology

1. A traditional story of ostensibly historical events that serves to unfold part of the world view of a people or explain a practice, belief, or natural phenomenon;
2. A person or thing having only an imaginary or unverifiable existence; or
3. A metaphor for the spiritual potentiality in the human being.[86]

Ancient

In sociology, however, the term myth has a non-pejorative meaning. There, myth is defined as a story that is important for the group, whether or not it is objectively or provably true.[88] Examples include the resurrection of their real-life founder Jesus, which, to Christians, explains the means by which they are freed from sin, is symbolic of the power of life over death, and is also said to be a historical event. But from a mythological outlook, whether or not the event actually occurred is unimportant. Instead, the symbolism of the death of an old life and the start of a new life is most significant. Religious believers may or may not accept such symbolic interpretations.

Practices

The practices of a religion may include

Religions have a societal basis, either as a living tradition which is carried by lay participants, or with an organized clergy, and a definition of what constitutes adherence or membership.

Academic study

A number of disciplines study the phenomenon of religion:

Michael Stausberg gives an overview of contemporary theories of religion, including cognitive and biological approaches.^[91]

Theories

The origin of religion is uncertain. There are a number of theories regarding the subsequent origins of religious practices.

According to

Anthropologists John Monoghan and Peter Just state that, "it seems apparent that one thing religion or belief helps us do is deal with problems of human life that are significant, persistent, and intolerable. One important way in which religious beliefs accomplish this is by providing a set of ideas about how and why the world is put together that allows people to accommodate anxieties and deal with misfortune."[94]

Cultural system

While religion is difficult to define, one standard model of religion, used in religious studies courses, was proposed by Clifford Geertz, who simply called it a "cultural system".^[95] A critique of Geertz's model by Talal Asad categorized religion as "an anthropological category".^[96] Richard Niebuhr's (1894–1962) five-fold classification of the relationship between Christ and culture, however, indicates that religion and culture can be seen as two separate systems, though with some interplay.^[97]

Social constructionism

One modern academic theory of religion, social constructionism, says that religion is a modern concept that suggests all spiritual practice and worship follows a model similar to the Abrahamic religions as an orientation system that helps to interpret reality and define human beings.^[98] Among the main proponents of this theory of religion are Daniel Dubuisson, Timothy Fitzgerald, Talal Asad, and Jason Ānanda Josephson. The social constructionists argue that religion is a modern concept that developed from Christianity and was then applied inappropriately to non-Western cultures.

Cognitive science

Cognitive science of religion is the study of religious thought and behavior from the perspective of the cognitive and evolutionary sciences.

Hallucinations and delusions related to religious content occurs in about 60% of people with schizophrenia. While this number varies across cultures, this had led to theories about a number of influential religious phenomena and possible relation to psychotic disorders. A number of prophetic experiences are consistent with psychotic symptoms, although retrospective diagnoses are practically impossible.^{[100][101][102]} Schizophrenic episodes are also experienced by people who do not have belief in gods.^[103]

Religious content is also common in temporal lobe epilepsy, and obsessive–compulsive disorder.^[104][105] Atheistic content is also found to be common with temporal lobe epilepsy.^[106]

Comparativism

Comparative religion is the branch of the

In the 19th and 20th centuries, the academic practice of

1. World religions, a term which refers to transcultural, international religions;
2. Indigenous religions
   , which refers to smaller, culture-specific or nation-specific religious groups; and
3. New religious movements, which refers to recently developed religions.^[109]

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.[110]^[111][112] 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).^{[113][clarification needed]}

Morphological classification

Some

Example of followers of popular and world religions, from top-left: Christians, Muslims, Hindus, Buddhists, Sikhs, and Jews.

The five largest religious groups by world population, estimated to account for 5.8 billion people and 84% of the population, are Christianity, Islam, Buddhism, Hinduism (with the relative numbers for Buddhism and Hinduism dependent on the extent of syncretism), and traditional folk religions.

A global poll in 2012 surveyed 57 countries and reported that 59% of the world's population identified as religious, 23% as not religious, 13% as convinced atheists, and also a 9% decrease in identification as religious when compared to the 2005 average from 39 countries.^[120] A follow-up poll in 2015 found that 63% of the globe identified as religious, 22% as not religious, and 11% as convinced atheists.^[121] On average, women are more religious than men.^[122] Some people follow multiple religions or multiple religious principles at the same time, regardless of whether or not the religious principles they follow traditionally allow for syncretism.^{[123][124][125]} Unaffiliated populations are projected to drop, even when taking disaffiliation rates into account, due to differences in birth rates.^[126][127]

Scholars have indicated that global religiosity may be increasing due to religious countries having higher birth rates in general.^[128]

Specific religions

Abrahamic

• The
  Maronite Catholic Church.^[136]
• Oriental Orthodoxy, and the Church of the East
  .
• Calvinism, Lutheranism, and Methodism, though each of these contain many different denominations or groups.^[136]

• apostolic early church
  .
• Latter-day Saint movement, founded by Joseph Smith
  in the late 1820s.
• Jehovah's Witnesses, founded in the late 1870s by Charles Taze Russell.
• Christian Existentialist

Islam

• sahabah
  .
• Shia Islam is the second largest denomination of Islam and its adherents believe that Ali succeeded Muhammad and further places emphasis on Muhammad's family.
• There are also Muslim revivalist movements such as
  Salafism
  .

Other denominations of Islam include

Other

Whilst Judaism, Christianity and Islam are commonly seen as the only three Abrahamic faiths, there are smaller and newer traditions which lay claim to the designation as well.^[139]

For example, the

East Asian religions (also known as Far Eastern religions or Taoic religions) consist of several religions of East Asia which make use of the concept of Tao (in Chinese), Dō (in Japanese or Korean) or Đạo (in Vietnamese). They include:

Taoism and Confucianism

• Taoism and Confucianism, as well as Korean, Vietnamese, and Japanese religion influenced by Chinese thought.

Folk religions

Indian religions are practiced or were founded in the Indian subcontinent. They are sometimes classified as the dharmic religions, as they all feature dharma, the specific law of reality and duties expected according to the religion.^[149]

Hinduism

darśana.^{[note 2]} Deities in Hinduism are referred to as Deva (masculine) and Devi (feminine).^{[151][152][153]} Major deities include Vishnu, Lakshmi, Shiva, Parvati, Brahma and Saraswati. These deities have distinct and complex personalities yet are often viewed as aspects of the same Ultimate Reality called Brahman.^{[154][note 3]} Hinduism is one of the most ancient of still-active religious belief systems,^[155][156] with origins perhaps as far back as prehistoric times.^[157]

Therefore, Hinduism has been called the oldest religion in the world.

Jainism

Buddha in the 5th-century BCE, and accordingly the historical Parshvanatha, based on the c. 250-year gap, is placed in 8th or 7th century BCE.^[158]

• original canon
  is lost.
• Sthulibhadra
  .

Buddhism

suffering (dukkha) by understanding the true nature of phenomena, thereby escaping the cycle of suffering and rebirth (saṃsāra), that is, achieving nirvana

.

• Theravada Buddhism, which is practiced mainly in Sri Lanka and Southeast Asia alongside folk religion, shares some characteristics of Indian religions. It is based in a large collection of texts called the Pali Canon.
• Korea, Japan and to a lesser extent in Europe and the United States. Mahayana Buddhism includes such disparate teachings as Zen, Pure Land, and Soka Gakkai
  .

• Vajrayana Buddhism first appeared in India in the 3rd century CE.^[159] It is currently most prominent in the Himalaya regions^[160] and extends across all of Asia^[161] (cf. Mikkyō).
• Two notable new Buddhist sects are Hòa Hảo and the Navayana (Dalit Buddhist movement), which were developed separately in the 20th century.

Sikhism

vices and be able to be constantly immersed in virtues clarified in the Guru Granth Sahib. The principal beliefs of Sikhi are faith in Waheguru—represented by the phrase ik ōaṅkār, one cosmic divine actioner( God) , who prevails in everything, along with a praxis

in which the Sikh is enjoined to engage in social reform through the pursuit of justice for all human beings.

Indigenous and folk

syncretic, fusing diverse religious beliefs and practices.^[166]

• Australian Aboriginal religions
  .
• Folk religions of the Americas:
  Native American religions

Folk religions are often omitted as a category in surveys even in countries where they are widely practiced, e.g., in China.[165]

Traditional African

Main article:

Traditional African religion

Further information:

African diasporic religions

Bantu mythology is found throughout central, southeast, and southern Africa. In north Africa, these traditions include Berber and ancient Egyptian

.

