All world religions, with the exception of Buddhism, originate from a relatively small corner of the planet, located between the deserted shores of the Mediterranean, Red and Caspian seas. From here come Christianity, Islam, Judaism and the now almost extinct Zoroastrianism.

Christianity. The most widespread of the world's religions is Christianity, with 1.6 billion followers. Christianity retains its strongest position in Europe, America and Australia.

Christianity appeared at the beginning of our era as a development of biblical wisdom that had been created over the previous 2000 years. The Bible teaches us to understand and realize the meaning of life. Biblical thinking attaches decisive importance to the issue of life and death, the end of the world.

Jesus Christ preached the ideas of brotherhood, hard work, non-covetousness and love of peace. The service of wealth was condemned and the superiority of spiritual values ​​over material values ​​was proclaimed.

First Ecumenical Council, who gathered in Nicaea in 325, laid the dogmatic foundations of the One Holy Catholic Apostolic Church for many centuries to come.

Christianity adopted the view of the “inseparable and inseparable” union of two natures in Jesus Christ - divine and human. In the 5th century supporters of Archbishop Nestor were condemned, who recognized the basic human nature of Christ (later separated into Nestorians), and followers of Archimandrite Eutyches, who argued that in Jesus Christ there is only one divine nature. Supporters of the one nature of Jesus Christ began to be called Monophysites. Adherents of monophysics make up a certain proportion among modern Orthodox Christians.

The main schism occurred in 1054 christian church to Eastern ( Orthodox center in Constantinople (now Istanbul) and Western (Catholic) with its center in the Vatican. This division runs through the entire history of the world.

Orthodoxyestablished itself mainly among the peoples of Eastern Europe and the Middle East. Largest number adherents of Orthodoxy - Russians, Ukrainians, Belarusians, Greeks, Romanians, Serbs, Macedonians, Moldovans, Georgians, Karelians, Komi, peoples of the Volga region (Mari, Mordovians, Udmurts, Chuvash). There are pockets of Orthodoxy in the USA, Canada, and a number of Western European countries.

A tragic split occurred in the history of Russian Orthodoxy, which led to the emergence of the Old Believers. The origins of the schism go back to the years of the adoption of Christianity by Russia. In those days, two closely related statutes dominated in Byzantium, according to which the rite of worship was carried out. In the east of Byzantium, the most widespread was the Jerusalem Charter, and in the west the Studian (Constantinople) Charter prevailed. The latter became the basis of the Russian charter, while in Byzantium the Jerusalem Charter (St. Sava) increasingly became predominant. From time to time, certain innovations were introduced into the Jerusalem Rule, so that it began to be called modern Greek.

Russian Church until the middle of the 17th century. conducted the ritual according to the archaic Studite Rule with two-fingered baptism, preserving Orthodoxy in the highest purity. Many Orthodox peoples looked at Moscow as a spiritual center.

Outside the Russian state, including in Ukraine, church ceremonies were carried out according to the modern Greek model. Since the union of Ukraine and Russia in 1654, Kyiv begins to exert a huge influence on the spiritual life of Moscow. Under its influence, Moscow begins to turn away from antiquity and accepts new image life, more pleasing to Kyiv. Patriarch Nikon introduces new ranks and rituals. The icons are updated according to Kyiv and Lviv models. Patriarch Nikon edits Church Slavonic liturgical books according to modern Greek editions of the Italian press.

In 1658, Nikon founded the New Jerusalem Monastery and the city of New Jerusalem near Moscow, according to his plan, the future capital of the Christian world.

As a result of Nikon's reforms, six major innovations were introduced into the canon. The two-fingered sign of the cross was replaced by a three-fingered sign, instead of “Jesus” it was ordered to write and pronounce “Jesus”, during the sacraments it was ordered to walk around the temple against the sun.

The introduction of non-Orthodox veneration of the king placed him above religious spiritual dominion. This reduced the role of the church in the state, reducing it to the position of the Church Prikaz (prikaz, this is a kind of ministry in Russia at that time). Many believers perceived Nikon's reforms as a deep tragedy, secretly professed the old faith, went to torment for it, burned themselves, went into forests and swamps. The fateful year of 1666 led to a catastrophic split of the Russian people into those who accepted new rite and those who rejected him. The latter retained the name “Old Believers”.

