Major Religions
of the World Today
Religion remains as a major
factor that determines the ethical basis of most cultures. Whether or not
people are more or less devoted to the dogma of religion is not as important as
the overall effect that religion has on a culture and the evolution of how
people see themselves as different. It is the influence of religion that creates
the divides and the similarities. Religion attempts to explain some of the unexplainable.
A common feature is magic. The deities (gods or God, Yahweh, Allah, Jesus, and
others) possess supernatural powers. Heck that is what made them gods! Who wants to
believe in the most powerful source in a religion who doesn’t have superpowers?
It really would make a boring story! When you are in a foxhole you want to cry
out to someone who can affect the outcome. Hence the saying “there are no atheists
in foxholes”. (In case you don’t know what a foxhole is it is a trench dug in
the ground to protect you from enemy bombardment, usually artillery.) Who you
cry out to better have some magic to save you from being blown to smithereens!!!
Understanding the basic beliefs of religion will help you understand the frame of reference that others have. Most major followed religions are summarized.
Most of the rest of this is
sourced from CliffsNotes. I do not claim to be an authority on religion. However,
the topic is extremely central for culture and how people define themselves. I hope to get the ideas across without offending.
The three most influential
monotheistic religions in world history are Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, all
of which began in the Middle East.
Zoroastrianism predates Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, and may be well over 3000 years old originating in Persia/India and may be one of the first monotheistic religions. It survives to today but has under 1 million followers. It seems to have influenced the other monotheistic religions. (Hopfe, Religions of the World)
Judaism dates from about
1200 B.C. Unlike their polytheistic neighbors, the Jewish patriarchs (“leaders”)
and prophets (“inspired”
teachers) committed themselves to one almighty God. They stressed utter
obedience to Yahweh in the form of a strict moral code, or law. The Torah plays a central role in Jewish
worship.
Christians believe that
Jesus Christ is the Son of God and the “Messiah” (meaning “Christ” and “Annointed
One”) who saves the world. This global religion first emerged as a sect of
Judaism, and in the beginning embraced many Judaic views and practices. Because
Christians refused to worship the Roman Emperor as divine, Romans severely
persecuted Christians until the 4th century. At that time, Emperor Constantine
made Christianity the official religion of the Roman State.
Today, Christianity has
grown into an influential force throughout the world, but especially in the
West. Christianity claims more than a billion
adherents, though Christians belong to many different denominations (groups
with a particular theology and form of organization) that sharply divide the
religion. The three largest Christian denominations are Roman Catholicism,
Eastern Orthodoxy, and Protestantism (which includes such denominations as
Methodist, Presbyterian, Episcopalian, and Baptist).
Islam originated from the
teachings of the 7th century prophet Mohammed. His teachings most directly
express the will of Allah, the one God of Islam. Moslems, or followers of the
Islamic religion, believe that Allah also spoke through earlier prophets such
as Jesus and Moses before enlightening Mohammed. (Editor’s note: two main sects within Islam, Sunni and Shia, agree on most of the fundamental beliefs
and practices of Islam, a bitter split between the two goes back some 14
centuries. The divide originated with a dispute over who should succeed the
Prophet Muhammad as leader of the Islamic faith he introduced. What Is the
Sunni-Shia Divide? - HISTORY
Moslems
have five primary religious duties (“The Pillars of Islam”):
- Reciting the Islamic creed, which states that Allah is
the one God and Mohammed is His messenger.
- Taking part in ceremonial washings and reciting formal
prayers five times every day. During these prayers, worshippers always
face towards the holy city of Mecca in Saudi Arabia.
- Observing of Ramadan—a month of fasting when Moslems
may have no food or drink during daylight hours.
- Giving money to the poor.
- Making at least one pilgrimage to Mecca.
Islam has grown to more than 600+ million adherents throughout the
world.
