Christianity, or Christianity, is an Abrahamic and monotheistic religion, centered in its teachings on the Bible, and in particular Jesus, who in faith is the expected fulfiller of prophecies, and the incarnate Son of God;

who presented in the New Testament the culmination of spiritual, social and moral teachings, and supported his sayings with his miracles; He was the Savior of the world by His death on the cross and His resurrection, and the only mediator between God and men; Most Christians await His second coming, which will be concluded with the resurrection of the dead, in which God rewards the righteous and the righteous with a happy eternal kingdom.

Christianity is the largest religion practiced in mankind.
The number of its adherents is 2.4 billion, or about one third of humanity. Christianity is the religion of the majority population in 126 out of 197 countries in the world; Its followers are known as Christians; The root of the word “Christian” comes from the word Christ, which means “one whose anointing is anointed” or “anointed with holy anointing”; It is also known to Arabic speakers as Christianity, from the word Nazareth, the town of Christ. [Matt 2:23] Christianity arose from Palestinian Jewish roots and environment, and within less than a century after Christ Christian groups existed in different regions from the ancient world to India in the east thanks to the missionary, and during the two centuries The following two, despite Roman persecutions, Christianity became the religion of the empire; Its spread and consequently its acquisition of Greek culture contributed not only to its separation from Judaism, but also to the development of its own civilizational character. Christianity is classified into four large families: Catholicism, Eastern Orthodoxy, Eastern Orthodoxy and Protestantism;

In addition to denominations, Christianity has a wide cultural and religious heritage called ritual, as the most famous and oldest classifications in this regard are Eastern Christianity and Western Christianity.

Christian culture has left a great influence on modern civilization and human history at various levels.

Islam is an Abrahamic, heavenly and monotheistic religion, there is only one god according to Islam and that is God, and Muhammad is the Messenger of God. Islam is the second largest religion in the world, with about 1.9 billion followers or about 24.8% of the world’s population according to the 2020 forecast, known as Muslims. Muslims make up the majority of the population in 49 countries. Islam teaches that God is merciful, omnipotent, one, and has guided humanity through prophets and messengers, scriptures and verses.

The primary texts of Islam are the Qur’an – which Muslims view as the literal and infallible Word of God – and the Normative Teachings and Examples (Sunnah), which include the hadiths of Muhammad.

Muslims believe that Islam is the complete and comprehensive version of the faith that was revealed many times by prophets including Adam, Abraham, Moses and Jesus.
Muslims consider the Holy Qur’an the absolute and final revelation from God. Like other Abrahamic religions, Islam also has a final judgment in which the righteous are granted heaven and the unrighteous are hell (hell). Religious concepts and practices include the Five Pillars of Islam, which are obligatory worship, and following Islamic law, which touches nearly every aspect of life and society, from banking to women, morals and the environment. Mecca, Medina, and Jerusalem are home to Islam’s three holiest sites. Regardless of theological point of view, Islam is historically believed to have originated in the early seventh century CE in Mecca, and by the eighth century CE, the Umayyad dynasty extended from Andalusia in the west to the Indus River in the east. The “Golden Age of Islam” refers to the period between the eighth century to the thirteenth century, during the Abbasid Caliphate, when the Islamic world was witnessing scientific, economic and cultural prosperity. The expansion of the Islamic world was through various ruling dynasties and differences such as the Ottoman Empire, merchants, and conversion to Islam through advocacy activities. Most Muslims belong to one of two sects; Sunnis and the community (85-90%) or Shiites (10-15%). About 13% of Muslims live in Indonesia, the largest Muslim-majority country, 31% of Muslims live in South Asia, the region with the largest Muslim population in the world, 20% live in the Middle East and North Africa, where it is the dominant religion, and 15 % in sub-Saharan Africa. There are also large Muslim communities in the Americas, the Caucasus, Central Asia, China, Europe, wild Southeast Asia, the Philippines and Russia. Islam is the fastest growing major religion in the world.

