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This article is about a general set of beliefs about existence. For other uses, see Religion (disambiguation).

Religion is a cultural system of behaviors and practices, world views, ethics, and social organisation that relate humanity to an order of existence.

About 84% of the world's population is affiliated with one of the five largest religions, namely Christianity, Islam, Hinduism, Buddhism or folk religion.[1] The large diversity of religious beliefs and practices has been called theodiversity.

The study of religion encompasses a wide variety of academic disciplines, including comparative religion and social scientific studies. Theories of religion offer explanations for the origins and workings of religion.

With the onset of the modernisation of and the scientific revolution in the western world, some aspects of religion have cumulatively been criticized. Though non-religion has been rising in the west, they are still a minority in the region and globally many who are not affiliated with a religion still have various religious beliefs.[2] Related aspects are health, morality and violence.


Main article: Religio (word)


Religion (from O.Fr. religion "religious community", from L. religionem (nom. religio) "respect for what is sacred, reverence for the gods",[3] "obligation, the bond between man and the gods"[4]) is derived from the Latin religiō, the ultimate origins of which are obscure. One possibility is an interpretation traced to Cicero, connecting lego "read", i.e. re (again) + lego in the sense of "choose", "go over again" or "consider carefully". Modern scholars such as Tom Harpur and Joseph Campbell favor the derivation from ligare "bind, connect", probably from a prefixed re-ligare, i.e. re (again) + ligare or "to reconnect", which was made prominent by St. Augustine, following the interpretation of Lactantius.[5][6] The medieval usage alternates with order in designating bonded communities like those of monastic orders: "we hear of the 'religion' of the Golden Fleece, of a knight 'of the religion of Avys'".[7]

In the ancient and medieval world, the etymological Latin root religio was understood as an individual virtue of worship, never as doctrine, practice, or actual source of knowledge.[8] The modern concept of "religion" as an abstraction which entails distinct sets of beliefs or doctrines is a recent invention in the English language since such usage began with texts from the 17th century due to the splitting of Christendom during the Protestant Reformation and more prevalent colonization or globalization in the age of exploration which involved contact with numerous foreign and indigenous cultures with non-European languages.[8] It was in the 17th century that the concept of "religion" received its modern shape despite the fact that ancient texts like the Bible, the Quran, and other ancient sacred texts did not have a concept of religion in the original languages and neither did the people or the cultures in which these sacred texts were written.[9] For example, the Greek word threskeia, which was used by Greek writers such as Herodotus and Josephus and is found in texts like the New Testament, is sometimes translated as "religion" today, however, the term was understood as "worship" well into the medieval period.[9] In the Quran, the Arabic word din is often translated as "religion" in modern translations, but up to the mid-1600s translators expressed din as "law".[9] Even in the 1st century AD, Josephus had used the Greek term ioudaismos, which some translate as "Judaism" today, even though he used it as an ethnic term, not one linked to modern abstract concepts of religion as a set of beliefs.[9] It was in the 19th century that the terms "Buddhism", "Hinduism", "Taoism", and "Confucianism" first emerged.[8] Throughout its long history, Japan had no concept of "religion" since there was no corresponding Japanese word, nor anything close to its meaning, but when American warships appeared off the coast of Japan in 1853 and forced the Japanese government to sign treaties demanding, among other things, freedom of religion, the country had to contend with this Western idea.[10]



There is no precise equivalent of "religion" in Hebrew, and Judaism does not distinguish clearly between religious, national, racial, or ethnic identities.[16] One of its central concepts is "halakha", meaning the "walk" or "path" sometimes translated as "law", which guides religious practice and belief and many aspects of daily life.[17]


The word religion is sometimes used interchangeably with faith or set of duties;[18] however, in the words of Émile Durkheim, religion differs from private belief in that it is "something eminently social".[19]

Other terms



There are numerous definitions of religion and only a few are stated here. The typical dictionary definition of religion refers to a "belief in, or the worship of, a god or gods"[21] or the "service and worship of God or the supernatural".[22] However, writers and scholars have expanded upon the "belief in god" definitions as insufficient to capture the diversity of religious thought and experience.

Peter Mandaville and Paul James define religion as "a relatively-bounded system of beliefs, symbols and practices that addresses the nature of existence, and in which communion with others and Otherness is lived as if it both takes in and spiritually transcends socially-grounded ontologies of time, space, embodiment and knowing".[23] This definition is intended, they write, to get away from the modernist dualisms or dichotomous understandings of immanence/transcendence, spirituality/materialism, and sacredness/secularity.