There are also notable

Lucumi, Umbanda, and Macumba

.

Iranian

Islamization of Greater Iran

. Nowadays these religions are practiced only by minorities.

Zoroastrianism is based on the teachings of prophet Zoroaster in the 6th century BCE. Zoroastrians worship the creator Ahura Mazda. In Zoroastrianism, good and evil have distinct sources, with evil trying to destroy the creation of Mazda, and good trying to sustain it.

Ahl-e Haqq. Sometimes these are labeled Yazdânism

.

New religious movements

Main article: New religious movement

See also: List of new religious movements

• The Baháʼí Faith teaches the unity of all religious philosophies.^[140]
• Cao Đài is a syncretistic, monotheistic religion, established in Vietnam in 1926.^[169]
• Eckankar is a pantheistic religion with the purpose of making God an everyday reality in one's life.^[170]
• Epicureanism is a Hellenistic philosophy that is considered by many of its practitioners as a type of (sometimes non-theistic) religious identity. It has its own scriptures, a monthly "feast of reason" on the Twentieth and considers friendship to be holy.
• Swaminarayan Faith and Ananda Marga
  , are examples of new religious movements within Indian religions.
• Seicho-No-Ie among hundreds of smaller groups.^[171]
• millenarian.^[172]
• Neo-Druidism is a religion promoting harmony with nature,^[173] named after but not necessarily connected to the Iron Age druids.^[174]
• Kemeticism^[175]
• Noahidism is a monotheistic ideology based on the Seven Laws of Noah,^[176] and on their traditional interpretations within Rabbinic Judaism.
• Some forms of
  Pastafarianism, Dudeism, "Tolkien religion",^[177]
  and others often develop their own writings, traditions, and cultural expressions, and end up behaving like traditional religions.
• Satanism is a broad category of religions that, for example, worship Satan as a deity (Theistic Satanism) or use Satan as a symbol of carnality and earthly values (LaVeyan Satanism and The Satanic Temple).^[178]
• UFO cult and includes references to aliens, but is kept secret from most followers. It charges a fee for its central activity, called auditing, so is sometimes considered a commercial enterprise.^[179][181]
• UFO Religions in which extraterrestrial entities are an element of belief, such as Raëlism, Aetherius Society, and Marshall Vian Summers
  's New Message from God
• Unitarian Universalism is a religion characterized by support for a free and responsible search for truth and meaning, and has no accepted creed or theology.^[186]
• Wicca is a neo-pagan religion first popularised in 1954 by British civil servant Gerald Gardner, involving the worship of a God and Goddess.^[187]

Related aspects

Law

Main article: Law and religion

The study of law and religion is a relatively new field, with several thousand scholars involved in law schools, and academic departments including political science, religion, and history since 1980.^[188] Scholars in the field are not only focused on strictly legal issues about religious freedom or non-establishment, but also study religions as they are qualified through judicial discourses or legal understanding of religious phenomena. Exponents look at canon law, natural law, and state law, often in a comparative perspective.^[189][190] Specialists have explored themes in Western history regarding Christianity and justice and mercy, rule and equity, and discipline and love.^[191] Common topics of interest include marriage and the family^[192] and human rights.^[193] Outside of Christianity, scholars have looked at law and religion links in the Muslim Middle East^[194] and pagan Rome.^[195]

Studies have focused on secularization.^[196][197] In particular, the issue of wearing religious symbols in public, such as headscarves that are banned in French schools, have received scholarly attention in the context of human rights and feminism.^[198]

Science

Main articles: Faith and rationality, Relationship between religion and science, and Epistemology

metaphysical explanations with regard to the study of the universe. Both science and religion are not monolithic, timeless, or static because both are complex social and cultural endeavors that have changed through time across languages and cultures.^[199]

The concepts of science and religion are a recent invention: the term religion emerged in the 17th century in the midst of colonization and globalization and the Protestant Reformation.[3]^[21] The term science emerged in the 19th century out of natural philosophy in the midst of attempts to narrowly define those who studied nature (natural science),^{[21][200][201]} and the phrase religion and science emerged in the 19th century due to the reification of both concepts.^[21] It was in the 19th century that the terms Buddhism, Hinduism, Taoism, and Confucianism first emerged.^[21] In the ancient and medieval world, the etymological Latin roots of both science (scientia) and religion (religio) were understood as inner qualities of the individual or virtues, never as doctrines, practices, or actual sources of knowledge.^[21]

In general, the

theories through elucidation of facts or evaluation by experiments and thus only answers cosmological questions about the universe that can be observed and measured. It develops theories of the world which best fit physically observed evidence. All scientific knowledge is subject to later refinement, or even rejection, in the face of additional evidence. Scientific theories that have an overwhelming preponderance of favorable evidence are often treated as de facto verities in general parlance, such as the theories of general relativity and natural selection to explain respectively the mechanisms of gravity and evolution

.

Religion does not have a method per se partly because religions emerge through time from diverse cultures and it is an attempt to find meaning in the world, and to explain humanity's place in it and relationship to it and to any posited entities. In terms of Christian theology and ultimate truths, people rely on reason, experience, scripture, and tradition to test and gauge what they experience and what they should believe. Furthermore, religious models, understanding, and metaphors are also revisable, as are scientific models.[202]

Regarding religion and science, Albert Einstein states (1940): "For science can only ascertain what is, but not what should be, and outside of its domain value judgments of all kinds remain necessary.^[203] Religion, on the other hand, deals only with evaluations of human thought and action; it cannot justifiably speak of facts and relationships between facts^[203]…Now, even though the realms of religion and science in themselves are clearly marked off from each other, nevertheless there exist between the two strong reciprocal relationships and dependencies. Though religion may be that which determine the goals, it has, nevertheless, learned from science, in the broadest sense, what means will contribute to the attainment of the goals it has set up."^[204]

Morality

Main article: Morality and religion

Many religions have value frameworks regarding personal behavior meant to guide adherents in determining between right and wrong. These include the

Zoroastrianism's good thoughts, good words, and good deeds concept, among others.^[205]

Religion and morality are not synonymous. While it is "an almost automatic assumption,"[206] in Christianity, morality can have a secular basis.

The study of religion and morality can be contentious due to ethnocentric views on morality, failure to distinguish between in group and out group altruism, and inconsistent definitions of religiosity.

Politics

Impact

Main article: Religion in politics

Religion has had a significant impact on the political system in many countries.

Catholic) doctrine. Several European leaders are atheists (e.g., France's former president Francois Hollande or Greece's prime minister Alexis Tsipras). In Asia, the role of religion differs widely between countries. For instance, India is still one of the most religious countries and religion still has a strong impact on politics, given that Hindu nationalists have been targeting minorities like the Muslims and the Christians, who historically^[when?] belonged to the lower castes.^[212] By contrast, countries such as China or Japan

are largely secular and thus religion has a much smaller impact on politics.

Secularism

Main articles: Secularism and Secularization

Punjab

in the early 19th century.

Secularization is the transformation of the politics of a society from close identification with a particular religion's values and institutions toward nonreligious values and

secular

institutions. The purpose of this is frequently modernization or protection of the population's religious diversity.

Economics

Main article: Economics of religion

Further information: Religion and business and Wealth and religion

One study has found there is a negative correlation between self-defined religiosity and the wealth of nations.^[213] In other words, the richer a nation is, the less likely its inhabitants to call themselves religious, whatever this word means to them (Many people identify themselves as part of a religion (not irreligion) but do not self-identify as religious).^[213]

Sociologist and political economist Max Weber has argued that Protestant Christian countries are wealthier because of their Protestant work ethic.^[214] According to a study from 2015, Christians hold the largest amount of wealth (55% of the total world wealth), followed by Muslims (5.8%), Hindus (3.3%) and Jews (1.1%). According to the same study it was found that adherents under the classification Irreligion or other religions hold about 34.8% of the total global wealth (while making up only about 20% of the world population, see section on classification).^[215]

Health

Main article: Religion and health

Mayo Clinic researchers examined the association between religious involvement and spirituality, and physical health, mental health, health-related quality of life, and other health outcomes.^[216] The authors reported that: "Most studies have shown that religious involvement and spirituality are associated with better health outcomes, including greater longevity, coping skills, and health-related quality of life (even during terminal illness) and less anxiety, depression, and suicide."^[217]

The authors of a subsequent study concluded that the influence of religion on health is largely beneficial, based on a review of related literature.^[218] According to academic James W. Jones, several studies have discovered "positive correlations between religious belief and practice and mental and physical health and longevity."^[219]

An analysis of data from the 1998 US General Social Survey, whilst broadly confirming that religious activity was associated with better health and well-being, also suggested that the role of different dimensions of spirituality/religiosity in health is rather more complicated. The results suggested "that it may not be appropriate to generalize findings about the relationship between spirituality/religiosity and health from one form of spirituality/religiosity to another, across denominations, or to assume effects are uniform for men and women.^[220]

Violence

Main article: Religious violence

See also: Islam and violence, Christianity and violence, and Judaism and violence

Critics such as Hector Avalos,^[221] Regina Schwartz,^[222] Christopher Hitchens,^{[223][page needed]} and Richard Dawkins^{[224][page needed]} have argued that religions are inherently violent and harmful to society by using violence to promote their goals, in ways that are endorsed and exploited by their leaders.