Hinduism or Hinduism, also called Brahmanism, is the dominant religion in India and Nepal, and it is a group of beliefs and traditions that were formed over a long process from the fifteenth century BC to the present time, and it is not affiliated with a specific founder personally, but was formed over many centuries One of its direct origins is the historical Veda religion since India the Iron Ages. Therefore, it is often called the oldest living religion in the world. The Hindu religion includes spiritual and moral values ​​as well as legal and organizational principles taking several deities according to the works related to it. Each region has a deity and every action or phenomenon has a deity. . One of the systematic classifications of Hindu texts is the Shruti (the inspiration) and the Siritic (the Preserved) texts. These texts discuss theology, philosophy, mythology, ritual and temple building. One of the great texts is the Vedas, the Upanishads, the Puranas, the Ramayana, the Bhagavad Gita, and the Agama. Its followers raise one billion people, of whom 890 million live in India in the Indian subcontinent, which has 96% of the Hindu population in the world, and is thus considered the third largest religion in the world after Christianity and Islam.

Agnosticism is a term derived from the Greek (α-γνωστικισμός), where the “α” means “no” and “γνωστικισμός” means “knowledge or know-how”, a philosophical orientation that believes that the true values ​​of religious or unseen issues Unspecified and no one can define them, especially those related to religious issues of God’s existence and non-existence and metaphysics, which are considered mysterious and unknowable. Gnosticism is different from Gnosticism.

The first means denying the existence of religious or atheistic certainty, while the second is a mystical intellectual tendency, known in the first two centuries of the Christian era in particular, that mixes philosophy with religion, and relies on emotional intuitive knowledge to reach the knowledge of God.

According to the philosopher William Leonard Roe, an agnostic is that person who neither believes nor disbelieves in the divine, while the believer is the one who believes in it.
And the atheist is the one who disbelieves in it. Agnosticism differs from atheism; Whereas atheism is disbelief in God, while agnosticism is just a suspension of belief. In 1869, the British biologist Thomas Henry Huxley coined the term agnosticism, and before that, there were several signs of some thinkers promoting agnostic views in ancient works, such as the 5th century B.C. Indian philosopher Sanaya Pelatputa, regarding the existence of any isthmus life . And the Greek philosopher Protagoras, in the sixth century BC, and his opinion on the Devas and the genesis of creation, which is part of the sacred text Rigveda, one of the ancient Indian texts dating back to the period from 1500 to 1200 BC on the emergence of the universe. Many thinkers have written extensively on the subject since Huxley coined the term agnosticism.

Buddhism is a dharmic religion and is considered one of the major religions in the world, as it is considered the fourth largest religion in the world after Christianity, Islam and Hinduism. Its followers number more than 520 million, or more than 7% of the world’s population.

Its followers are known as Buddhists; The root word Buddhism comes from the word Buddhism after its founder Gautama Buddha. It was established by the teachings of the ‘Wakeful’ Buddha.” Buddhism originated in northern India and gradually spread throughout Asia, Tibet, Sri Lanka, and then to China, Mongolia, Korea, and Japan.

Buddhist belief revolves around 3 matters (the Three Essences): first, belief in Buddha as an enlightened teacher of the Buddhist faith, second, belief in “dharma”, which is the Buddha’s teachings, and these teachings are called truth, third and final, the Buddhist community. In the ancient Pali language, Buddha means “a watchful man” (sometimes translated as enlightened). It should be noted that the original pronunciation of the founder of the Buddhist religion (Buddha) was “Buddha”, in the signifier, not the inferior.

Chinese folk religion (simplified Chinese: 中国民间信仰, traditional Chinese; 中國民間信仰) is a multi-ethnic term used to describe diverse practices in areas commonly called “religion” by people of Chinese descent, including the Chinese diaspora. Vivian Wei described it as “an empty bowl, which can be filled in various ways with the contents of institutional religions such as Buddhism, Taoism, Confucianism, Chinese syncretic religions, or even (Catholic) Christianity and Hinduism”. This may include reverence for the forces of nature and ancestors, the expulsion of harmful forces, a belief in the rational order of nature, the universe and the certainty of the power of humans and their rulers to influence it, as well as of spirits and deities. Worship is dedicated to a number of deities and immortals (神 shen), who may be deities of phenomena, human behavior, or lineages (founders of genealogical lines). Stories related to some of these deities are collected in the Compound of Chinese Mythology. By the eleventh century (Song period), these practices combined with Buddhist ideas such as karma (the consequence of one’s work) and rebirth, and Taoist teachings regarding the hierarchy of deities, to result in the popular religious system that has survived in various ways to this day.

