Search results
Results from the WOW.Com Content Network
The history of religion is the written record of human religious feelings, thoughts, and ideas. This period of religious history begins with the invention of writing about 5,200 years ago (3200 BCE). [1] The prehistory of religion involves the study of religious beliefs that existed prior to the advent of written records.
Philosophy of religion is "the philosophical examination of the central themes and concepts involved in religious traditions". [1] Philosophical discussions on such topics date from ancient times, and appear in the earliest known texts concerning philosophy.
Religious philosophy is philosophical thinking that is influenced and directed as a consequence of teachings from a particular religion. It can be done objectively, but it may also be done as a persuasion tool by believers in that faith .
When explaining religion they reject divine or supernatural explanations for the status or origins of religions because they are not scientifically testable. [16] In fact, theorists such as Marett (an Anglican) excluded scientific results altogether, defining religion as the domain of the unpredictable and unexplainable; that is, comparative ...
For example, the BaháΚΌí Faith is a new religious movement that has links to the major Abrahamic religions as well as other religions (e.g., of Eastern philosophy). Founded in 19th-century Iran, it teaches the unity of all religious philosophies [ 142 ] and accepts all of the prophets of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam as well as additional ...
In 1998, Jonathan Z. Smith wrote a chapter in Critical Terms for Religious Studies which traced the history of the term religion and argued that the contemporary understanding of world religions is a modern Christian and European term, with its roots in the European colonial expansion of the sixteenth century. [51]
either that religion evolved due to natural selection and has selective advantage; or that religion is an evolutionary byproduct of other mental adaptations. Stephen Jay Gould, for example, saw religion as an exaptation or a spandrel, in other words: religion evolved as byproduct of psychological mechanisms that evolved for other reasons.
Anthropology of religion; Comparative religion; History of religions; Philosophy of religion; Psychology of religion; Sociology of religion; Sometimes, theology and religious studies are seen as being in tension, [77] and at other times, they are held to coexist without serious tension. [78] Occasionally it is denied that there is as clear a ...