A system of belief and practices shared by a community that attempts to answer the ultimate questions of life and death, and, in doing so, goes beyond the verifiable. Religions frequently involve supernatural elements such as gods and goddesses, angels and demons, ancestors, transmigratory souls, and heaven, purgatory and hell. Developed religions generally consist of a central creed or body of beliefs, an ethical component (i.e. a code of morals), a body of literature or holy texts or stories, a set of individual and communal practices. Religion played a major role in all human societies prior to the twentieth century. It is a core belief of Conservatives that the recent decline in religious observation are a key source of the undermining of social and moral order.
Religions
- Animism
- Bahá'í
- Buddhism
- Cao Dai
- Christianity
- Discordianism
- Evolutionism
- Hinduism
- Islam
- Jainism
- Jehovah's Witnesses
- Juche
- Judaism
- Mormonism
- New Age beliefs
- Paganism
- Rastafari movement
- Satanism
- Scientology
- Shamanism
- Shintoism
- Sikhism
- SubGeniism
- Wicca
- Zoroastrianism
References
See Also
- Atheism, a lack of belief in the supernatural
- Naturalistic religions
- Secular Humanism, an approach to moral philosophy
- World Religions by Number of Followers