In religious studies an ethnic religion or ethnic religion is a religion or belief associated with a particular ethnic group. Ethnic religions are often distinguished from world religions that claim not to be limited in ethnic or national scale, such as Christianity or Islam, where the acquisition of converts is a primary goal, and thus their spread is not limited to the ethnic, national, or racial scale. Some local sects of world religions are practiced by certain ethnic groups, for example, the Assyrians have a unique denominational structure of Christianity known as Syriac Christianity.

African traditional religions is an umbrella term used for all the ethnic religions and folk religious customs of the people of Africa (particularly sub-Saharan Africa), including syncretism with other traditions, particularly Christianity and Islam. Because of the wide range and ethnographic diversity of sub-Saharan Africa, there is no single aspect of unifying “African religion” apart from the so-called cultural world of postmodern religion on a global scale, in the sense of an aspect of oral history and revivalism. African traditional religions are a group of highly diverse beliefs that include various ethnic religions. In general, these traditions are oral rather than written, and include belief in a variety of higher and lower deities, including sometimes a higher Creator, belief in the spirit, honoring the dead, and the use of magic and traditional African medicine. According to Lugera, “It is the only religion that can claim to have originated in Africa. Other religions in Africa have origins in other parts of the world.” Followers of traditional religions in Sub-Saharan Africa are spread over 43 countries and are estimated to number more than 100 million. Although the majority of Africans today are followers of Christianity or Islam, Africans often combine the practice of their traditional faith with the practice of the Abrahamic religions. Both Abrahamic religions are spread throughout Africa, although most are concentrated in different regions. They have replaced indigenous African religions, but have often adapted to African cultural contexts and belief systems. There are also followers of traditional African religions throughout the world. Recently the affiliation with traditional African religions, such as the Yoruba religion, has been on the rise. The Yoruba religion finds roots in the United States among African Americans.

Sikhism (Punjabi: ਸਿੱਖੀ) is a monotheistic dharmic religion that originated in northern India at the end of the fifteenth century. The word “Sikhism” comes from the word “Sikh”, which in turn comes from the Sanskrit root meaning disciple, and in the Balinese language the disciple or follower. It is one of the world’s newest major religions, and one of the largest in the world. The core beliefs of Sikhism, which are articulated in their holy book Guru Granth Sahib, include faith and meditation on the name of the one Creator, divine unity and equality for all mankind, engaging in selfless service, striving for justice for the benefit and prosperity of all, and an honest conduct of living. In the early 21st century there were about 25 million Sikhs worldwide, the vast majority or 76% (20 million) of Sikhs live in Punjab, the Sikh homeland in northwest India, and about two million live in the neighboring Indian states, which were part of the Formerly Indian state of Punjab. The reason for its spread in the world is the British dependence on them in some wars and Sikh migrations outside their country. Sikh immigration from British India began during the second half of the nineteenth century, when the British completed their annexation of Punjab. Sikhism is based on the spiritual teachings of the founder of the religion, Guru Nanak, and his nine successors. From the guru humans. The title of Guru means teacher in Hindi. Guru Gobind Singh, nicknamed the 10th, made a significant contribution to Sikhism, and his contribution to the continuing formalization of the religion first established by Sikh Guru Nanak Dev Ji in the 15th century is noteworthy. The Sikh scripture named Guru Granth Sahib as his successor, thus ending the human guru line and making the Sikh scripture Guru Granth the author of the Sikh religious and religious spiritual guide. Sikhism rejects claims that any particular religious tradition has a monopoly on absolute truth. Sikhism developed during times of religious persecution. Two Sikhs, Guru Arjan and Guru Teg Bahadur, were tortured and executed by the Mughal rulers after they refused to convert to Islam. Sikh persecution sparked the establishment of the Khalsa as a demand to protect freedom of conscience and religion.

