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A religious movement is a theological, social, political, or philosophical interpretation of religion that is not generally represented and controlled by a specific church, sect, or denomination. A religious movement is characterized by significant growth in people, ideas and culture. Otherwise, it ceases to be a movement.
A religious experience (sometimes known as a spiritual experience, sacred experience, mystical experience) is a subjective experience which is interpreted within a religious framework. [1] The concept originated in the 19th century, as a defense against the growing rationalism of Western society . [ 2 ]
Historically, the words religious and spiritual have been used synonymously to describe all the various aspects of the concept of religion. [1] However, religion is a highly contested term with scholars such as Russell McCutcheon arguing that the term "religion" is used as a way to name a "seemingly distinct domain of diverse items of human activity and production". [6]
In categorizing religious experiences it is perhaps helpful to look at them as explicable through one of two theories: the objectivist thesis or the subjectivist thesis. An objectivist would argue that the religious experience is a proof of God's existence. However, others have criticised the reliability of religious experiences.
"Religious congruence" is the view that religious beliefs and values are tightly integrated in an individual's mind, or that religious practices and behaviors follow directly from religious beliefs, or that religious beliefs are chronologically linear and stable across different contexts.
The argument from religious experience is an argument for the existence of God. It holds that the best explanation for religious experiences is that they constitute genuine experience or perception of a divine reality. Various reasons have been offered for and against accepting this contention.
Experts say LGBTQ people — who represent more than 7% of the U.S. population, according to a 2023 Gallup poll — experience religious trauma at disproportionate rates and in unique ways.
A church is a religious group that accepts the social environment in which it exists, a sect is a religious group that rejects it. [ 6 ] [ 2 ] The church-sect typology and the notion of a church-sect continuum or movement from the sect to the church came under strong attack in the sociology of religion of the 1960s onwards.