Urarina shaman, Peru, 1988







An increasing number of scholars have expressed reservations about ever defining the "essence" of religion.[40] They observe that the way we use the concept today is a particularly modern construct that would not have been understood through much of history and in many cultures outside the West (or even in the West until after the Peace of Westphalia).[41]







Religious beliefs

Main article: Religious beliefs



Main article: Mythology

The word myth has several meanings.

  3. A metaphor for the spiritual potentiality in the human being.[44]




Superstition has been described as "the incorrect establishment of cause and effect" or a false conception of causation.[46] Religion is more complex and includes social institutions and morality. But religions may include superstitions or make use of magical thinking. Adherents of one religion sometimes think of other religions as superstition.[47][48] Some atheists, deists, and skeptics regard religious belief as superstition.


Ancient greek historian Polybius described superstition in Ancient Rome as an instrumentum regni, an instrument of maintaining the cohesion of the Empire.[50]


Social organisation


Types and demographics

Further information: Organized religion


Types of religion

Further information: History of religions


  3. new religious movements, which refers to recently developed faiths.[51]

Some recent scholarship has argued that not all types of religion are necessarily separated by mutually exclusive philosophies, and furthermore that the utility of ascribing a practice to a certain philosophy, or even calling a given practice religious, rather than cultural, political, or social in nature, is limited.[52][53][54] The current state of psychological study about the nature of religiousness suggests that it is better to refer to religion as a largely invariant phenomenon that should be distinguished from cultural norms (i.e. "religions").[55]

Some scholars classify religions as either universal religions that seek worldwide acceptance and actively look for new converts, or ethnic religions that are identified with a particular ethnic group and do not seek converts.[56] Others reject the distinction, pointing out that all religious practices, whatever their philosophical origin, are ethnic because they come from a particular culture.[57][58][59]



Five largest religions 2010 (billion)[1] 2010 (%) 2000 (billion)[60][61] 2000 (%) Demographics
Christianity 2.2 32% 2.0 33% Christianity by country
Islam 1.6 23% 1.2 19.6% Islam by country
Hinduism 1.0 15% 0.811 13.4% Hinduism by country
Buddhism 0.5 7% 0.360 5.9% Buddhism by country
Folk religion 0.4 6% 0.385 6.4%
Total 5.8 84% 4.8 78.3%

A global poll in 2012 surveyed 57 countries and reported that 59% of the world's population identified as religious, 23% as not religious, 13% as "convinced atheists", and also a 9% decrease in identification as "religious" when compared to the 2005 average from 39 countries. [62] A follow up poll in 2015 found that 63% of the globe identified as religious, 22% as not religious, and 11% as "convinced atheists".[63] On average, women are "more religious" than men.[64] Some people follow multiple religions or multiple religious principles at the same time, regardless of whether or not the religious principles they follow traditionally allow for syncretism.[65][66][67]


The patriarch Abraham (by József Molnár)

Abrahamic religions are monotheistic religions which believe they descend from Abraham.


The Torah is the primary sacred text of Judaism.

Judaism is the oldest Abrahamic religion, originating in the people of ancient Israel and Judea. The Torah is its foundational text, and is part of the larger text known as the Tanakh or Hebrew Bible. It is supplemented by oral tradition, set down in written form in later texts such as the Midrash and the Talmud. Judaism includes a wide corpus of texts, practices, theological positions, and forms of organization. Within Judaism there are a variety of movements, most of which emerged from Rabbinic Judaism, which holds that God revealed his laws and commandments to Moses on Mount Sinai in the form of both the Written and Oral Torah; historically, this assertion was challenged by various groups. The Jewish people were scattered after the destruction of the Temple in Jerusalem in 70 AD. Today there are about 13 million Jews, about 40 per cent living in Israel and 40 per cent in the United States.[68] The largest Jewish religious movements are Orthodox Judaism (Haredi Judaism and Modern Orthodox Judaism), Conservative Judaism and Reform Judaism.


Jesus is the central figure of Christianity.


