This oppression would play a major role in the Afrocentric interpretation of the Bible favored by Rastafari. In the early s, a movement of Rastafarians espoused that the faithful were living in an African diaspora, scattered from their homelands by colonization and slavery.
To be freed from oppression in Western society or Babylon , many Rastafari believe it necessary to resettle adherents in the African homelands. A figure of central importance in the Rastafarian faith, Haile Selassie rose to the rank of Emperor of Ethiopia in This was considered the germinal moment in the emergence of the modern religious tradition.
Selassie was viewed by Rastafari as the Second Coming, a direct descendant of Christ, and the Messiah foretold in the Book of Revelation. Selassie was seen as the man who would lead the people of Africa, and those living in the diaspora, to freedom and liberation.
His visit to Jamaica would become the pivotal moment in the spread of Rastafari ideas and the resultant political movement for liberation within Jamaica.
Marley would help to spread the popular visibility of the faith, as well as its practices of communal gathering, musical expression, preservation of the natural world, and the use of cannabis as a spiritual sacrament. Today, between , and one million adherents practice Rastafarianism, the majority of them concentrated in Jamaica. Shinto is religious tradition native to Japan.
Initially an informal collection of beliefs and mythologies, Shinto was less a religion than a distinctly Japanese form of cultural observance. The first recorded use of the term Shinto can be traced to the sixth century CE and is essentially the connective tissue between ancient Japanese customs and modern Japanese life.
The primary focus of Shinto is the native belief in kami spirits and interaction with them through public shrines. These shrines are an essential artifact of — and channel for — Shinto observation. More than 80, Shinto shrines dot Japan. Traditional Japanese styles of dress, dance, and ritual are also rooted in Shinto customs. Shinto is unique among religions. As a reflection of Japanese identity, Shinto observance is not necessarily limited to those who view themselves as religious adherents.
Sikhism is a monotheistic faith emerging from and remaining concentrated in the Punjabi region that traverses Northern India and Eastern Pakistan. The Sikh religion came into focus during the late 15th century and draws its tenets of faith, meditation, social justice, and human equality from a scripture called the Guru Granth Sahib. The first spiritual leader of Sikhism, Guru Nanak, lived from to and taught that a good, spiritual life must be intertwined with a secular life well-lived.
He called for activity, creativity, fidelity, self-control, and purity. More important than the metaphysical, Guru Nanak argued, is a life in which one enacts the will of God. Guru Nanak was succeeded by a subsequent line of nine gurus, who served as spiritual leaders.
The tenth in this line of successors, Guru Gobind Singh, named the scriptures as his successor. This was the end of human authority in the Sikh faith and the emergence of the scriptures as a singular spiritual guide. Today, the more than 28 million estimated adherents of Sikhism are largely concentrated in India, making it the seventh largest religion in the world. In fact, Zoroastrianism was soon adopted as the official state religion of the Persian Empire and remained so for nearly a thousand years.
What followed was centuries of persecution and suppression by Muslim conquerors, to the point of almost entirely snuffing out Zoroastrian teachings and practices in the Arabic-speaking world. These practices have seen a small resurgence in the late 20th and early 21st centuries, with some Iranians and Iraqi Kurdish populations adopting Zoroastrianism as a mode of resistance to theocratic governance.
Countless religious traditions inform the inhabitants of the African continent, each with its own distinct practices and beliefs based on region and ethnicity. Many share common threads, including the belief in spirits, respect for the dead, and the importance of the intersection between humanity and nature. Also common: many of these religions rely on oral history and tradition, rather than scriptures.
Though Christianity and Islam are today the dominant religious traditions in Africa, informal estimates place the number of adherents to Traditional African Religions at million.
The following list — borrowed from Wikipedia — identifies some of the best known or most prominent of these religions:. The European slave trade and the practices of colonization created what is known as the African diaspora. Here, individuals, families, and whole groups were displaced from the communities or tribes they called home on the African continent. The result was the proliferation of innumerable religious groups around the Caribbean, Latin America and the southern United States during the 16th through 18th centuries.
Each had its own linguistic, spiritual, and ritualistic customs, generally rooted in their respective histories and their new geographic surroundings.
Often, like the traditional African religions they emerged from, these groups shared common threads regarding reverence for the spirits, veneration of the dead, and similar creation mythologies.
Other than during religious services, how often do you pray? Which comes closest to your views, even if none is exactly right?
Are you currently active in church groups or other religious or spiritual organizations, or not? Are you Which of these statements comes closest to your views, even if none is exactly right? Do you believe in heaven? Do you believe in hell?
How much do you know about religion? And how do you compare with the average American? When you finish the quiz, you will be able to compare your knowledge of religion against that of the participants in the nationally representative survey. You can see how you compare with the overall population as well as with people of various religious traditions, people who attend worship services frequently or less often, men and women, and college graduates as well as those who did not attend college.
About Pew Research Center Pew Research Center is a nonpartisan fact tank that informs the public about the issues, attitudes and trends shaping the world. It conducts public opinion polling, demographic research, media content analysis and other empirical social science research. Pew Research Center does not take policy positions. It is a subsidiary of The Pew Charitable Trusts. And as candidates increasingly tout their own religious beliefs—sometimes conflating religion with politics on issues such as global warming or Israel—it is important for people to be able to discern politics from theology as well as valid expressions of faith versus intrusions of doctrine on a diverse citizenry.
Likewise, it is important for Americans to have a basic understanding of religions and cultures of nations around the world. We live in a globalized community where borders are increasingly nonexistent and religion is often a powerful force for either violence and division or for social cohesion and good.
Without making sense of those motivations, we cannot make sense of the world. A lack of religious education can have serious consequences. This country has recently seen a dangerous surge in Islamophobia—much of it stoked by a well-orchestrated campaign of right-wing groups and leaders. But anti-Muslim hate speech has unfortunately gained traction partly because the public knows so little about Islam. Americans might have less negative views if they knew, for example, that Islam is compatible with Western values and democracy, that it teaches peace, and that Muslim Americans have been part of this country since before we were a nation.
The sacred texts of other faiths can be taught as well, providing children with a broader understanding of both Christianity and other world religions. The resolution stems from a claim that more sentences in social studies textbooks were pro-Islam or anti-Christian than pro-Christian or anti-Islam.
The Texas school board approved the resolution by a vote, urging textbook publishers to limit what they print about Islam in world history books.
This decision could have major repercussions. Since Texas is one of the largest clients of textbook publishers, content adopted in Texas schools often leads to the adoption of similar content across the country. This is likely to have national consequences.
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