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[4] [5] Sacred texts like the Bible, the Quran, and others did not have a word or even a concept of religion in the original languages and neither did the people or the cultures in which these sacred texts were written. [6] [7] The word religion as used in the 21st century does not have an obvious pre-colonial translation into non-European ...
Four religions— Christianity, Islam, Hinduism, and Buddhism —account for over 77% of the world's population, and 92% of the world either follows one of those four religions or identifies as nonreligious, [10] meaning that the remaining 9,000+ faiths account for only 8% of the population combined.
The bulk of the human religious experience pre-dates written history, which is roughly 5,000 years old. [1] A lack of written records results in most of the knowledge of pre-historic religion being derived from archaeological records and other indirect sources, and from suppositions. Much pre-historic religion is subject to continued debate.
Definition of religion. The definition of religion is a controversial and complicated subject in religious studies with scholars failing to agree on any one definition. Oxford Dictionaries defines religion as the belief in and/or worship of a superhuman controlling power, especially a personal God or gods. [1][failed verification] Others, such ...
Theories of religion can be classified into: [6] Substantive (or essentialist) theories that focus on the contents of religions and the meaning the contents have for people. This approach asserts that people have faith because beliefs make sense insofar as they hold value and are comprehensible. The theories by Tylor and Frazer (focusing on the ...
Religio (plural religiones) was the pious practice of Rome's traditional cults, and was a cornerstone of the mos maiorum, [21] the traditional social norms that regulated public, private, and military life. To the Romans, their success was self-evidently due to their practice of proper, respectful religio, which gave the gods what was owed them ...
Religious studies. Religious studies, also known as the study of religion, is the scientific study of religion. There is no consensus on what qualifies as religion and its definition is highly contested. It describes, compares, interprets, and explains religion, emphasizing empirical, historically based, and cross-cultural perspectives.
While the word religion is difficult to define, one standard model of religion used in religious studies courses defines it as [a] system of symbols which acts to establish powerful, pervasive, and long-lasting moods and motivations in men by formulating conceptions of a general order of existence and clothing these conceptions with such an aura of factuality that the moods and motivations ...