Religion has existed in human society since time immemorial, it appeared even earlier than speech. So what is it? Religion is one of the most important forming parts of human culture. It implies a way of life based on the belief in any supernatural forces and the moral beliefs associated with them.
Religion is all existing or existed teachings about the divine. It takes its roots in prehistoric pagan rituals. Then people needed gods to explain the essence of natural phenomena. There were also totemistic religions based on the worship of some animal, designed to protect this or that community. They are interesting in that, according to the customs of the tribes, festivities were held once a year, at which the totem animal was solemnly eaten, while during the year it was strictly prohibited.
Along with paganism, which meant the worship of visible natural phenomena, at the end of the previous era in the countries of the East began to appear teachings based on the pursuit of the universal harmony of things. These include Indian religions (Hinduism, Buddhism), Japanese Shintoism, Taoism. Moreover, in some of them there is no deity as such, and theyare a cross between religion and philosophy. Many are still arguing whether Buddhism and Taoism should be considered world religions.
At the same time, about eight hundred years before our era, the first writings of Judaism appear. This religion is interesting because its adherents believed in the only "true" god and considered themselves the chosen people. Later, part of the adherents of Judaism separated, organizing a new trend - Christianity. No other teaching has had as many directions as this religion. Orthodoxy, Catholicism, Protestantism, which in turn are divided into smaller branches … True, such a division began already in the Middle Ages, when Christianity was on the second wave of popularity. At the beginning of our era, it was forbidden and persecuted. Also in the 600s of the new era, Islam was born in the Arab countries, which later also became one of the most widespread world creeds.
The most common classification of religions is their division into monotheistic and polytheistic. The first include teachings that boil down to the worship of one god - Islam, Judaism, Hinduism, Christianity. And despite the fact that in the last two God can have different incarnations, he is still considered one. In polytheistic religions, there are often a huge number of gods. Such teachings include paganism, Shintoism, some separate areas of Hinduism.
Currently, there are a number of teachings, adherents of which believe that religion -it is an imperfect social institution, and they deny it. These include atheism, apatheism, deism, agnosticism, gnosticism, and so on. Moreover, some of these teachings do not deny the existence of gods and supernatural forces, but simply do not accept most of the existing religions. As a rule, motivating this by the fact that religion is a creation of the human mind.
