Search results
Results from the WOW.Com Content Network
According to some estimates, there are roughly 4,200 religions, churches, denominations, religious bodies, faith groups, tribes, cultures, movements, or ultimate concerns. [2] The word religion is sometimes used interchangeably with the words "faith" or "belief system", but religion differs from private belief in that it has a public aspect.
Full-text search engine – Searchable sacred texts of the major World Religions; Patheos.com – Offers a comprehensive library with essays written by prominent religious scholars; Guide to World Religions; A Contribution to the Critique of Hegel's Philosophy of Right – Marx's original reference to religion as the opium of the people ...
As an example, this list contains groups also known as "rites" which many, such as the Roman Catholic Church, would say are not denominations as they are in full papal communion, and thus part of the Catholic Church. [27] For the purpose of simplicity, this list is intended to reflect the self-understanding of each denomination.
Not all of the following churches are member churches of the WMC. The largest Methodist denomination, the United Methodist Church, had about 25 percent [192] of their churches disaffiliate between 2019 and 2023, some of whom joined the Global Methodist Church, thus figures for the two denominations are an ongoing process.
A religious denomination is a subgroup within a religion that operates under a common name and tradition, among other activities. The term refers to the various Christian denominations (for example, Eastern Orthodox, Catholic, and the many varieties of Protestantism).
The world's principal religions and spiritual traditions may be classified into a small number of major groups, though this is not a uniform practice. This theory began in the 18th century with the goal of recognizing the relative degrees of civility in different societies, [2] but this concept of a ranking order has since fallen into disrepute in many contemporary cultures.
World's religions: Abrahamic religions: Judaism – "religion, philosophy, and way of life" of the Jewish people. Originating in the Hebrew Bible (also known as the Tanach) and explored in later texts such as the Talmud, it is considered by religious Jews to be the expression of the covenantal relationship God developed with the Children of Israel.
The world religions paradigm was developed in the United Kingdom during the 1960s, where it was pioneered by phenomenological scholars of religion such as Ninian Smart. It was designed to broaden the study of religion away from its heavy focus on Christianity by taking into account other large religious traditions around the world.