List of religions and spiritual traditions

While religion is hard to define, one standard model of religion, used in religious studies courses, who defined it as a

[…] system of symbols which acts to establish powerful, pervasive, and long-lasting moods and motivations in men by formulating conceptions of a general order of existence and clothing these conceptions with such an aura of factuality that the moods and motivations seem uniquely realistic."[1]

Further information: Major religious groups, Religious denomination, and History of religion
This is a dynamic list and may never be able to satisfy particular standards for completeness. You can help by expanding it with reliably sourced entries.
Religious symbols in clock-wise order from top: Judaism, Christianity, Islam, Bahá'í Faith, Hinduism, Taoism, Buddhism, Sikhism, Slavic neopaganism, Celtic polytheism, Heathenism (Germanic paganism), Semitic neopaganism, Wicca, Kemetism (Egyptian paganism), Hellenism (Greek paganism), Italo-Roman neopaganism.

A critique of Indian model by Tulsidas categorized religion as "an anthropological category."[2] 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 lifestyle from their ideas about the cosmos and human nature. According to some estimates, there are roughly 4,200 religions, churches, denominations, religious bodies, faith groups, tribes, cultures, movements, ultimate concerns, etc[3]

The word religion is sometimes used interchangeably with "faith" or "belief system", but religion differs from private belief in that it has a public aspect. Most religions have organized behaviours, including clerical hierarchies, a definition of what constitutes adherence or membership, congregations of laity, regular meetings or services for the purposes of veneration of a deity or for prayer, holy places (either natural or architectural) or religious texts. Certain religions also have a sacred language often used in liturgical services. The practice of a religion may also include sermons, commemoration of the activities of a god or gods, sacrifices, festivals, feasts, trance, rituals, rites, ceremonies, worship, initiations, funerals, marriages, meditation, invocation, mediumship, music, art, dance, public service or other aspects of human culture. Religious beliefs have also been used to explain parapsychological phenomena such as out-of-body experiences, near-death experiences and reincarnation, along with many other paranormal and supernatural experiences.[4][5]

Some academics studying the subject have divided religions into three broad categories: world religions, a term which refers to transcultural, international faiths; indigenous religions, which refers to smaller, culture-specific or nation-specific religious groups; and new religious movements, which refers to recently developed faiths.[6] One modern academic theory of religion, social constructionism, says that religion is a modern concept that suggests all spiritual practice and worship follows a model similar to the Abrahamic religions as an orientation system that helps to interpret reality and define human beings,[7] and thus religion, as a concept, has been applied inappropriately to non-Western cultures that are not based upon such systems, or in which these systems are a substantially simpler construct.

East Asian religions
Main article: East Asian religions

Religions that originated in East Asia, also known as Taoic religions; namely Taoism, Confucianism, Shenism and Shintoism, and religions and traditions related to, and descended from them.

Confucianism
Main article: Confucianism

Shinto
Main article: Shinto
See also: Shinto sects and schools

Shinto-inspired religions
Main article: Japanese new religions

Taoism
Main article: Taoism

Other

Sumism

Chinese

Japanese

Korean

Manchu

Vietnamese

Indic religions
Main article: Indian religions

Religions that originated in the Indian subcontinent; namely Hinduism, Jainism, Buddhism and Sikhism, and religions and traditions related to, and descended from them.

Nāstik (Heterodox Indian)

Buddhism
Main article: Buddhism
See also: Schools of Buddhism

New Buddhist movements

Global variants of Buddhism

Charvaka (Historical)
Main article: Charvaka

Din-I Ilahi (Historical)
Main article: Din-i Ilahi

Hinduism
Main article: Hinduism
Further information: Hindu denominations
Bhakti movements
Main articles: Bhakti movement and Contemporary Sant Mat movements
Neo-Hinduism
Main articles: Hindu reform movements and Neo-Vedanta
Hindu philosophy major schools and movements
Main article: Hindu philosophy

Jainism
Main article: Jainism

Meivazhi
Main article: Meivazhi

Sarnaism
Main article: Sarnaism

Sikhism
Main article: Sikhism

Nepalese religions

Middle Eastern religions
Main articles: Abrahamic religions and Iranian religions

Religions that originated in the Middle East; namely Zoroastrianism, Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, and religions and traditions related to, and descended from them.

Bábism
Main article: Bábism
  • Azali
  • Bahá'í Faith
    • Bahá'ís Under the Provisions of the Covenant
    • Orthodox Bahá'í Faith

Christianity
Main article: Christianity
See also: List of Christian denominations

Eastern Christianity
Main article: Eastern Christianity

Western Christianity
Main article: Western Christianity

Other
See also: Gnosticism and Christian mysticism

Certain Christian groups are difficult to classify as "Eastern" or "Western." Many Gnostic groups were closely related to early Christianity, for example, Valentinism. Irenaeus wrote polemics against them from the standpoint of the then-unified Catholic Church.[18]

Druze
Main article: Druze

Islam
Main article: Islam
See also: Islamic schools and branches, Ilm al-Kalam, Ahl al-Hadith, and Islamism

