In a philosophical sense, religion is a specific form of man's awareness of the world and being the main feature of which, advocates faith.Have faith leads to the formation and implementation of special systems of values, norms of thinking and patterns of behavior, which, in turn, contribute to the unification of the people in religious organizations.In this sense, religion manifests itself as a form of social consciousness.World religion - a religion that is widely used in a particular area or among a certain social community, in different countries and on different continents.
In today's world there are three world religions: Buddhism, Christianity and Islam.The main criterion by which to distinguish the world religion of the national or regional, is that they have no direct relationship between ethnic and political cultures and patterns of thought and behavior.World religions, among other things, has had and has a great influence on the course of historical development of whole nations and peoples of other large social groups and communities.
most ancient world religion - Buddhism, whose origin dates back to around the middle of I millennium BC.e.During its existence, this religion has absorbed a lot of variety of local beliefs and teachings.Status of world religion belongs to Buddhism for the reason that it is not only the earliest world religion, but above all because he, as well as other significant spread around the world, breaking the original political, ethnic and cultural boundaries separating one nation from another.Today, the territorial scope of Buddhism stretches from Ceylon to Japan, in addition, constantly evolving process of formation of local Buddhist enclaves around the world.The geographical center of Buddhism is considered to Tibet, where this religion brought high at that time, Indian culture, writing and the basis of civilization.
other world religions - Christianity, which today is the largest mass of world religion, its adherents number more than 2.5 billion people.Christianity arose about the I century in the Middle East - in Palestine, and to date, has spread around the world.At the moment, in any country of the world is Christian communities, and in some countries, Christianity is the state religion.
At the root of Christianity are the tenets of Jewish Old Testament, this is the reason that originally spread among the Jews of Palestine.Then, according to the Bible, because the missionary role of the first apostles, Christianity spread in the Roman Empire, Gaul and among the Slavic peoples.
Modern Christianity is represented by the following directions: Catholicism, Orthodoxy, Protestantism and the Old Catholic Church.The differences between them are rooted in the different interpretations and interpretations of beliefs and rules of rituals.
Another world religion, which is the youngest at the time of occurrence - Islam."Islam" means submission, obedience.In its final form, dogmatic Islam was formed in the VII century, and was reflected in the title of the sacred book of Islam - the Qur'an.
Today, Islam - the fastest growing religion among all the world's religions.The total number of adherents of Islam is about 1.7 billion people.Particularly rapidly growing number of Muslims in Europe and North America.This is facilitated by liberal immigration laws in these regions traditionally high birth rate in Muslim families.
modern world religions coexist is characterized by a complex system of contradictory relations, which largely determine the political and social relations.