There are also smaller groups, including:


Muslims circumambulating the Kaaba, the most sacred site in Islam







East Asian religions

Main article: East Asian religions


Indian religions

Hindu statue of Lord Rama in Kalaram Temple (India)


Hinduism is a synecdoche describing the similar philosophies of Vaishnavism, Shaivism, and related groups practiced or founded in the Indian subcontinent. Concepts most of them share in common include karma, caste, reincarnation, mantras, yantras, and darśana.[note 2] Hinduism is the most ancient of still-active religions,[70][71] with origins perhaps as far back as prehistoric times.[72] Hinduism is not a monolithic religion but a religious category containing dozens of separate philosophies amalgamated as Sanātana Dharma, which is the name by which Hinduism has been known throughout history by its followers.

Jainism, taught primarily by Parsva (9th century BC) and Mahavira (6th century BC), is an ancient Indian religion that prescribes a path of non-violence for all forms of living beings in this world. Jains are found mostly in India.

Buddhism was founded by Siddhattha Gotama in the 6th century BC. Buddhists generally agree that Gotama aimed to help sentient beings end their suffering (dukkha) by understanding the true nature of phenomena, thereby escaping the cycle of suffering and rebirth (saṃsāra), that is, achieving nirvana.


Local religions

Indigenous and folk

Incense burner in China

Indigenous religions or folk religions refers to a broad category of traditional religions that can be characterised by shamanism, animism and ancestor worship, where traditional means "indigenous, that which is aboriginal or foundational, handed down from generation to generation…".[78] These are religions that are closely associated with a particular group of people, ethnicity or tribe; they often have no formal creeds or sacred texts.[79] Some faiths are syncretic, fusing diverse religious beliefs and practices.[80]


African traditional

Further information: African diasporic religions








New religious movements



Interfaith cooperation


Recent interfaith initiatives include "A Common Word", launched in 2007 and focused on bringing Muslim and Christian leaders together,[81] the "C1 World Dialogue",[82] the "Common Ground" initiative between Islam and Buddhism,[83] and a United Nations sponsored "World Interfaith Harmony Week".[84][85]

Scientific study of religion

Main article: Religious studies



Michael Stausberg gives an overview of contemporary theories of religion, including cognitive and biological approaches.[87]

Comparative religion

Main article: Comparative religion



Theories of religion

Main article: Theories of religion

Origins and development






Cultural system

While religion is difficult to define, one standard model of religion, used in religious studies courses, was proposed by Clifford Geertz, who simply called it a "cultural system".[91] A critique of Geertz's model by Talal Asad categorized religion as "an anthropological category".[92]

Social constructionism



Main article: Law and Religion

The study of law and religion is a relatively new field, with several thousand scholars involved in law schools, and academic departments including political science, religion, and history since 1980.[94] Scholars in the field are not only focused on strictly legal issues about religious freedom or non-establishment, but also study religions as they are qualified through judicial discourses or legal understanding of religious phenomena. Exponents look at canon law, natural law, and state law, often in a comparative perspective.[95][96] Specialists have explored themes in western history regarding Christianity and justice and mercy, rule and equity, and discipline and love.[97] Common topics of interest include marriage and the family[98] and human rights.[99] Outside of Christianity, scholars have looked at law and religion links in the Muslim Middle East[100] and pagan Rome.[101]

Studies have focused on secularization.[102][103] In particular the issue of wearing religious symbols in public, such as headscarves that are banned in French schools, have received scholarly attention in the context of human rights and feminism.[104]

Related aspects

Reason and science







The national income of countries correlates negatively with their religiosity.[62]
Main article: Economics of religion

One study has found there is a negative correlation between self-defined religiosity and the wealth of nations.[110] However many people identify themselves as part of a religion (not irreligion) but do not self-identify as "religious". For example, in China only about 10% self-identify as "religious"[110] but only 12% self-identify as atheist.[111]

In other words, the richer a nation is, the less likely its inhabitants to call themselves "religious",[110] whatever this may mean to them.




The authors of a subsequent study concluded that the influence of religion on health is "largely beneficial", based on a review of related literature.[114] According to academic James W. Jones, several studies have discovered "positive correlations between religious belief and practice and mental and physical health and longevity." [115]


Morality and religion

Main article: Morality and religion

Many religions have value frameworks regarding personal behavior meant to guide adherents in determining between right and wrong. These include the Triple Jems of Jainism, Judaism's Halacha, Islam's Sharia, Catholicism's Canon Law, Buddhism's Eightfold Path, and Zoroastrianism's "good thoughts, good words, and good deeds" concept, among others.[117] Religion and morality are not synonymous. Morality does not depend upon religion although this is "an almost automatic assumption."[118] According to The Westminster Dictionary of Christian Ethics, religion and morality "are to be defined differently and have no definitional connections with each other. Conceptually and in principle, morality and a religious value system are two distinct kinds of value systems or action guides."[119]


