The five world religions are Christianity, Judaism, Hinduism, Buddhism, and Islam. Each religion has a different history, a different prophet, and a different set of rituals and traditions, all coming to the same conclusion. That conclusion is this: to honor that which is divine is to honor one's self and to honor one's, fellow man. A good, righteous, virtuous life looks the same in every religion: it is to live with truth, kindness, respect, and forgiveness, for one's self and for others.
- Where do babies come from?
- Why is the sky blue?
- Why does the universe exist?
Human beings are hardwired to ask questions, to answer them, and to understand more about the world that they live in. Over the years, humans have learned how to ask questions and answer them in a way that will always hold true. Through the scientific methods, humanity has advanced and progressed, one question at a time.
Some questions are simple, like the first one - through sex, a man's sperm fertilizes a woman's egg cell, forming an embryo. It will be gestated in the woman's uterus, and after nine months, a baby will come out from the vagina. Some questions are more complex, like the second one - the light from the sun is not white, but a combination of all the colors of the rainbow. When sunlight hits the atmosphere, the molecules in the air scatter all the colors, but it mostly scatters blue light. In short, the sky is not really blue, but the human eye perceives it as blue because of how the atmosphere interacts with sunlight. But other questions, like the third one, cannot be answered by science; and this is where religion comes in.
Over the years, philosophers, sociologists, and psychologists have attempted to come up with a consistent definition for religion. Its root word, religiō, is a Latin term that can be interpreted in a number of ways. One interpretation is it is reverence for that which is sacred; a bond between man and that which is divine. Another describes it as a person's obligation to his family, neighbors, king, and God. But curiously, it is most often used in association with feelings of confusion, doubt, and anxiety. Historically, in times of hopelessness, despair, and fear, humanity has turned to religion.
Although it has been used ambiguously in the past, the modern definition of religion is generally agreed upon - at least, in the Western context of world religions. Simply put, it is a community of people who believe an idea, object, individual, god or gods, as sacred and worthy of worship and reverence. Generally, religions aim to answer life's unanswerable questions - questions of the origin of life and universe, of ethics, duty, and morality, of sin, absolution, and suffering, and of death, afterlife, and that which is unknown.
Its ambiguous etymology matches its ambiguous history, as the concept of religion has no clear history. And yet, a startling majority of cultures all over the world have been discovered to engage in rituals and practices that can only be described as religious; suggesting that, much like there is a universal need to know about finite, worldly things, there is also a universal need to believe in infinite, divine things.