Catholicism is the other main branch of Christianity.It is common in Northern and South America. Catholics include Italians, Spaniards, Portuguese, some French, most of Belgians, some Austrians and Germans (southern lands of Germany), Poles, Lithuanians, Croats, Slovenes, most Hungarians, Irish, some Ukrainians (in the form of Uniatism or Greek Catholicism). A major center of Catholicism in Asia is the Philippines (the influence of Spanish colonization). There are many Catholics in the countries of Africa, Australia, and Oceania.

Western Catholic Church boldly discarded the old ones and came up with new rituals that were closer in spirit to the Europeans and their ideas about the world as a space calling for conquest. Expansionism and enrichment of the church were dogmatically justified. The speeches of non-Catholics and heretics were brutally suppressed. The result was continuous wars, massive repressions of the Inquisition and a decline in the authority of the Catholic Church.

In the XIV-XV centuries. ideas of humanism and renaissance arose in Europe. During the Reformation of the 16th century. Protestantism separated from Catholicism. Protestantism, which arose in Germany, was formed in the form of several independent movements, the most important of which were Anglicanism (closest to Catholicism), Lutheranism and Calvinism. From Protestant churches New movements were formed that were sectarian in nature, their number currently exceeds 250. Thus, Methodism spun off from Anglicanism, and the Salvation Army, organized on a military scale, is closely associated with Methodism. Baptism is genetically related to Calvinism. Pentecostal sects emerged from Baptistism, and the Jehovah's Witnesses sect also separated. Mormons of non-Christian confession occupy a special place in the Protestant environment.

The stronghold of Protestantism is Northern and Central Europe. In the United States, about 64% of the population is Protestant. The largest group of American Protestants are Baptists, followed by Methodists, Lutherans, and Presbyterians. In Canada and South Africa, Protestants make up about half the population. There are many adherents of Protestantism in Nigeria. Protestantism predominates in Australia and most countries in Oceania. Certain forms of this branch of Christianity (especially Baptism and Adventism) are common in Russia and Ukraine.

The founder of Protestantism, the Catholic monk M. Luther, came out with demands to limit the excessive power of the church and calls for hard work and frugality. At the same time, he argued that the salvation of the human soul and deliverance from sins is accomplished by God himself, and not by human forces. The Calvinist Reformation went even further. According to Calvin, God pre-eternally chose some people for salvation and others for destruction, regardless of their will. Over time, these ideas turned into a revision of Christian dogmas. Calvinism turned out to be imbued with an anti-Christian denial of asceticism and the desire to replace it with a cult natural man. Protestantism has become the ideological justification of capitalism, the deification of Progress, and the fetishization of money and goods. Protestantism, like no other religion, reinforces the dogma of the conquest of nature, which was later adopted by Marxism.

Islam the youngest world religion. Islam dates back to 622 AD. e., when the Prophet Muhammad and his followers moved from Mecca to Medina and the Bedouin Arab tribes began to join him.

Traces of Christianity and Judaism can be seen in the teachings of Muhammad. Islam recognizes Moses and Jesus Christ as the penultimate prophet as prophets, but places them below Muhammad.

In private life, Muhammad prohibited pork, alcoholic beverages and gambling. Wars are not rejected by Islam and are even encouraged if they are fought for faith (holy war of jihad).

All the foundations and rules of the Muslim religion are united in the Koran. Explanations and interpretations of obscure passages of the Koran made by Muhammad were recorded by his close people and Muslim theologians and compiled a collection of traditions known as the sunnah. Later, Muslims who recognized the Koran and the Sunnah began to be called Sunnis, and Muslims who recognized only one Koran, and of the Sunnah only sections based on the authority of the prophet’s relatives, were called Shiites. This division still exists today.

Religious dogma formed the basis of Islamic law, Sharia - a set of legal and religious norms based on the Koran.

Sunnis make up about 90% of Muslims. Shiism predominates in Iran and southern Iraq. In Bahrain, Yemen, Azerbaijan and mountainous Tajikistan, half the population is Shiite.

