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About "Religion"

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Source: Wikipedia 

World religions 

Historical notions

The concept of "world religion" is historically based on a subjective perception of temporal or theological importance, usually from a Western, "Christian" (or at least "Abrahamic") perspective.

Early Christian scholars, the earliest known classifiers of major religions, recognized two "proper" religions, Christianity and Judaism, besides heretical deviations from Christianity, and idolatrous relapse or paganism. Islamic theology recognizes Christians and Jews as "People of the Book" rather than idolaters, however, Christians are criticized for believing in Christ as God incarnate, rather than considering Christ as one prophet and/or messenger along with others (especially Muhammad in particular). The Christian view long classified Islam's rejection of Christ's divinity as one heresy among others. The concept of the Trinity is often seen as a fundamental conflict between Islam and some interpretations of Christianity to this day.

Attempts to identify and classify additional religions expanded during the Enlightenment however, and by the 19th century Western scholars considered the five "world religions" to be Judaism, Christianity, Islam, Hinduism and Buddhism. These remain the classic "world religions."

Modern classifications

Modern classifications typically list major religious groups by number of adherents, not by historical or theological notability. Most dramatically, this affects Judaism, which holds the position of "world religion" as the foundational tradition of the "Abrahamic" group, but which in terms of adherents ranks below 0.25% of world population, behind Sikhism.

The remaining four classic world religions, Christianity, Islam, Hinduism and Buddhism, are the largest contemporary religions by far. They each have more than 300 million adherents, more than ten times the number of the next largest organized religion (Sikhism, ca. 19 million per the Christian Science Monitor source cited below).

A person is typically considered an adherent or follower of a particular religion if the person would self-identify the religion as the primary characterization of their religious perspective[1]. Similarly, a religion is typically considered to fall within a larger religious category (e.g., Protestantism falling within Christianity) if the followers of the religion self-identify that classification as appropriate.

An example of a modern listing of "world religions" is that of the Ontario Consultants on Religious Tolerance, listing twelve "long established, major world religions, each with over three million followers", alphabetically:

Bahá'í Faith, Buddhism, Christianity, Confucianism, Hinduism, Islam, Jainism, Judaism, Shinto, Sikhism, Taoism, Vodou.
The Adherents.com list of "twelv e classical world religions" is nearly identical, but replaces Vodou with Zoroastrianism.
The "World's Major Religions" list published in the New York Public Library Student's Desk Reference[2] omits Vodou and Zoroastrianism, as well as Jainism and Sikhism, but lists the Eastern Orthodox Church, Protestantism and Roman Catholicism as separate religions.

The Christian Science Monitor, in a 1998 article "Top 10 Organized Religions in the World," provides a listing of the largest "organized religions" [3]:

 

#ReligionNumber of Adherents 
1Christianity1.9 billion
2Islam1.1 billion
3Hinduism781 million
4Buddhism324 million
5Sikhism19 million
6Judaism14 million
7Bahá'í Faith6.1 million
8Confucianism5.3 million
9Jainism4.9 million
10Shinto2.8 million

Other "major religions" listed by Adherents.com (2007), not found on the above lists, are:

  • Tribal religions (Shamanism, Animism): roughly 300 million
  • African traditional and diasporic (including Vodou): roughly 100 million[4]
  • Chinese traditional (including Taoism and Confucianism): 394 million
  • Juche (North Korean state ideology): 19 million
  • Cao Dai: 4 million
  • Tenrikyo: 2 million
  • Neopaganism: 1 million
  • Unitarian Universalism: 800,000
  • Rastafarianism: 600,000

Classification

Religious traditions fall into super-groups in comparative religion, arranged by historical origin and mutual influence. Abrahamic religions originate in the Middle East, Indian religions in India and Far Eastern religions in East Asia. Another group with supra-regional influence is African diasporic religions, which have their origins in Central and West Africa.

