DK Publishing - The Religions Book

There is no simple definition of the concept of religion that fullyarticulates all its dimensions. Encompassing spiritual, personal, and social elements,this phenomenon is however, ubiquitous, appearing in every culture from prehistory tothe modern dayas evidenced in the cave paintings and elaborate burial customs ofour distant ancestors and the continuing quest for a spiritual goal to life.

For Palaeolithic peopleand indeed for much of human historyreligionprovided a way of understanding and influencing powerful natural phenomena. Weather andthe seasons, creation, life, death and the afterlife, and the structure of the cosmoswere all subject to religious explanations that invoked controlling gods, or a realmoutside the visible inhabited by deities and mythical creatures. Religion provided ameans to communicate with these gods, through ritual and prayer, and thesepracticeswhen shared by members of a communityhelped to cement socialgroups, enforce hierarchies, and provide a deep sense of collective identity.

As societies became more complex, their belief systems grew with them and religion wasincreasingly deployed as a political tool. Military conquests were often followed by theassimilation of the pantheon of the defeated people by the victors; and kingdoms andempires were often supported by their deities and priestly classes.

We know about the religions of the earliest societies from the relics theyleft behind and from the stories of later civilizations. In addition, isolatedtribes in remote places, such as the Amazonian forest in South America, theIndonesian islands, and parts of Africa, still practice religions that arethought to have remained largely unchanged for millennia. These primal religionsoften feature a belief in a unity between nature and the spirit, linking peopleinextricably with the environment.

As the early religions evolved, their ceremonies and cosmologies becameincreasingly sophisticated. Primal religions of the nomadic and seminomadicpeoples of prehistory gave way to the religions of the ancient and, in turn, ofthe classical civilizations. Their beliefs are now often dismissed as mythology,but many elements of these ancient narrative traditions persist intodays faiths. Religions continued to adapt, old beliefs were absorbedinto the religions of the society that succeeded them, and new faiths emergedwith different observances and rituals.

It is hard to pinpoint the time when many religions began, not least becausetheir roots lie in prehistory and the sources that describe their origins maydate from a much later time. However, it is thought that the oldest survivingreligion today is Hinduism, which has its roots in the folk religions of theIndian subcontinent, brought together in the writing of the Vedas as early asthe 13th century BCE. From this Vedic tradition came not only the pluralisticreligion we now know as Hinduism, but also Jainism, Buddhism, and, later,Sikhism, which emerged in the 15th century.

Meanwhile, other belief systems were developing in the East. From the 17thcentury BCE, the Chinese dynasties established their nation states and empires.There emerged traditional folk religions and ancestor worship that were laterincorporated into the more philosophical belief systems of Daoism andConfucianism.

In the eastern Mediterranean, ancient Egyptian and Babylonian religions werestill being practiced when the emerging city-states of Greece and Rome developedtheir own mythologies and pantheons of gods. Further east, Zoroastrianismthe first major known monotheistic religionhad already beenestablished in Persia, and Judaism had emerged as the first of the Abrahamicreligions, followed by Christianity and Islam.

Many religions recognized the particular significance of one or moreindividuals as founders of the faith: they may have been embodiments of god,such as Jesus or Krishna, or recipients of special divine revelation, such asMoses and Muhammad.

The religions of the modern world continued to evolve with advances insociety, sometimes reluctantly, and often by dividing into branches. Someapparently new religions began to appear, especially in the 19th and 20thcenturies, but these invariably bore the traces of the faiths that had comebefore.

"There is no use disguising the fact, our religious needs are the deepest.There is no peace until they are satisfied and contented."

Isaac Hecker, Roman Catholic priest

Human history has seen the rise and fall of countless religions, each with itsown distinct beliefs, rituals, and mythology. Although some are similar andconsidered to be branches of a larger tradition, there are many contrasting andcontradictory belief systems.

Some religions, for example, have a number of gods, while others, especiallythe more modern major faiths, are monotheistic; and there are major differencesof opinion between religions on such matters as the afterlife. We can, however,identify certain elements common to almost all religions in order to examine thesimilarities and differences between them. These aspectsthe ways inwhich the beliefs and practices of a religion are manifestedare what theBritish writer and philosopher of religion Ninian Smart called thedimensions of religion.

Perhaps the most obvious elements we can use to identify and compare religionsare the observances of a faith. These includes such activities as prayer,pilgrimage, meditation, feasting and fasting, dress, and of course ceremoniesand rituals. Also evident are the physical aspects of a religion: theartifacts, relics, places of worship, and holy places. Less apparent is thesubjective element of the religionits mystical and emotional aspects,and how a believer experiences the religion in achieving ecstasy, enlightenment,or inner peace, for example, or establishing a personal relationship with thedivine.

Another aspect of most religions is the mythology, or narrative, thataccompanies it. This can be a simple oral tradition of stories, or a moresophisticated set of scriptures, but often includes a creation story and ahistory of the gods, saints, or prophets, with parables that illustrate andreinforce the beliefs of the religion. Every existing faith has a collection ofsacred texts that articulates its central ideals and narrates the history of thetradition. These texts, which in many cases are considered to be have beenpassed directly from the deity, are used in worship and education.