Anthropologist Jack David Eller asserts that religion is not inherently violent, arguing "religion and violence are clearly compatible, but they are not identical." He asserts that "violence is neither essential to nor exclusive to religion" and that "virtually every form of religious violence has its nonreligious corollary."^[225][226]

Animal sacrifice

Main article: Animal sacrifice

Some (but not all) religions practise animal sacrifice, the ritual killing and offering of an animal to appease or maintain favour with a deity. It has been banned in India.^[227]

Superstition

Further information: Superstition, Magical thinking, and Magic and religion

Greek and Roman pagans, who saw their relations with the gods in political and social terms, scorned the man who constantly trembled with fear at the thought of the gods (deisidaimonia), as a slave might fear a cruel and capricious master. The Romans called such fear of the gods superstitio.^[228] Ancient Greek historian Polybius described superstition in ancient Rome as an instrumentum regni, an instrument of maintaining the cohesion of the Empire.^[229]

Superstition has been described as the non-rational establishment of cause and effect.

skeptics

regard religious belief as superstition.

The Roman Catholic Church considers superstition to be sinful in the sense that it denotes a lack of trust in the divine providence of God and, as such, is a violation of the first of the Ten Commandments. The Catechism of the Catholic Church states that superstition "in some sense represents a perverse excess of religion" (para. #2110). "Superstition," it says, "is a deviation of religious feeling and of the practices this feeling imposes. It can even affect the worship we offer the true God, e.g., when one attributes an importance in some way magical to certain practices otherwise lawful or necessary. To attribute the efficacy of prayers or of sacramental signs to their mere external performance, apart from the interior dispositions that they demand is to fall into superstition. Cf. Matthew 23:16–22" (para. #2111)

Agnosticism and atheism

Main articles: Atheism, Agnosticism, Irreligion, and Humanism

The terms

atheist (lack of belief in 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. 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. There are religions (including Buddhism and Taoism) that classify some of their followers as agnostic, atheistic, or nontheistic. For example, in ancient India, there were large atheistic movements and traditions (Nirīśvaravāda) that rejected the Vedas, such as the atheistic Ājīvika and the Ajñana

which taught agnosticism.

Interfaith cooperation

Main article: Interfaith dialogue

Because religion continues to be recognized in Western thought as a universal impulse,^[233] many religious practitioners^[who?][234] have aimed to band together in interfaith dialogue, cooperation, and religious peacebuilding. The first major dialogue was the Parliament of the World's Religions at the 1893 Chicago World's Fair, which affirmed universal values and recognition of the diversity of practices among different cultures.^[235] 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.^[236]

Recent interfaith initiatives include A Common Word, launched in 2007 and focused on bringing Muslim and Christian leaders together,^[237] the "C1 World Dialogue",^[238] the Common Ground initiative between Islam and Buddhism,^[239] and a United Nations sponsored "World Interfaith Harmony Week".^[240][241]

Culture

Culture and religion have usually been seen as closely related.^[46] Paul Tillich looked at religion as the soul of culture and culture as the form or framework of religion.^[242] In his own words:

Religion as ultimate concern is the meaning-giving substance of culture, and culture is the totality of forms in which the basic concern of religion expresses itself. In abbreviation: religion is the substance of culture, culture is the form of religion. Such a consideration definitely prevents the establishment of a dualism of religion and culture. Every religious act, not only in organized religion, but also in the most intimate movement of the soul, is culturally formed.^[243]

Ernst Troeltsch, similarly, looked at culture as the soil of religion and thought that, therefore, transplanting a religion from its original culture to a foreign culture would actually kill it in the same manner that transplanting a plant from its natural soil to an alien soil would kill it.^[244] However, there have been many attempts in the modern pluralistic situation to distinguish culture from religion.^[245] Domenic Marbaniang has argued that elements grounded on beliefs of a metaphysical nature (religious) are distinct from elements grounded on nature and the natural (cultural). For instance, language (with its grammar) is a cultural element while sacralization of language in which a particular religious scripture is written is more often a religious practice. The same applies to music and the arts.^[246]

Criticism

Main article: Criticism of religion

Criticism of religion is criticism of the ideas, the truth, or the practice of religion, including its political and social implications.^[247]

See also

• Cosmogony
• Index of religion-related articles
• Life stance
• List of foods with religious symbolism
• List of religion-related awards
• List of religious texts
• Matriarchal religion
• Museum of the History of Religion
• Nontheistic religions
• Outline of religion
• Priest
• Religion and happiness
• Religious conversion
• Religious discrimination
• Social conditioning
• Socialization
• Theocracy
• Theology of religions
• Why there is anything at all

Notes

1. ^ That is how, according to Durkheim, Buddhism is a religion. "In default of gods, Buddhism admits the existence of sacred things, namely, the four noble truths and the practices derived from them" Durkheim 1915
2. ISBN 0-900588-74-8
   , proposes a definition of the term religion and a discussion of its relevance (or lack of) to Hindu doctrines (part II, chapter 4, p. 58).
3. ^ [a] Hark, Lisa; DeLisser, Horace (2011). Achieving Cultural Competency. John Wiley & Sons. Three gods, Brahma, Vishnu, and Shiva, and other deities are considered manifestations of and are worshipped as incarnations of Brahman.
   [b] Toropov & Buckles 2011: The members of various Hindu sects worship a dizzying number of specific deities and follow innumerable rites in honor of specific gods. Because this is Hinduism, however, its practitioners see the profusion of forms and practices as expressions of the same unchanging reality. The panoply of deities are understood by believers as symbols for a single transcendent reality.
   [d] Orlando O. Espín, James B. Nickoloff (2007). An Introductory Dictionary of Theology and Religious Studies. Liturgical Press. While Hindus believe in many devas, many are monotheistic to the extent that they will recognise only one Supreme Being, a God or Goddess who is the source and ruler of the devas.