From another source: “Today, about 85
percent of the approximately 1.6 billion Muslims around the world are Sunni,
while 15 percent are Shia, according to an estimate by the Council on Foreign Relations.” What Is the
Sunni-Shia Divide? - HISTORY
The four major religions of
the Far East are Hinduism, Buddhism, Confucianism, and Taoism.
Hinduism
Hinduism, a polytheistic religion and perhaps the oldest of the great world religions, dates back about 6,000 years. Hinduism comprises so many different beliefs and rituals that some sociologists have suggested thinking of it as a grouping of interrelated religions.
Hinduism
teaches the concept of reincarnation—the belief that all living
organisms continue eternally in cycles of birth, death, and rebirth. Similarly,
Hinduism teaches the caste system, in which a person's previous
incarnations determine that person's hierarchical position in this life. Each
caste comes with its own set of responsibilities and duties, and how well a
person executes these tasks in the current life determines that person's
position in the next incarnation.
Three other religions of the
Far East include Buddhism, Confucianism, and Taoism.
These ethical religions have no gods like Yawheh or Allah but
espouse ethical and moral principles designed to improve the believer's relationship
with the universe.
Buddhism
originates in the teachings of the Buddha, or the “Enlightened
One” (Siddhartha Gautama)—a 6th century B.C. Hindu prince of southern Nepal.
Humans, according to the Buddha, can escape the cycles of reincarnation by renouncing
their earthly desires and seeking a life of meditation and self‐discipline. The ultimate objective of Buddhism
is to attain Nirvana, which is a state of total spiritual
satisfaction. Like Hinduism, Buddhism allows religious divergence. Unlike it,
though, Buddhism rejects ritual and the caste system.
Confucius, or K'ung Futzu,
lived at the same time as the Buddha. Confucius's followers, like those of Lao‐tzu, the founder of Taoism, saw him as a moral
teacher and wise man—not a religious god, prophet, or leader. Confucianism's
main goal is the attainment of inner harmony with nature. This includes the
veneration of ancestors. Early on, the ruling classes of China widely embraced
Confucianism. Taoism shares similar principles with Confucianism. The teachings
of Lao‐tzu stress the importance of meditation and
nonviolence as means of reaching higher levels of existence.
Sociological Theories of Religion
The ideas of three early sociological theorists continue to
strongly influence the sociology of religion: Durkheim, Weber, and Marx.
Even though none of
these three men was particularly religious, the power that religion holds over
people and societies interested them all. They believed that religion is
essentially an illusion; because culture and location influence religion to
such a degree, the idea that religion presents a fundamental truth of existence
seemed rather improbable to them. They also speculated that, in time, the
appeal and influence of religion on the modern mind would lessen.
In The Protestant
Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism (1904/1958), Weber examined the
impact of Christianity on Western thinking and culture.
The
fundamental purpose of Weber's research was to discover religion's impact on
social change. For example, in Protestantism, especially the “Protestant Work
Ethic,” Weber saw the roots of capitalism. In the Eastern religions, Weber saw
barriers to capitalism. For example, Hinduism stresses attaining higher levels
of spirituality by escaping from the toils of the mundane physical world. Such
a perspective does not easily lend itself to making and spending money.
Irreligion is the neglect or active rejection of religion and, depending on the definition, a simple absence of religion.
Irreligion takes many forms, ranging from the casual and unaware to full-fledged philosophies such as atheism and agnosticism, secular humanism and antitheism. Social scientists[who?] tend to define irreligion as a purely naturalist worldview that excludes a belief in anything supernatural. The broadest and loosest definition, serving as an upper limit, is the lack of religious identification, though many non-identifiers express metaphysical and even religious beliefs. The narrowest and strictest is subscribing to positive atheism.
According to the Pew Research Center's 2012 global study of 230 countries and territories, 16% of the world's population does not identify with any religion.[1] The population of the religiously unaffiliated, sometimes referred to as "nones", has grown significantly in recent years.[2] Measurement of irreligiosity requires great cultural sensitivity, especially outside the West, where the concepts of "religion" or "the secular" are not always rooted in local culture.[3]
