List of religions and spiritual traditions explained

While the word religion is difficult to define, one standard model of religion used in religious studies courses defines it as

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, churches, denominations, religious bodies, faith groups, tribes, cultures, movements, or ultimate concerns.[1]

The word religion is sometimes used interchangeably with the words "faith" or "belief system", but religion differs from private belief in that it has a public aspect. Most religions have organized behaviours, 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) or religious texts. Certain religions also have a sacred language often used in liturgical services. The practice of a religion may also include sermons, commemoration of the activities of a God or gods, sacrifices, festivals, feasts, trance, rituals, liturgies, ceremonies, worship, initiations, funerals, marriages, meditation, invocation, mediumship, music, art, dance, public service, or other aspects of human culture. Religious beliefs have also been used to explain parapsychological phenomena such as out-of-body experiences, near-death experiences, and reincarnation, along with many other paranormal and supernatural experiences.[2] [3]

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 believes that 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.

Eastern religions

See main article: Eastern religions. Eastern religions are the religions which originated in East, South and Southeast Asia encompassing a diverse range of eastern and spiritual traditions.[6]

East Asian religions

See main article: East Asian religions.

See also: Three teachings.

World religions that originated in East Asia, also known as Taoic religions; namely Taoism and Confucianism and religions and traditions descended from them.

Chinese philosophy schools

See main article: Hundred Schools of Thought.

Confucianism

See main article: Confucianism.

Taoism

See main article: Taoism.

See also: Taoist schools.

Syncretic Taoism

Indian religions

See main article: Indian religions. The four world religions that originated in the Indian subcontinent, also known as Dharmic religions; namely Hinduism, Jainism, Sikhism and Buddhism and religions and traditions descended from them.

Buddhism

See main article: Buddhism.

See also: Schools of Buddhism.

Dharmic philosophy schools

See main article: Hindu philosophy.

Hinduism

See main article: Hinduism.

Syncretic Hinduism

Jainism

See main article: Jainism.

See also: Jain schools and branches.

Sikhism

See main article: Sikhism. Sects such as the Nirankari, Ramraiya and Namdhari are not accepted within the Sikh Rehat Maryada (Sikh Code of Conduct) as they believe in a current human Satguru which goes against Guru Gobind Singh Ji's Dohra in Ardaas.

Yoga

See main article: Yoga.

Abrahamic religions

See main article: Abrahamic religions.

See also: Western religions.

Christianity

See main article: Christianity.

See also: List of Christian denominations. Early Christianity

See main article: Early christianity.

See also: Diversity in early Christian theology.

Eastern Christianity

See main article: Eastern Christianity.

Western Christianity

See main article: Western Christianity.

See also: Chalcedonian Christianity.

Syncretic

Other

Islam

See main article: Islam.

See also: Islamic schools and branches, Ilm al-Kalam, Ahl al-Hadith and Islamism. Khawarij

See main article: Khawarij.

Shia Islam

See main article: Shia Islam.

See also: List of extinct Shia sects.

Sufism

See main article: Sufism and Islamic Mysticism.

See also: List of Sufi orders.

Sunni Islam

See main article: Sunni Islam.

Syncretic

Other

Judaism

See main article: Jewish religious movements.

See also: Jewish schisms. Historical Judaism

Kabbalah

See main article: Kabbalah and Jewish mysticism. Non-Rabbinic Judaism

Rabbinic Judaism

See main article: Rabbinic Judaism.

Other Abrahamic

Iranian religions

See main article: Iranian religions and Religion in Iran.

Manichaeism

See also: Manichaean schisms.

Yazdânism

See main article: Yazdânism.

Zoroastrianism

See main article: Zoroastrianism.

Indigenous (ethnic, folk) religions

See main article: Ethnic religion and Folk religion.

See also: List of ethnic religions, Paganism, Animism, Totemism, Shamanism and Fetishism. Religions that consist of the traditional customs and beliefs of particular ethnic groups, refined and expanded upon for thousands of years, often lacking formal doctrine. Some adherents do not consider their ways to be "religion", preferring other cultural terms.

African

See main article: Religion in Africa.

Traditional African

See main article: Traditional African religions.

Diasporic African

See main article: Afro-American religion.

Altaic

See main article: Shamanism in Siberia.

See also: List of Tengrist movements.

American

See main article: Native American religion.

