Categorization Of Religion

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Religions have always been an important companion in human society’s development throughout history. In one way or another, every culture has made its way through explaining phenomena through believing in something, supernatural or not, as a power detached from humans or residing among them. The need for religion is present in every culture in different shapes, from expressions and rituals that relate to social norms, morality and ethics to the philosophy of the everyday life and actions. The system of thought, the norms and the actions of a culture practicing a religion has turned out to give its believers a sense of belonging, identity and conscious commitment towards the belief. Just like society itself, religions nowadays are…show more content…
This categorization is simply made based on how historically and culturally different the “two worlds” are. What we call the Western world or the Occident and Eastern World or the Orient is actually contextual. In the context of religion, the Western would include the part of the world whose cultures have evolved with the roots in the antique civilizations of Roman and Greek cultures and lots of historical events such as the Renaissance, Reformation, the Cold War etc. These cultures nowadays include but are not limited to Europe, North America, New Zealand etc. The Eastern World on the other hand, in the context of classification of religion is actually what Europeans have been considering as the far-east. The middle-east is mostly excluded from this concept since Islam as a religion has its roots of development as an Abrahamic religion tied closely to the west, thus considered a western religion. For the purpose of this research, only a few so-to-speak most significant religions that shape the concepts of Western and Eastern religions will be analyzed. For the Western ones, Judaism, Christianity and Islam have been picked, as the greatest in terms of number of believers, timespan of existence and influence in the western philosophy overall. For the Eastern Religions, Hinduism, Buddhism and Taoism have…show more content…
These religions are monotheist, and God is precepted as the creator of everything. “In these great religions, there is a clear belief in a personal transcendent God, a belief that has its origins in the life and story of Abraham (Ferguson 140). Ferguson argues that there are differing views on the religion of Abraham himself but it is likely that he believed in a single God called El-Shaddai, meaning “the divinity of the mountains.” While he was believed to be moving to other places just because God was calling him to do so, the concept of the blind faith in God’s will was created. These stories are crucial to Judaism and they are supposed to be the origins of monotheism as an undeniable principle in these

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