Religion

Religion can be defined as a group of faiths related with that that the humanity considers as supernatural, divine and sacred, as well as the group of rituals and moral codes that derive of those faiths.
Etymology Detail of a Bible of the century XVA word Portuguese religion derives of the word Latin religio, but it is ignored to the right that relationships establish religio with other words. Seemingly in the Latin world previous to the birth of the Christianity, religio referred to a style of marked behavior for the rigidity and for the precision.
The word " religion " was used during centuries in the cultural context of Europe, marked by the presence of the Christianity that appropriated of the term Latin religio. In another civilizations an equivalent word doesn't exist. The old Hinduism used the word rita that pointed for the cosmic order of the world, with which everybody be they should be harmonized and that also referred to the correcta execution of the ritos for the Brahman ones. Later, the term was substuído for dharma, term that actualmente is also used by the Buddhism and that expresses the idea of a divine and eternal law.
Historically several etymologies were proposed for the religio origin. Cícero, in its work Of natura deorum, (45 a.C.) he/she affirms that the term refers the relegere, reler, being characteristic of the religious people they pay a lot of attention to everything that linked with the gods, relendo the writings. This proposed etimológica underlines the repetitive carácter of the religious fenómeno, as well as the intellectual aspect. Later, Lactâncio (century III and IV d.C.) it rejects Cícero's interpretation and he/she affirms that the term comes from religare, religar, arguing that the religion is a pity liaison that is good for religar the human beings to God.
In the book " THE City of Deus " Agostinho of Hipona (century IV d.C.) he/she affirms that religio religere drift, reeleger ". Through the religion the humanity reelegia again to God, of which he/she/it had separated. Later, in the work Of vera religione Agostinho retakes the interpretation of Lactâncio, that road in religio a relationship with " religar ".
Macróbio (century V d.C.) it considers that religio relinquere drift, something that was we left by the ancestors.
Independent of the origin, the term is adopted to designate any group of faiths and values that compose the faith certain person or people's group. Each religion inspires certain norms and it motivates certain practices.
Words and Important Concepts Exist terms that are frequently ditos/escritos in the speech Greek, Roman religious person, Jew and Christian. Among them they are: sacred and yours derived (sacrar, sagrar, sacralizar, sacramentar, to execrate), I profane (to profane) and deus(es). The concept of those terms varies plenty according to the time and the religion of who it uses them. However, it is possible to stand out a minimum common to the great part of the concepts attributed to the terms.
The Greek, Roman religious persons, Jews and Christians believe in the existence of a god (Greek and Roman) or of an only god (Jews and Christians), a to be impassive of being felt by the sensor humans and that is capable to provoke events improváveis/impossíveis that can favor or to harm the men. For the religious persons, the things and the actions divide between sacred and profane. Sacred it is that that maintains a ligação/relação with o(s) deus(es). Profane is that that doesn't maintain any connection with o(s) deus(es). For some religious persons, " profane " is a pejorative term, for other no. Already the verb " to profane " (to turn something profane) it is always had as a bad action by the religious persons.
Characteristics of the religions Muslim Pilgrim in Masjid Al-Haram in MecaEmbora each religion presents own elements, it is also possible to establish a series of elements common to the several religions and that can allow a better understanding of the religious fenómeno.
The religions possess great narratives, that explain the beginning of the world or that legitimate its existence. The example more acquaintance is perhaps the narrative of Génesis in the Jewish and Christian tradition. With relationship to the legitimação of the existence and of the validity of a religious system, this appeal to a revelation or the obtaining of a wisdom on the part of a founder, as it happens in the Buddhism, where Buda reached the illumination while he/she meditated under a fig or in the islão, in that Muhammad received the revelation of Koran of God.
The religions tend the local certain sacralizar equally. The reasons for that sacralização are varied, could be related with certain event in the history of the religion (for example, the importance of the Wall of the Lamentations in the Judaism) or because to those places they are associated miraculous events (Catholic sanctuaries of Fátima or of Lourdes). In the old Greek religion, the temples were not local for the religious practice, but yes local where was believed that he/she inhabited the divinity, being that sacred.
The religions establish that certain periods storms are special and dedicated to an interacção with the divine. Those periods can be annual, monthly, weekly or they can uncoil even him along one day. Some religions consider that certain days of the week are sacred (Shabat in the Judaism or Sunday in the Christianity). The religions propose parties or fast periods and meditation that are developed along the year.
History of the study of the religion The first reflections on the religion were made by the old ones Greek and Roman. Xenofonte relativizou the religious fenómeno, arguing that each culture created gods to its likeness. The Greek historian Heródoto described in its Histories the several practices nuns of the people that he/she found during the trips that efectou. Confronted with the existent differences between the Greek religion and the religion of the other people, it tried to identify some gods of the foreign cultures with the Greek gods. The quibbler Protágoras declared to ignore the gods they existed or not, position that had as consequences its expulsion of Athens and burning of all its work. Crítias defended that the religion was good to discipline the human beings and to do with that these stuck to the ideiais of the virtue and of the justice. Júlio César and the Tacit historian described in its works the practices nuns of the people that found during its military conquests.
