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| Religious symbols, Left to right: Christian, Jewish, Hindu, Islamic, Buddhist, Shinto, Sikh, Baha'i, Jain |
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There are between nine and thirteen major world religions today, typically based on numbers of followers and historical impact. However, depending on categorization, observers often only site five to seven "major" religions. This is due to the fact that some faiths, such as TAOISM and CONFUSCIANISM, are by definition not religions (although they are often elevated to religious status by adherents) because they are not necessarily "theistic" or based in notions of the supernatural. Other faiths, such as SIHKISM and JAINISM are grouped in with HINDUISM since they are off-shoots of that tradition and hold a minority of adherents.
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1) HINDUISM
2) BUDDHISM
3) SHINTO
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4) JUDAISM
5) CHRISTIANITY
6) ISLAM
| 7) SIKH
8) JAIN
9) BAHA'I
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HINDUISM
ORIGIN: unknown (est: 4,000 years old)
FOUNDER(S): no specific founder
TEXTS: Vedas, Itihasas, Tantras, Darshanas
MAJOR SECTS: Vaishnavism, Shaivism, Shaktism, Martism
ADHERENTS: 900 million
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JUDAISM
ORIGIN: 2,085 BC - Palestine
FOUNDER(S): Abraham (from city of Ord)
TEXTS: Hebrew "Bible" (Tanakh, Talmud)
MAJOR SECTS:
ADHERENTS: 14 million
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ZOROASTRIANISM (aka: Parsi-ism)
ORIGIN: 1,000 BC - Persia (Iran)
FOUNDER(S): Zarathushtra (Zoroaster)
TEXTS: Avesta ("Book of the Law")
MAJOR SECTS:
ADHERENTS: 200 thousand (India)
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PAGANISM
ORIGIN:
FOUNDER(S):
TEXTS:
MAJOR SECTS:
ADHERENTS:
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CONFUCIANISM
ORIGIN: 500 BC - Eastern China
FOUNDER(S): "Confucius" (aka: K'ung Fu-tzu / Kong Qiu / Kong Fuzi)
TEXTS: "THE FIVE CLASSICS": Shu Ching (Classic of History), Shih Ching (Classic of Odes), I Ching (Classic of Changes), Ch'un Ching (Spring and Autumn Annals), Li Ching (Classic of Rites) "THE FOUR BOOKS": Lun Yu (Analects) of Confucius, Chung Yung (Doctrine of the Mean), Ta Hsueh (Great Learning), Meng Tzu (Mencius)
MAJOR SECTS:
ADHERENTS: 5-6 million
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TAOISM (pronounced: " D O W I S M ")
ORIGIN: 550 BC - China
FOUNDER(S): Lao Tzu
TEXTS: Tao Te Ching, Chuang-Tzu
MAJOR SECTS:
ADHERENTS: 20 million
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BUDDHISM
ORIGIN: 560 BC - India
FOUNDER(S): Siddharta Gautama (aka: "Buddha" or "enlightened one")
TEXTS:
MAJOR SECTS: Mahayana, Theraveda
ADHERENTS: 360 million (#3)
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JAIN (pronounced: " J I N E ")
ORIGIN: 599 BC - India
FOUNDER(S): Mahavira
TEXTS:
MAJOR SECTS:
ADHERENTS: 4 million
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CHRISTIANITY
ORIGIN: 30 AD
FOUNDER(S): Jesus of Nazareth (aka: "Christ" or "messenger")
TEXTS: Hebrew Bible ("Old Testament") and Christian "New Testament" canon
MAJOR SECTS: Catholic, Protestant, Evangelical
ADHERENTS: 2 billion (#1)
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ISLAM
ORIGIN: 610 AD - Saudi Arabia
FOUNDER(S): Mohammed
TEXTS: Qur'an (scripture), Hadith (traditions)
MAJOR SECTS: Sunni, Shia
ADHERENTS: 1.3 billion (#2)
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SHINTO
ORIGIN: 6th century CE
FOUNDER(S): indigenous religions of Japan
TEXTS: Kojiki (Ancient records), Nihon-gi (Records of Japan)
MAJOR SECTS:
ADHERENTS: 3-4 million
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7) SIKH (pronounced: " S E E K ")
ORIGIN: 1,500 CE - India (Punjab region)
FOUNDER(S): Guru Nanak
TEXTS: Guru Granth Sahib
MAJOR SECTS:
ADHERENTS: 27 million
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BAHA'I (pronounced: " B A H - H I G H ")
ORIGIN: 1844 AD
FOUNDER(S): Baha'u'llah (Abul Baha)
TEXTS: Writings of Baha'u'llah
MAJOR SECTS:
ADHERENTS: 5-7 million
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(source: Wikipedia)
A religion is a set of common beliefs and practices generally held by a group of people, often codified as prayer, ritual, and religious law. Religion also encompasses ancestral or cultural traditions, writings, history, and mythology, as well as personal faith and mystic experience. The term "religion" refers to both the personal practices related to communal faith and to group rituals and communication stemming from shared conviction.