  • Abrahamic religions are by far the largest group, and these consist primarily of Christianity, Islam and Judaism (sometimes Bahá'í Faith is also included). They are named for their common patriarch Abraham, and are unified by their strict monotheism. Today, around 3.4 billion people are followers of Abrahamic religions and are spread widely around the world apart from the regions around southeast Asia and China.
  • Indian religions originated in Greater India and tend to share a number of key concepts, such as dharma and karma. They are of the most influence across the Indian subcontinent, East Asia, South East Asia, as well as isolated parts of Russia. The main Indian religions are Hinduism, Buddhism, Sikhism, and Jainism. Indian religions mutually influenced each other.
  • Far Eastern religions consist of several East Asian religions which make use of the concept of Tao (in Chinese) or Do (in Japanese or Korean). They include Taoism, Confucianism, Chinese folk religion, Shinto, Chondogyo, Caodaism and Yiguandao, as well as Far Eastern Buddhism (in which the group overlaps with the "Indian" group).
  • Iranian religions include Zoroastrianism, Yazdanism and historical traditions of Gnosticism (Mandaeanism, Manichaeism). It has significant overlaps with Abrahamic traditions, e.g. in Sufism, and in recent religions such as Bábísm and the Bahá'í Faith.
  • African diasporic religions practiced in the Americas, imported as a result of the Atlantic slave trade of the 16th to 18th centuries, building on traditional religions of Central and West Africa.
  • Indigenous tribal religions, formerly found on every continent, now marginalized by the major organized faiths, but persisting as undercurrents of folk religion. Includes African traditional religions, Asian Shamanism, Native American religions, Austronesian and Australian Aboriginal traditions and sometimes arguably Chinese folk religion (overlaps with Far Eastern religions).
  • New religious movements, a heterogeneous group of religious faiths emerging since the 19th century, often syncretizing, re-interpreting or reviving aspects of older traditions (Bahá'í, Hindu reform movements (Hindu revivalism), Ayyavazhi, Pentecostalism, polytheistic reconstructionism), some inspired by science-fiction (UFO religions, Scientology). See List of new religious movements, list of groups referred to as cults.

Demographic distribution of the major super-groupings mentioned is shown in the table below (with number of followers estimates from Adherents.com for groups having such figures available there):

Name of Group

Name of Religion

Number of followers

Date of Origin

Main regions covered

Abrahamic religions
3.4 billion		Christianity2.1 billion1st c.Worldwide except Northwest Africa, the Arabian Peninsula, and parts of Central, East, and Southeast Asia.
Islam1.5 billion7th c.Middle East, Northern Africa, Central Asia, South Asia, Western Africa, Indian subcontinent, Malay Archipelago with large population centers existing in Easter Africa, Balkan Peninsula, Russia, Europe and China.
Judaism14 million1300 BCEIsrael and among Jewish diaspora (live mostly in USA and Europe)
Bahá'í Faith7 million19th c.Dispersed worldwide with no major population centers
Indian religions
1.4 billion		Hinduism900 millionno founderIndian subcontinent, Fiji, Guyana and Mauritius
Buddhism376 millionIron Age (1200–300 BCE)Indian subcontinent, East Asia, Indochina, regions of Russia.
Sikhism23 million15th c.India, Pakistan, Africa, Canada, USA, United Kingdom
Jainism4.2 millionIron Age (1200–300 BCE)India, and East Africa
Far Eastern religions
500 million		TaoismunknownSpring and Autumn Period (722 BC-481 BC)China and the Chinese diaspora
ConfucianismunknownSpring and Autumn Period (722 BC-481 BC)China, Korea, Vietnam and the Chinese and Vietnamese diasporas
Shinto4 millionno founderJapan
Caodaism1-2 million1925Vietnam
Chondogyo1.13 million1812Korea
Yiguandao1-2 millionc. 1900Taiwan
Chinese folk religion394 millionno founder, a combination of Taoism, Confucianism and BuddhismChina
Ethnic/tribal
400 million
Primal indigenous300 millionno founderIndia, Asia
African traditional and diasporic100 millionno known founderAfrica, Americas
Other
each over 500 thousand
Juche19 million20th centuryNorth Korea
Neopaganism1 million  
Unitarian-Universalism800,000  
Rastafarianism600,000  
Scientology500,0001951 

Religious belief

Religious belief usually relates to the existence, nature and worship of a deity or deities and divine involvement in the universe and human life. Alternately, it may also relate to values and practices transmitted by a spiritual leader. Unlike other belief systems, which may be passed on orally, religious belief tends to be codified in literate societies (religion in non-literate societies is still largely passed on orally[14]). In some religions, like the Abrahamic religions, it is held that most of the core beliefs have been divinely revealed.

Related forms of thought

Religion and science

Religious knowledge, according to religious practitioners, may be gained from religious leaders, sacred texts (scriptures), and/or personal revelation. Some religions view such knowledge as unlimited in scope and suitable to answer any question; others see religious knowledge as playing a more restricted role, often as a complement to knowledge gained through physical observation. Some religious people maintain that religious knowledge obtained in this way is absolute and infallible (religious cosmology).

