Religion

Religion, human beings’ relation to that which they regard as holy, sacred, absolute, spiritual, divine, or worthy of especial reverence. It is also commonly regarded as consisting of the way people deal with ultimate concerns about their lives and their fate after death. In many traditions, this...

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  Christmas
  Christmas, Christian festival celebrating the birth of Jesus. The English term Christmas (“mass on Christ’s day”) is of fairly recent origin. The earlier term Yule may have derived from the Germanic jōl or the Anglo-Saxon geōl, which referred to the feast of the winter solstice. The corresponding…
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  Mahatma Gandhi
  Mahatma Gandhi, Indian lawyer, politician, social activist, and writer who became the leader of the nationalist movement against the British rule of India. As such, he came to be considered the father of his country. Gandhi is internationally esteemed for his doctrine of nonviolent protest…
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  Hanukkah
  Hanukkah, (Hebrew: “Dedication”) Jewish festival that begins on Kislev 25 (in December, according to the Gregorian calendar) and is celebrated for eight days. Hanukkah reaffirms the ideals of Judaism and commemorates in particular the rededication of the Second Temple of Jerusalem by the lighting…
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  Muhammad
  Muhammad, the founder of Islam and the proclaimer of the Qurʾān. Muhammad is traditionally said to have been born in 570 in Mecca and to have died in 632 in Medina, where he had been forced to emigrate to with his adherents in 622. The Qurʾān yields little concrete biographical information about…
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  Islam
  Islam, major world religion promulgated by the Prophet Muhammad in Arabia in the 7th century ce. The Arabic term islām, literally “surrender,” illuminates the fundamental religious idea of Islam—that the believer (called a Muslim, from the active particle of islām) accepts surrender to the will of…
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  Jesus
  Jesus, religious leader revered in Christianity, one of the world’s major religions. He is regarded by most Christians as the Incarnation of God. The history of Christian reflection on the teachings and nature of Jesus is examined in the article Christology. Ancient Jews usually had only one name,…
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  Epiphany
  Epiphany, (Greek: epiphaneia, “manifestation”) Christian holiday commemorating the first manifestation of Jesus Christ to the Gentiles, represented by the Magi, and the manifestation of his divinity, as it occurred at his baptism in the Jordan River and at his first miracle, at Cana in Galilee.…
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  Bob Marley
  Bob Marley, Jamaican singer-songwriter whose thoughtful ongoing distillation of early ska, rock steady, and reggae musical forms blossomed in the 1970s into an electrifying rock-influenced hybrid that made him an international superstar. Marley—whose parents were Norval Sinclair Marley, a white…
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  Buddhism
  Buddhism, religion and philosophy that developed from the teachings of the Buddha (Sanskrit: “Awakened One”), a teacher who lived in northern India between the mid-6th and mid-4th centuries bce (before the Common Era). Spreading from India to Central and Southeast Asia, China, Korea, and Japan,…
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  Hinduism
  Hinduism, major world religion originating on the Indian subcontinent and comprising several and varied systems of philosophy, belief, and ritual. Although the name Hinduism is relatively new, having been coined by British writers in the first decades of the 19th century, it refers to a rich…
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  Christianity
  Christianity, major religion, stemming from the life, teachings, and death of Jesus of Nazareth (the Christ, or the Anointed One of God) in the 1st century ce. It has become the largest of the world’s religions and, geographically, the most widely diffused of all faiths. It has a constituency of…
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  Zoroastrianism
  Zoroastrianism, the ancient pre-Islamic religion of Iran that survives there in isolated areas and, more prosperously, in India, where the descendants of Zoroastrian Iranian (Persian) immigrants are known as Parsis, or Parsees. The Iranian prophet and religious reformer Zarathustra (flourished…
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  Sigmund Freud
  Sigmund Freud, Austrian neurologist, founder of psychoanalysis. Freud’s article on psychoanalysis appeared in the 13th edition of the Encyclopædia Britannica. Freud may justly be called the most influential intellectual legislator of his age. His creation of psychoanalysis was at once a theory of…
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  Christmas tree
  Christmas tree, an evergreen tree, often a pine or a fir, decorated with lights and ornaments as a part of Christmas festivities. Christmas trees can be fresh-cut, potted, or artificial and are used as both indoor and outdoor decorations. While the trees are traditionally associated with Christian…
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  Shīʿite