A comprehensive study by Harvard University professor Robert Putnam found that religious people are more charitable than their irreligious counterparts.[122][123] The study revealed that forty percent of worship service attending Americans volunteer regularly to help the poor and elderly as opposed to 15% of Americans who never attend services.[122] Moreover, religious individuals are more likely than non-religious individuals to volunteer for school and youth programs (36% vs. 15%), a neighborhood or civic group (26% vs. 13%), and for health care (21% vs. 13%).[122] Other research has shown similar correlations between religiosity and giving.[124]


Some scientific studies show that the degree of religiosity is generally found to be associated with higher ethical attitudes[131][132][133][134] — for example, surveys suggesting a positive connection between faith and altruism.[135] Survey research suggests that believers do tend to hold different views than non-believers on a variety of social, ethical and moral questions. According to a 2003 survey conducted in the United States by The Barna Group, those who described themselves as believers were less likely than those describing themselves as atheists or agnostics to consider the following behaviors morally acceptable: cohabitating with someone of the opposite sex outside of marriage, enjoying sexual fantasies, having an abortion, sexual relationships outside of marriage, gambling, looking at pictures of nudity or explicit sexual behavior, getting drunk, and "having a sexual relationship with someone of the same sex."[136]

A study of 1,170 children aged between 5 and 12 years in six countries (Canada, China, Jordan, Turkey, USA, and South Africa) showed that parents in religious households reported that their children expressed more empathy and sensitivity for justice in everyday life than non-religious parents. However, the opposite was found in both experiments: where the children played a game involving stickers and a moral sensitivity computerized task. Based on these two experiments, the authors concluded that the children of more religious parents were less altruistic than the children of non-religious parents.[137]

Secularism and atheism







A study by Lynn et al. showed "a negative relationship between intelligence and religious belief in the United States and Europe," and a "negative relationship between intelligence and religious belief [...] between nations."[139] According to Lynn et al., intelligent people are less religious;[140] intelligence elites, such as scientists, are less religious than the average population;[140] children become less religious when they grow older and their cognitive skills get better;[140] and religious beliefs have declined in the twentieths century, with the increase of the average intelligence.[141] According to Lynn et al., countries with a higher average intelligence have a higher amount people who disbelief in God.[142] Possible explanations, suggested by Lynn et al., are that intelligent people tend to rely on naturalistic explanations, and tend to question religious dogmas.[143] Another explanation is that developed countries have more control over nature, and therefore tend to rely less on supernatural agency.[143] Cuba and Vietnam, (former) communist countries, are anomalies, having a lower average intelligence but a high number of disbelievers, which may be attributed to the communist anti-religious stance.[143] The United States are also an anomaly, with a higher average intelligence but a low nuber of disbelievers.[143]

However, the Lynn et al study has been questioned by Professor Gordon Lynch, director of the Centre for Religion and Contemporary Society from London's Birkbeck College, since the study failed to take into account a complex range of social, economic and historical factors, each of which has been shown to interact with religion and IQ in different ways.[144] Artificial Intelligence researcher Randy Olson has noted that the correlation between national religiosity and intelligence is weak. However, the correlation between wealth and intelligence is stronger and more suited. He notes that many of the countries with lower intelligence scores are less developed and that countries with 20% atheists or more flat line rather than increase in intelligence since they are developed countries either way.[145]

Criticism of religion

Main article: Criticism of religion


Religious criticism has a long history, going back at least as far as the 5th century BC. During classical times, there were religious critics in ancient Greece, such as Diagoras "the atheist" of Melos, and in the 1st century BC in Rome, with Titus Lucretius Carus's De Rerum Natura.






