Religion exists in human society since time immemorial, it appeared even before rech.Tak what it represents?Religion - is one of the most important forms part of human culture.It implies a way of life based on the belief in any supernatural forces and moral beliefs associated with them.
Religion - it exists or existed doctrine of the divine.It takes its roots in prehistoric pagan rituals.Then the people needed the gods to explain the essence of natural phenomena.There were also a totemic religion based on the worship of any animal, designed to protect a particular community.They are interesting because of the customs of the tribes once a year prazdenstva on which the totem animal solemnly eats, while for the year it was strictly forbidden.
Along with paganism, implies the worship of visible phenomena of nature, at the end of the previous era in the East began to appear teaching, based on adherence to the universal harmony of things.These include the Indian religions (Hinduism, Buddhism), Japanese Shintoism, Taoism.And in some of them there is no God as such, they are a cross between a religious and philosophical doctrine.Many people are still arguing about whether to rank as Buddhism and Taoism to the world religions.
At the same time, about eight hundred years BC, appear the first writings of Judaism.Religion This is interesting in that its adherents believed in the only "true" God and regarded themselves as the chosen people.Later, some adherents of Judaism separated by organizing a new trend - Christianity.Yet no one teaching had so many directions, as this religion.Orthodoxy, Catholicism, Protestantism, which in turn are divided into smaller branches ... It is true that such a division had already begun in the Middle Ages, when Christianity was a second wave of popularity.At the beginning of our era it was banned and persecuted.Also in the 600 years of the new era in Arab countries, Islam was born, who later also became one of the world's most common beliefs.
most common classification of religions - it is their division into monotheistic and polytheistic.For the first rank teachings that come down to the worship of one God - Islam, Judaism, Hinduism, Christianity.And despite the fact that in the last two god can have various embodiments, it is still considered as a single.In polytheistic religions also often has a huge number of gods.These teachings are paganism, Shintoism, Hinduism, some individual areas.
Currently, there are a number of exercises that adherents believe that religion - it is an imperfect social institution, and deny it.These include atheism apatheism, deism, agnosticism, ignosticism etc.And some of these exercises do not deny the existence of gods and supernatural powers, and could not accept most of the existing religions.As a general rule, citing the fact that religion - is the creation of the human mind.
