Search results
Results from the WOW.Com Content Network
The term "cult" first appeared in English in 1617, derived from the French culte, meaning "worship" which in turn originated from the Latin word cultus meaning "care, cultivation, worship". The meaning "devotion to a person or thing" is from 1829. Starting about 1920, "cult" acquired an additional six or more positive and negative definitions.
Cult is a term often applied to new religious movements and other social groups which have unusual, and often extreme, religious, spiritual, or philosophical beliefs and rituals.
The relationship between clients and the leaders of client cults resembles that of patients and therapists. Cult movements, which seek to provide services that meet all of their adherents' spiritual needs, although they differ significantly in the degree to which they use mobilize adherents' time and commitment.
Vatican City and St. Peter's Basilica.. Christianity played a prominent role in the development of Western civilization, in particular, the Catholic Church and Protestantism. [5] [50] Western culture, throughout most of its history, has been nearly equivalent to Christian culture, and much of the population of the Western hemisphere could broadly be described as cultural Christians.
Christianity began as a Jewish sect and remained so for centuries in some locations, diverging gradually from Judaism over doctrinal, social and historical differences. In spite of the persecution of Christians in the Roman Empire , the faith spread as a grassroots movement that by the third century was established both in and outside the empire.
The Triumph of Christianity over Paganism, a painting by Gustave Doré (1899). Paganism is commonly used to refer to various religions that existed during Antiquity and the Middle Ages, such as the Greco-Roman religions of the Roman Empire, including the Roman imperial cult, the various mystery religions, religious philosophies such as Neoplatonism and Gnosticism, and more localized ethnic ...
Page from the Gospel of Judas Mandaean Beth Manda in Nasiriyah, southern Iraq, in 2016, a contemporary-style mandi. Gnosticism (from Ancient Greek: γνωστικός, romanized: gnōstikós, Koine Greek: [ɣnostiˈkos], 'having knowledge') is a collection of religious ideas and systems that coalesced in the late 1st century AD among early Christian sects.
The term Abrahamic religions (and its variations) is a collective religious descriptor for elements shared by Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. [6] It features prominently in interfaith dialogue and political discourse but also has entered academic discourse.