This page groups practices by how settled their scholarly classification is. Wikipedia notes that "starting about 1920, 'cult' acquired an additional six or more positive and negative definitions," a term whose meaning has shifted considerably. Browsing this way lets a visitor see which practices scholars describe consistently and which remain genuinely contested.
Facts
Overview
What Defines This GroupingThe keeping of a tradition's food rules as an ongoing discipline, as distinct from the rules themselves, which the atlas records as beliefs. What is kept differs in kind - a legal standard of permitted species and slaughter, a vow of restricted fare for a set period, an abstention grounded in non-injury - and these do not substitute for one another. 2 Learn More
The dietary practices
This group gathers dietary practices, the religious disciplines governing what, when and how the faithful eat: fasting, abstinence, vegetarianism, and rules of permitted and forbidden food. Diet is a daily and visible marker of religious identity and discipline in many traditions.
The browser will find dietary practices from various traditions. The entries describe each practice's rules and rationale, noting the tradition that prescribes it.
Scholarly Standing
Sources
1. Divinity Atlas Directory Taxonomy, First Edition Category Tree
2. The Oxford Dictionary of World Religions
Divinity Atlas Directory Prose, First Edition Category Descriptions
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