Sunnism and Shiism gave rise to a number of sects. From Sunnism came Wahhabism, which is dominant in Saudi Arabia, spreading among the Chechens and some peoples of Dagestan. The main Shiite sects were Zaydism and Ismailism, influenced by atheism and Buddhism.

In Oman, the third branch of Islam, Ibadism, has become widespread, whose followers are called Ibadis.

Buddhism. The oldest of the world's religions is Buddhism, which arose in the middle of the 1st millennium BC. e. in India. After more than 15 centuries of dominance in India, Buddhism gave way to Hinduism. However, Buddhism spread widely throughout the countries South-East Asia, penetrated into Sri Lanka, China, Korea, Japan, Tibet, Mongolia. The number of Buddhist adherents is estimated at approximately 500 million people.

In Buddhism, all the social and moral dogmas of Hinduism are preserved, but the requirements of caste and asceticism are weakened. Buddhism pays more attention to current life.

At the beginning of the first millennium, Buddhism split into two major branches. The first of them - Theravada, or Hinayana - requires believers to undergo mandatory monasticism. Its adherents - Theravadins - live in Myanmar, Laos, Cambodia and Thailand (about 90% of the population of these countries), as well as in Sri Lanka (about 60%).

Another branch of Buddhism - Mahayana - admits that lay people can also be saved. Mahayana followers are concentrated in China (including Tibet), Japan, Korea, and Nepal. There are some Buddhists in Pakistan, India, and among Chinese and Japanese immigrants to the Americas.

Judaism. Judaism can be classified among the world religions with a certain degree of convention. This is the national religion of the Jews, which arose in Palestine in the 1st century. BC e. Most adherents are concentrated in Israel (the official religion of the state), the USA, European countries and Russia.

Judaism retained the ideas of brotherhood and mutual assistance from the Egyptian religion with the ideas of righteousness and sinfulness, heaven and hell. New dogmas responded to the unity of the Jewish tribes and the increase in their belligerence. The sources of the beliefs of this religion are Old Testament(recognized by later Christianity) and the Talmud (“commentaries” on the Old Testament books).

National religions. Most common national religions are the religions of India. What is noteworthy is the introversion of Indian religions, their focus on such an internal and spiritual connection that opens up wide opportunities for self-improvement, creates a feeling of freedom, bliss, humility, dedication, tranquility, and is capable of compressing and collapsing the phenomenal world until a complete coincidence of the world essence and the human soul.

Religion of China consisted of several parts. The earliest beliefs are those associated with agriculture, developed in the 7th millennium BC. They believed that there was nothing higher than in which a country man finds peace and beauty. About 3.5 thousand years ago, previous beliefs were supplemented by the cult of veneration of great ancestors - sages and heroes. These cults were embodied in Confucianism, formulated by the philosopher Confucius, or Kung Fu Tzu (551-479 BC).

The ideal of Confucianism was the perfect man - modest, selfless, with self-esteem and love for people. The social order in Confucianism is one in which everyone acts in the interests of the people, represented by the extended family. The goal of every Confucian is moral self-improvement, respectful respect for elders, honoring parents and family traditions.

At one time, Brahmanism and Buddhism penetrated into China. On the basis of Brahmanism, almost simultaneously with Confucianism, the doctrine of Taoism arose. Internally connected with Taoism is Chan Buddhism, which spread in Japan under the name Zen Buddhism. Together with Taoism and Confucianism, Chinese religions have developed into a worldview, the main features of which are the worship of the family (ancestors, descendants, home) and a poetic perception of nature, the desire to enjoy life and its beauty (S. Myagkov, 2002, N. Kormin, 1994 G.).

Religion of Japan. From about the 5th century. AD The Japanese became acquainted with the wisdom of India and China, adopted a Buddhist-Taoist attitude towards the world, which did not contradict their primordial faith, Shintoism, the belief that everything is full of spirits, gods (ka-mi), and therefore deserves a reverent attitude. Main feature What transformed Japanese Shinto under the Chinese influence was that it, like Taoism, does not teach goodness and does not expose evil, for “the tangled threads of happiness and misfortune cannot be separated.” The eradicated evil will inevitably emerge in such vigorous growth that the world builder did not even suspect about it. The Japanese perceive their homeland as the sacred property of the nation, which is in the temporary care of the living for transmission to descendants. Several million Japanese are adherents of Shintoism (T. Grigorieva, 1994).

