Meaning of Religion

A religion is an organized approach to human spirituality which usually encompasses a set of narratives, symbols, beliefs and practices, often with a supernatural or transcendent quality, that give meaning to the practitioner's experiences of life through reference to a higher power, God or gods, or ultimate truth. It may be expressed through prayer, ritual, meditation, music and art, among other things. It may focus on specific supernatural, metaphysical, and moral claims about reality, which may yield a set of religious laws, ethics, and a particular lifestyle. Religion also encompasses ancestral or cultural traditions, writings, history, and mythology, as well as personal faith and religious experience.

The term "religion" refers to both the personal practices related to communal faith and to group rituals and communication stemming from shared conviction. "Religion" sometimes used interchangeably with "faith" or "belief system,but it is more socially defined than personal convictions, and it entails specific behaviors, respectively. The development of religion has taken many forms in various cultures. It considers psychological and social roots, along with origins and historical development.

In the frame of western religious thought,religions present a common quality, the "hallmark of patriarchal religious thought": the division of the world in two comprehensive domains, one sacred, the other profane. Religion is often described as a communal system for the coherence of belief focusing on a system of thought, unseen being, person, or object, that is considered to be supernatural, sacred, divine, or of the highest truth. Moral codes, practices, values, institutions, tradition, rituals, and scriptures are often traditionally associated with the core belief, and these may have some overlap with concepts in secular philosophy. Religion is also often described as a "way of life" or a life stance.

Type's of Religion

Religion adds meaning and purpose to the lives of followers, granting them an appreciation of the past, an understanding of the present, and hope for the future. By definition, a religion is a belief system concerning one or more deities and incorporating rituals, ceremonies, ethical guidelines, and life philosophies. Since the early times of Paganism, religion has diversified and grown to include major monotheistic religions like Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, as well as Indian and Far Eastern religions like Buddhism and Sikhism, Iranic religions like Zoroastrianism and Bahai, and African indigenous-based religions like Santeria. Other belief systems, including Atheism and the Mormon Church, have also developed with time. While religion dictates peace and good will, many battles and divisions have taken place because of religion. Religious belief plays an important role in the history of the world. The people of the world could benefit from learning about the different types of religion.

• Taois
• Unitarianism
• Judaism
• Candomble
• Jainism
• Mormons
• Rastafar
• Shinte
• Zoroastrianism
• Christianity
• Islam
• Buddhism
• Hinduism
• BahaiJehovah's
• Paganism
• Paganism,etc are type's of religion

World Religion

Religion is different for different people and cultures. Some religion is so much a part of the culture of a given people that it is not so much a formal religion, but simply the spiritual aspects of that culture or group.

Mrden world

Secularism is a defining characteristic of the "Modern" world - so why is there such an increase in religious belief? With two major religions celebrating holidays, "To the Point" looks at faith in America and other parts of the world. Ever since the Enlightenment, deep thinkers have claimed that modernity would drive out religion, probably by the end of the 20th Century. But since the 1970's, that trend has gone into reverse. magazine's current cover announces “The Decline and Fall of Christian America,” while a recent book is Hinduism, Islam, Judaism, Christianity, Confucianism, Buddhism, Taoism... Huston Smith handles each of these religions with such care and understanding one truly believes they are reading the words of a believer of each and not an outside observer. This book is wonderful for the numerous proverbs and wisdom of each religion alone, but it is an invaluable reference for anyone who wants a broader understanding of world religion. Each religion is covered simply and broadly, but with enough depth and feeling to give a reader a true sense of understanding. I cannot recommend this book highly enough.entitled God Is Back. The contrast illustrates the worldwide tension between secularism in modern political life and the growing prevalence of religious belief. Free-market thinking has some people shopping between denominations. Some traditionalists threatened by the secular world go to extremes. Do religions compete for believers? Which one is likely to win? Why is Osama bin Laden's al Qaeda such a "Modern" phenomenon? geographical area.

Hinduism, Islam, Judaism, Christianity, Confucianism, Buddhism, Taoism... Huston Smith handles each of these religions with such care and understanding one truly believes they are reading the words of a believer of each and not an outside observer. This book is wonderful for the numerous proverbs and wisdom of each religion alone, but it is an invaluable reference for anyone who wants a broader understanding of world religion. Each religion is covered simply and broadly, but with enough depth and feeling to give a reader a true sense of understanding. I cannot recommend this book highly enough.