Juche Idea (Juche) The official doctrine of North Korea. The main principle in it is “Man is the master and decider of everything”, and that the masses of the people are the masters of the revolution. Juche is Kim Il-sung’s phrase, which also translates to “independent attitude” and “spirit of self-reliance.” The original Kim Il-sung presented Juche as a slogan in his speech to “remove ideological and formal stagnation and establish Juche in ideological work” where he expressed his rejection of the policy of bureaucratic self-reform adopted in the Soviet Union in 1955. The idea of ​​Juche gradually emerged as an ideological doctrine organized under the political pressures of the Sino-Soviet split in sixties. The word Juche began to appear as an untranslated form in North Korean works since 1965. Kim Il-sung summarized Juche’s basic principles into three principles in his 1965 speech “For Socialist Construction and the South Korean Revolution in the Korean Democratic People’s Republic.” The three principles are:

Independence in Politics (Shaju)
Self-sufficiency in economics (Sharp)
Self-defense in the National Defense (Shawi)

Former North Korean leader Kim Jong Il formally composed the critical statement about Juche in 1982 in a document centered around the Juche idea. He has the ultimate authority to interpret the official doctrine and incorporate it into the policy of Songun (military first) in 1996.

Animism is an animistic religion, codified in the nineteenth century by the French teacher Hippolyte Léon Denizard Revell, under the pseudonym Alain Kardec; It provides for the study of “the nature, source, and value of souls, and their relationship to the physical world.”

Spiritualism soon spread to other countries, where today 35 countries are represented on the International Spiritual Council.

Spirituality posits that humans are essentially immortal spirits who temporarily inhabit physical bodies of several incarnations necessary for moral and intellectual improvement. He also asserts that spirits, through a passive or active medium, may have a beneficial or influencing effect on the physical world.

The term first appeared in Kardec’s book, The Book of Spirits, which sought to distinguish spirituality from spirituality.

Spirituality has influenced the social movement of treatment centers, charities and hospitals in which millions of people participate in dozens of countries, with Brazil being the country with the largest number of adherents.

Judaism is the religion of the Jewish people, an ancient monotheistic religion, and the oldest of the Abrahamic religions. Its teachings are based on the Torah as its foundational text, which was revealed to Moses according to Jewish beliefs. It includes the religion, philosophy, and culture of the Jewish people. Judaism is considered by religious Jews as an expression of the covenant that God made with the children of Israel. Judaism comprises a wide variety of texts, practices, theological positions, and forms of organization. The Torah is part of the larger text known as the Tanakh or the Hebrew Bible, and the rulings and laws of the Torah that are explained by the Oral Law and represented by later texts such as the Midrash and Talmud. The number of followers of Judaism ranges from 14.5 million to 17.4 million adherents all over the world.

Since the number of Jews in itself is a contentious issue on the issue of “Who is the Jew?” Judaism is the tenth largest religion in the world.

Judaism has a variety of religious movements, most of which emerged from Rabbinic Judaism, which states that God revealed his laws and commandments to Moses on Mount Sinai in the form of the written and oral Torah.
Historically, this assertion was challenged by groups as diverse as the Sadducees and Hellenistic Judaism during the Second Temple period. the Karaites and Sabbatarians during the early and later medieval period; And among the modern non-Orthodox sects. Modern branches of Judaism such as humanistic Judaism may be agnostic. Today, the largest Jewish religious movements are Orthodox Judaism (which includes Haredi Judaism and Modern Orthodox Judaism), Conservative Judaism, and Reform Judaism. The main sources of difference between these groups are their approach to Jewish law, the authority of rabbinic tradition, and the importance of the State of Israel. Orthodox Judaism asserts that the Torah and Jewish law are divine in origin, eternal and unchangeable, and that they must be strictly followed. While Conservative and Reform Judaism is considered more liberal, Conservative Judaism generally promotes a more traditional interpretation of the requirements of Judaism in comparison to Reform Judaism. The usual Reform position is that Jewish law should be seen as a set of general guidelines and not as a set of restrictions and duties the respect of which is required of all Jews. Historically, special courts have enforced Jewish law. Today these courts still exist but the practice of Judaism is mostly voluntary. Authority in theological and legal matters is not vested in any person or organization, but in the sacred texts rabbis and scholars interpret them. The history of Judaism extends back more than 3000 years. Judaism has roots as an organized religion in the Middle East during the Bronze Age. Judaism is one of the oldest monotheistic religions. The Hebrews and the children of Israel were referred to as “Jews” and in later books in the Tanakh such as the Book of Esther, the term Jews was replaced by the term “children of Israel”. Jewish texts, traditions, and values ​​greatly influenced later Abrahamic religions, including Christianity, Islam, and Baha’ism. Many aspects of Judaism have directly or indirectly influenced Western secular ethics and civil law. Religious belief has been an important factor in the development of ancient Western civilization such as Hellenism and Judaism as a background to Christianity, and has largely shaped Western ideals and morals since early Christianity. Jews are the children of a religious ethnic group, including those who were born Jewish, as well as converts to Judaism. In 2015, the world’s Jewish population was estimated to be around 14.3 million, or approximately 0.2% of the world’s total population. Israel is home to about 43% of all Jews in the world, about 43% of the world’s Jews reside in the United States and Canada, and most of the remainder live in Europe, to minority groups scattered throughout Latin America, Asia, Africa and Australia.