Zoroastrianism distributed mainly in India (Parsis), Iran (Gebras) and Pakistan.

In addition to the major religions, there are dozens of local traditional beliefs in the world, mainly in the form of fetishism, animism and shamanism. There are especially many of them in Africa, primarily in Guinea-Bissau, Sierra Leone, Liberia, Ivory Coast, Burkina Faso, Togo, and Benin.

In Asia, followers of tribal cults predominate only in East Timor, but are also common on the islands of western Oceania and among the peoples of Northern Russia (shamanism).

Knowledge begins with a question. Since childhood, comprehending the basics of knowledge, people seek their personal path to God. Everyone longs for spiritual light. They want to know the fundamental truths, concepts, sacraments, the essence of worship services, rituals. There are many questions! But there are also answers.

How many religions are there in the world

About five thousand religions are known to science. Largest quantity Several world religions have adherents.

Christianity. Followers of Jesus Christ are united in more than 100 churches, movements and sects. These are Eastern Catholic churches. Old Catholicism. Protestantism. Orthodoxy. Spiritual Christianity. Sect. It is the largest world religion both in terms of the number of adherents, of which there are about 2.1 billion, and in terms of geographical distribution - almost every country in the world has at least one Christian community.

Islam is divided into 7 movements: Sunnis, Shiites, Ismailis, Kharijites, Sufism, Salafis (Wahhabism in Saudi Arabia), radical Islamists. Followers of Islam are called Muslims. Muslim communities exist in more than 120 countries and, according to various sources, unite up to 1.5 billion people.

Buddhism consists of three main and many local schools: Theravada - the most conservative school of Buddhism; Mahayana - the latest form of development of Buddhism; Vajrayana – occult modification of Buddhism (Lamaism); Shingon-shu is one of the main Buddhist schools of Japan, belonging to the Vajrayana movement. Estimates of the number of followers of Buddhism range from 350 to 500 million. According to the Buddha, “all that we are is the result of our thoughts, the mind is everything.”

Judaism is divided into 11 movements: Orthodox Judaism, Litvaks, Hasidism, Orthodox modernism, religious Zionism, Conservative Judaism, Reform Judaism, Reconstructionist Judaism, the movement of humanistic Judaism, Renovationist Judaism of Rabbi Michael Lerner, Messianic Judaism. Has up to 14 million followers.

Hinduism. A religion that originated in the Indian subcontinent. The historical name of Hinduism in Sanskrit is Sanatana Dharma, which means “eternal religion”, “ eternal path"or "eternal law." It has its roots in the Vedic civilization, which is why it is called the world's oldest religion. 1 billion followers.

The privileged caste is the Brahmins. Only they alone could be ministers of the cult.

Confucianism. Formally, Confucianism never had the institution of a church, but in terms of its significance, the degree of penetration into the soul and education of the consciousness of the people, it successfully played the role of a religion. In Imperial China, Confucianism was the philosophy of learned thinkers. Over 1 billion followers.

African traditional religions. Practiced by approximately 15% of Africans, they include a variety of concepts of fetishism, animism, totemism and ancestor worship. Some religious ideas are common to many African ethnic groups, but usually they are unique to each ethnic group. Has 100 million followers.

Shintoism– traditional religion Japan. Forms of Shinto: temple, imperial court, state, sectarian, folk and home. Only about 3 million Japanese turned out to be ardent supporters of Shintoism, who gave preference to this particular religion.

Voodoo. The general name for religious beliefs that emerged among the descendants of black slaves taken from Africa to South and Central America.

Essay

World religions (Buddhism, Christianity, Islam), their brief characteristics

INTRODUCTION

...There is God, there is peace, they live forever,

And people's lives are instantaneous and miserable,

But a person contains everything within himself,

Who loves the world and believes in God.

By the end of the second millennium of modern civilization, all five billion people living on earth believe. Some believe in God, others believe that He does not exist; still others believe in progress, justice, reason. Faith is the most important part of a person’s worldview, his life position, belief, ethical and moral rule, norm and custom, according to which - more precisely, within which - he lives: acts, thinks and feels.

