Religion

Lore & Background

The origin of religious belief is an open question, with possible explanations including awareness of individual death, a sense of community, and dreams. Religions have sacred histories, narratives, and mythologies, preserved in oral traditions, sacred texts, symbols, and holy places, that may attempt to explain the origin of life, the universe, and other phenomena. Religious practice may include rituals, sermons, commemoration or veneration (of deities or saints), sacrifices, festivals, feasts, trances, initiations, matrimonial and funerary services, meditation, prayer, music, art, dance, or public service.

There are an estimated 10,000 distinct religions worldwide, though nearly all of them have regionally based, relatively small followings. Four religions—Christianity, Islam, Hinduism, and Buddhism—account for over 73% of the world's population, and 97.6% of the world either follows one of those four religions or identifies as nonreligious. The religiously unaffiliated demographic includes those who do not identify with any particular religion, atheists, and agnostics, although many in the demographic still have various religious beliefs.

Many world religions are also organized religions, most definitively, including the Abrahamic religions Christianity, Islam, Judaism, and the Baháʼí Faith, while others are arguably less so, in particular folk religions, indigenous religions, and some Eastern religions. A portion of the world's population are members of new religious movements. Scholars have indicated that global religiosity may be increasing due to religious countries having generally higher birth rates.

Reader's Guide

The study of religion comprises a wide variety of academic disciplines, including theology, philosophy of religion, comparative religion, and social scientific studies. Theories about religion offer various explanations for its origins and workings, including the ontological foundations of religious being and belief.

Did You Know?

• The term religion comes from both Old French and Anglo-Norman (1200s CE) and means respect for sense of right, moral obligation, sanctity, what is sacred, reverence for the gods.
• In classic antiquity, religio broadly meant conscientiousness, sense of right, moral obligation, or duty to anything, and was originally not related to gods in antiquity.
• The concept of religion was first used in the 1500s to distinguish the domain of the church and the domain of civil authorities.
• There is no precise equivalent of religion in Hebrew, and Judaism does not distinguish clearly between religious, national, racial, or ethnic identities.
• The Sanskrit word dharma, sometimes translated as religion, also means law.