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The Nazarene Manual, a document crafted to provide Biblical guidance and denominational expression for Church members, states: "The Church of the Nazarene believes in the biblical account of creation ("In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth . . ."—Genesis 1:1).
Earth religion encompasses a range of groups and beliefs such as paganism (a polytheistic, nature-based religion), animism (the worldview that all living entities possess a spirit), Wicca (which holds the concept of an earth mother goddess and practices ritual magic), and druidism (which equates divinity with the natural world).
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.
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 ...
Cornelis Tiele proposed that religions develop in phases, from being nature religions, to becoming mythological religions, then doctrinal religions, and ultimately as world or universal religions. The last stage, qualitatively different in kind, aspiring to be accepted by all men, and based upon abstract principles and maxims.
Religious cosmology is an explanation of the origin, evolution, and eventual fate of the universe from a religious perspective. This may include beliefs on origin in the form of a creation myth , subsequent evolution, current organizational form and nature, and eventual fate or destiny.
The bulk of the human religious experience pre-dates written history, which is roughly 7,000 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 Mesha Stele bears the earliest known reference (840 BCE) to the Israelite god Yahweh. [16]Judaism, the oldest Abrahamic religion, is based on a strict, exclusive monotheism, [4] [17] finding its origins in the sole veneration of Yahweh, [4] [18] [19] [20] the predecessor to the Abrahamic conception of God.