List of religions and spiritual traditions

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Religious symbols in clock-wise order: Judaism, Christianity, Islam, Baha'i, Hinduism, Taoism, Buddhism, Sikhism, Rodnoveri, Celtic pagan, Heathenism, Semitic pagan, Wicca, Kemetism, Hellenic pagan, Roman pagan.

Religion is a collection of cultural systems, belief systems, and worldviews that establishes symbols that relate humanity to spirituality and, sometimes, to moral values. While religion is hard to define, one standard model of religion, used in religious studies courses, was proposed by Clifford Geertz, who simply called it a "cultural system".[1] A critique of Geertz's model by Talal Asad categorized religion as "an anthropological category."[2] Many religions have narratives, symbols, traditions and sacred histories that are intended to give meaning to life or to explain the origin of life or the universe. They tend to derive morality, ethics, religious laws or a preferred lifestyle from their ideas about the cosmos and human nature. According to some estimates, there are roughly 4,200 religions in the world.[3]

The word religion is sometimes used interchangeably with faith or belief system, but religion differs from private belief in that it has a public aspect. Most religions have organized behaviors, including clerical hierarchies, a definition of what constitutes adherence or membership, congregations of laity, regular meetings or services for the purposes of veneration of a deity or for prayer, holy places (either natural or architectural), and/or scriptures. The practice of a religion may also include sermons, commemoration of the activities of a god or gods, sacrifices, festivals, feasts, trance, initiations, funerary services, matrimonial services, meditation, music, art, dance, public service, or other aspects of human culture.

Some academics studying the subject have divided religions into three broad categories: world religions, a term which refers to transcultural, international faiths; indigenous religions, which refers to smaller, culture-specific or nation-specific religious groups; and new religious movements, which refers to recently developed faiths.[4] 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,[5] and thus religion, as a concept, has been applied inappropriately to non-Western cultures that are not based upon such systems, or in which these systems are a substantially simpler construct.

Contents

Abrahamic religions[edit]

Main article: Abrahamic religions

A group of monotheistic traditions sometimes grouped with one another for comparative purposes, because all refer to a patriarch named Abraham.

Babism[edit]

Main article: Bábism

Bahá'í Faith[edit]

Main article: Bahá'í Faith

Christianity[edit]

Main article: Christianity
See also: List of Christian denominations
Catholicism
Main article: Catholic Church
Protestantism
Main article: Protestantism
Eastern Orthodoxy
Main article: Eastern Orthodox Church
Other Eastern Churches

Other groups[edit]

Druze[edit]

Main article: Druze

Gnosticism[edit]

Main article: Gnosticism
See also: List of Gnostic sects



Persian Gnosticism
Syrian-Egyptic Gnosticism
Main article: Syrian-Egyptic Gnosticism

Islam[edit]

Main article: Islam
See also: Islamic schools and branches
Kalam Schools
Main article: Kalam
Kharijite
Main article: Kharijite
Shia Islam
Main article: Shia Islam
Sufism
Main article: Sufism
Sunni Islam
Main article: Sunni Islam
Quraniyoon
Main article: Quranism
Black Muslims
Ahmadiyya
Other Islamic Groups

Judaism[edit]

Main article: Judaism
See also: Jewish Denominations
Rabbinic Judaism
Main article: Rabbinic Judaism
Karaite Judaism
Main article: Karaite Judaism
Falasha or Beta Israel
Modern Non-Rabbinic Judaism
Historical groups

Rastafari movement[edit]

Main article: Rastafari movement

Black Hebrew Israelites[edit]

Main article: Black Hebrew Israelites

Mandaeans and Sabians[edit]

Main articles: Mandaeism and Sabians

Samaritanism[edit]

Main article: Samaritanism

Shabakism[edit]

Main article: Shabak people

Indian religions[edit]

Main article: Indian religions

Indian religions, also known as dharmic religions, are the religions that originated in the Indian subcontinent; namely Hinduism, Jainism, Buddhism and Sikhism and religions and traditions related to, and descended from, them.

Ayyavazhi[edit]

Main article: Ayyavazhi

Bhakti movement[edit]

Main article: Bhakti movement

Buddhism[edit]

Main article: Schools of Buddhism

Din-i-Ilahi[edit]

Hinduism[edit]

See also: Hindu denominations
Major schools and movements of Hindu philosophy
Main article: Hindu philosophy

Jainism[edit]

Main article: Jainism

Meivazhi[edit]

Sikhism[edit]

Main article: Sikhism

Iranian religions[edit]

Main article: Iranian religions

Manichaeism[edit]

Mazdakism[edit]

Mithraism[edit]

Yazdânism[edit]

Main article: Yazdânism

Zoroastrianism / Parsi[edit]

Main article: Zoroastrianism

East Asian religions[edit]

Main article: East Asian religions

Confucianism[edit]

Main article: Confucianism

Shinto[edit]

Main articles: Shinto and Shinto sects and schools

Taoism[edit]

Main article: Taoism

Other[edit]

African diasporic religions[edit]

See also: African diasporic religions

African diasporic religions are a number of related religions that developed in the Americas among African slaves and their descendants in various countries of the Caribbean Islands and Latin America, as well as parts of the southern United States. They derive from African traditional religions, especially of West and Central Africa, showing similarities to the Yoruba religion in particular.