Religion in Europe

Religion in Europe has been a major influence on art, culture, philosophy and law. The largest religion in Europe for at least a millenium and a half has been Christianity.A number of countries in Southern Europe have Muslim majorities. Smaller religions include Judaism, Buddhism, Sikhism, and Hinduism which are found in their largest groups in Britain and France.

Europeans, religion just isn't as important as it once was. Even for those who do consider themselves religious, they often aren't Christian. And, for those who are still Christian, they often disagree with many traditional and orthodox doctrines. This has lead to all sorts of internal and international problems because no other region has experienced this level of secularization. Christianity has boomed in the developing world, competing successfully with Islam, deepening its influence and possibly finding its future there. But Europe already seems more and more like a series of tourist-trod monuments to Christianity's past. Hardly a month goes by when the pope does not publicly bemoan that fact, beseeching Europeans to rediscover the faith. Their estrangement has deep implications, including the prospect of schisms in intercontinental churches and political frictions within and between countries. The secularization of Europe, according to some political analysts, is one of the forces pushing it apart from the United States, where religion plays a potent role in politics and society, shaping many Americans' views of the world.

Christianity's greatest hope in Europe may in fact be immigrants from the developing world, who in many cases learned the religion from European missionaries, adapted it to their own needs and tastes, then toted it back to the Continent. A recent report by Christian Research, a British group, determined that blacks and, to a lesser extent, Asians represent more than half the churchgoers in central London on a given Sunday, though they represent less than a quarter of the area's population. ... Even in Italy, where 33 percent of respondents described religion as "very important," the percentage of Italians who go to church every week is as low as 15 and no higher than 33, according to various polls.

An important factor in why this is happening in Europe but not America seems likely to be the separation of church and state that exists in the United States. Here, no one church or religion has been able to use the power of the government to maintain a monopoly over the people. In Europe, however, that's just what happened and disillusionment over established political institutions has translated into disillusionment over religious institutions as well. You can find religiosity thriving in Europe.

Religion in Asia

Asia is the world's largest and most populous continent, with millions of different peoples following a wide variety of different religions. Asia was the birthplace of most of the world's mainstream religions including Hinduism, Judaism, Buddhism, Sikhism, Confucianism, Taoism, Christianity, and Islam, Jainism, as well as m

South Asia

This bibliography offers a selection of print resources for the study of religion in South Asia. All works listed are part of the collection of the UW-Madison library system. For electronic resources, please go to SARAI (South Asia Resource Access on the Internet). In this bibliography South Asia has been defined as Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Nepal, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, and Tibet. The religions treated are Buddhism, Christianity, Hinduism, Islam, Jainism, Judaism, Sikhism, and Zoroastrianism. A ninth section, Comparative Religions, lists works about two or more of these religions.
The literature on the study of religion in South Asia is vast. It must be emphasized that this bibliography is by no means comprehensive. The bibliography is selective both in terms of topics selected for coverage, and in works chosen to represent each topic. Among the major subject exclusions are the religions of South Asian tribes, and the disciplines of archaeology, diaspora studies, philosophy, and study of language. In addition, the list of works chosen for the bibliography is very much selective. Aids in the selection process included book reviews, the annotated entries in the World Bibliographical series, and other selected bibliographies. A number of books, unscreened either through reviews or select bibliographies, are included. Some of these works are too recent to have been reviewed. Others were chosen, in the absence of reviewed works, to represent a particular subject, judged important for inclusion in the bibliography. In the case of unreviewed works, those written by prominent scholars and published by prestigious publishers, especially university presses, were favored.
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Religion in Nepal

Nepal was formerly the world's only constitutionally declared Hindu state, but following the movement for democracy in early 2006 and the breaking of King Gyanendra's power, the Nepali Parliament amended the constitution to make Nepal a secular state.
According to the 2001 census, 80.6 percent of Nepalese are Hindu, 10.7 percent are Buddhist, 4.2 are Muslim, 3.6 percent are Kirat, 0.5 percent are Christian, and 0.4 percent are classified as other groups. Although the population is mostly Hindu, since the 1971 census Hindus have shown the greatest decline as a proportion of the population, and Buddhists and Kirats have increased the most: in 1971 Hindus were 89.4 percent of the population, Buddhists 7.5 percent, and Kirats statistically 0 percent. However, statistics on religious groups are complicated by the ubiquity of dual faith practices, particularly among Hindus and Buddhists. Moreover, shifts in the population's religious composition also reflect political changes.

