A brief history of religion.^[1]

Preach to the choir

Crux of the matter

Christianity Judaism Islam Hinduism Buddhism

Speak of the devil

Satanism Atheism Antitheism Agnosticism Deism Secularism Humanism Paganism

An act of faith

Belief in belief Sophisticated theology Religious pareidolia Charity Atheism v -t -e

Areligion is a systematic set ofbeliefs, rituals, and codifications of behaviour that make up a particular group'sworldview (views about the world at large andhumanity's place in the world). Typically, these beliefs and practices center around some aspect of thesupernatural (also often referred to as the "divine"), most often expressed as some form ofdeity, i.e., one or moregods andgoddesses.

To the extent that the system of beliefs and rules is codified, it is calleddogma; different religions vary in how much dogma they include and how strictly they define it and enforce it. Religiousmythology consists of the stories that develop, largely from oraltradition, to explain and describe the worldview of given religions. Religious beliefs tend to arise from humanity's attempts to explain their world, and where possible, to control it.

As a result, the distinction between a "supernatural religious belief" andsuperstition tends to be only in the bias of the one applying the label. In other words: "My religion's rituals and beliefs are real, yours are just silly superstition."

Definition and identification[edit]

An infographic exploring the sizes of various religions and religious denominations.

Like "beauty" and "porn", it is very easy to recognize a given mainstreamWestern religion as a religion; the term "religion"was created originated to identify a distinctly Western phenomenon. As you move away from Westernpolytheist andmonotheist religions into Eastern religions and some indigenous religions, the line becomes a bit blurred. TheravadaBuddhism, for example is sometimes called a religion, other times aphilosophy. Some religions have subgroups which are calleddenominations, such asShiites andSunnis.^[3]

The following (incomplete) list includes things whichacademics look for in the attempt to define a set of beliefs and practices as a religion. Of course, for every rule, there are exceptions, but in general:

• Religions are generally sharedsocial systems. A solitary follower of a set of beliefs he or she made up is generally not considered part of a religion.
• Religions have mythologies, often containingsupernatural themes.
• Religions address a person's path inlife^[4] through rites of passage, with examples including rites ofmarriage, coming of age, anddeath (funerary rites). Most religions have some form of rite for those who wish or are pressured to follow the religion more intimately (includingpriests,healers,monks,nuns,shamans, etc.)
• Religions explore and attempt to answer life's unanswered questions (What happens before life and after death? What is themeaning of life? Where do lost socks go?^{[note 1]}Where do all the toasters go?)
• Religions generally address, or even attempt to explain, the allegedly burning questions about thebeginning andending of the world, even if their answer is "no one knows" or "look toscience for answers".
• Religions, being social, provide guidelines formorality orethics and how to best live in the world. These views are usually supported by the mythology andholy texts and may be recorded as part of the dogma.
• Beyond the rites of passage, religions generally have other ritual acts of worship, especially social ones.
• Religions often lay out a set oftaboos — "things which must not be done... ever. They are truly unthinkable." These are typically so ingrained with theculture at large that even in societies where two very different religions exist, the taboos are often the same.Homosexuality might be wrong, or asin, butcannibalism is taboo.
• Religions have often defined the calendar, intertwining with the needs of the agrarian, social, orbusiness nature of any individual civilization. At harvest time, for example, many cultures had rites around death and harvest festivals (including praise or evensacrifices to the gods for their bounty). Major weather events like floods,hurricanes, or drought call forth religious ceremonial appeasements (by sacrifice or festival) to gods.

To what extent, if at all, each religion has the above features varies widely.

History of religion (including events and dates)[edit]

In the beginning...[edit]

It is impossible to know when the human experience/sense of religion began.Archeological evidence suggests that the first primitive expressions of religious ideas date to the paleolithic era, 100,000 years ago. The most compelling evidence are burial sites which suggest a belief in some kind of "afterlife", as evidenced from items found with the deceased, paintings on the body, and placement of the body itself. As with most ancient archeological finds, not all experts agree about the significance.