References

1. ^ "Religion – Definition of Religion by Merriam-Webster". Archived from the original on 12 March 2021. Retrieved 16 December 2019.
2. ISBN 978-0-470-67350-8
   .
3. ^
   ISBN 978-0-300-15416-0
   .
4. ^ ^{a b} James 1902, p. 31.
5. ^ ^{a b} Durkheim 1915.
6. ^ ^{a b} Tillich, P. (1957) Dynamics of faith. Harper Perennial; (p. 1).
7. ^ ^{a b} Vergote, A. (1996) Religion, Belief and Unbelief. A Psychological Study, Leuven University Press. (p. 16)
8. ^ ^{a b} Zeigler, David (January–February 2020). "Religious Belief from Dreams?". Skeptical Inquirer. Vol. 44, no. 1. Amherst, NY: Center for Inquiry. pp. 51–54.
9. ^ African Studies Association; University of Michigan (2005). History in Africa. Vol. 32. p. 119.
10. ^ "The Global Religious Landscape". 18 December 2012. Archived from the original on 19 July 2013. Retrieved 18 December 2012.
11. ^ "Religiously Unaffiliated". The Global Religious Landscape. Pew Research Center: Religion & Public Life. 18 December 2012. Archived from the original on 30 July 2013. Retrieved 16 February 2022. The religiously unaffiliated include atheists, agnostics and people who do not identify with any particular religion in surveys. However, many of the religiously unaffiliated have some religious beliefs.
12. ISBN 0-415-20050-4
13. ISBN 978-1-13900-118-2
    .
14. ^ James, Paul (2018). "What Does It Mean Ontologically to Be Religious?". In Stephen Ames; Ian Barns; John Hinkson; Paul James; Gordon Preece; Geoff Sharp (eds.). Religion in a Secular Age: The Struggle for Meaning in an Abstracted World. Arena Publications. pp. 56–100. Archived from the original on 14 December 2021. Retrieved 23 August 2018.
15. ^ Harper, Douglas. "religion". Online Etymology Dictionary.
16. ^ "Religion" Oxford English Dictionary https://www.oed.com/viewdictionaryentry/Entry/161944 Archived 3 October 2021 at the Wayback Machine
17. ISBN 0-88762-145-7
18. ISBN 0-385-41886-8
19. ^ ^{a b} Huizinga, Johan (1924). The Waning of the Middle Ages. Penguin Books. p. 86.
20. ^ "Religio". Latin Word Study Tool. Tufts University. Archived from the original on 24 February 2021. Retrieved 21 February 2021.
21. ^
    ISBN 978-0-226-18448-7
    .
22. ^
    ISBN 978-0-226-31783-0
    .
23. ^
    ISBN 978-0-470-67350-8
    .
24. ^
    ISBN 978-0-8232-7120-7
    .
25. S2CID 145668420
    .
26. ISBN 978-1-60506-355-3
    . Sic terror oblatus a ducibus, crudelitas in supplicio, nova religio iurisiurandi spem praesentis deditionis sustulit mentesque militum convertit et rem ad pristinam belli rationem redegit." – (Latin); "Thus the terror raised by the generals, the cruelty and punishments, the new obligation of an oath, removed all hopes of surrender for the present, changed the soldiers' minds, and reduced matters to the former state of war."- (English)
27. ^ Pliny the Elder. "Elephants; Their Capacity". The Natural History, Book VIII. Tufts University. Archived from the original on 7 May 2021. Retrieved 21 February 2021. maximum est elephans proximumque humanis sensibus, quippe intellectus illis sermonis patrii et imperiorum obedientia, officiorum quae didicere memoria, amoris et gloriae voluptas, immo vero, quae etiam in homine rara, probitas, prudentia, aequitas, religio quoque siderum solisque ac lunae veneratio." "The elephant is the largest of them all, and in intelligence approaches the nearest to man. It understands the language of its country, it obeys commands, and it remembers all the duties which it has been taught. It is sensible alike of the pleasures of love and glory, and, to a degree that is rare among men even, possesses notions of honesty, prudence, and equity; it has a religious respect also for the stars, and a veneration for the sun and the moon."
28. ^ Cicero, De natura deorum Book II, Section 8.
29. ISBN 978-0-8232-7120-7
    .
30. ISBN 978-0367691806
    . Religion is a modern concept. It is an idea with a history that developed, most scholars would agree, out of the social and cultural disruptions of Renaissance and Reformation Europe. From the fourteenth to the seventeenth century, at a time of unprecedented political transformation and scientific innovation, it became possible for people to differentiate between things religious and things not religious. Such a dualistic understanding of the world was simply not available in such clear terms to ancient and medieval Europeans, to say nothing of people from the continents of North America, South America, Africa, and Asia.
31. ISBN 978-0-521-89293-3
    .
32. ^
    ISBN 978-0-8018-8756-7
    .
33. ^
    ISBN 978-0-19-530009-3
    .
34. ^ Smith, Wilfred Cantwell (1963). The Meaning and End of Religion. New York: MacMillan. pp. 125–126.
35. ISBN 9780195380774
    .
36. ISBN 978-0-300-15416-0
    . Although the Greeks, Romans, Mesopotamians, and many other peoples have long histories, the stories of their respective religions are of recent pedigree. The formation of ancient religions as objects of study coincided with the formation of religion itself as a concept of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries.
37. ISBN 978-0-521-89293-3
    . That there exist in the world such entities as 'the religions' is an uncontroversial claim...However, it was not always so. The concepts 'religion' and 'the religions', as we presently understand them, emerged quite late in Western thought, during the Enlightenment. Between them, these two notions provided a new framework for classifying particular aspects of human life.
38. ISBN 978-0-300-15416-0
    .
39. ISBN 978-0-470-67350-8
    . Many languages do not even have a word equivalent to our word 'religion'; nor is such a word found in either the Bible or the Qur'an.
40. ^ Pluralism Project, Harvard University (2015). Judaism - Introductory Profiles (PDF). Harvard University. p. 2. In the English-speaking Western world, "Judaism" is often considered a "religion," but there are no equivalent words for "Judaism" or for "religion" in Hebrew; there are words for "faith," "law," or "custom" but not for "religion" if one thinks of the term as meaning solely the beliefs and practices associated with a relationship with God or a vision of transcendence.
41. ^ "God, Torah, and Israel". Pluralism Project - Judaism. Harvard University.
42. ^ Hershel Edelheit, Abraham J. Edelheit, History of Zionism: A Handbook and Dictionary Archived 24 June 2011 at the Wayback Machine, p. 3, citing Solomon Zeitlin, The Jews. Race, Nation, or Religion? (Philadelphia: Dropsie College Press, 1936).
43. ISBN 978-1-4786-1059-5. Archived
    from the original on 10 June 2016. Retrieved 28 November 2015.
44. ^
    ISBN 978-1-118-95342-6
    .
45. ISBN 978-0-8135-7161-4
    .
46. ^ ^{a b} "14.1A: The Nature of Religion". Social Sci LibreTexts. 15 August 2018. Archived from the original on 12 January 2021. Retrieved 10 January 2021.
47. ^ Kuroda, Toshio (1996). "The Imperial Law and the Buddhist Law" (PDF). Japanese Journal of Religious Studies. Translated by Jacqueline I. Stone: 23.3–4. Archived from the original (PDF) on 23 March 2003. Retrieved 28 May 2010.
48. ^ Neil McMullin. Buddhism and the State in Sixteenth-Century Japan. Princeton, N.J. : Princeton University Press, 1984.
49. ISBN 978-0-226-18448-7
    . The first recorded use of "Boudhism" was 1801, followed by "Hindooism" (1829), "Taouism" (1838), and "Confucianism" (1862) (see figure 6). By the middle of the nineteenth century these terms had secured their place in the English lexicon, and the putative objects to which they referred became permanent features of our understanding of the world.
50. ^
    ISBN 978-0-226-41234-4
    . The early nineteenth century saw the emergence of much of this terminology, including the formation of the terms Boudhism (1801), Hindooism (1829), Taouism (1839), Zoroastri-anism (1854), and Confucianism (1862). This construction of "religions" was not merely the production of European translation terms, but the reification of systems of thought in a way strikingly divorced from their original cultural milieu. The original discovery of religions in different cultures was rooted in the assumption that each people had its own divine "revelation," or at least its own parallel to Christianity. In the same period, however, European and American explorers often suggested that specific African or Native American tribes lacked religion altogether. Instead these groups were reputed to have only superstitions and as such they were seen as less than human.
51. ISBN 978-0-470-67350-8