The geographical distribution of religious groups in the early 1990s revealed a preponderance of Hindus, accounting for at least 87 percent of the population in every region. The largest concentrations of Buddhists were found in the eastern hills, the Kathmandu Valley, and the central Tarai; in each area about 10 percent of the people were Buddhist. Buddhism was relatively more common among the Newar and Tibeto-Nepalese groups. Among the Tibeto-Nepalese, those most influenced by Hinduism were the Magar, Sunwar, and Rai peoples. Hindu influence was less prominent

Buddhism in Nepal

Buddhist influences are evident in the culture of Nepal because Buddha was born in Nepal.It has strong Buddhist background and has played role in spread of Buddhism to Tibet. Nepalese princess Bhrikuti played a significant role in development of Buddhism in Tibet and Far East. Tibetan Buddhist architecture has long been influenced by Nepalese artists and sculptors like Araniko. The sacred Buddhist texts in Mahayana Buddhism are mainly written in Ranjana script (the script of Newars) or scripts like Lantsa which are derived from Ranjana.
Among the Tibeto-Burman tribes, Tibetan Buddhism is the most widely practised form. Newar practice Newar variant of Vajrayana Buddhism and Theravada Buddhism. Many Buddhist groups are also influenced by Hinduism.

Buddhism is the dominant religion of the thinly-populated northern areas, which are inhabited by Tibetan-related peoples, namely the Sherpa, Lopa, Manangi, Thakali, Lhomi, Dolpa and Nyimba. They constitute a small minority of the country's population.
Ethnic groups that live in central Nepal, such as Gurung, Lepcha, Tamang, Magar, Newar, Yakkha, Thami and Chepang, are also followers of Buddhism. These ethnic groups have larger populations compared to their northern neighbours. They came under the influence of Hinduism due to their close contacts with the Hindu castes. In turn, many of them eventually adopted Hinduism and have been largely integrated into the caste system.
The Kirant tribes, especially the Limbu and the Rai, have also adopted Tibetan Buddhist practises from their Buddhist neighbours. The Jirel, which is considered a Kirata tribe, have also adopted Tibetan Buddhism

Hinduism in Nepal

Nepal is said to be the only remaining Hindu kingdom in the world. When a Nepali travels to the Hindi belt of India, he is applauded for being a subject of the one remaining Hindu rastra . Yet, the Hindu-ness so boldly inserted in the Constitution of Nepal (1990) is elusive at best, for it is impossible to delineate the Hindu character of Nepal, aside from the fact that an overwhelming majority of the population happens to be 'Hindu'in the loose sense of the term.

Just as to be a truly Islamic state, the Khalif should govern on the basis of the Shariat, to be a proper Hindu kingdom, the king must rule on the basis of the dharmashastras, the religious texts. Up until 1963, formally at least, the Nepali state did uphold Hindu jurisprudence. But that was dropped with the promulgation of the new civil code in 1964. Today, the law that is meted out is not Hindu law but common law derived in the main from local customs.
The most distinctive Hindu practice caste is conspicuous by its absence in the Nepali legal system. Therefore, the Hindu-ness of the Nepali state today, is like an Islamic state without the Shariat—essentially a window-dressing that has been retained for political reasons. In the absence of the legal backing of the caste system, the modern Nepali state has sought to project its Hindu character by imposing a ban on cow slaughter, sponsoring broadcast of religious programmes in the state radio and TV, declaring a few Hindu festivals as national holidays, and clamping down on proselytisation. In reality, however, Nepal is a secular state, with the most genuine Hindu institution of state being the monarchy.

So Hindusium is the major religion of Nepal. In the 2001 census, approximately 80.6 percent of the Nepalese people identified themselves as Hindus. Buddhists and Muslims comprised 10.7 and 4.2 percent, respectively. The remainder followed other religions, including Christianity. The national calendar of Nepal, Bikram Sambat, is a solar Hindu calendar essentially the same to that widespread in North India as a religious calendar, and is based on Vedic principles of time-keeping.So hindisum is major religion in Nepal.