Some important findings include:

• 230,000BCE – Pontnewydd Neanderthal cave burial in Wales.^[6]
• 98,000 BCE –Neanderthal burial sites
• 25,000 BCE – Burials showing indications of more ceremony in the ornamentation, painting with red ocher

The earliestevidence of organized religions dates to the Neolithic era.^[7]There is great debate whether religion allows the expansion of social groups from bands to tribes to chiefdom,^[8] or if the opposite is true — a set level of social structure is necessary to allow a religion to grow. It is undeniable that virtually every society larger than a tribe had a complex religious structure that either empowered the leadership or was itself the governance of the chiefdom.^[9] Control of a society appears to have been largely dependent upon control of the religion and of the associated worldview.

Important Neolithic religious sites and dates include:

• 9100–7000 BCE –Göbekli Tepe, generally accepted as a site of worship — the oldest such site found to date
• 3100 BCE –Stonehenge: initial construction begun

The next major step in the development of religions was writing. With writing came more complex ideas about the world, as well as codification of ethical systems and standardization ofmythologies. And with writing came the firstholy texts.

Religions with written texts:

• 3000–2000 BCE –Sumerians and Akkadians in Ancient Mesopotamia
• 3100–332 BCE – Ancient Egypt
• 2400 BCE – The oldest known religious texts, the Pyramid Texts, were written
• 2000 BCE – theEpic of Gilgamesh, and by extension the story ofNoah, was first written.
• 1700–1100 BCE – the Rigveda of Hinduism
• 1200 BCE – possible date of the oldest fragments of the Torah (generally assumed to be the poetry within the Torah). (The first known mention of "Israel" as a nation occurs on the Merneptah Stele, dated to 1203 BCE.)
• 1000 BCE – Avesta, one of the earliest texts ofZoroastrianism

It almost goes without saying that once rules are codified, it becomes easier to control people's behaviors based on those rules; once myths are codified, it can be easier to see your god as the only god, and your "myths" as the only acceptableTruth. This would be especially true for the monotheistic religions in the ancient Near East, where in the name of their God, wars were fought over whose Truth would reign supreme.

Chimps have been observed engaging in strange rituals, treating specific trees as a sort of "shrine" by stacking rocks around it (and throwing rocks at it). Scientists believe this may be evidence of ritualistic behavior amongst chimpanzees, and thus have implications for the evolutionary origins of religion.^[10] Chimps have also been observed engaging in strange dancing around fire, perhaps in reverence of it.^[11] However, studying potential animal "spirituality" is unlike the study of human religion, because unlike humans, you can't exactly ask animals what they're doing or thinking. There is a risk ofanthropomorphizing animals that we should be mindful of here.^[12]

Religion in the West[edit]

For the last thousand years, religiouslife practice inthe West has predominately involved theMiddle EasternAbrahamic religions ofJudaism,Christianity, andIslam, the latter two claiming the most followers in recent millennia. These religions have traditionally demanded — at least in theory — that their adherents form a tight and at least somewhat homogeneous bloc, professing or following a non-negotiable set of principles handed down by one or moreprophets and/or by some magisterium. When adherents have disagreed on matters of belief or of ceremonial^{[note 2]} detail, it has led to splintering of religions into differentdenominations andsects.

When theEnlightenment came along sometime in the 17th or 18th centuries and the oldtheological basis of Christianity came under more rigorous questioning, many within thechurch responded by emphasizing its social role ofcaring for the needy and aiming to better the world. This eventually gave rise to the tradition of the Social Gospel^[13] (which remains influential today in the mainlineProtestant traditions) and toLiberation theology (which operates [sometimes withVatican disapproval] specially in theRoman Catholic Church).

In the meantime,economists noted thatmarkets created jobs and profits, and postulated the operation of a supernaturalInvisible Hand.Capitalists, often loosened from traditional religion bysecularisedProtestantism, latched onto this new mythology^[14]andsuperstitiously determined that a creator seemed worthy of worship, erecting temples — banks and stock exchanges^[15] — and developing thehagiography ofcaptains of industry and of monopolists and the iconography ofidols like the Bull^[16] (syncretistically adopted from earlier religions like those of Crete^[17] or of Mithras^[18]) and the Bear,^[19] white knights,^[20] and unicorns.^[21]

More recently, with the continued decline of the organized form of some of the Abrahamic religions, many fairly non-religious people have (again) adopted a more individualistic approach to life philosophy, assembling a"personal philosophy" that combines religious, philosophical, and moral concepts that they think or feelworks well for them. Others cobble together more explicitly religious ideas and practices along the same lines; this can be labelled variouslyneopaganism,New Age, orcafeteria Christianity — depending on the source of the ideas.

