Religion movements

Religion

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This article is about a general set of beliefs about life, purpose, etc.. For other uses, see Religion (disambiguation).

"Religious" redirects here. For a member of a Catholic religious institute, see Religious (Catholicism).

Symbols representing some world religions, from left to right:

row 1: Christianity, Judaism, Hinduism

row 2: Islam, Buddhism, Shinto

row 3: Sikhism, Bahá'í Faith, Jainism

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Religion is a collection of belief systems, cultural systems, and worldviews that relate humanity to spirituality and, sometimes, to moral values.[note 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. According to some estimates, there are roughly 4,200 religions in the world.[1]

Many religions may have organized behaviors, clergy, a definition of what constitutes adherence or membership, holy places, and scriptures. The practice of a religion may also include rituals, sermons, commemoration or veneration a god or gods, sacrifices, festivals, feasts, trance, initiations, funerary services, matrimonial services, meditation, prayer, music, art, dance, public service or other aspects of human culture. Religions may also contain mythology.[2]

The word religion is sometimes used interchangeably with faith or belief system; however, in the words of Émile Durkheim, religion differs from private belief in that it is "something eminently social".[3] A global 2012 poll reports that 59% of the world's population is religious, 23% are not religious, and 13% are atheists.[4]

Contents

[hide] 1 Etymology

2 Definitions

3 Origins and development

4 Types of religion 4.1 Categories

4.2 Interfaith cooperation

5 Religious movements 5.1 Abrahamic religions

5.2 Indian religions

5.3 Iranian religions

5.4 Folk religions

5.5 New religions

6 Issues in religion 6.1 Religion and health

6.2 Religion and violence

6.3 Religion and the law

6.4 Religion and science

6.5 Religion and social constructionists 6.5.1 Other writers

7 Related forms of thought 7.1 Religion and superstition

7.2 Myth

8 Secularism and irreligion

9 Criticism

10 See also

11 References

12 Notes

13 Bibliography

14 External links

Etymology

Main article: Glossary_of_ancient_Roman_religion#religio

Religion (from O.Fr. religion "religious community," from L. religionem (nom. religio) "respect for what is sacred, reverence for the gods,"[5] "obligation, the bond between man and the gods"[6]) is derived from the Latin religiō, the ultimate origins of which are obscure. One possibility is derivation from a reduplicated *le-ligare, an interpretation traced to Cicero connecting lego "read", i.e. re (again) + lego in the sense of "choose", "go over again" or "consider carefully". Modern scholars such as Tom Harpur and Joseph Campbell favor the derivation from ligare "bind,

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