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Religion is a collection of cultural systems, belief systems, and worldviews that relate humanity to spirituality and, sometimes, to moral values.[note 1] Many religions have narratives, symbols, traditions and sacred histories that are intended to give meaning to life or to explain the origin of life or the universe. They tend to derive morality, ethics, religious laws or a preferred lifestylefrom their ideas about the cosmos and human nature. According to some estimates, there are roughly 4,200 religions in the world.[1]

Many religions may have organized behaviors, clergy, a definition of what constitutes adherence or membership, holy places, and scriptures. The practice of a religion may also include rituals, sermons, commemoration or veneration a god or gods, sacrifices,festivals, feasts, trance, initiations, funerary services, matrimonial services, meditation, prayer, music, art, dance, public service or other aspects of human culture.

The word religion is sometimes used interchangeably with faith or belief system, but religion differs from private belief in that it has a social aspect.[2] A global 2012 poll reports that 59% of the world's population is religious, 23%are not religious, and 13% are atheists.[3]
Contents

1 Etymology
2 Definitions
3 Origins and development
4 Types of religion
4.1 Categories
4.2 Interfaith cooperation
5 Religious movements
5.1 Abrahamic religions
5.2 Indian religions
5.3 Iranian religions
5.4 Folk religions
5.5 New religions
6 Issuesin religion
6.1 Religion and health
6.2 Religion and violence
6.3 Religion and the law
6.4 Religion and science
6.5 Religion and social constructionists
6.5.1 Other writers
7 Related forms of thought
7.1 Religion and superstition
7.2 Myth
8 Secularism and irreligion
9 Criticism
10 See also
11References
12 Notes
13 Bibliography
14 External links

Etymology
Main article: Glossary_of_ancient_Roman_religion#religio

Religion (from O.Fr. religion "religious community," from L. religionem (nom. religio) "respect for what is sacred, reverence for the gods,"[4] "obligation, the bond between man and the gods"[5]) is derived from the Latin religiō, the ultimate origins of whichare obscure. One possibility is derivation from a reduplicated *le-ligare, an interpretation traced to Cicero connecting lego "read", i.e. re (again) + lego in the sense of "choose", "go over again" or "consider carefully". Modern scholars such as Tom Harpur and Joseph Campbell favor the derivation from ligare "bind, connect", probably from a prefixed re-ligare, i.e. re (again) + ligare or "toreconnect," which was made prominent by St. Augustine, following the interpretation of Lactantius.[6][7] The medieval usage alternates with order in designating bonded communities like those of monastic orders: "we hear of the 'religion' of the Golden Fleece, of a knight 'of the religion of Avys'".[8]

According to the philologist Max Müller, the root of the English word "religion", the Latinreligio, was originally used to mean only "reverence for God or the gods, careful pondering of divine things, piety" (which Cicero further derived to mean "diligence").[9][10] Max Müller characterized many other cultures around the world, including Egypt, Persia, and India, as having a similar power structure at this point in history. What is called ancient religion today, they would have only called"law".[11]

Many languages have words that can be translated as "religion", but they may use them in a very different way, and some have no word for religion at all. For example, the Sanskrit word dharma, sometimes translated as "religion", also means law. Throughout classical South Asia, the study of law consisted of concepts such as penance through piety and ceremonial as well as practical...