    . The phrase "World Religions" came into use when the first Parliament of the World's Religions was held in Chicago in 1893. Representation at the Parliament was not comprehensive. Naturally, Christians dominated the meeting, and Jews were represented. Muslims were represented by a single American Muslim. The enormously diverse traditions of India were represented by a single teacher, while three teachers represented the arguably more homogenous strains of Buddhist thought. The indigenous religions of the Americas and Africa were not represented. Nevertheless, since the convening of the Parliament, Judaism, Christianity, Islam, Hinduism, Buddhism, Confucianism, and Taoism have been commonly identified as World Religions. They are sometimes called the "Big Seven" in Religious Studies textbooks, and many generalizations about religion have been derived from them.
52. ^ Rhodes, John (January 1991). "An American Tradition: The Religious Persecution of Native Americans". Montana Law Review. 52 (1): 13–72. In their traditional languages, Native Americans have no word for religion. This absence is very revealing.
53. ISBN 978-0-470-67350-8
    . Before the British colonized India, for example, the people there had no concept "religion" and no concept "Hinduism." There was no word "Hindu" in classical India, and no one spoke of "Hinduism" until the 1800s. Until the introduction of that term, Indians identified themselves by any number of criteria—family, trade or profession, or social level, and perhaps the scriptures they followed or the particular deity or deities upon whose care they relied in various contexts or to whom they were devoted. But these diverse identities were united, each an integral part of life; no part existed in a separate sphere identified as "religious." Nor were the diverse traditions lumped together under the term "Hinduism" unified by sharing such common features of religion as a single founder, creed, theology, or institutional organization.
54. ISBN 978-0-19-803729-3. Archived
    from the original on 17 December 2019. Retrieved 5 August 2018.
55. ISBN 978-1-134-42935-6
    . It is often said that Hinduism is very ancient, and in a sense this is true ... . It was formed by adding the English suffix -ism, of Greek origin, to the word Hindu, of Persian origin; it was about the same time that the word Hindu, without the suffix -ism, came to be used mainly as a religious term. ... The name Hindu was first a geographical name, not a religious one, and it originated in the languages of Iran, not of India. ... They referred to the non-Muslim majority, together with their culture, as 'Hindu'. ... Since the people called Hindu differed from Muslims most notably in religion, the word came to have religious implications, and to denote a group of people who were identifiable by their Hindu religion. ... However, it is a religious term that the word Hindu is now used in English, and Hinduism is the name of a religion, although, as we have seen, we should beware of any false impression of uniformity that this might give us.
56. ISBN 978-0-226-41234-4
    .
57. ISBN 978-0-19-992494-3
    . It was only in response to Western cultural contact in the late nineteenth century that a Japanese word for religion (shukyo) came into use. It tends to be associated with foreign, founded, or formally organized traditions, particularly Christianity and other monotheisms, but also Buddhism and new religious sects.
58. ^ Max Müller, Natural Religion, p. 33, 1889
59. ^ "Lewis & Short, A Latin Dictionary". Archived from the original on 26 February 2021. Retrieved 21 February 2021.
60. ^ Max Müller (1870). Introduction to the Science of Religion: Four Lectures Delivered at the Royal Institution with Two Essays on False Analogies, and the Philosophy of Mythology. p. 28.
61. ISBN 3-7022-2508-0
    , S. 65.
62. ^ Julia Haslinger: Die Evolution der Religionen und der Religiosität, s. Literatur Religionsgeschichte, S. 3–4, 8.
63. ISBN 3-7022-2508-0
    , S. 67.
64. ^ Peter Antes: Religion, religionswissenschaftlich. In: EKL Bd. 3, Sp. 1543. S. 98.
65. ^ McKinnon, AM. 2002. "Sociological Definitions, Language Games and the 'Essence' of Religion" Archived 4 March 2016 at the Wayback Machine. Method & Theory in the Study of Religion, vol 14, no. 1, pp. 61–83.
66. ^ Josephson, Jason Ānanda. (2012) The Invention of Religion in Japan. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, p. 257
67. ISSN 0943-3058. Archived
    (PDF) from the original on 4 March 2016. Retrieved 20 July 2017.
68. ^ Smith, Wilfred Cantwell (1978). The Meaning and End of Religion. New York: Harper and Row.
69. ^ King, W.L. (2005). "Religion (First Edition)". In Eliade, Mircea (ed.). The Encyclopedia of Religion (2nd ed.). MacMillan Reference US. p. 7692.
70. ^ Geertz 1993, pp. 87–125.
71. ^ Geertz 1993, p. 90.
72. ^ James, Paul & Mandaville, Peter (2010). Globalization and Culture, Vol. 2: Globalizing Religions. London: Sage Publications. Archived from the original on 25 December 2019. Retrieved 1 May 2014.
73. ^ MacMillan Encyclopedia of religions, Religion, p. 7695
74. ISBN 978-1-59451-565-1
    .
75. S2CID 170541390
    .
76. ^ Max Müller. "Lectures on the origin and growth of religion."
77. ^ Tylor, E.B. (1871) Primitive Culture: Researches Into the Development of Mythology, Philosophy, Religion, Art, and Custom. Vol. 1. London: John Murray; (p. 424).
78. ^ James 1902, p. 34.
79. ^ James 1902, p. 38.
80. ^ Durkheim 1915, p. 37.
81. ^ Durkheim 1915, pp. 40–41.
82. ^ Frederick Ferré, F. (1967) Basic modern philosophy of religion. Scribner, (p. 82).
83. ^ Tillich, P. (1959) Theology of Culture. Oxford University Press; (p. 8).
84. ^ Pecorino, P.A. (2001) Philosophy of Religion. Online Textbook Archived 19 June 2013 at the Wayback Machine. Philip A. Pecorino.
85. ^ Swindal, James (April 2010). "Faith and Reason". Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Archived from the original on 31 January 2022. Retrieved 16 February 2022.
86. ISBN 0-385-24774-5
87. ISBN 1-57731-202-3
    .
88. ^ "myth". Encyclopædia Britannica. Archived from the original on 13 September 2021. Retrieved 24 April 2016.
89. ^ Oxford Dictionaries Archived 8 September 2016 at the Wayback Machine mythology, retrieved 9 September 2012
90. ^ Pals 2006.
91. ^ Stausberg 2009.
92. ^ Segal 2005, p. 49
93. ISBN 978-0-19-285346-2
    .
94. ^
    ISBN 978-0-19-285346-2
    .
95. ^ Clifford Geertz, Religion as a Cultural System, 1973
96. ^ Talal Asad, The Construction of Religion as an Anthropological Category, 1982.
97. ISSN 2231-5233
    pp. 9–10
98. ^ Vergote, Antoine, Religion, belief and unbelief: a psychological study, Leuven University Press, 1997, p. 89
99. doi:10.1111/j.1749-8171.2007.00042.x. Archived
    from the original on 12 January 2021. Retrieved 10 January 2021.
100. PMID 24515692
     .
101. PMID 23224447
     .
102. S2CID 9075314
     .
103. PMID 23760918
     .
104. ^ Favazza, A. "Psychiatry and Spirituality". In Sadock, B; Sadock, V; Ruiz, P (eds.). Kaplan and Sadocks Comprehensive Textbook of Psychiatry (10th ed.). Wolters Kluwer.
105. PMID 15587438
     .
106. ISBN 978-0-19-538487-1
     . Studies that claim to show no difference in emotional makeup between temporal lobe and other epileptic patients (Guerrant et al., 1962; Stevens, 1966) have been reinterpreted (Blumer, 1975) to indicate that there is, in fact, a difference: those with temporal lobe epilepsy are more likely to have more serious forms of emotional disturbance. This typical personality of temporal lobe epileptic patient has been described in roughly similar terms over many years (Blumer & Benson, 1975; Geschwind, 1975, 1977; Blumer, 1999; Devinsky & Schachter, 2009). These patients are said to have a deepening of emotions; they ascribe great significance to commonplace events. This can be manifested as a tendency to take a cosmic view; hyperreligiosity (or intensely professed atheism) is said to be common.
107. ^ "Human beings' relation to that which they regard as holy, sacred, spiritual, and divine" Encyclopædia Britannica (online, 2006), cited after "Definitions of Religion". Religion facts. Archived from the original on 12 October 2014. Retrieved 16 February 2022.
108. ^ ^{a b} "Charles Joseph Adams, Classification of religions: geographical, Encyclopædia Britannica". Archived from the original on 7 November 2014. Retrieved 16 February 2022.
109. ^ Harvey, Graham (2000). Indigenous Religions: A Companion. (Ed: Graham Harvey). London and New York: Cassell. p. 6.
110. ISBN 0-19-516655-8
111. ^ Russell T. McCutcheon. Critics Not Caretakers: Redescribing the Public Study of Religion. Albany: SUNY Press, 2001.
112. ISBN 0-521-56635-5
113. ^ Joseph Bulbulia. "Are There Any Religions? An Evolutionary Explanation." Method & Theory in the Study of Religion 17.2 (2005), pp. 71–100
114. ISBN 978-0-415-33311-5. Archived
     from the original on 9 May 2016. Retrieved 7 September 2020.
115. ^ Flügel, Peter (2005). "The Invention of Jainism: A Short History of Jaina Studies" (PDF). International Journal of Jaina Studies. 1 (1): 1–14. Archived (PDF) from the original on 1 December 2017. Retrieved 8 March 2019.