  Shīʿite, member of the smaller of the two major branches of Islam, distinguished from the majority Sunnis. Early in the history of Islam, the Shīʿites were a political faction (Arabic shīʿat ʿAlī, “party of ʿAlī”) that supported the power of ʿAlī ibn Abī Ṭālib (the fourth caliph [khalīfah,…
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  Martin Luther
  Martin Luther, German theologian and religious reformer who was the catalyst of the 16th-century Protestant Reformation. Through his words and actions, Luther precipitated a movement that reformulated certain basic tenets of Christian belief and resulted in the division of Western Christendom…
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  Judaism
  Judaism, monotheistic religion developed among the ancient Hebrews. Judaism is characterized by a belief in one transcendent God who revealed himself to Abraham, Moses, and the Hebrew prophets and by a religious life in accordance with Scriptures and rabbinic traditions. Judaism is the complex…
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  Ten Commandments
  Ten Commandments, list of religious precepts that, according to various passages in Exodus and Deuteronomy, were divinely revealed to Moses on Mt. Sinai and were engraved on two tablets of stone. The Commandments are recorded virtually identically in Ex. 20: 2–17 and Deut. 5: 6–21. The rendering in…
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  Yoga
  Yoga, (Sanskrit: “Yoking” or “Union”) one of the six systems (darshans) of Indian philosophy. Its influence has been widespread among many other schools of Indian thought. Its basic text is the Yoga-sutras by Patanjali (c. 2nd century bce or 5th century ce). The practical aspects of Yoga play a…
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  Swastika
  Swastika, equilateral cross with arms bent at right angles, all in the same rotary direction, usually clockwise. The swastika as a symbol of prosperity and good fortune is widely distributed throughout the ancient and modern world. The word is derived from the Sanskrit svastika, meaning “conducive…
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  Zodiac
  Zodiac, in astronomy and astrology, a belt around the heavens extending 9° on either side of the ecliptic, the plane of the earth’s orbit and of the sun’s apparent annual path. The orbits of the moon and of the principal planets also lie entirely within the zodiac. The 12 astrological signs of the…
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  Qurʾān
  Qurʾān, (Arabic: “Recitation”) the sacred scripture of Islam. According to conventional Islamic belief, the Qurʾān was revealed by the angel Gabriel to the Prophet Muhammad in the West Arabian towns Mecca and Medina beginning in 610 and ending with Muhammad’s death in 632 ce. The word qurʾān, which…
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  Shiva
  Shiva, (Sanskrit: “Auspicious One”) one of the main deities of Hinduism, whom Shaivites worship as the supreme god. Among his common epithets are Shambhu (“Benign”), Shankara (“Beneficent”), Mahesha (“Great Lord”), and Mahadeva (“Great God”). Shiva is represented in a variety of forms: in a pacific…
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  Roman Catholicism
  Roman Catholicism, Christian church that has been the decisive spiritual force in the history of Western civilization. Along with Eastern Orthodoxy and Protestantism, it is one of the three major branches of Christianity. The Roman Catholic Church traces its history to Jesus Christ and the…
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  Bahāʾī Faith
  Bahāʾī Faith, religion founded in Iran in the mid-19th century by Mīrzā Ḥosayn ʿAlī Nūrī, who is known as Bahāʾ Allāh (Arabic: “Glory of God”). The cornerstone of Bahāʾī belief is the conviction that Bahāʾ Allāh and his forerunner, who was known as the Bāb (Persian: “Gateway”), were manifestations…
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  Religion
  Religion, human beings’ relation to that which they regard as holy, sacred, absolute, spiritual, divine, or worthy of especial reverence. It is also commonly regarded as consisting of the way people deal with ultimate concerns about their lives and their fate after death. In many traditions, this…
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  Diwali
  Diwali, one of the major religious festivals in Hinduism, lasting for five days from the 13th day of the dark half of the lunar month Ashvina to the second day of the light half of Karttika. (The corresponding dates in the Gregorian calendar usually fall in late October and November.) The name is…
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  Sikhism
  Sikhism, religion and philosophy founded in the Punjab region of the Indian subcontinent in the late 15th century. Its members are known as Sikhs. The Sikhs call their faith Gurmat (Punjabi: “the Way of the Guru”). According to Sikh tradition, Sikhism was established by Guru Nanak (1469–1539) and…
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  Daoism
  Daoism, indigenous religio-philosophical tradition that has shaped Chinese life for more than 2,000 years. In the broadest sense, a Daoist attitude toward life can be seen in the accepting and yielding, the joyful and carefree sides of the Chinese character, an attitude that offsets and complements…
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  Jainism
  Jainism, Indian religion teaching a path to spiritual purity and enlightenment through disciplined nonviolence (ahimsa, literally “noninjury”) to all living creatures. Along with Hinduism and Buddhism, Jainism is one of the three most ancient Indian religious traditions still in existence and an…