The scientific method gains knowledge by testing hypotheses to develop theories through elucidation of facts or evaluation by experiments and thus only answers cosmological questions about the physical universe. It develops theories of the world which best fit physically observed evidence. All scientific knowledge is subject to later refinement in the face of additional evidence. Scientific theories that have an overwhelming preponderance of favorable evidence are often treated as facts (such as the theories of gravity or evolution).

Many scientists held strong religious beliefs (see List of Christian thinkers in science) and worked to harmonize science and religion. Isaac Newton, for example, believed that gravity caused the planets to revolve about the Sun, and credited God with the design. In the concluding General Scholium to the Philosophiae Naturalis Principia Mathematica, he wrote: "This most beautiful System of the Sun, Planets and Comets, could only proceed from the counsel and dominion of an intelligent and powerful being." Nevertheless, conflict arose between religious organizations and individuals who propagated scientific theories which were deemed unacceptable by the organizations. The Roman Catholic Church, for example, has in the past[15] reserved to itself the right to decide which scientific theories were acceptable and which were unacceptable. In the 17th century, Galileo was tried and forced to recant the heliocentric theory based on the medieval church's stance that the Greek Hellenistic system of astronomy was the correct one.[16][17]

Many theories exist as to why religions sometimes seem to conflict with scientific knowledge. In the case of Christianity, a relevant factor may be that it was among Christians that science in the modern sense was developed. Unlike other religious groups, as early as the 17th century the Christian churches had to deal directly with this new way to investigate nature and seek truth.

The perceived conflict between science and Christianity may also be partially explained by a literal interpretation of the Bible adhered to by many Christians, both currently and historically. The Catholic Church has always held with Augustine of Hippo who explicitly opposed a literal interpretation of the Bible whenever the Bible conflicted with Science. The literal way to read the sacred texts became especially prevalent after the rise of the Protestant reformation, with its emphasis on the Bible as the only authoritative source concerning the ultimate reality.[18] This view is often shunned by both religious leaders (who regard literally believing it as petty and look for greater meaning instead) and scientists who regard it as an impossibility.

Some Christians have disagreed or are still disagreeing with scientists in areas such as the validity of Keplerian astronomy, the theory of evolution, the method of creation of the universe and the Earth, and the origins of life. On the other hand, scholars such as Stanley Jaki have suggested that Christianity and its particular worldview was a crucial factor for the emergence of modern science. In fact, most of today's historians are moving away from the view of the relationship between Christianity and science as one of "conflict" - a perspective commonly called the conflict thesis.[19][20]

 Gary Ferngren in his historical volume about Science & Religion states:

While some historians had always regarded the [conflict] thesis as oversimplifying and distorting a complex relationship, in the late twentieth century it underwent a more systematic reevaluation. The result is the growing recognition among historians of science that the relationship of religion and science has been much more positive than is sometimes thought. Although popular images of controversy continue to exemplify the supposed hostility of Christianity to new scientific theories, studies have shown that Christianity has often nurtured and encouraged scientific endeavour, while at other times the two have co-existed without either tension or attempts at harmonization. If Galileo and the Scopes trial come to mind as examples of conflict, they were the exceptions rather than the rule.[21]

In the Bahá'í Faith, the harmony of science and religion is a central tenet.[22] The principle states that that truth is one, and therefore true science and true religion must be in harmony, thus rejecting the view that science and religion are in conflict.[22] `Abdu'l-Bahá, the son of the founder of the religion, asserted that science and religion cannot be opposed because they are aspects of the same truth; he also affirmed that reasoning powers are required to understand the truths of religion and that religious teachings which are at variance with science should not be accepted; he explained that religion has to be reasonable since God endowed humankind with reason so that they can discover truth.[23] Shoghi Effendi, the Guardian of the Bahá'í Faith, described science and religion as "the two most potent forces in human life."[24]

Proponents of Hinduism claim that Hinduism is not afraid of scientific explorations, nor of the technological progress of mankind. According to them, there is a comprehensive scope and opportunity for Hinduism to mold itself according to the demands and aspirations of the modern world; it has the ability to align itself with both science and spiritualism. This religion uses some modern examples to explain its ancient theories and reinforce its own beliefs. For example, some Hindu thinkers have used the terminology of quantum physics to explain some basic concepts of Hinduism such as Maya or the illusory and impermanent nature of our existence.