In the first centuries of the era actual, the Christian authors produced reflections around the religion fruit of the attacks that you/they tried on the part of the pagan authors. These criticized the facto of this religion to be recent when compared with the antiquity of the pagan cults. As answer to this allegation, Eusébio of Cesareia and Agostinho of Hipona showed that the Christianity interfered in the tradition of the writings hebraicas, that you/they told the origin of the world. For the first Christian authors, the humanity was at the beginning monoteísta, but it had been corrupted by the learned politeístas that you/they identified as work of Satan.
During the Medium Age, the thinkers of the Muslim world revealed a deeper knowledge of the religions that the Christian authors. In Europe, Marco Pole's trips allowed to know some aspects of the religions of Asia, even so the vision on the other religions it was limited: the Judaism was condemned by the facto of the Jews they have rejected Jesus as messiah and the islão it was seen as a heresy.
The Renaissance was a cultural and artistic movement that tried to revive the molds of the Antiquity. Like this being, the Greeks' old gods and of the Romans they left of being seen by the intellectual and artistic elite as demónios, being represented and studied by the artists that represented them. Nicolau of Cusa accomplished a study compared between the Christianity and the islão in works as Of pace fidei and Cribatio Alcorani. In Marcílio Ficino he/she meets an interest in studying the sources of the different religions; this author also saw a continuity in the religious thought. Giovanni Pick della Mirândola was interested in the mystic tradition of the Judaism, the Cabal.
The discoveries and the European expansion for the continents had as consequence the exhibition of the Europeans to cultures and religions that were very different from yours. The Christian missionaries accomplished descriptions of the several religions, among which meet the one of Roberto of Nobili and Matteo Ricci, Jesuits that met the cultures of India well and of China, where they lived during years.
In 1724 Joseph François Lafitau, a priest Jesuit, it published the work Moeurs you give sauvages amériquains comparées aux moeurs you give premiers temps in which compared the religions of the Indians, the religion of the Classic Antiquity and the Catholicism, having reached the conclusion that these religions derived of a primordial religion.
In the ends of the century XVIII and in the beginning of the century XIX leaves important of the sacred texts of the religions they had already been translated in the main European languages. In the century XIX also happens the structuring of the anthropology as science, tends several anthropologists if dedicated to the study of the religions of the tribal people. In this time the investigating reflectiram on the origins of the religion, tends some defended an evolutionary outline, in which the animism was the primordial religious form, that later developed for the polytheism and later for the monoteísmo.
Abordagens discipline A witch of CamarõesO scientific study of the religion it is actualmente accomplished by several disciplines of the social and human sciences. The History of the Religions, born in the second half of the century XIX, studies the religion falling back upon the methods of the historical investigation. She studies the cultural and political context in that certain religious tradition emerged.
The Sociology of the Religion analyzes the religions as social fenómenos, trying to unmask her influence in the individual's life and of the community. The Sociology of the Religion has as main names Emile Durkheim, Karl Marx, Ernst Troeltsch, Max Weber and Peter Berger.
The Anthropology, traditionally centered in the study of the people without writing (although its study fields can also be the modern capitalist societies), it developed an area of study of the religion equally, in which was speculated about the origins and functions of the religion. John Lubbock, in the book The Origin of Civilization and the Primitive Condition of Man presented an evolutionary outline of the religion: of the atheism (expert as absence of religious ideas), he/she happens for the xamanismo, the antropomorfismo, the monoteísmo and finally for the ethical monoteísmo. This vision evolucionista was placed in subject by other investigators, like E.B. Taylor that considered the animism as the primitive religion form.
Fenomenologia of the Religion, that derives of Edmund Husserl's philosophy fenomenológica, tries to capture the only side of the religious experience. It uses as main scientific method the observation, explaining the myths, the symbols and the rituals. She tries to understand the religion of the believer's point of view, as well as the value of those faiths in the life of the same. For these reasons it avoids the judgements of values (epoje concept or abandonment of any judgement of value). The main names linked to Fenomenologia of the Religion are Nathan Soderblom, Garardus van gives Leeuw, Rudolf Otto, Friedrich Heiler and Mircea Eliade.
Geographical classification This classification tries to contain the religions with base in geographical approaches, as the concentration in a certain area or the facto of certain religions have been born in the same area of the world. The more categories use they are the following ones: Religions of the Medium East: Judaism, Christianity, islão, zoroastrismo; Religions of the End Guide: Confucianism, Taoism, Buddhism mahayana and xintoísmo; Religions of India: Hinduism, jainismo, Buddhism and siquismo; African Religions: religions of África Black's tribal people; Religions of Oceania: religions of the people of the islands of Pacific, of Australia and of New Zealand; Religions of Old Greece and Rome.
This classification is problematic, because some religions are not limited the one given area (I eat the islão for example) and because some religions are not important actualmente in the geographical area in that originated (example of the Christianity, that although he/she had been born in the Medium East it is today minority in that area of the world).