Faith is a universal property of human nature. Observing and comprehending the world and himself in it, man realized that he was surrounded not by chaos, but by an ordered universe, obeying the so-called laws of nature. To communicate with the invisible world, a person resorts to the help of a “mediator” - an object, a symbol, endowed with a special property - to serve as a container for invisible power. Thus, the ancient Greeks worshiped a rough, knotty log that personified one of the goddesses. The ancient Egyptians revered the powerful goddess Bastet in the form of a cat. A modern African tribe, discovered relatively recently, worshiped the propeller of an airplane that once fell from the sky onto their lands.

Faith accepts the most various shapes, these forms are called religion. Religion (from lat. religion- connection) is the worldview and behavior of people based on belief in the existence of one or many gods. The idea of ​​the existence of God is the central point of the religious worldview. In Hinduism, for example, there are thousands of gods, in Judaism - one, but the basis of both religions is faith. Religious consciousness comes from the belief that, along with real world

there is another - a higher, supernatural, sacred world. And this allows us to assume that the external diversity and diversity of cults, rituals, and philosophies of numerous religious systems are based on some common ideological ideas. There have been and still exist many different religions. They are divided by their belief in many gods - polytheism , and by faith in one God - monotheism . They also differ , tribal religions national (for example, Confucianism in China) and world religions , common in different countries and unifying great amount believers. World religions traditionally include ,Buddhism Christianity And Islam . According to the latest data in modern world

There are about 1,400 million Christians, about 900 million adherents of Islam, about 300 million Buddhists. In total, this is almost half of the Earth's inhabitants. Give brief description

I will try to follow these religions in my work. Buddhism is the oldest of the world's religions, which received its name from the name, or rather from the honorary title, of its founder Buddha, which means “ Enlightened " Buddha Shakyamuni ( sage from the Shakya tribe

If we try to imagine this religion from a bird’s eye view, we will see a motley patchwork of trends, schools, sects, subsects, religious parties and organizations.

Buddhism has absorbed many diverse traditions of the peoples of those countries that fell into its sphere of influence, and also determined the way of life and thoughts of millions of people in these countries. Most adherents of Buddhism now live in South, Southeast, Central and East Asia: Sri Lanka, India, Nepal, Bhutan, China, Mongolia, Korea, Vietnam, Japan, Cambodia, Myanmar (formerly Burma), Thailand and Laos. In Russia, Buddhism is traditionally practiced by Buryats, Kalmyks and Tuvans.

Buddhism was and remains a religion that accepts different shapes depending on where it is distributed. Chinese Buddhism is a religion that speaks to believers in the language of Chinese culture and national ideas about the most important values ​​of life. Japanese Buddhism is a synthesis of Buddhist ideas, Shinto mythology, Japanese culture, etc.

Buddhists themselves count down the existence of their religion from the death of the Buddha, but among them there is no consensus about the years of his life. According to the tradition of the oldest Buddhist school - Theravada, Buddha lived from b24 to 544 BC. e. According to the scientific version, the life of the founder of Buddhism is from 566 to 486 BC. e. Some areas of Buddhism adhere to later dates: 488-368. BC e. The birthplace of Buddhism is India (more precisely, the Ganges Valley). Society Ancient India was divided into varnas (classes): brahmans (the highest class of spiritual mentors and priests), kshatriyas (warriors), vaishyas (merchants) and sudras (serving all other classes). Buddhism for the first time addressed a person not as a representative of any class, clan, tribe or a certain gender, but as an individual (unlike the followers of Brahmanism, the Buddha believed that women, on an equal basis with men, are capable of achieving the highest spiritual perfection). For Buddhism, only personal merit was important in a person. Thus, the word “Brahman” is used by the Buddha to call any noble and wise man regardless of its origin.

Buddha's biography reflects fate real person framed by myths and legends, which over time almost completely pushed aside the historical figure of the founder of Buddhism. More than 25 centuries ago, in one of the small states in northeast India, a son, Siddhartha, was born to King Shuddhodana and his wife Maya. His family name was Gautama. The prince lived in luxury, without worries, eventually started a family and, probably, would have succeeded his father on the throne if fate had not decreed otherwise.

