"Religion is a range of social-cultural systems, including designated behaviors and practices, morals, beliefs, worldviews, texts, sanctified places, prophecies, ethics, or organizations, that generally relate humanity to supernatural, transcendental, and spiritual elements."
Introduction to religious practices, including rituals, meditation, prayer, and fasting.
Belief Systems: The study of various beliefs and their significance in shaping religious practices.
Rituals and Ceremonies: The study of practices that adhere to particular traditions and customs, including various symbolic actions, prayers, and offerings.
Sacred Texts: The study of religious texts, including their content, meanings, and interpretations.
Religions of the World: The study of different religious traditions, including the beliefs, practices, and histories of major world religions.
Ethics and Morality: The study of the moral and ethical principles guiding the behavior and conduct of individuals and communities within various religious traditions.
Spirituality and Mysticism: The study of various forms of spiritual and mystical practices and experiences, including meditation, prayer, and contemplation.
Mythology: The study of myths and legends that inform and illustrate religious beliefs and practices.
Philosophy of Religion: The study of various philosophical approaches to understanding religion, including the nature of God, truth, and existence.
Sociology of Religion: The study of social and cultural aspects of religious life, including the communities, institutions, and practices that shape religious beliefs and practices.
Psychology of Religion: The study of the psychological and emotional impact of religious practices, beliefs, and experiences on individuals and communities.
Prayer: Communication with a higher power or deity through spoken or silent words or gestures.
Worship: Rituals and activities meant to honor or show reverence to a deity or a group of deities.
Fasting: Temporarily abstaining from food or certain activities as an act of spiritual discipline, sacrifice or purification.
Meditation: Focusing the mind and experiencing a state of consciousness or enlightenment, sometimes used as a form of prayer or spiritual practice by many religious groups.
Pilgrimage: Traveling to a sacred site or location in order to seek blessings, atonement, or spiritual guidance.
Sacrifice: Offering goods, resources or animals to a deity as a form of worship, or in a bid to win their grace or blessings.
Chanting: Repeating of certain phrases or sounds, sometimes accompanied with music or dance, in order to achieve spiritual focus or heightened consciousness.
Alms-giving: Charity or acts of selflessness, performed as a means of offering support or help to the needy or the marginalized.
Rituals and Ceremonies: Formal or informal activities designed to mark or commemorate specific religious milestones, such as weddings, funerals, or seasonal festivals.
Asceticism: Severe self-discipline or abstinence from worldly pleasures or physical comforts, often practiced by ascetics, monks or nuns, in order to purge the soul of all desires and attachments.
"Different religions may or may not contain various elements ranging from the divine, sacredness, faith, and a supernatural being or beings."
"Religious practices may include rituals, sermons, commemoration or veneration (of deities or saints), sacrifices, festivals, feasts, trances, initiations, matrimonial and funerary services, meditation, prayer, music, art, dance, or public service."
"Religions have sacred histories and narratives, which may be preserved in sacred texts, symbols, and holy places, that primarily aim to give life meaning."
"Some followers believe these [symbolic tales] to be true stories."
"Four religions—Christianity, Islam, Hinduism, and Buddhism—account for over 77% of the world's population."
"92% of the world either follows one of those four religions or identifies as nonreligious."
"There are an estimated 10,000 distinct religions worldwide."
"The religiously unaffiliated demographic includes those who do not identify with any particular religion, atheists, and agnostics, although many in the demographic still have various religious beliefs."
"Most definitively including the Abrahamic religions Christianity, Islam, and Judaism."
"The study of religion comprises a wide variety of academic disciplines, including theology, philosophy of religion, comparative religion, and social scientific studies."
"Scholars have indicated that global religiosity may be increasing due to religious countries having generally higher birth rates."
"Theories of religion offer various explanations for its origins and workings, including the ontological foundations of religious being and belief."
"Although there is no scholarly consensus over what precisely constitutes a religion."
"A portion of the world's population, mostly located in Africa and Asia, are members of new religious movements."
"The study of religion comprises a wide variety of academic disciplines, including... social scientific studies."
"Religion is a range of social-cultural systems... that generally relate humanity to supernatural, transcendental, and spiritual elements."
"Traditionally, both faith and reason have been considered sources of religious beliefs."
"Religions have sacred histories and narratives, which may be preserved in sacred texts, symbols, and holy places."
"Nearly all of them [religions] have regionally based, relatively small followings."