The Baha’i Faith is one of the monotheistic religions derived from the esoteric thought of the Shi’ite sect.

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The Baha’i religion was founded in the thirteenth century AH / nineteenth century AD in Iran by Hussain Ali Nuri, nicknamed “Baha’Allah,” who derived his belief from the Babi religion founded by Ali Muhammad Reza Shirazi nicknamed “The Bab.” As a result, there is a historical link between the Baha’i Faith The portait.

During the period of Bahá’u’lláh’s conversion to Baabism and after his founding of the Bahá’í Faith; He was imprisoned and exiled several times from Persia to the Ottoman Empire until at the end of his life he arrived in Acre, where he died in his house called “Al-Bahja Palace” in which he was buried and today is the qiblah of Baha’is in their prayers, where he was still officially a prisoner. After Bahá’u’lláh’s death, his son Abd al-Bahá Abbas assumed the authority of the Bahá’í Faith, and this was accompanied by a long struggle between him and his half-brother Mirza Muhammad Ali over religious authority, which led to the division of members of the Bahá’í family as well as the division of all Baha’is into two sects (Abbasid Baha’is, followers of Abbas Abd Baha’i, and the monotheistic Baha’is, followers of Mirza Muhammad Ali).
After that, the Bahai religion was spread by Abd al-Baha Abbas, and stemmed from its Persian and Ottoman roots, and gained a foothold in Europe and America, and its adherents united in Iran, where its followers suffer somewhat from persecution. After Abd al-Bahá’s death, the responsibility for managing and guiding the Bahá’í community passed to Shawqi Effendi, the grandson of Abd al-Bahá, according to Abd al-Bahá’s will in his book “The Tablets of Will”. After Shoghi Effendi’s death, the management of the Baha’i community entered a new phase, developing from a single individual into an administrative system that contained elected bodies and appointed individuals. Today, there are more than seven million adherents of the Baha’i faith in the world, distributed in more than 200 countries and territories in varying proportions. In the Baha’i faith, religious history is considered to have been revealed through a series of divine messengers, each of them establishing a religion that was appropriate to the needs of the time. and capacity of the people. The list of these messengers included the messengers of the Abrahamic religions, Moses, Jesus, and Muhammad, as well as the messengers of the Indian religions such as Krishna, Buddha, and others. Baha’is believe that the most recent of the messengers are the Bab and Baha’u’llah. In the Bahá’í Faith, all the successive messengers prophesied of the next Messenger, and the emergence of Bahá’u’lláh according to the Bahá’í belief is the complete manifestation of God as the Bahá’í concept of God mixed the Islamic and Christian concept. According to Baha’i interpretations, Bahá’u’lláh is described as “the complete embodiment of the names and attributes of God”. Baha’is believe in the previous divine books. According to Baha’i interpretations, what has been understood about humanity is that it is in the process of continuous collective development, and the need at present is the gradual establishment of peace, justice and unity on a global scale. The Baha’i religion rests on three pillars that form the basis of its teachings: the oneness of God; That there is only one God and that is God who is the source of all creation, according to the two concepts (Islamic and Christian) where Bahá’ís also believe that Bahá’u’lláh is the full manifestation of God on earth, the unity of religion; that all major religions have the same spiritual source, come from the same Creator, and the unity of humanity; That all human beings are created equal, besides unity in diversity, where ethnic and cultural diversity is seen as worthy of appreciation and acceptance. According to the teachings of the Bahá’í Faith, the purpose of human life is to learn how to know and love God through such means as prayer and the practice of esoteric meditation and service to humanity.

