religion

Code of belief or philosophy that often involves the worship of a God or gods. Belief in a supernatural power is not essential (absent in, for example, Buddhism and Confucianism), but faithful adherence is usually considered to be rewarded; for example, by escape from human existence (Buddhism), by a future existence (Christianity, Islam), or by worldly benefit (Sōka Gakkai Buddhism). Religions include:

ancient and pantheist religions of Babylonia, Assyria, Egypt, Greece, and Rome;

animist or polytheistic traditional central African religions, voodoo and related beliefs in Latin America and the Caribbean, traditional faiths of American Indians, Maoris, Australian Aborigines, and Javanese;

oriental Hinduism, Buddhism, Jainism, Zoroastrianism, Confucianism, Taoism, and Shinto;

‘religions of a book’ Judaism, Christianity (the principal divisions are Roman Catholic, Eastern Orthodox, and Protestant), and Islam (the principal divisions are Sunni and Shiite);

combined derivation these include Baha'ism, the Unification church, and Mormonism.

Religion and behaviour

A common factor in religions is the ascription to the God or gods of an interest in the behaviour of humans and their judgement of it as right or wrong, although the standards of morality attributed to gods vary enormously. From this follows the idea that a deity is to be obeyed, or at least placated, or retribution will follow. Assistance from a divine being can usually be obtained on certain terms. Most religions also have the idea of reward and punishment after death. In addition to each of these general ideas are a large number of ritual practices, such as penances, prayer, healing, festivities, and sacrifices; there are usually also teachings on morals and the afterlife.

Religious studies
Comparative religion aims to study the various faiths impartially. Other related studies are the psychology of religion, which examines human states of mind under religious influence – for example, ecstasy, diabolic possession, and faith healing – and the possible causes of these states; and the philosophy of religion, which coincides to a large extent with natural theology.

Until the Enlightenment, the universality of religion was taken for granted in the West, though its forms were known to differ widely. In some Western countries, such as the USA, religious belief is still strong; other societies are predominantly secular.

Causes of belief
Religion may originate in pondering the unknown; in the need to explain phenomena that are not understood; in awe of natural forces; in a psychological need for outside support; in dreams and visions; or in the veneration of ancestors or clan totems. Religious belief has generally been encouraged by rulers and governments because people are more likely to obey rules that have the force of supernatural authority behind them.