Khawarij
Main article: Khawarij

Shia Islam
Main article: Shia Islam

Sufism
Main articles: Sufism and Islamic Mysticism
See also: List of Sufi orders

Sunni Islam
Main article: Sunni Islam

Other

Judaism
Main article: Judaism
See also: Jewish religious movements

Haymanot
Main article: Haymanot

Karaite Judaism
Main article: Karaite Judaism

Kabbalah
Main articles: Kabbalah and Jewish mysticism

Noahidism
Main article: Noahidism

Rabbinic Judaism
Main article: Rabbinic Judaism

Samaritans
Main article: Samaritanism

Subbotniks
Main article: Subbotniks

Historical Judaism

Mandaeism
Main article: Mandaeism

Manichaeism
Main article: Manichaeism

Rastafari
Main article: Rastafari

Black Hebrew Israelites
Main article: Black Hebrew Israelites

Shabakism
Main article: Shabakism

Yazdânism
Main article: Yazdânism

Zoroastrianism
Main article: Zoroastrianism

Indigenous (ethnic, folk) religions
Main articles: Ethnic religion and Folk religion
See also: Paganism, Animism, Totemism, and Shamanism

Religions that consist of the traditional customs and beliefs of particular ethnic groups, refined and expanded upon for thousands of years, often lacking formal doctrine.

Note: Some adherents do not consider their ways to be "religion," preferring other cultural terms.

African
Main article: Religion in Africa

    Traditional African
    Main article: Traditional African religions

    Diasporic African
    Main article: Afro-American religion

    Altaic
    See also: List of Tengrist movements

    American
    Main article: Native American religion

    Austroasiatic

    Austronesian

    Chinese
    Main article: Chinese folk religion

    European

    Uralic (Eurasian)

    Japanese
    Main article: Religion in Japan

    Korean
    Main article: Religion in Korea

    Tai and Miao
    Main articles: Tai folk religion and Miao folk religion

    Tibeto-Burmese

    Other Indigenous

    New religious movements
    Main article: New religious movement
    See also: List of new religious movements

    Religions that cannot be classed as either world religions nor traditional folk religions, and are usually recent in their inception.

    Cargo cults

    New ethnic religions
    See also: Ethnic religion

    Black

    White

    Native American

    Chicano/Mexican-American

    New Hindu derived religions

    Modern Paganism
    Main article: Modern Paganism
    See also: List of Neopagan movements

    Ethnic neopaganism
    Main article: Polytheistic reconstructionism

    Syncretic neopaganism

    Entheogenic religions
    Main article: Entheogen

    New Thought
    Main article: New Thought

    Parody religions and fiction-based religions
    Main article: Parody religion

    Post-theistic and naturalistic religions
    Main articles: Post-theism and Religious naturalism

    UFO religions

    Western esotericism
    Main article: Western esotericism
    See also: Left-hand path and right-hand path, Occult, and Magick (Thelema)

    Other new

    Historical religions
    Main article: History of religion

    Other categorisations

    By demographics

    By area

    See also

    References
    1. (Clifford Geertz, Religion as a Cultural System, 1973)
    2. (Talal Asad, The Construction of Religion as an Anthropological Category, 1982.)
    3. "World Religions Religion Statistics Geography Church Statistics". Retrieved 5 March 2015.
    4. http://www.parapsych.org/base/about.aspx
    5. "Key Facts about Near-Death Experiences". Retrieved 5 March 2015.
    6. Harvey, Graham (2000). Indigenous Religions: A Companion. (Ed: Graham Harvey). London and New York: Cassell. Page 06.
    7. Vergote, Antoine, Religion, belief and unbelief: a psychological study, Leuven University Press, 1997, p. 89
    8. Melton, J. Gordon (2003). Encyclopedia of American Religions (Seventh edition). Farmington Hills, Michigan: The Gale Group, Inc., p. 1112. ISBN 0-7876-6384-0
    9. Tattwananda, Swami (1984). Vaisnava Sects, Saiva Sects, Mother Worship (1st revised ed.). Calcutta: Firma KLM Private Ltd.
    10. Dandekar, R. N. (1987). "Vaiṣṇavism: An Overview". In Eliade, Mircea (ed.). The Encyclopedia of Religion. 14. New York: MacMillan.
    11. Melton, J. Gordon (2003). Encyclopedia of American Religions (7th ed.). Farmington Hills, Michigan: The Gale Group, Inc., p. 997. ISBN 0-7876-6384-0
    12. Lorenzen, David N. (1995). Bhakti Religion in North India: Community Identity and Political Action. New York: SUNY Press. ISBN 978-0-7914-2025-6.
    13. Melton, J. Gordon (2003). Encyclopedia of American Religions (7th edition). Farmington Hills, Michigan: The Gale Group, Inc., p. 1001. ISBN 0-7876-6384-0
    14. Melton, J. Gordon (2003). Encyclopedia of American Religions (7th edition). Farmington Hills, Michigan: The Gale Group, Inc., p. 1004. ISBN 0-7876-6384-0
    15. Radhakrishnan, Sarvepalli. Indian Philosophy (1923) Vol. 1, 738 p. (1927) Vol. 2, 807 p. Oxford University Press.
    16. "Welcome to Jainworld – Jain Sects – tirthankaras, jina, sadhus, sadhvis, 24 tirthankaras, digambara sect, svetambar sect, Shraman Dharma, Nirgranth Dharma". Jainworld.com. Archived from the original on 2011-06-07. Retrieved 2012-04-24.
    17. Subba, J. R. (1998). The Philosophy and Teachings of Yuma Samyo (Yumaism): The Religion of Limboos of the Himalayan Region. Sikkim Yakthung Mundhum Saplopa.
    18. "Irenaeus of Lyons". Retrieved 5 March 2015.

    Sources
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