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Christianity has been intricately intertwined with the history and formation of Western society.Throughout its long history, the Church has been a major source of social services like schooling and medical care; an inspiration for art, culture and philosophy; and an influential player in politics and religion.
The HarperCollins Concise Guide to World Religion: The A-to-Z Encyclopedia of All the Major Religious Traditions (1999) covers 33 principal religions, including Buddhism, Christianity, Jainism, Judaism, Islam, Shinto, Shamanism, Taoism, South American religions, Baltic and Slavic religions, Confucianism, and the religions of Africa and Oceania.
The bulk of the human religious experience pre-dates written history, which is roughly 7,000 years old. [1] A lack of written records results in most of the knowledge of pre-historic religion being derived from archaeological records and other indirect sources, and from suppositions. Much pre-historic religion is subject to continued debate.
[5] [note 1] Together with ancient Egypt and Mesopotamia, it was one of three early civilizations of the Near East and South Asia, and of the three, the most widespread, its sites spanning an area stretching from today's northeast Afghanistan, through much of what is now Pakistan, and into western and northwestern Indian Republic.
Persian Zoroastrianism is a reformed form of the hypothesized ancient Iranian religion, which shares a common Proto-Aryan root with the Indian Vedic religion. Ancient Greek religion and the following the Etruscan religion and the Religion in ancient Rome was strongly influenced by ancient Near Eastern religion, but is usually not included in ...
Rome's government, politics and religion were dominated by an educated, male, landowning military aristocracy. Approximately half of Rome's population were slave or free non-citizens. Most others were plebeians, the lowest class of Roman citizens. Less than a quarter of adult males had voting rights; far fewer could actually exercise them.
Unlike the rest of religious life in Ancient Greece, the rituals, practices and knowledge of mystery cults were only supposed to be available to their initiates, so relatively little is known about the mystery cults of Ancient Greece. [18] Some of the major schools included the Eleusinian mysteries, the Dionysian mysteries and the Orphic mysteries.
Ancient Civilizations—British Museum's website on various topics of ancient civilization; Ancient history sourcebook; The Perseus digital library; Barrington Atlas of the Greek and Roman world; Directories. Ancient History - Academic Info: directory of online resources for the study of ancient history.