religion - events

c. 1600 BC	Crete	The snake goddess and other artefacts found at Knossos and elsewhere in Crete probably indicate that the Minoan people worship a mother earth goddess at this time. The bull-leap fresco at Knossos and similar works demonstrate a great Minoan preoccupation with the bull.
1374 BC	Egypt	Egyptian king Amenhotep IV changes his name to Akhenaton (or Aknaton, or Ikhnaton) to conform to a new religion which worships the sun god Aton over the previous cult of Amon. Akhenaton institutes a religious and cultural revolution with the worship of Aton. He builds a large temple to Aton at Karnak and constructs a new capital, Akhetaton (‘The Horizon of Aton’), halfway between Thebes and Memphis.
c. 540 BC	Greece	Athens, under its tyrant Pisistratus, takes over the Ionian religious festival on the sacred island of Delos.
c. 200 BC–AD c. 200	South America	During this period the Nazca Lines are drawn in the desert along the south coast of Peru. These are enormous stylized outlines of animals, including a monkey, whale, spider, and hummingbird, and sets of parallel lines, some as long as 20 km/12 mi. They are believed to be a development of Chavín de Huantar art; they may have had religious significance, or they may have been connected with astronomy.
167 BC	Syria, Palestine, Seleucid Kingdom	King Antiochus IV of Syria attempts a policy of religious centralization in the Seleucid Empire with a view to forcing its people to worship the same gods as the Greeks. A Syrian god is identified with the Greek god Zeus for this purpose. When Antiochus tries to force the Jews to worship Zeus, putting a statue of Zeus in the temple at Jerusalem, and confiscating the temple treasures, the Jewish priest Mattathias rebels and slays the enforcing official and those Jews who attempt to obey. Mattathias leads a rebellion, and on his death in the following year is succeeded by his son Judas, the ‘Maccabee’ or the ‘Hammer’.
241	Persia, Sassanian Empire	At the court of Shapur I, Mani, a young mystic of Ctesiphon, proclaims himself a prophet and preaches a new doctrine throughout Persia. His teaching, known as Manichaeism, borrows from Zoroastrianism, Judaism, Mithraism, and Gnosticism, and divides the world into the rival realms of Light and Darkness.
c. 1010	Central America	The Toltecs introduce the cult of Quetzalcoatl, ‘the feathered serpent’, to the Central American cities that they have recently invaded.
1610	Netherlands	The Dutch theologian Jacobus Arminius issues the Remonstrance of 1610, setting out his belief that free will is compatible with the sovereignty of God. This view, which becomes known as Arminianism or the Arminian heresy, is condemned by the Synod of Dort (an assembly of the Dutch Reformed Church) in 1619.
1612	Germany	German mystic Jakob Böhme publishes Aurora, oder, Morgenröte im Aufgang/Aurora, or the Coming of Dawn. His first book, it is condemned by the Lutherans.
25 September 1643	UK	The Assembly of Westminster, summoned by the Long Parliament in England, adopts the Solemn League and Covenant, which inaugurates a Presbyterian establishment for England and Scotland.
1650	UK	A judge in Derby, England is the first to use the term ‘Quakers’ to describe the religious leader George Fox and his followers, after Fox says in court: ‘I bid them Tremble at the word of the Lord’.
1691	Rome	The Italian churchman Antonio Pignatelli is elected Pope Innocent XII. He is pope until 1700.
1698	UK	English churchman Doctor Thomas Bray founds The Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge (SPCK) in London, England.
15 April 1699	India, Mogul Empire	The tenth and last Sikh Guru Gobind Singh forms the Sikh people into Khalsa Panth. The organization is the foundation of modern Sikhism.
17 August 1740	Rome	The Italian churchman Prospero Lambertini is elected Pope Benedict XIV following the death of Pope Clement XII
19 May 1769	Rome	Lorenzo Ganganelli is elected as Pope Clement XIV after a three-month struggle in the College of Cardinals between those who supported the Jesuits, and those who opposed them (his supporters).
1770	America	The American preacher John Woolman publishes Considerations on the True Harmony of Mankind.
1779	Scotland	Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion by the Scottish philosopher David Hume are published posthumously. Though he wrote them in the 1750s, Hume was unwilling during his lifetime to publish these attacks on the arguments for God's existence.
1794	England, USA	The English-born US revolutionary Thomas Paine publishes the first volume of his work The Age of Reason. An outspoken attack on traditional religious belief and practices, it is widely condemned as immoral. The last volume appears in 1796.
1799	Germany	The German theologian Friedrich Schleiermacher publishes his Über die Religion: Reden an die Bebildeten unter ihren Verächtern/Religion: Speeches to its Cultured Despisers. Seeking to locate a belief in God in intuition and feeling rather than dogma, Schleiermacher's works will be one of the profoundest influences on modern Protestant theology.
1833	England	The English churchman John Henry Newman publishes the first of his Tracts for the Times, pamphlets on religious subjects that become an important expression of the Oxford Movement (a reform movement within the Anglican Church). They appear until 1841, written also by John Keble, Isaac Williams, and Edward Bouverie Pusey.
1872	USA	The US religious leader Charles Taze Russell founds the religious movement the Jehovah's Witnesses, their main belief being that the end of the world is imminent. Their zeal in finding converts helps them to grow quickly.
1912		German Protestant theologian Ernst Troeltsch publishes The Social Teaching of the Christian Churches, an influential study of the relationship between church and the state. It is translated into English in 1931.
1941	USA	The US theologian Reinhold Niebuhr publishes the first volume of The Nature and Destiny of Man. The second volume will appear in 1943.
18 November 1978	USA, Guyana	The US cult leader Jim Jones leads 913 followers, most of them Americans, and including 276 children, in a mass suicide at the so-called People's Temple in Jonestown, Guyana. The slaughter is precipitated by the murder of US representative Leo J Ryan and four associates, who had visited Jonestown to investigate charges of religious coercion.
1979	UK	The General Synod of the Church of England refuses to allow female priests ordained abroad to celebrate holy communion.
12 March 2000	Italy	In a speech unprecedented for its sweeping apology, Pope John Paul II seeks forgiveness for the Catholic Church for 2000 years of violence against and persecution of Jews and other minority groups, and women.

religion (redirected from Religious community)

religion

Religion and behaviour

Religious studies

Causes of belief

religion - events

religion
(redirected from Religious community)