Shinto or Shinto or Kamenomishi (Japanese: 神道, which means the way of the gods): a religion that appeared and developed in Japan.

The Shinto religion, which left a profound impact on Japanese thinking, did not know its way to spread like other religions. This religion has no specific teachings, which made it open to other religious customs without affecting its unique characteristic and origin. Shinto and the traditions that accompany it have always been present in everyday Japanese life.

It is difficult to describe the Shinto religion because, unlike all other religions, it has no founder or belief that it is based on. We can only know it through a set of customs and practices. Throughout history, several sects and sects have emerged and developed, all claiming to belong to the primary Shinto doctrine, but none of these sects succeeded in imposing their theories.

Cao Daism, its name in Vietnamese Đạo Cao Đài (Chinese: 高台教), is a monotheistic religion founded in 1926 in southern Vietnam in the city of Tay Ninh. Its full name is Đại Đạo Tam Kỳ Phổ Độ meaning great faith and Cao Dai He is the supreme deity of this religion and its meaning is the greatest power. The number of adherents to this religion is about 3.2 million people, most of them are of Vietnamese origin and also live in the United States, Europe, Australia and Brazil.
principles

Caodism draws its moral principles from Confucianism, some occult practices from Taoism, theories of karma and rebirth from Buddhism, hierarchy, and principles from Roman Catholicism.

Caodism is influenced by the ideas, instructions and philosophies of several religious and philosophical figures throughout history, including Buddha, Confucius, Jesus Christ, Muhammad, Pericles, Julius Caesar, Joan of Arc, Victor Hugo, Sun Yat-sen. In Cao Dai, the deity is represented as an eye in a triangle, a symbol that appears on the facades of sect temples.
Religious classes and rituals
The organization of the religion divided after the organization of Roman Catholicism, with the pope, cardinals, and archbishops. Worship involves elaborate rituals and festivals.

The Tenrikyu religion is a religion whose members claim to have been the purported revelation of a 19th-century woman known as Nakayama Miki.

Followers of the Tenrikyo religion believe that God is known by many names, including “Tenri or no Mikoto”, the literal meaning of Tenrikyo is the sacred instructions, and the number of members of this religion is estimated at two million people in the world, one and a half million of them in Japan. It is administered locally in Japan.
Notable Beliefs

Members of this religion revere a woman named Nakayama Miki, and it is said that the number of females belonging to this religion is remarkably high.
Members of this religion call for self-denial and distance from arrogance, hatred, greed and selfishness.
They believe in reincarnation.
They believe in the unity of existence.

Neo-Pagan or Neo-Pagan, also known as Contemporary Paganism, is an umbrella term for new religious movements influenced by, or derived from, the ancient pagan beliefs of ancient Europe, North Africa and the Near East. Contemporary pagan religious movements are diverse, and they are not united by one group of beliefs, rituals or texts, even if they are similar in things.

Most of the academic researchers concerned with this phenomenon consider it a movement of different religions, and very few of them consider it one religion in which the different faiths are considered sects. Not all adherents of these new pagan doctrines call themselves pagans.

The followers depend on the pre-Christian ethnic and folklore sources, to the different degree of this dependence, as many of them follow a spirituality that they agree is completely modern, and others try to revive the indigenous ethnic religions as they existed in the historical and folkloric sources, trying to be as accurate as possible.

Scientific research put the pagan movement on a chain, on the first end of it eclecticism, and on the other end of the pagan revivalism of pluralism. Among the common characteristics of pagan theology: polytheism, animism, and pantheism. Rituals take place in secret or public home sessions.

The relationship between paganism and Christianity is bad. Contemporary paganism is sometimes associated with the New Age movement, as scholars have noted agreements and differences between them. After the 1990s, researchers in modern paganism established an academic field of study: Pagan Studies.