Religions have played a very great part in the evolution of human civilization and culture. They evolved as a set of beliefs concerning the cause, nature and purpose of the universe and grew as an organized system of beliefs that bound people to become a close ? knit society. Very often the religions spread out from the lands of their origin.
Hinduism has left its permanent impact on Indian life and culture. Buddhism wrought revolutionary transformation in the life and culture of the peoples of South ? East Asia and China. Christianity and Islam spread among peoples of Asia and Europe kindling latent fires and opening fresh chapters in the history of the world.
The religions of world may be grouped into three broad classes:
1. Leading religions
2. Lesser religions; and
3. Primitive religions
The leading religions are Buddhism, Christinity, Confucianism, Hinduism and Islam. The lesser religions include Jainism and Sikhism of India, Judaism of Palestine, Shintoism of Japan, Taoism of China and Zoroastrianism originally of Persia (Iran). The primitive religions count by the thousands. They are very small communities, each with a handful of votaries. They are principally found among the aboriginal tribes of Australia, the Americas, India, Burma, South East Asia, Indonesia and Africa.
A religion is a set of tenets and practices, often centered upon specific supernatural and moral claims about reality, the cosmos, and human nature, and often codified as prayer, ritual, or religious law. Religion also encompasses ancestral or cultural traditions, writings, history, and mythology, as well as personal faith and religious 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 western 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" or a life stance.
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. "Religion" is sometimes used interchangeably with "faith" or "belief system," but is more socially defined than that of personal convictions.
The English word religion is in use since the 13th century, loaned from Anglo-French religiun (11th century), ultimately from the Latin religio, "reverence for God or the gods, careful pondering of divine things, piety, the res divinae".
The ultimate origins of Latin religio are obscure. It is usually accepted to derive from ligare "bind, connect"; likely from a prefixed re-ligare, i.e. re (again) + ligare or "to reconnect." 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". |
