Religion has existed in human society since time immemorial, it appeared even earlier than speech. So what is it? Religion is one of the most important formative parts of human culture. It implies a lifestyle based on belief in any supernatural forces and moral beliefs associated with them.
Religion is all existing or existing doctrine of the divine. It takes its roots in prehistoric pagan rituals. Then people needed gods to explain the essence of natural phenomena. There were also totemistic religions based on the worship of an animal designed to protect one or another community. They are interesting in that, according to the customs of the tribes, once a year festivities were held at which the totem animal was solemnly eaten, while during the year it was strictly forbidden.
Along with paganism, which implied worship of visible natural phenomena, at the end of the previous era, teachings based on following the general harmony of things began to appear in the countries of the East. These include Indian religions (Hinduism, Buddhism), Japanese Shintoism, Taoism. Moreover, in some of them there is no deity as such, and they represent a cross between religious and philosophical teachings. Many are still arguing whether Buddhism and Taoism should be considered world religions.
At the same time, about eight hundred years before our era, the first writings of Judaism appear. This religion is interesting in that its adherents believed in the only "true" god and considered themselves to be the chosen people. Later, part of the followers of Judaism separated, organizing a new movement - Christianity. Not a single teaching has as many directions as this religion. Orthodoxy, Catholicism, Protestantism, which in turn are divided into smaller branches ... True, this separation began already in the Middle Ages, when Christianity was on the second wave of popularity. At the beginning of our era, it was forbidden and persecuted. Also in the 600s of the new era in the Arab countries, Islam was born, which later also became one of the most widespread world dogmas.
The most common classification of religions is to divide them into monotheistic and polytheistic. The first are the teachings that come down to worshiping one god - Islam, Judaism, Hinduism, Christianity. And despite the fact that in the last two gods can have different incarnations, he is still considered to be one. Polytheistic religions often have a huge number of gods. Such teachings include paganism, Shintoism, and some separate areas of Hinduism.
Currently, there are a number of teachings whose adherents believe that religion is an imperfect social institution, and deny it. These include atheism, apateism, deism, agnosticism, ignosticism, etc. Moreover, some of these teachings do not deny the existence of gods and supernatural forces, but only do not accept most of the existing religions. As a rule, motivating this with the fact that religion is the creation of the human mind.