Having learned that there are diseases, old age and death in the world, the prince decided to save people from suffering and went in search of a recipe for universal happiness. In the area of ​​​​Gaya (it is still called Bodh Gaya) he achieved Enlightenment, and the path to the salvation of humanity was revealed to him. This happened when Siddhartha was 35 years old. In the city of Benares, he delivered his first sermon and, as Buddhists say, “turned the wheel of Dharma” (as the teachings of the Buddha are sometimes called). He traveled with sermons in cities and villages, he had disciples and followers who were going to listen to the instructions of the Teacher, whom they began to call Buddha. At the age of 80, Buddha died. But even after the death of the Teacher, the disciples continued to preach his teaching throughout India. They created monastic communities where this teaching was preserved and developed. These are the facts of the real biography of Buddha - the man who became the founder of a new religion.

Mythological biography is much more complex. According to legends, the future Buddha was reborn a total of 550 times (83 times as a saint, 58 as a king, 24 as a monk, 18 as a monkey, 13 as a merchant, 12 as a chicken, 8 as a goose, 6 as an elephant; in addition, as a fish, rat, carpenter, blacksmith, frog, hare, etc.). This was until the gods decided that the time had come for him, born in the guise of a man, to save the world, mired in the darkness of ignorance. The birth of Buddha into a kshatriya family was his last birth. That is why he was called Siddhartha (He who has achieved the goal). The boy was born with thirty-two signs of a “great man” (golden skin, a wheel sign on the foot, wide heels, a light circle of hair between the eyebrows, long fingers, long earlobes, etc.). A wandering ascetic astrologer predicted that a great future awaited him in one of two spheres: either he would become a powerful ruler, capable of establishing righteous order on earth, or he would be a great hermit. Mother Maya did not take part in raising Siddhartha - she died (and according to some legends, she retired to heaven so as not to die from admiring her son) shortly after his birth. The boy was raised by his aunt. The prince grew up in an atmosphere of luxury and prosperity. The father did everything possible to prevent the prediction from coming true: he surrounded his son with wonderful things, beautiful and carefree people, and created an atmosphere of eternal celebration so that he would never know about the sorrows of this world. Siddhartha grew up, got married at the age of 16, and had a son, Rahula. But the father's efforts were in vain. With the help of his servant, the prince managed to secretly escape from the palace three times. For the first time he met a sick person and realized that beauty is not eternal and there are ailments in the world that disfigure a person. The second time he saw the old man and realized that youth is not eternal. For the third time he watched a funeral procession, which showed him the fragility of human life.

Siddhartha decided to look for a way out of the trap illness - old age - death. According to some versions, he also met a hermit, which led him to think about the possibility of overcoming the suffering of this world by leading a solitary and contemplative lifestyle. When the prince decided on the great renunciation, he was 29 years old. After six years of ascetic practice and another unsuccessful attempt to achieve higher insight through fasting, he was convinced that the path of self-torture would not lead to the truth. Then, having regained his strength, he found a secluded place on the river bank, sat down under a tree (which from that time on was called the Bodhi tree, i.e., the “tree of Enlightenment”) and plunged into contemplation. Before Siddhartha's inner gaze, his own past lives, past, future and real life all living beings, and then the highest truth was revealed - Dharma. From that moment on, he became the Buddha - the Enlightened One, or the Awakened One - and decided to teach the Dharma to all people who seek truth, regardless of their origin, class, language, gender, age, character, temperament and mental abilities.

Buddha spent 45 years spreading his teachings in India. According to Buddhist sources, he won followers from all walks of life. Shortly before his death, the Buddha told his beloved disciple Ananda that he could have extended his life by a whole century, and then Ananda bitterly regretted that he had not thought to ask him about this. The cause of Buddha's death was a meal with the poor blacksmith Chunda, during which Buddha, knowing that the poor man was going to treat his guests to stale meat, asked to give all the meat to him. Buddha died in the town of Kushinagara, and his body was traditionally cremated, and the ashes were divided among eight followers, six of whom represented different communities. His ashes were buried in eight different places, and memorial tombstones were subsequently erected over these burials - stupas. According to legend, one of the students pulled out a Buddha tooth from the funeral pyre, which became the main relic of Buddhists. Now it is located in a temple in the city of Kandy on the island of Sri Lanka.