In the frame of (patriarchal) European religious thought, religions present a common quality, the "hallmark of patriarchal religious thought": the division of the world in two comprehensive domains, one sacred, the other profane. 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, sacred, divine, or of the highest truth. Moral codes, practices, values, institutions, tradition, rituals, and scriptures are often traditionally associated with the core belief, and these may have some overlap with concepts in secular philosophy. Religion is also often described as a "way of life".
The development of religion has taken many forms in various cultures. "Organized religion" generally refers to an organization of people supporting the exercise of some religion with a prescribed set of beliefs, often taking the form of a legal entity (see religion-supporting organization). Other religions believe in personal revelation and responsibility. "Religion" is sometimes used interchangeably with "faith" or "belief system," but is more socially defined than that of personal convictions.
The etymology of the word "religion" has been debated for centuries. The English word clearly derives from the Latin religio, "reverence (for the gods)" or "conscientiousness". The precise origins of religio, however, are obscure. It is usually accepted to derive from ligare "bind, connect". Likely from a prefixed re-ligare, i.e. re (again) + ligare. This interpretation is favoured by modern scholars such as Tom Harpur and Joseph Campbell, but was made prominent by St. Augustine, following the interpretation of Lactantius. Another possibility is derivation from a reduplicated *le-ligare. A historical interpretation due to Cicero on the other hand connects lego "read", i.e. re (again) + lego in the sense of "choose", "go over again" or "consider carefully".
Religion has been defined in a wide variety of ways. Most definitions attempt to find a balance somewhere between overly sharp definition and meaningless generalities. Some sources have tried to use formalistic, doctrinal definitions while others have emphasized experiential, emotive, intuitive, valuational and ethical factors.
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.” According to this definition, religion refers to one's primary worldview and how this dictates one's thoughts and actions.
Other religious scholars have put forward a definition of religion that avoids the reductionism of the various sociological and psychological disciplines that reduce religion to its component factors. Religion may be defined as the presence of a belief in the sacred or the holy. For example Rudolf Otto's "The Idea of the Holy," formulated in 1917, defines the essence of religious awareness as awe, a unique blend of fear and fascination before the divine. Friedrich Schleiermacher in the late 18th century defined religion as a "feeling of absolute dependence."
The Encyclopedia of Religion defines religion this way:
"In summary, it may be said that almost every known culture involves the religious in the above sense of a depth dimension in cultural experiences at all levels — a push, whether ill-defined or conscious, 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 behaviour 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."
Other encyclopedic definitions include: "A general term used... to designate all concepts concerning the belief in god(s) and goddess(es) as well as other spiritual beings or transcendental ultimate concerns" and "human beings' relation to that which they regard as holy, sacred, spiritual, or divine."
Religion and superstition
In keeping with the Latin etymology of the word, religious believers have often seen other religions as superstition. Likewise, some atheists, agnostics, deists, and skeptics regard religious belief as superstition. (Edmund Burke, the Irish orator, once said, "Superstition is the religion of feeble minds.")
Religious practices are most likely to be labeled "superstitious" by outsiders when they include belief in extraordinary events (miracles), an afterlife, supernatural interventions, apparitions or the efficacy of prayer, charms, incantations, the meaningfulness of omens, and prognostications.
Greek and Roman pagans, who modeled their relations with the gods on political and social terms scorned the man who constantly trembled with fear at the thought of the gods, as a slave feared a cruel and capricious master. "Such fear of the gods (deisidaimonia) was what the Romans meant by 'superstition' (Veyne 1987, p 211). For Christians just such fears might be worn proudly as a name: Desdemona.
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 superstition "in some sense represents a perverse excess of religion" (para. #2110).
The Catechism clearly dispels commonly held preconceptions or misunderstandings about Catholic doctrine relating to superstitious practices:
Superstition 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)
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