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The bulk of the human religious experience pre-dates written history, which is roughly 70,000 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.
The HarperCollins Concise Guide to World Religion: The A-to-Z Encyclopedia of All the Major Religious Traditions (1999) covers 33 principal religions, including Buddhism, Christianity, Jainism, Judaism, Islam, Shinto, Shamanism, Taoism, South American religions, Baltic and Slavic religions, Confucianism, and the religions of Africa and Oceania.
Religious tradition founded Historical founder(s) Life of historical founder Of Divine origin (Hinduism) Hinduism: Saptarshi: c. 15th century BCE Abraham (covenant with God) Moses (religious law) Judaism: Yahwists [n 1] c. 13th [1] [2] [3] to 8th century BC [n 2] Laozi: Taoism: Zhuang Zhou: 369 BC – 286 BC
Islam is based on the unity of all religious philosophies and accepts all of the Abrahamic prophets of Judaism, Christianity and other Abrahamic religions before Muhammad. It is the most widely practiced religion of Southeast Asia , North Africa , Western Asia , and Central Asia , while Muslim-majority countries also exist in parts of South ...
One modern academic theory of religion, social constructionism, says that religion is a modern concept that suggests all spiritual practice and worship follows a model similar to the Abrahamic religions as an orientation system that helps to interpret reality and define human beings, [6] and thus believes that religion, as a concept, has been ...
In pre-literate societies, religious ideas were based on an oral tradition, which was articulated by shamans and remained limited to the collective memories of the society's inhabitants. With the advent of writing, information that was not easy to remember could easily be stored in sacred texts that were maintained by a select group (clergy).
Two dominant dates for creation using such models exist, about 5500 BC and about 4000 BC. These were calculated from the genealogies in two versions of the Bible, with most of the difference arising from two versions of Genesis. The older dates stem from the Greek Septuagint. [55] The later dates are based on the Hebrew Masoretic Text. [56]
Old Lights and New Lights (c. 1730 – 1740) were terms first used during the First Great Awakening in British North America to describe those that supported the awakening (New Lights) and those who were skeptical of the awakening (Old Lights). [a] [3] [4] River Brethren (1770). Methodist Episcopal Church (1783). Universalist Church of America ...