Some modern-day critics, such as Bryan Caplan, hold that religion lacks utility in human society; they may regard religion as irrational.[150] Nobel Peace Laureate Shirin Ebadi has spoken out against undemocratic Islamic countries justifying "oppressive acts" in the name of Islam.[151]


Main article: Religious violence

Critics like Hector Avalos[152] Regina Schwartz,[153] Christopher Hitchens and Richard Dawkins have argued that religions are inherently violent and harm to society by using violence to promote their goals, in ways that are endorsed and exploited by their leaders.[154][page needed][155][page needed]



Animal sacrifice

Main article: Animal sacrifice

Animal sacrifice is the ritual killing of an animal by religious people to appease or maintain favour with a deity. Such forms of sacrifice are practised within many religions around the world. It has been described as barbaric,[159] and has been banned in India.[160]

See also


  1. That is how, according to Durkheim, Buddhism is a religion. "In default of gods, Buddhism admits the existence of sacred things, namely, the four noble truths and the practices derived from them" (ibid, p. 45).


  1. 1.0 1.1 Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life. "The Global Religious Landscape". Retrieved December 18, 2012. 
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  4. Shorter Oxford English Dictionary
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  8. 8.0 8.1 8.2 8.3 8.4 8.5 8.6 8.7 Harrison, Peter (2015). The Territories of Science and Religion. University of Chicago Press. ISBN 022618448X. 
  9. 9.0 9.1 9.2 9.3 9.4 Nongbri, Brent (2013). Before Religion: A History of a Modern Concept. Yale University Press. ISBN 030015416X. 
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  12. Lewis & Short, A Latin Dictionary
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  19. Émile Durkheim|Durkheim, E. (1915) The Elementary Forms of the Religious Life. London: George Allen & Unwin, p.10.
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  26. (ibid, p. 90)
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  29. (ibid, p. 37)
  30. (ibid, pp. 40–41)
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  32. (ibid, p. 34)
  33. (ibid, p. 38)
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  120. Stark, Rodney; Smith, Buster G. (September 4, 2009). "Religious Attendance Relates to Generosity Worldwide". Gallup. 
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  124. Brooks, Arthur. "Religious Faith and Charitable Giving". 
  127. 127.0 127.1 Gose, Ben. "Charity's Political Divide", The Chronicle of Philanthropy, 23 November 2006.
  137. Jean Decety, Jason M. Cowell, Kang Lee, Randa Mahasneh, Susan Malcolm-Smith, Bilge Selcuk, Xinyue Zhou (2015) The Negative Association between Religiousness and Children’s Altruism across the World. Current Biology, Nov. 5, 2015, DOI:
  138. " - 'Spaghetti Monster' is noodling around with faith". 
  139. Lynn 2009, p. 11.
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  142. Lynn 2009, p. 13.
  143. 143.0 143.1 143.2 143.3 Lynn 2009, p. 14.
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  145. Olson, Randy. "The Myth of the Smarter Atheist". 
  146. "Giordano Bruno: His Life and Thought". 
  147. Josh Halliday. "Islam Channel censured by Ofcom". the Guardian. 
  148. "BBC NEWS - Asia-Pacific - Cleric 'must deny' views on rape". 
  149. "Valley paper criticized over pastor's column on spousal rape". Alaska Dispatch News. 
  150. Bryan Caplan. "Why Religious Beliefs Are Irrational, and Why Economists Should Care".  The article about religion and irrationality.
  151. Earth Dialogues 2006 Conference, Brisbane. "In these countries, Islamic rulers want to solve 21st century issues with laws belonging to 14 centuries ago. Their views of human rights are exactly the same as it was 1400 years ago."
  154. Hitchens, Christopher (2007). God is not Great. Twelve. 
  155. Dawkins, Richard (2006). The God Delusion. Bantam Books. 
  156. Bland, Byron (May 2003). "Evil Enemies: The Convergence of Religion and Politics" (PDF). p. 4. 
  159. Smith, Dominic. "'Barbaric' world's biggest animal sacrifice begins as thousands are slaughtered for Nepal festival". 
  160. France-Presse, Agence. "Indian court bans animal sacrifice". 


  • Selected Work Marcus Tullius Cicero
  • United States Constitution
  • Yves Coppens, Origines de l'homme - De la matière à la conscience, De Vive Voix, Paris, 2010
  • Yves Coppens, La preistoria dell'uomo, Jaka Book, Milano, 2011
  • Haisch, Bernard The God Theory: Universes, Zero-point Fields, and What's Behind It All—discussion of science vs. religion (Preface[dead link]), Red Wheel/Weiser, 2006, ISBN 1-57863-374-5
  • Korotayev, Andrey, World Religions and Social Evolution of the Old World Oikumene Civilizations: A Cross-cultural Perspective by , Lewiston, NY: Edwin Mellen Press, 2004, ISBN 0-7734-6310-0.

Further reading

External links