116. ^ Timothy Fitzgerald. The Ideology of Religious Studies. New York: Oxford University Press US, 2000.
117. ISBN 0-8147-6701-X
118. ISBN 0-226-50988-5
119. ^ "Christians are the largest religious group in 2015". Pew Research Center. Archived from the original on 8 July 2022. Retrieved 8 July 2022.
120. ^ ^{a b} "Global Index of Religiosity and Atheism" (PDF). WIN-Gallup International. 27 July 2012. Archived from the original (PDF) on 6 September 2012. Retrieved 24 August 2012.
121. ^ "Losing our Religion? Two-Thirds of People Still Claim to be Religious" (PDF). WIN/Gallup International. 13 April 2015. Archived from the original (PDF) on 30 April 2015.
122. ^ "Women More Religious Than Men". Live Science. 28 February 2009. Archived from the original on 8 July 2013. Retrieved 14 July 2013.
123. ^ Soul Searching: The Religious and Spiritual Lives of American Teenagers – p. 77, Christian Smith, Melina Lundquist Denton – 2005
124. ^ "Christ in Japanese Culture: Theological Themes" in Shusaku Endo's Literary Works, Emi Mase-Hasegawa – 2008
125. ^ New poll reveals how churchgoers mix eastern new age beliefs Archived 22 January 2022 at the Wayback Machine retrieved 26 July 2013
126. ^ "Islam set to become world's largest religion by 2075, study suggests". The Guardian. 5 April 2017. Archived from the original on 14 April 2021. Retrieved 20 March 2021.
127. ^ "The Changing Global Religious Landscape". Pew Research Center's Religion & Public Life Project. 5 April 2017. Archived from the original on 28 September 2021. Retrieved 21 March 2021.
128. ISBN 978-1139001182
     .
129. ^ ^{a b} "Judaism | Definition, Origin, History, Beliefs, & Facts". Encyclopedia Britannica. Archived from the original on 1 January 2021. Retrieved 10 January 2021.
130. ^ "Info" (PDF). www.cbs.gov.il. Archived from the original (PDF) on 26 October 2011. Retrieved 22 March 2011.
131. ^ ^{a b} "Christianity | Definition, Origin, History, Beliefs, Symbols, Types, & Facts". Encyclopedia Britannica. Archived from the original on 1 November 2014. Retrieved 10 January 2021.
132. ISBN 978-90-5356-938-2. Archived from the original on 20 June 2013. Retrieved 18 October 2007. The enthusiasm for evangelization among the Christians was also accompanied by the awareness that the most immediate problem to solve was how to serve the huge number of new converts
     . Simatupang said, if the number of the Christians were double or triple, then the number of the ministers should also be doubled or tripled and the role of the laity should be maximized and Christian service to society through schools, universities, hospitals and orphanages, should be increased. In addition, for him the Christian mission should be involved in the struggle for justice amid the process of modernization.
133. ISBN 978-0-8091-4227-9. Archived from the original on 26 January 2021. Retrieved 18 October 2007. Theologians, bishops, and preachers urged the Christian community to be as compassionate as their God was, reiterating that creation was for all of humanity. They also accepted and developed the identification of Christ with the poor and the requisite Christian duty to the poor. Religious congregations and individual charismatic leaders promoted the development of a number of helping institutions-hospitals, hospices for pilgrims
     , orphanages, shelters for unwed mothers-that laid the foundation for the modern "large network of hospitals, orphanages and schools, to serve the poor and society at large."
134. ISBN 978-0-8272-0463-8. Archived
     from the original on 20 June 2013. Retrieved 18 October 2007. In the central provinces of India they established schools, orphanages, hospitals, and churches, and spread the gospel message in zenanas.
135. ^ "World's largest religion by population is still Christianity". Pew Research Center. Archived from the original on 24 November 2019. Retrieved 27 February 2019.
136. ^ ^{a b c} "Christianity". HISTORY. Archived from the original on 11 January 2021. Retrieved 10 January 2021.
137. ^ ^{a b} "Islam". HISTORY. Archived from the original on 3 May 2020. Retrieved 10 January 2021.
138. ^ "The Changing Global Religious Landscape". Pew Research Center. 5 April 2017. Archived from the original on 6 April 2017. Retrieved 20 October 2018.
139. ^ Massignon 1949, pp. 20–23
140. ^ ^{a b} "What Bahá'ís Believe | The Bahá'í Faith". www.bahai.org. Archived from the original on 13 April 2021. Retrieved 11 January 2021.
141. ISBN 978-0-8239-1505-7
     .
142. ^ James Lewis (2002). The Encyclopedia of Cults, Sects, and New Religions. Prometheus Books. Retrieved 13 May 2015.
143. ^ "Are the Druze People Arabs or Muslims? Deciphering Who They Are". Arab America. 8 August 2018. Archived from the original on 20 October 2019. Retrieved 13 April 2020.
144. ISBN 978-0-03-052596-4
     . Theologically, one would have to conclude that the Druze are not Muslims. They do not accept the five pillars of Islam. In place of these principles the Druze have instituted the seven precepts noted above.
145. ISBN 978-90-04-33943-9. Archived
     from the original on 1 June 2022. Retrieved 19 June 2022. p. 5.
146. ^
     OCLC 57385973. Archived
     from the original on 8 December 2021. Retrieved 17 December 2021.
147. ^ Ginza Rabba. Translated by Al-Saadi, Qais; Al-Saadi, Hamed (2nd ed.). Germany: Drabsha. 2019.
148. ^ McGrath, James (23 January 2015). "The First Baptists, The Last Gnostics: The Mandaeans". YouTube-A lunchtime talk about the Mandaeans by Dr. James F. McGrath at Butler University. Archived from the original on 4 November 2021. Retrieved 16 December 2021.
149. ISBN 978-0-7391-0673-0
     .
150. ISBN 978-0-7914-8011-3. Archived
     from the original on 31 March 2019. Retrieved 22 August 2018.
151. ^ Monier Monier-Williams, A Sanskrit-English Dictionary" Etymologically and Philologically Arranged to cognate Indo-European Languages, Motilal Banarsidass, p. 496
152. ISBN 978-8120814912
     , p. 2
153. ISBN 978-0791435809
     , p. 18
154. ISBN 978-8120832329
     , pp. 77-78
155. ^ p. 434 Merriam-Webster's Encyclopedia of World Religions By Wendy Doniger, M. Webster, Merriam-Webster, Inc
156. ^ p. 219 Faith, Religion & Theology By Brennan Hill, Paul F. Knitter, William Madges
157. ^ p. 6 The World's Great Religions By Yoshiaki Gurney Omura, Selwyn Gurney Champion, Dorothy Short
158. ^ Dundas 2002, pp. 30–31.
159. ISBN 0-203-18593-5
     p. 194
160. ISBN 0-86171-179-3
161. ISBN 4-7674-2015-6
162. ^ "Sikhism: What do you know about it?". The Washington Post. Archived from the original on 11 August 2012. Retrieved 13 December 2012.
163. ^ Zepps, Josh (6 August 2012). "Sikhs in America: What You Need To Know About The World's Fifth-Largest Religion". Huffington Post. Archived from the original on 10 August 2012. Retrieved 13 December 2012.
164. ^ J.O. Awolalu (1976) What is African Traditional Religion? Archived 22 October 2021 at the Wayback Machine Studies in Comparative Religion Vol. 10, No. 2. (Spring, 1976).
165. ^ ^{a b} Pew Research Center (2012) The Global Religious Landscape. A Report on the Size and Distribution of the World's Major Religious Groups as of 2010 Archived 19 July 2013 at the Wayback Machine. The Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life.
166. ^ Central Intelligence Agency. "Religions". World Factbook. Archived from the original on 20 December 2018. Retrieved 3 January 2013.
167. ISBN 978-1-317-54429-6. Archived
     from the original on 25 February 2020. Retrieved 4 September 2020.
168. ISBN 978-0-85772-061-0. Archived
     from the original on 26 February 2020. Retrieved 4 September 2020.
169. ^ "Cao Dai | Vietnamese religion". Encyclopedia Britannica. Archived from the original on 7 January 2019. Retrieved 11 January 2021.
170. ^ "What is Eckankar? Eckankar is Love, Wisdom and Freedom". Eckankar. Archived from the original on 19 January 2021. Retrieved 11 January 2021.
171. ^ "New Religious Movements: New Religious Movements in Japan | Encyclopedia.com". www.encyclopedia.com. Archived from the original on 14 April 2021. Retrieved 11 January 2021.
172. ^ "Movements | Millenarian Movement | Timeline | The Association of Religion Data Archives". www.thearda.com. Archived from the original on 1 August 2021. Retrieved 16 February 2022.
173. ISBN 978-1-7367792-0-0
     .
174. ^ "The Druids". The British Museum. Archived from the original on 23 December 2012. Retrieved 15 January 2022.
175. ^ "Neo-Paganism | religion". Encyclopedia Britannica. Archived from the original on 1 January 2021. Retrieved 11 January 2021.
176. ^ "7 Noahide Laws » Judaism Humanity Noahidism". The Seven Noahide Laws. Archived from the original on 16 February 2022. Retrieved 11 January 2021.
177. ^
     S2CID 143778202
     .
178. ^ "Satanism". HISTORY. 27 September 2019. Archived from the original on 30 December 2020. Retrieved 11 January 2021.
179. ^
     doi:10.17192/mjr.2003.8.3724
     . Retrieved 30 June 2006.