Indigenous traditional religions[edit]

See also: Paganism and Folk religion

Traditionally, these faiths have all been classified "Pagan", but scholars prefer the terms "indigenous/primal/folk/ethnic religions".

African[edit]

Main article: African traditional religions
West Africa
Central Africa
East Africa
Southern Africa

American[edit]

Main article: Native American mythology

Eurasian[edit]

Asian
European

Oceania/Pacific[edit]

Cargo cults[edit]

Main article: Cargo cults

Historical polytheism[edit]

Further information: Prehistoric religion and History of religion

Ancient Near Eastern[edit]

Main article: Ancient Near Eastern religions

Indo-European[edit]

Main article: Proto-Indo-European religion

Hellenistic[edit]

Main article: Hellenistic religion

Mysticism and Occult[edit]

Esotericism and mysticism[edit]

Main articles: Esotericism and Mysticism

Occult and magic[edit]

Main articles: Occultism, Magic (paranormal), and Magick

Neopaganism[edit]

Main article: List of Neopagan movements
Main article: Paganism (contemporary)

Syncretic[edit]

Ethnic[edit]

New religious movements[edit]

Main article: List of new religious movements

Creativity[edit]

New Thought[edit]

Main article: New Thought

Shinshukyo[edit]

Main article: Shinshūkyō

Left-hand path religions[edit]

Main article: Left-hand path and right-hand path

Fictional religions[edit]

Main article: List of fictional religions

Parody or mock religions[edit]

Others[edit]

Other categorisations[edit]

By demographics[edit]

Main article: Religious demographics

By area[edit]

Further information: Religion geography

See also[edit]

References[edit]

  1. ^ (Clifford Geertz, Religion as a Cultural System, 1973)
  2. ^ (Talal Asad, The Construction of Religion as an Anthropological Category, 1982.)
  3. ^ Adherents.com is a growing collection of over 43,870 adherent statistics and religious geography citations: references to published membership/adherent statistics and congregation statistics for over 4,200 religions, churches, denominations, religious bodies, faith groups, tribes, cultures, movements, ultimate concerns, etc. The religions of the world are enumerated here.
  4. ^ Harvey, Graham (2000). Indigenous Religions: A Companion. (Ed: Graham Harvey). London and New York: Cassell. Page 06.
  5. ^ Vergote, Antoine, Religion, belief and unbelief: a psychological study, Leuven University Press, 1997, p. 89
  6. ^ Melton, J. Gordon (2003). Encyclopedia of American Religions (Seventh edition). Farmington Hills, Michigan: The Gale Group, Inc., p. 1073. ISBN 0-7876-6384-0
  7. ^ Melton, J. Gordon (2003). Encyclopedia of American Religions (Seventh edition). Farmington Hills, Michigan: The Gale Group, Inc., p. 1112. ISBN 0-7876-6384-0
  8. ^ Melton, J. Gordon (2003). Encyclopedia of American Religions (Seventh edition). Farmington Hills, Michigan: The Gale Group, Inc., p. 1001. ISBN 0-7876-6384-0
  9. ^ Melton, J. Gordon (2003). Encyclopedia of American Religions (Seventh edition). Farmington Hills, Michigan: The Gale Group, Inc., p. 997. ISBN 0-7876-6384-0
  10. ^ Melton, J. Gordon (2003). Encyclopedia of American Religions (Seventh edition). Farmington Hills, Michigan: The Gale Group, Inc., p. 1004. ISBN 0-7876-6384-0
  11. ^ a b "Welcome to Jainworld - Jain Sects - tirthankaras, jina, sadhus, sadhvis, 24 tirthankaras, digambara sect, svetambar sect, Shraman Dharma, Nirgranth Dharma". Jainworld.com. Retrieved 2012-04-24. 
  12. ^ Smith, Christian; Joshua Prokopy (1999). Latin American Religion in Motion. New York, New York: Routledge, pp. 279–280. ISBN 978-0-415-92106-0
  13. ^ Melton, J. Gordon (2003). Encyclopedia of American Religions (Seventh edition). Farmington Hills, Michigan: The Gale Group, Inc., p. 841. ISBN 0-7876-6384-0

External links[edit]
Major groups
Abrahamic
Indian
Iranian
East Asian
Recent
Indigenous
Ancient religions
Prehistoric
Near East
Indo-European
Aspects
Theism
Religious studies
Lists
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