Other groups:

• atheists
• those that identify with a particular religion but do not believe in the god
• those who "worship" non-traditional, apparently non-religious ideas or isms (such asconsumerism^[22])
• those who have forgone any overt expression of religion at all

form a growing part of Western culture.

Perhaps as a direct response to the growth in atheism and to the swarms of those who choose to leave formal religion, coupled with a stronger-than-ever reliance onscience, a minority (in the US, a very loud, powerful minority) of people have chosen to insert their heads where the sun don't shine and to attempt toignore the decline in religiosity, still pretending that"atheism is declining", and insisting that everyone accept every teaching of their religion (and no-one else's) as absolutely true. Such people have become known asfundamentalists — see for exampleWahhabism.

Religion in the East[edit]

People in southern Asia have tended to follow various dharmic religions,^[23] such asHinduism,Jainism, andSikhism. Dominant religions in eastern Asia includeBuddhism (insofar as it counts as a religion),Shinto (insofar as it counts as a religion), andTaoism. Western Asia gave birth to the dominant Abrahamic faiths. Twentieth-century Oceania inventedcargo cults.

Globalization and religion[edit]

The 20th century saw booms — both in the West and in the East — in so-callednew religious movements (NRLs), some of which have more religious elements than do others. (Modern, capitalistic, andsecularized Japan and Anglo-America have proven particularly productive of new ideas/heresies in this respect.) In parallel, some of the recently-converted fringemissionary areas previouslyproselytised by Islam or by Christianity have either developed syncretic^[24] new religions or have latched onto and re-exported "pure" and sometimes extreme forms of their parent-religions. (Individuals and peoples more recently converted can have greater ardency for their new true faith.) Thus, for example, Latin America can combineMarxism with social Christianity in potent brews, Africa gave birth to theLord's Resistance Army and features a morally stricterAnglicanism than does England, whileIndonesia, one of the last major frontiers of the advance of Arab-stylemonotheism, can foster particularlyfundamentalist Islam.

Religion and science[edit]

Historically, many religions, such asIslam andChristianity, have asserted control over people, wealth, and culturalmemes. As a result, whenscience has improved its explanations ofreality, the two bodies often experienced friction.

Any religion that requires its followers to accept the Truth of a holy book, religious leader, or set of mythology above "what science says"will necessarily conflict with science. A religion that pushes "faith" over exploration, consideration, thought, and (of course) study, will likely conflict with science, because those methods of reason often lead to an overall skeptical position.

Thescientific method states that studies should usemethodological naturalism and assume that observations haveempirical and natural causes. Consequently, science cannot verify asupernatural belief or claim that all supernatural events are impossible.

The histories of both Christianity and Islam include moments where they have been the developers of new thought, science, andknowledge, and conversely, there are many times when they have attempted to severely suppress science, philosophy, andfreethinking.

Throughout the rest of the world, religions have generally encouragednaturalistic explorations and explanations, found successful ways to integrate the two, or accepted them as different answers for the same question(s). It is difficult for most who grow up in a Western Abrahamic tradition to imagine a religion which does not, at some level, rely onsupernatural ormiraculous explanations.

Many modern theists adoptNon-Overlapping Magisteria (NOMA), which suggests that religion and science contribute to different areas and should not inform or criticize each other.

Below are some examples of clashing and cooperating views of religion and science.

Science-friendly attitudes within religion[edit]