180. ^ Behar, Richard (6 May 1991). "The Thriving Cult of Greed and Power". TIME. New York.
181. ^
     ISBN 9781108489782
     .
182. ^ Hunt, John; de Puig, Luis; Espersen, Ole (5 February 1992). European Council, Recommendation 1178: Sects and New Religious Movements (Report). Strasbourg: Council of Europe. Retrieved 30 June 2019. It is a cool, cynical, manipulating business and nothing else.
183. S2CID 149581057
     .
184. S2CID 143524953
     .
185. ^ ^{[179][180][181][182][183][184]}
186. ^ "Unitarianism and Universalism – English Unitarianism". Encyclopedia Britannica. Archived from the original on 22 January 2021. Retrieved 11 January 2021.
187. ^ "Wicca | History, Beliefs, & Facts". Encyclopedia Britannica. Archived from the original on 27 January 2021. Retrieved 11 January 2021.
188. S2CID 145170469
     .
189. ^ Norman Doe, Law and Religion in Europe: A Comparative Introduction (2011).
190. ^ W. Cole Durham and Brett G. Scharffs, eds., Law and religion: national, international, and comparative perspectives (Aspen Pub, 2010).
191. ^ John Witte Jr. and Frank S. Alexander, eds., Christianity and Law: An Introduction (Cambridge U.P. 2008)
192. ^ John Witte Jr., From Sacrament to Contract: Marriage, Religion, and Law in the Western Tradition (1997).
193. ^ John Witte, Jr., The Reformation of Rights: Law, Religion and Human Rights in Early Modern Calvinism (2008).
194. JSTOR 840165
     .
195. ^ Alan Watson, The state, law, and religion: pagan Rome (University of Georgia Press, 1992).
196. S2CID 145347158
     .
197. ^ Palomino, Rafael (2012). "Legal dimensions of secularism: challenges and problems". Contemporary Readings in Law and Social Justice. 2: 208–225. Archived from the original on 6 August 2020. Retrieved 16 February 2022.
198. ^ Bennoune, Karima (2006). "Secularism and human rights: A contextual analysis of headscarves, religious expression, and women's equality under international law". Columbia Journal of Transnational Law. 45: 367.
199. ISBN 978-0-8028-2823-1
     .
200. ISBN 978-0-226-08928-7
     .
201. ISBN 978-0-226-48214-9
     .
202. ^ Tolman, Cynthia. "Methods in Religion". Malboro College. Archived from the original on 4 September 2015.
203. ^ ^{a b} Coyne, Jerry A. (5 December 2013). "Einstein's Famous Quote About Science and Religion Didn't Mean What You Were Taught". The New Republic. Archived from the original on 29 November 2020. Retrieved 11 January 2021.
204. JSTOR 3916567
     .
205. ISBN 978-0-06-167011-4
     .
206. ISBN 978-0-07-803824-2
     .
207. ^ "Religion and Politics | Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy". Archived from the original on 18 January 2021. Retrieved 11 January 2021.
208. ^ "Sharia Law". Muslims for Progressive Values. Archived from the original on 11 November 2020. Retrieved 11 January 2021.
209. ^ The Economist explains: The role of religion in America's presidential race Archived 9 August 2017 at the Wayback Machine, The Economist, 25 February 2016
210. ^ Lipka, Michael (27 August 2015). "10 facts about religion in America". Pew Research Center. Archived from the original on 25 November 2020. Retrieved 9 July 2016.
211. ^ Europe, religion and politics:Old world wars Archived 9 August 2017 at the Wayback Machine, The Economist, 22 April 2014
212. ^ Lobo, L. 2000 Religion and Politics in India Archived 10 December 2016 at the Wayback Machine, America Magazine, 19 February 2000
213. ^ ^{a b} WIN-Gallup. "Global Index of religion and atheism" (PDF). Archived from the original (PDF) on 21 October 2013. Retrieved 12 July 2016.
214. ^ Max Weber, [1904] 1920. The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism
215. ^ "Christians hold largest percentage of global wealth: Report". deccanherald.com. 14 January 2015. Archived from the original on 14 June 2018. Retrieved 16 February 2022.
216. PMID 11761504. Archived
     from the original on 9 August 2021. Retrieved 11 January 2021.
217. PMID 11761504. Archived
     from the original on 8 November 2019. Retrieved 13 November 2010. We reviewed published studies, meta-analyses, systematic reviews, and subject reviews that examined the association between religious involvement and spirituality and physical health, mental health, health-related quality of life, and other health outcomes. We also reviewed articles that provided suggestions on how clinicians might assess and support the spiritual needs of patients. Most studies have shown that religious involvement and spirituality are associated with better health outcomes, including greater longevity, coping skills, and health-related quality of life (even during terminal illness) and less anxiety, depression, and suicide
218. S2CID 144109851
     .
219. S2CID 33669708. Archived
     from the original on 2 March 2021. Retrieved 16 February 2022.
220. PMID 16359765
     .
221. ^ Avalos, Hector (2005). Fighting Words: The Origins of Religious Violence. Amherst, New York: Prometheus Books.
222. ^ The Curse of Cain: The Violent Legacy of Monotheism By Regina M. Schwartz. University of Chicago Press. 1998.
223. ^ Hitchens, Christopher (2007). God is not Great. Twelve.
224. ^ Dawkins, Richard (2006). The God Delusion. Bantam Books.
225. ISBN 978-1-61614-218-6
     . As we have insisted previously, religion is not inherently and irredeemably violent; it certainly is not the essence and source of all violence.
226. ISBN 978-1-61614-218-6
     . Religion and violence are clearly compatible, but they are not identical. Violence is one phenomenon in human (and natural existence), religion is another, and it is inevitable that the two would become intertwined. Religion is complex and modular, and violence is one of the modules—not universal, but recurring. As a conceptual and behavioral module, violence is by no means exclusive to religion. There are plenty of other groups, institutions, interests, and ideologies to promote violence. Violence is, therefore, neither essential to nor exclusive to religion. Nor is religious violence all alike... And virtually every form of religious violence has its nonreligious corollary.
227. ^ "Indian court bans animal sacrifice". The Guardian. Agence France-Presse. 2 September 2014. Archived from the original on 27 August 2016. Retrieved 17 December 2016.
228. ^ Veyne, Paul, ed. (1987). A History of Private Life I: From Pagan Rome to Byzantium. p. 211.
229. ^ Polybius, The Histories, VI 56.
230. PMID 18782752. Archived from the original
     (PDF) on 28 July 2010.
231. ISBN 978-0-465-00696-0.^{[permanent dead link}
     ]
232. OCLC 701249439
     .
233. ^ "The Structure of Religion in the U.S. | Boundless Sociology". courses.lumenlearning.com. Archived from the original on 13 January 2020. Retrieved 8 August 2020.
234. ^ Raja Juli, Antoni. "The Role of Religion in Peacebuilding in Conflict-Torn Society in Southeast Asia" (PDF). The University of Queensland, Australia. Retrieved 10 January 2021.
235. ^ "1893 Chicago | parliamentofreligions.org". parliamentofreligions.org. Archived from the original on 27 January 2021. Retrieved 10 January 2021.
236. ISBN 978-1-83947-363-0. Archived
     from the original on 16 February 2022. Retrieved 10 January 2021.
237. ^ "A Common Word Between Us and You". acommonword.com. Archived from the original on 10 February 2022. Retrieved 16 February 2022.
238. ^ "konsoleH :: Login". c1worlddialogue.com. Archived from the original on 28 January 2011.
239. ^ "Islam and Buddhism". islambuddhism.com. Archived from the original on 20 January 2022. Retrieved 16 February 2022.
240. ^ "Home". World Interfaith Harmony Week. Archived from the original on 7 August 2020. Retrieved 8 August 2020.
241. ^ "» World Interfaith Harmony Week UNGA Resolution A/65/PV.34". worldinterfaithharmonyweek.com. Archived from the original on 21 September 2017. Retrieved 16 February 2022.
242. ^ Edward L. Queen, Encyclopedia of American Religious History, Volume 1 Facts on File, 1996. p. vi.
243. ^ Paul Tillich, Theology of Culture, Robert C. Kimball (ed), (Oxford University Press, 1959). p.42
244. ^ Eric J. Sharpe, "Religion and Cultures", An inaugural lecture delivered on 6 July 1977 by Eric J. Sharpe, Professor of Religious Studies in the University of Sydney. Accessed at Openjournals Archived 14 April 2020 at the Wayback Machine on 22 June 2018
245. ^ See Taslima Nasreen, "I Say, Three Cheers For Ayaan" Archived 22 June 2018 at the Wayback Machine, Outlook, The Magazine 28 August 2006. Also, Nemani Delaibatiki, "Religion and the Vanua" Archived 6 May 2021 at the Wayback Machine Fiji Sun 8 July 2017 in which the distinctive elements of culture against religion are taken from Domenic Marbaniang, "Difference Between Culture and Religion: A Proposal Requesting Response" Archived 22 June 2018 at the Wayback Machine, 12 October 2014.
246. ISSN 2231-5233
     pp. 7–17
247. ISBN 978-0-521-77431-4
     .

