What is religion

The term “religion” has different interpretations, each of which is correct in its own way. Religion can be defined like this:

• worldview and behavior of people, which determines the belief in the existence of any supernatural force;
• a system of symbols, moral rules, rituals and cult actions, based on the idea of the general order of being;
• belief in the supernatural (in God);
• a set of views and ideas, a system of beliefs and rituals that gathers people into a single community;
• one of the forms of adaptation of a person to the world around him, a way to satisfy spiritual needs.

Religious consciousness is closely connected with faith, and these concepts are often used as synonyms.

The main features of religion are:

1. irrationality – belief in absolute truth;
2. dogmatism – lack of need for evidence;
3. rituality – prayers and other sacred actions;
4. belief in the supernatural;
5. groundlessness.

We have uncovered the definition of religion. Let’s look at the functions of religion and find out how it affects society.

Modern religions

Today, there are three types of religious beliefs:

1. Tribal beliefs are the same totemism, shamanism, fetishism and animism, which we talked about above. These are archaic religions, but they survived in some societies, for example, among the tribes of Africa or the Canadian Indians.
2. National-state religions are closely connected with a separate people, an ethnic community. For example, Hinduism and Jainism are predominantly distributed in India, Judaism – in Israel, Shinto – in Japan, Taoism and Confucianism – in China.
3. World religions go beyond the boundaries of one nation or state and cover a large number of believers around the world. There are three such religions: Christianity, Buddhism and Islam.

Each religion is built on a whole set of rules, restrictions, norms of behavior, includes a system of cult actions, rituals. Let’s learn a little about each of the three world religions, and then summarize the knowledge in a pivot table.

Christianity

Christianity originated in the 1st century AD in the east of the Roman Empire and quickly spread to other provinces. Already in the 5th century, religion went beyond the boundaries of the Roman Empire and embraced European states, and in the 16th-20th centuries, missionaries actively converted inhabitants of other continents to Christianity. Today, the religion has an estimated 2.4 billion adherents.

This is a monotheistic religion. At the center of the Christian faith is the idea of the unity of God the Father, Son and Holy Spirit. God in the view of Christians is perfect, he embodies absolute reason and love.

Christians believe that the soul is immortal and believe in the resurrection of all people. The spiritual world for adherents of this religion is more important than the material. The goal of human life is spiritual growth, and it can be achieved through humility, fasting and prayer.

The main book is the Bible, which consists of the Old and New Testaments, the symbol is a cross.

There are three branches of Christianity:

• Orthodoxy is practiced in Russia, some countries of the CIS and Eastern Europe.
• Catholicism is widespread in Western Europe, Lithuania, Czech Republic, Poland.
• Protestantism is characteristic of the USA, Canada, Australia and Great Britain.

Islam

Islam is the youngest world religion. It originated in Western Arabia in the 7th century, and its founder was the prophet Muhammad. The first Muslim state, the Caliphate, actively waged aggressive wars with its neighbors and converted them to Islam. Thanks to this, already in the first hundred years of its existence, religion gained followers in Western and Central Asia, India and the Caucasus, North Africa and the Balkan Peninsula. Today, Islam is practiced by approximately 1.9 billion people.

It is a monotheistic religion related to Judaism and Christianity. The Almighty God worshiped by Muslims is Allah. Like Christians, Muslims believe in the immortality of the soul and the possibility of its salvation after death. The symbols of Islam are the star and crescent, the main book is the Quran. Evidence of a Muslim’s faith is ritual prayer, fasting, and pilgrimage to Mecca (the city where Islam was born).

There are two major branches of Islam:

1. Sunnism is widespread in Central and South Asia, Africa.
2. Shiism is characteristic of Azerbaijan, Iran and Iraq.

Buddhism

Buddhism is the oldest of the three world religions, it originated in the 6th century BC. During the first two millennia of its existence, Buddhism penetrated Sri Lanka, China, Japan and Tibet, and spread throughout Southeast and Central Asia. Today Buddhism is practiced by about 500 million inhabitants of the Earth. In Russia, this religion is widespread on the territory of Buryatia, Kalmykia, Tuva.

Unlike Christianity and Islam, in Buddhism there is neither a creator God, nor the idea of an immortal soul, nor the concept of sin and its redemption.

The basis of religion is the doctrine of the four noble truths, which speak of suffering, its cause (thirst), the cessation of suffering (nirvana) and the noble path leading to the cessation of suffering. Buddhists believe in an endless chain of rebirths – samsara, and in karma – the law of connection between a person’s actions and his future life.

The two main branches of Buddhism are:

• Hinayana is common in Sri Lanka, Myanmar, Thailand, Laos and Cambodia.
• Mahayana is widespread in the Far East, in Central Asia, in the West