All people have heard the word "religion", many belong to one or another religious denomination. However, few people know and can explain what religion is.
This term is very closely related to such concepts as "faith" and "God". Based on this, we can define what religion is. This is such a form of consciousness and a set of spiritual ideas and emotional experiences, which is based on the belief in some supernatural beings and forces (spirits, gods, angels, demons, demons, and others), which are the objects and subjects of cult and worship. Summarizing, we can say what religion is in simple terms. This term refers to the worship of certain gods.
However, in order to fully reveal this complex issue (about what religion is), you need to turn to history and understand the role of religion in society and the development of human civilization.
Even at the dawn of human development, people could not explain how certain natural processes occur. Therefore, they preferred to consider flood, drought, thunder, lightning, sunrise and sunset as the actions of certain evil or good gods and supernatural beings. Over time, specially trained people appeared - shamans, priests, druids, brahmins, whowere able to communicate with manifestations of the other world, gods and spirits. Their main task was to predict lean or fruitful years, wars, natural disasters, as well as appeasing certain supernatural beings. Each phenomenon had its own god. War, thunder, sun and so on had patrons. Beliefs in the multiplicity of gods have names such as polytheism or paganism.
Gradually, with the development of civilization and society, the need for a huge amount of supernatural powers began to disappear. People have an idea of unity. This belief in one God is called monotheism. In the history of religion, it is believed that the first in this matter were the Jews, who believed in a single god, Yahweh. There were some attempts to introduce monotheism in Egypt in the form of a cult of a single patron of sunlight - Amon Ra, but such attempts were unsuccessful. This is where the question of what a monotheistic religion comes into play. Such a trend was not only religious, but also political and social in nature. The development of monotheism required the unification of disparate tribes and territories into one single state. However, each tribe, each village and community had its own beliefs and gods. Politically, belief in one god could rally and unite people. And so the pagan priests became priests, rituals turned into sacraments, spells turned into prayers.
There are three main world religious denominations: Buddhism, Islam andChristianity. They were called the main ones due to the large number of their followers - believers. However, judging by the definition of the term explaining what religion is, this would not be entirely true. The same Buddhism, in fact, is not a specific religion, since it is more a teaching and belief in certain dogmas and forces of nature, and not in one single god. But Christianity, on the contrary, was transformed into a religion from doctrine. Currently, the so-called "neopaganism" is gaining popularity - attempts to revive the polytheistic, pagan religions of the past.