Sources

Primary

• Lao Tzu; Tao Te Ching (Victor H. Mair translator); Bantam (1998).
• The Holy Bible, King James Version; New American Library (1974).
• The Koran; Penguin (2000),
  ISBN 0-14-044558-7
  .
• The Origin of Live & Death, African Creation Myths; Heinemann (1966).
• Poems of Heaven and Hell from Ancient Mesopotamia; Penguin (1971).
• Selected Work Marcus Tullius Cicero

Secondary

• Yves Coppens, Origines de l'homme – De la matière à la conscience, De Vive Voix, Paris, 2010
• Yves Coppens, La preistoria dell'uomo, Jaca Book, Milano, 2011
• Descartes, René; Meditations on First Philosophy; Bobbs-Merrill (1960),
  ISBN 0-672-60191-5
  .
• Dow, James W. (2007), A Scientific Definition of Religion Archived 22 October 2021 at the Wayback Machine
• ISBN 978-0-415-26605-5. Archived
  from the original on 22 January 2017. Retrieved 17 March 2018.
• Durant, Will (& Ariel (uncredited)); Our Oriental Heritage; MJF Books (1997),
  ISBN 1-56731-012-5
  .
• Durant, Will (& Ariel (uncredited)); Caesar and Christ; MJF Books (1994),
  ISBN 1-56731-014-1
• Durant, Will (& Ariel (uncredited)); The Age of Faith; Simon & Schuster (1980),
  ISBN 0-671-01200-2
  .
• Durkheim, Emile (1915). The Elementary Forms of the Religious Life. London: George Allen & Unwin.
• Geertz, Clifford (1993). "Religion as a cultural system". The interpretation of cultures: selected essays, Geertz, Clifford. London: Fontana Press. pp. 87–125.
• Marija Gimbutas 1989. The Language of the Goddess. Thames and Hudson New York
• Gonick, Larry; The Cartoon History of the Universe; Doubleday, vol. 1 (1978)
  ISBN 0-393-05184-6
  .
• Haisch, Bernard The God Theory: Universes, Zero-point Fields, and What's Behind It All—discussion of science vs. religion (Preface), Red Wheel/Weiser, 2006,
  ISBN 1-57863-374-5
• James, William (1902). The Varieties of Religious Experience. A Study in Human Nature. Longmans, Green, and Co.
• Khanbaghi, A., The Fire, the Star and the Cross: Minority Religions in Medieval and Early Modern Iran (IB Tauris; 2006) 268 pages. Social, political and cultural history of religious minorities in Iran, c. 226–1722 AD.
• King, Winston, Religion [First Edition]. In: Encyclopedia of Religion. Ed. Lindsay Jones. Vol. 11. 2nd ed. Detroit: Macmillan Reference US, 2005. pp. 7692–7701.
• ISBN 0-7734-6310-0
  .
• McKinnon, Andrew M. (2002), "Sociological Definitions, Language Games and the 'Essence' of Religion" Archived 4 March 2016 at the Wayback Machine. Method & theory in the study of religion, vol 14, no. 1, pp. 61–83.
• Massignon, Louis (1949). "Les trois prières d'Abraham, père de tous les croyants". Dieu Vivant. 13: 20–23.
• Palmer, Spencer J., et al. Religions of the World: a Latter-day Saint [Mormon] View. 2nd general ed., tev. and enl. Provo, Utah: Brigham Young University, 1997. xv, 294 p., ill.
  ISBN 0-8425-2350-2
• Pals, Daniel L. (2006). Eight Theories of Religion. Oxford University Press.
• Ramsay, Michael, Abp. Beyond Religion? Cincinnati, Ohio: Forward Movement Publications, (cop. 1964).
• Saler, Benson; Conceptualizing Religion: Immanent Anthropologists, Transcendent Natives, and Unbounded Categories (1990),
  ISBN 1-57181-219-9
• Schuon, Frithjof. The Transcendent Unity of Religions, in series, Quest Books. 2nd Quest ... rev. ed. Wheaton, Ill.: Theosophical Publishing House, 1993, cop. 1984. xxxiv, 173 p.
  ISBN 0-8356-0587-6
• Segal, Robert A (2005). "Theories of Religion". In Hinnells, John R. (ed.). The Routledge Companion to the Study of Religion. London; New York: Routledge. pp. 49–60.
• Stausberg, Michael (2009). Contemporary Theories of religion. Routledge.
• Toropov, Brandon; Buckles, Luke (2011). Guide to World Religions. Penguin.
• Wallace, Anthony F.C. 1966. Religion: An Anthropological View. New York: Random House. (pp. 62–66)
• The World Almanac (annual), World Almanac Books,
  ISBN 0-88687-964-7
  .
• The World Almanac (for numbers of adherents of various religions), 2005

Further reading

Encyclopedias

• ISBN 978-1593392666
  .
• ISBN 0029094801
  .
• ISBN 978-0-7619-2729-7
  .
• ISBN 978-1-59884-203-6
  .
• Walter, Mariko Namba; Neumann Fridman; Eva Jane, eds. (2004). Shamanism: An Encyclopedia of World Beliefs, Practices, and Culture. Vol. 1. Santa Barbara, Ca; Denver, Co; Oxford: ABC-Clio.
  ISBN 9781576076453
  .

Monographs

• Barzilai, Gad (2007). Law and Religion; The International Library of Essays in Law and Society; Ashgate.
  ISBN 978-0-7546-2494-3
• Bellarmine, Robert (1902). "Sermon 48: The Necessity of Religion." . Sermons from the Latins. Benziger Brothers.
• Inglehart, Ronald F., "Giving Up on God: The Global Decline of Religion", Foreign Affairs
  , vol. 99, no. 5 (September / October 2020), pp. 110–118.
• James, Paul & Mandaville, Peter (2010). Globalization and Culture, Vol. 2: Globalizing Religions. London: Sage Publ.
• Lang, Andrew (1909). The Making of Religion. 3rd ed. Longmans, Green, and Co.
• Marx, Karl (1844). "Introduction to A Contribution to the Critique of Hegel's Philosophy of Right", Deutsch-Französische Jahrbücher.
• Noss, John B. (1980). Man's Religions, 6th ed.; New York: Macmillan. N.B.: The first ed. appeared in 1949,
  OCLC 4665144
  .

External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Religion.

Wikiquote has quotations related to Religion.

Wikivoyage has a travel guide for Religion and spirituality.

Wikiversity has learning resources about Religion at

Real Good Religion

Library resources about
Religion

---

• Online books
• Resources in your library
• Resources in other libraries

• Kevin Schilbrack. "The Concept of Religion". In Zalta, Edward N. (ed.). Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy.
• Religion Statistics from UCB Libraries GovPubs
• Religion at
  Curlie
• Major Religions of the World Ranked by Number of Adherents^[usurped] by Adherents.com August 2005
• IACSR – International Association for the Cognitive Science of Religion
• Studying Religion – Introduction to the methods and scholars of the academic study of religion
• A Contribution to the Critique of Hegel's Philosophy of Right – Marx's original reference to religion as the opium of the people.
• The Complexity of Religion and the Definition of "Religion" in International Law – Harvard Human Rights Journal article from the President and Fellows of Harvard College (2003)
• Sociology of Religion Resources
• Video: 5 Religions spreading across the world