Austroasiatic

Austronesian

Caucasian

Dravidian

See main article: Dravidian folk religion.

See also: Religion in ancient Tamilakam.

Indo-European

Koreanic and Japonic

Melanesian and Aboriginal

See main article: Melanesian mythology.

Negrito

Paleosiberian

See main article: Shamanism in Siberia.

Sino-Tibetan

Tai and Miao

Uralic

Other

New religious movements

See main article: New religious movement.

See also: List of new religious movements. Religions that cannot be classed as either world religions or traditional folk religions, and are usually recent in their inception.

Cargo cults

See main article: Cargo cults.

New ethnic religions

See main article: Ethnic religion.

See also: List of ethnic religions and National mysticism.

Black

Black Hebrew Israelites

See main article: Black Hebrew Israelites.

Rastafari

White

See also: Religious aspects of Nazism.

Native American

World religion-derived new religions

Abrahamic-derived

Chinese salvationist religions

See main article: Chinese salvationist religions.

Hindu reform movements

See also: Neo-Vedanta and Hindu reform movements.

Muist-derived

See main article: Korean new religions.

Neo-Buddhism

See main article: Buddhist modernism.

Perennial and interfaith

See main article: Perennial philosophy.

Shinshukyo

See main article: Japanese new religions.

Sikh-derived

Modern paganism

See also: List of Neopagan movements, Neopagan witchcraft and Euhemerism.

Ethnic neopaganism

See main article: Polytheistic reconstructionism.

Syncretic neopaganism

See main article: Eclectic paganism.

Entheogenic religions

See main article: Entheogen.

New Age Movement

See main article: New Age.

New Thought

See main article: New Thought.

See also: List of New Thought denominations and independent centers.

Parody religions and fiction-based religions

See main article: Parody religion.

See also: List of fictional religions.

Post-theistic and naturalistic religions

See main article: Post-theism and Religious naturalism.

UFO religions

See main article: UFO religions.

Western esotericism

See main article: Western esotericism.

See also: Left-hand path and right-hand path.

Historical religions

See main article: History of religion.

Prehistoric religion

See main article: Prehistoric religion.

Bronze Age

Classical antiquity

See also: Imperial Cult.

Post-classical period

Other categorisations

By demographics

By area

See also

Sources

External links

Notes and References

  1. Web site: World Religions Religion Statistics Geography Church Statistics. https://web.archive.org/web/19990422162501/http://www.adherents.com/. usurped. April 22, 1999. 5 March 2015.
  2. Web site: About - the Parapsychological Association.
  3. Web site: Key Facts about Near-Death Experiences. 5 March 2015.
  4. [Graham Harvey (religious studies scholar)|Harvey, Graham]
  5. Vergote, Antoine, Religion, belief and unbelief: a psychological study, Leuven University Press, 1997, p. 89
  6. Book: Eastern Religions: Origins, Beliefs, Practices, Holy Texts, Sacred Places . Coogan . Michael David . Narayanan . Vasudha . . 2005 . 0195221907 .
  7. [Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan|Radhakrishnan, Sarvepalli]
  8. Book: Tattwananda. Swami. Vaisnava Sects, Saiva Sects, Mother Worship . 1st rev. . 1984 . Firma KLM Private Ltd.. Calcutta.
  9. Encyclopedia: 1987 . Dandekar . R. N. . Ramchandra Narayan Dandekar. Vaiṣṇavism: An Overview. Eliade . Mircea. Mircea Eliade . The Encyclopedia of Religion . New York . MacMillan. 14.
  10. Web site: Welcome to Jainworld – Jain Sects – tirthankaras, jina, sadhus, sadhvis, 24 tirthankaras, digambara sect, svetambar sect, Shraman Dharma, Nirgranth Dharma . dead . https://web.archive.org/web/20110607142241/http://www.jainworld.com/societies/jainsects.asp . 2011-06-07 . 2012-04-24 . Jainworld.com.
  11. Cults of Lovecraft: The Impact of H.P. Lovecraft's Fiction on Contemporary Occult Practices . 26815942 . Engle . John . Mythlore . 2014 . 1 . 125 . 85–98 .
  12. Laycock . Joseph P. Reitman . 2012 . We Are Spirits of Another Sort . Nova Religio . 15 . 3 . 65–90 . 10.1525/nr.2012.15.3.65 . 10.1525/nr.2012.15.3.65.

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