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While the word religion is difficult to define, one standard model of religion used in religious studies courses defines it as [a] system of symbols which acts to establish powerful, pervasive, and long-lasting moods and motivations in men by formulating conceptions of a general order of existence and clothing these conceptions with such an aura of factuality that the moods and motivations ...
The list of religious populations article provides a comprehensive overview of the distribution and size of religious groups around the world. This article aims to present statistical information on the number of adherents to various religions, including major faiths such as Christianity, Islam, Hinduism, Buddhism, and others, as well as smaller religious communities.
Presbyter is the official name of the ministers commonly called 'priest'; persons ordained to the presbyterate. Presbyters are ordained as ministers of word and sacrament, most commonly assigned to serve as pastors of parishes or to assist in this ministry.
The bulk of the human religious experience pre-dates written history, which is roughly 70,000 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.
The world religions paradigm was developed in the United Kingdom during the 1960s, where it was pioneered by phenomenological scholars of religion such as Ninian Smart. It was designed to broaden the study of religion away from its heavy focus on Christianity by taking into account other large religious traditions around the world.
Earth-centered religion or nature worship is a system of religion based on the veneration of natural phenomena. [1] It covers any religion that worships the earth, nature, or fertility deity, such as the various forms of goddess worship or matriarchal religion.
[c] The word Hindu is an exonym, [note 2] and while Hinduism has been called the oldest religion in the world, [note 3] it has also been described by the modern term Sanātana Dharma (lit. ' eternal dharma ') emphasizing its eternal nature. [note 4] Another endonym for Hinduism is Vaidika Dharma (lit. ' Vedic dharma '). [web 1]
The world's principal religions and spiritual traditions may be classified into a small number of major groups, though this is not a uniform practice. This theory began in the 18th century with the goal of recognizing the relative degrees of civility in different societies, [2] but this concept of a ranking order has since fallen into disrepute in many contemporary cultures.