The most common way of categorizing world religions is to label as falling under one of the following:
Eastern (Hinduism, Buddhism, Taoism,
Confucianism, Shinto)
Western (Judaism, Christianity, Islam)
Religions that fall outside these categories (for example,
Native American religions or traditional African religions) are termed tribal, oral, or indigenous religions.
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The world’s most populous religions have diverged from three main centers: South
Asia, East Asia, and the Middle East.
Ethnic religions tend to be limited to a single ethnic group; universal religions try to appeal to all people everywhere.
Pantheism is the worship of the divine within the world as we see and experience it.
Monotheism is the worship of a single deity; polytheism is the worship of many deities.
Most religions conceptualize the divine as both singular and multiple.
People commonly regard the experience of the sacred as being beyond words.
People who say there is no god are atheists; people who come to no conclusion about the existence of God are called agnostics .
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Thinking of the world’s religions as “Eastern” or “Western” religions is a bit simplistic.
Why?
ignores the long-standing relationships between these and other religions ignores world religions that do not fall into either category. While most Native,
African, and aboriginal Australian religions are indeed oral (meaning they do not have written scriptures), they are arguably as different from one another as
Taoism is from Islam or as Buddhism is from Judaism.
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Those religions with the greatest number of adherents today spring from three basic geographic regions:
East Asia (Taoism and Confucianism)
South Asia (Hinduism and Buddhism)
Middle East (Judaism, Christianity, and Islam)
However, commerce between these areas has been longstanding. In ancient times, the religions of India and the Middle East had common linguistic links, and probably theological ones as well. For example, Buddhism, originally from India, has been an important presence in East Asia for two thousand years.
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Religions are also categorized in terms of their belief, or lack of belief, in a supernatural being or beings.
Some religions disavow any belief in God (such as
Buddhism) and others see God not as a super-person who makes decisions and acts upon them, but as an impersonal force that permeates the universe (such as
Taoism) These are sometimes called non-theistic .
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We can categorize the world’s religions according to their intended audience:
Ethnic religions are those that have no grand ambitions to spread outside the ethnic group or geographic area in which they began. (Hindu, Taoism, and Judaism would fall toward the ethnic end of the spectrum)
Universal religions are eager to transmit their religious teachings far and wide, believing they have value for all people everywhere. (Buddhism,
Christianity, and Islam)
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There are different types of Theism (ways of thinking about divine reality):
Immanent (with us, near us, around us, interacting with us)
Transcendent (beyond us, above us, separate from us)
When God is understood to be radically immanent, in everything and inseparable from the world, this is referred to as pantheism .
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The belief in many gods is called polytheism
The belief in on god is called monotheism
Polytheistic religions generally contain an element of monotheism.
They recognize the existence of many gods, but see one in particular as the high god.
Alternatively, polytheistic religions may believe that all the gods and goddesses in their pantheon are ultimately part of a single divine reality. This concept is sometimes called monism .
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The major religions of the West (Judaism, Christianity, an Islam) all declare themselves monotheistic.
When we look closely, we find that virtually all religions contain elements of both monotheism and polytheism.
For example, Christians recognize only one God, but that God has three forms (the Father, Son, and Holy
Spirit). Catholic and Orthodox Christians direct much of their prayer and reverence toward innumerable saints who have a semi-divine status.
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It is not surprising that people should find words inadequate to describe God. Whatever else it may be, God is a big concept, the largest, most ultimate concept that human beings can begin to imagine. The language of paradox dominates religious expression.
“God is this and also not this”,
“God is both immanent and transcendent.”
The religions of the world agree on one aspect of divine reality: that it is ineffable .
People from all religions claim that words are inadequate to express the mystery of the divine.
One may know or experience the divine, but it is not a knowledge or experience that can be accurately put into words.
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Agnostics believe they can take no position on whether or not God exists because the evidence is simply not there to prove this one way or the other.
Atheists believe there is no God, except in our own imaginations.
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South Asia, East Asia, and the Middle East are the three geographical locations from which the world’s most populous religions have derived.
Universal religions try to appeal to all people everywhere, while ethnic religions tend to be limited to a single ethnic group.
The view that sees the divine within this world and coexistive with it is called pantheism.
Polytheism is the worship of many gods and goddesses; monotheism is the belief that there is only one God.
Whether polytheistic or monotheistic, religions then to conceptualize the divine as both singular and multiple.
Atheism is the denial of the existence of God; agnosticism is the conviction that we cannot know whether or not God exists.
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