• In the Middle Ages, the Muslim world had a renaissance due to their open-mindedness towards science. Indeed, they preserved and expanded upon the knowledge acquired by the ancient Greeks. They, for instance, discovered algebra, which means 'restoration' in Arabic, even though they solved problems verbally rather than symbolically.
• Roger Bacon, a Catholic friar, was one of the people who formalized thescientific method itself.
• Gregor Mendel, a Catholic Augustinian friar, founded the scientific study ofgenetics by experimenting with pea plants.
• Georges Lemaître, a Catholic priest, developed the Cosmic Egg (or the Primeval Atom) hypothesis, which was a forerunner to the modern-day Big Bang theory from Einstein's general theory of relativity.
• Several eighteenth- and nineteenth-century Anglican priests, such as William Buckland, Joseph Townsend, William Conybeare, and Adam Sedgwick, made important contributions to modern geology. This came at a time whendeep time was still a controversial idea.
• In the modern era, many Christiandenominations accept modern science and its ramifications. In any single situation where science and religion seem to overlap, the idea ofNon-Overlapping Magisteria (NOMA) attempts to shield believers with plausible anchors for growingcognitive dissonance.
• The Roman Catholic Church's acceptance oftheistic evolution, admittedly withAdam andEve involved somewhere inthe fall. Most mainstream Protestant religions do not have any problem with evolution.(SeeAcceptance of evolution by religious groups.)
• TheBahá'í Faith has a tenet expressly concerning the "unity between science and religion". The tenet doesn't go so far as to claim they are the same thing, but insists one is worthless without the other.

Anti-science attitudes within religion[edit]

• The execution in 1600 by burning at the stake ofGiordano Bruno, found guilty by the RomanInquisition of (among other heresies) suggesting that extra-terrestrial worlds might exist.
• The Roman Catholic Church's 1633 persecution and arrest ofGalileo, who harmed nothing but a geocentric worldview (and insulted the Pope in doing so, arguably worsening his position).
• Opposition toDarwin'stheory of evolution and theBig Bang theory, by Protestant fundamentalists among his contemporaries and in modern times.

Fundamentalism and science[edit]

In the 1920s, thefundamentalist movement within Christianity became more popular. One of its core tenets presented the Bible as literal truth. This is really the first time any Christian or Jewish denomination stated such a premise – prior to that, most religions and the religious understood that not all things in their holy books were meant to be literal; there were myths, exaggerations for effect, aggrandized history, and poetic symbolism.^[25]

The basic idea behind the rise of literalism and formal fundamentalism is a growing fear that, as science disproves small details of the Bible such asthe confusion of the value of pi, science will erode the "Truth" value of the Bible, and soon people will jump, not from doubting mathematical falsities, but to far more important matters offaith, such as the Divinity ofJesus, and — most importantly — the moral authority of the people preaching said "Truth". This fear that science can and will directly challenge the value of the Bible has led to an effectiveWar on Science, especially culminating in a battle againstevolution and, as a backlash, increasing rates of atheism.^{[citation needed]}

Religion-friendly findings within science[edit]

• Religion and spirituality have been correlated with lower rates of heart disease and chronic pain.^[26]
• Global studies have found thatcountries with more religious people often also have more faith in science, while many other countries are neither religious nor welcoming to science and technology.^[27]
• Highly religious people are more likely to donate money or volunteer time to organizations, despite the fact that they earn less on average.^[28]
• Religiously devoted people are less likely to usesubstances or suffer from substanceaddiction.^[29][30]

Anti-religion findings within science[edit]

• Patients who undergo surgery and know they would receive prayer are more likely to experience complications, compared to patients who undergo the same surgery and are informed that they may or may not receive prayer.^[31]

Religions as conspiracies[edit]

Everyone loves a goodconspiracy theory,^{[citation NOT needed]} and religions provide a happy hunting-ground for conspiracists. ThusPapists have deliberately corrupted and distortedthe True Faith. Or the existence ofheresies provethe secretive machinations of satanic forces. Or one can blameInternational Jewry (conveniently conflated withJudaism) orIslamic terrorism (conveniently conflated withIslam) for all things nefarious. Orpagan revivals are aiming to demolish the Abrahamic religions in order to pave the way for the return of pre-Abrahamic faiths. Or religion in general just provides a cheap, easy,user-funded way for THEM to controlself-policing beliefs, attitudes, morals, and behaviors amongst the trusting believingsheeple-flock.^{[32][note 3]}

See also[edit]

• Abrahamic religion
• First Great Awakening
• State Religion
• Fundamentalism
• Freedom From Religion Foundation
• Fun:Starting a new religion
• Neopaganism

External links[edit]

• instruction manual for life,TheraminTrees and QualiaSoup
• Various Definitions of Religion

Notes[edit]

References[edit]

• Religion
• Culture
• Philosophy

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