Today there are more than 5,000 religions in the world, but only three are the main ones - Christianity, Buddhism and Islam. All of them help a person find the meaning of life and understand why he comes into this world. They combine belief in higher spiritual powers and the continued existence of the soul after the death of the body. What religions there are will be discussed in this article.

What religions exist?

Those who are interested in which religion is the most widespread should answer that Christianity. Its followers worship Jesus Christ, the son of God, who sacrificed himself for the sins of all mankind. This religion is practiced by about 2.5 billion people around the world. There are its separate movements, such as Catholicism, Protestantism and Orthodoxy, which are somewhat different from each other, and numerous sects have broken away from Christianity. The second most common religion is Islam. The Prophet Muhammad preached faith in one God, Allah, 600 years before the birth of Christ, and today Muslims of all countries honor him as the greatest seer and the sacred teaching of the Koran, which Allah sent down to him.

Buddhism arose around the same time as Islam. This religion originated in India and today its main followers live in Asia and the countries of the Far East. Buddhism calls for entering nirvana and seeing life as it is. The practice of self-restraint and meditation is practiced. For those who are interested in which religion is the very first, it is worth answering that Hinduism, which originated in 1500 BC.

However, it is also not a single system religious teachings and includes such schools and cults as Krishnaism, Tantrism, Shaivism, etc. Hinduism never had its own founder, unified system values ​​and general doctrine. For those who are interested in what dogmas the oldest religion in the world professes, it is worth saying that special meaning given to a personal creator or God, the impersonal Absolute, as well as pluralism and non-absoluteness.

In a world where more than seven billion people live, there are many types of faiths, movements and sects. The types of religions that have the largest number of followers are identified: Christianity, Islam, Hinduism and Buddhism. It is to these faiths that various national groups in most countries of the world belong. Other types of religions do not have such a worldwide distribution. These include Confucianism, Jainism, Judaism, Taoism, Shintoism, Sikhism and so on

Definition of religion

IN explanatory dictionary religion is defined as awareness of the world through belief in supernatural forces. She has always been a compass for humanity for spiritual development and preservation of traditions. All types of religions have their own attributes and sacred places where believers can come. In Hinduism and Buddhism there are temples, in Christianity there is a church, and in Islam there is a mosque. Each denomination has a sacred book, which sets out the rules of serving God and the saints.

Christianity

Christianity arose in the first century AD. main idea This religion is that God will be able to save those who believe in him from the anger and injustice of the world. All teaching is aimed at getting rid of torment, helping the humiliated and needy. The messenger of God was Jesus Christ, who was crucified and killed in the name of faith and all humanity. The holy book is the Bible. Christianity split into several movements: Catholicism, Orthodoxy and Protestantism.

Buddhism is considered the most ancient religion, which originated in the fourth century BC. There are now more than eight hundred million of his followers. This teaching was conveyed to people by Buddha - a man who received enlightenment. Main meaning Buddhism lies in the recognition of human inner light and its search, and not in the search for God, as in all other teachings.

Islam

Islam arose in the seventh century AD. God is Allah, and the founder of the religion and the prophet was Muhammad. Muhammad declared that God chose him as a prophet, and he brings light and truth to people. The Koran is considered a holy book. It, like the Bible, spells out the rules of life for followers. There is also the holy book Sharia, which contains the rules of conduct for believers, and the Sunnah - the history of the Prophet Muhammad.

Types of religions in the past and modern world

For many centuries, the church ruled society and had greater power over states than the government. But times have changed, and now only in a few countries it has such power. Almost every world religion has experienced persecution, and even now there are enough wars on religious grounds. Although, as mentioned earlier, all teachings are based on similar beliefs and laws. Unfortunately, some followers and adepts express their love for God through violence and the use of weapons. Some branches of religions preach their own dogmas and rules to serve the God they themselves invented. As the founder of one of the most widespread sects in the world said: “If you want to become a millionaire, create a religion.” There is no need to confuse sects with Churches of world denominations. Many people put a stigma on nations only because people from these countries belong to a sect that becomes destructive not only for the person himself, but for the world as a whole. All varieties of religions should be for the benefit of people. True believers will not start wars. All types of churches - Orthodox churches, Catholic cathedrals, Islamic mosques - will always provide assistance to the suffering.