Divinity Atlas

Sacred Correspondences
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Ethnoreligious (Monotheistic)

This page groups religions by broad type, such as whether scholars classify them as a universal religion actively seeking converts or an ethnic religion identified with one people. Wikipedia describes universal religions as those that "seek worldwide acceptance and actively look for new converts, such as the BaháΚΌí Faith, Buddhism, Christianity, Islam, and Jainism," in contrast to ethnic religions tied to a single group. Browsing by kind of tradition lets a visitor compare missionary faiths against traditions bound to one culture.

Facts
Overview
What Defines This Grouping
Whole religious traditions treated as single units, together with the non-theistic worldviews - atheism, agnosticism, deism, secular humanism - which the academic study of religion examines by the same methods and on the same terms. 1
Status
Standing as a Comparative Category
Contested: the inventory of discrete, comparable world religions is a nineteenth-century European construction rather than a neutral list of what exists. The atlas uses these families for orientation, not as essences. 3
Origins
Origin of the Name
From Latin religio, a scruple or a binding obligation. The ancient sense and the modern one - a bounded system with a name, a founder and a creed - are not the same, and the distance between them is itself a subject of study. 2
Learn More
The Organised Traditions of the World

This category holds the world's organised religious traditions, from the largest to those of historical importance that are no longer practised, together with the non-theistic worldviews (atheism, agnosticism, deism, secular humanism), since these answer the same fundamental questions in their own way and are studied alongside religions in the academic field.

A religion, as used here, is a whole tradition with its own account of the sacred, its scriptures or foundational teachings, its practices and community. The entries describe each in its own terms, note its size and distribution where relevant, and distinguish confessional self-description from the findings of the historical and social study of religion.

Families and Classification

Scholars classify religions in several overlapping ways, by descent (Abrahamic, Dharmic), by structure (monotheistic, polytheistic, non-theistic), by scope (universal, ethnic), and no single scheme is definitive. The atlas records the classifications that are useful for orientation while treating them as maps, not essences, and the religion entries group by such families so a browser can move from all traditions to one family.

Every religion contains internal diversity, and its branches, schools and movements are treated as denominations; the practices, festivals, scriptures and figures of a tradition are found under their own categories throughout the atlas.

Ethnoreligious (Monotheistic)
Filter Results2 entries
Sources
1. The Oxford Handbook of Atheism
Stephen Bullivant and Michael Ruse (eds.), Oxford University Press, 2013
2. Encyclopedia of Religion
Mircea Eliade (ed.); Lindsay Jones (ed., 2nd ed.), Macmillan Reference, 2005s.v. ReligionView the Source
3. The Invention of World Religions: Or, How European Universalism Was Preserved in the Language of Pluralism
Tomoko Masuzawa, University of Chicago Press, 2005ch. 1View the Source
Divinity Atlas Directory Prose, First Edition Category Descriptions
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