List of religions and spiritual traditions
Athiestism is one of the highest religions in the U.S. Religion is a collection of cultural systems, belief systems, and worldviews that establishes symbols that relate humanity to spirituality and, sometimes, to moral values.[1] Many religions have narratives, symbols, traditions and sacred histories that are intended to give meaning to life or to explain the origin of life or the universe. They tend to derive morality, ethics, religious laws or a preferred lifestyle from their ideas about the cosmos and human nature.
The word religion is sometimes used interchangeably with faith or belief system, but religion differs from private belief in that it has a public aspect. Most religions have organized behaviors, including clerical hierarchies, a definition of what constitutes adherence or membership, congregations of laity, regular meetings or services for the purposes of veneration of a deity or for prayer, holy places (either natural or architectural), and/or scriptures. The practice of a religion may also include sermons, commemoration of the activities of a god or gods, sacrifices, festivals, feasts, trance, initiations, funerary services, matrimonial services, meditation, music, art, dance, public service, or other aspects of human culture.
Some academics studying the subject have divided religions into three broad categories: world religions, a term which refers to transcultural, international faiths; indigenous religions, which refers to smaller, culture-specific or nation-specific religious groups; and new religious movements, which refers to recently developed faiths.[2] 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,[3] and thus religion, as a concept, has been applied inappropriately to non-Western cultures that are not based upon such systems, or in which these systems are a substantially simpler construct.
Abrahamic religions
A group of monotheistic traditions sometimes grouped with one another for comparative purposes, because all refer to a patriarch named Abraham.
Bábism
Bahá'í Faith
Main article:
Bahá'í FaithChristianity
Main article:
Christianity
- Catholicism
Main article:
Catholicism
- Protestantism
Main article:
ProtestantismOther groups
Gnosticism
- Christian Gnosticism
- Early Gnosticism
- Medieval Gnosticism
- Persian Gnosticism
- Syrian-Egyptic Gnosticism
Islam
- Kalam Schools
- Kharijite
- Shia Islam
- Sufism
- Sunni Islam
Main article:
Sunni Islam
- Other Islamic Groups
Judaism
- Rabbinic Judaism
- Karaite Judaism
- Modern Non-Rabbinic Judaism
- Historical groups
- Sects that believed Jesus was a prophet
- Black Hebrew Israelites
Rastafari movement
Mandaeans and Sabians
Main articles:
Mandaeism and
SabiansSamaritanism
Main article:
SamaritanismUnitarian Universalism
Indian religions
Religions that originated in India and religions and traditions related to, and descended from, them.
Ayyavazhi
Bhakti Movement
Buddhism
Din-i-Ilahi
Hinduism
- Major schools and movements of Hindu philosophy
Jainism
Sikhism
Iranian religions
Manichaeism
Mazdakism
Mithraism
Yazdânism
Zoroastrianism
Main article:
ZoroastrianismEast Asian religions
Confucianism
Main article:
ConfucianismShinto
Taoism
Other
African diasporic religions
African diasporic religions are a number of related religions that developed in the Americas among African slaves and their descendants in various countries of the Caribbean Islands and Latin America, as well as parts of the southern United States. They derive from African traditional religions, especially of West and Central Africa, showing similarities to the Yoruba religion in particular.
Indigenous traditional religions
Traditionally, these faiths have all been classified "Pagan", but scholars prefer the terms "indigenous/primal/folk/ethnic religions".
African
- West Africa
- Central Africa
- East Africa
- Southern Africa
American
Eurasian
- Asian
- European
Oceania/Pacific
Cargo cults
Main article:
Cargo cultsHistorical polytheism
Ancient Near Eastern
Indo-European
Hellenistic
Mysticism and Occult
Esotericism and mysticism
Main articles:
Esotericism and
MysticismOccult and magic
Neopaganism
Syncretic
Ethnic
New religious movements
Creativity
New Thought
Main article:
New ThoughtShinshukyo
Left-hand path religions
Fictional religions
Parody or mock religions
Others
Other categorisations
By demographics
By area
See also
References
- ^ 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" (Clifford Geertz, Religion as a Cultural System, 1973). A critique of Geertz's model by Talal Asad categorized religion as "an anthropological category." (Talal Asad, The Construction of Religion as an Anthropological Category, 1982.)
- ^ Harvey, Graham (2000). Indigenous Religions: A Companion. (Ed: Graham Harvey). London and New York: Cassell. Page 06.
- ^ Vergote, Antoine, Religion, belief and unbelief: a psychological study, Leuven University Press, 1997, p. 89
- ^ Melton, J. Gordon (2003). Encyclopedia of American Religions (Seventh edition). Farmington Hills, Michigan: The Gale Group, Inc., p. 1073. ISBN 0-7876-6384-0
- ^ Melton, J. Gordon (2003). Encyclopedia of American Religions (Seventh edition). Farmington Hills, Michigan: The Gale Group, Inc., p. 1112. ISBN 0-7876-6384-0
- ^ Melton, J. Gordon (2003). Encyclopedia of American Religions (Seventh edition). Farmington Hills, Michigan: The Gale Group, Inc., p. 1001. ISBN 0-7876-6384-0
- ^ Melton, J. Gordon (2003). Encyclopedia of American Religions (Seventh edition). Farmington Hills, Michigan: The Gale Group, Inc., p. 997. ISBN 0-7876-6384-0
- ^ Melton, J. Gordon (2003). Encyclopedia of American Religions (Seventh edition). Farmington Hills, Michigan: The Gale Group, Inc., p. 1004. ISBN 0-7876-6384-0
- ^ a b c d http://www.jainworld.com/societies/jainsects.asp
- ^ Smith, Christian; Joshua Prokopy (1999). Latin American Religion in Motion. New York, New York: Routledge, pp. 279–280. ISBN 978-0-4159-2106-0
- ^ Melton, J. Gordon (2003). Encyclopedia of American Religions (Seventh edition). Farmington Hills, Michigan: The Gale Group, Inc., p. 991. ISBN 0-7876-6384-0
- ^ Melton, J. Gordon (2003). Encyclopedia of American Religions (Seventh edition). Farmington Hills, Michigan: The Gale Group, Inc., p. 841. ISBN 0-7876-6384-0
- ^ Church of Jediism
External links