The philosophical approach known as pragmatism, as propounded by the American philosopher William James, has been used to reconcile scientific with religious knowledge. Pragmatism, simplistically, holds that the truth of a set of beliefs can be indicated by its usefulness in helping people cope with a particular context of life. Thus, the fact that scientific beliefs are useful in predicting observations in the physical world can indicate a certain truth for scientific theories; the fact that religious beliefs can be useful in helping people cope with difficult emotions or moral decisions can indicate a certain truth for those beliefs. 

 

References

  1. Jack Goody as cited in "Sacred and Profane - Durkheim's Critics". Retrieved on 2007-07-10.
  2. Durkheim 1976, p.36
  3. The words "belief system" may not necessarily refer to a religion, though a religion may be referred to as "belief system."
  4. Lewis & Short, A Latin Dictionary[1]
  5. qui omnia, quae ad cultum deorum pertinerent, diligenter retractarent et tamquam relegerent, sunt dicti religiosi ex relegendo, ut elegantes ex elegendo, tamquam a diligendo diligentes, ex intellegendo intellegentes: his enim in verbis omnibus inest vis legendi eadem, quae in religioso, Cic. N. D. 2, 28, 72
  6. Answers.com
  7. George A. Lindbeck, Nature of Doctrine (Louisville: Westminster/John Knox Press, 1984), 33.
  8. Talal Asad, Genealogies of Religion (Johns Hopkins University Press.)
  9. Religion [First Edition]. Winston King. Encyclopedia of Religion. Ed. Lindsay Jones. Vol. 11. 2nd ed. Detroit: Macmillan Reference USA, 2005. p7692-7701.
  10. Penguin Dictionary of Religions (1997) as quoted on "ReligionFacts". Retrieved on 2007-03-17.
  11. Encyclopædia Britannica (2006) as quoted on "ReligionFacts". Retrieved on 2007-03-17.
  12. Boyer (2001). "Why Belief", Religion Explained. 
  13. Brodd, Jefferey (2003). World Religions. Winona, MN: Saint Mary's Press. ISBN 978-0-88489-725-5. 
  14. Religion Explained: The Evolutionary Origins of Religious Thought, Pascal Boyer, Basic Books (2001)
  15. Quotation: "The Second Vatican Council affirmed academic freedom for natural science and other secular disciplines". From the essay of Ted Peters about Science and Religion at "Lindsay Jones (editor in chief). Encyclopedia of Religion, Second Edition. Thomson Gale. 2005. p.8185"
  16. By Dr Paul Murdin, Lesley Murdin Photographs by Paul New. Supernovae Astronomy Murdin Published 1985, Cambridge UniversityPress Science,256 pages,ISBN 052130038X page 18.
  17. Godfrey-Smith, Peter. 2003. Theory and reality: an introduction to the philosophy of science. Science and its conceptual foundations. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Page 14.
  18. Stanley Jaki. Bible and Science, Christendom Press, 1996 (pages 110-111)
  19. Spitz, Lewis (1987). (The Rise of modern Europe) The protestant Reformation 1517-1559.. Harper Torchbooks, pp 383. ISBN 0-06-132069-2 The historian of early modern Europe Lewis Spitz says "To set up a 'warfare of science and theology' is an exercise in futility and a reflection of a nineteenth century materialism now happily transcended". 
  20. Quotation: "The conflict thesis, at least in its simple form, is now widely perceived as a wholly inadequate intellectual framework within which to construct a sensible and realistic historiography of Western science." (p. 7), from the essay by Colin A. Russell "The Conflict Thesis" on "Gary Ferngren (editor). Science & Religion: A Historical Introduction. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2002. ISBN 0-8018-7038-0".
  21. Gary Ferngren (editor). Science & Religion: A Historical Introduction. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2002. ISBN 0-8018-7038-0. (Introduction, p. ix)
  22. Esslemont, J.E. (1980). Bahá'u'lláh and the New Era, 5th ed., Wilmette, Illinois, USA: Bahá'í Publishing Trust. ISBN 0-87743-160-4. 
  23. `Abdu'l-Bahá [1912] (1982). The Promulgation of Universal Peace, Hardcover, Wilmette, Illinois, USA: Bahá'í Publishing Trust. ISBN 0-87743-172-8. 
  24. Effendi, Shoghi (1938). The World Order of Bahá’u’lláh. Wilmette, Illinois, USA: Bahá'í Publishing Trust. ISBN 0-87743-231-7.