Portal:Religion

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The Religion Portal

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Religion is the adherence to codified beliefs and rituals that generally involve a faith in a spiritual nature and a study of inherited ancestral traditions, knowledge and wisdom related to understanding human life. The term "religion" refers to both the personal practices related to faith as well as to the larger shared systems of belief.

In the larger sense, religion is a communal system for the coherence of belief—typically focused on a system of thought, unseen being, person, or object, that is considered to be supernatural, sacred, divine, or of the highest truth. Moral codes, practices, values, institutions, traditions, and rituals are often traditionally associated with the core belief, and these may have some overlap with concepts in secular philosophy. Religion can also be described as a way of life.

The development of religion has taken many forms in various cultures. "Organized religion" generally refers to an organization of people supporting the exercise of some religion with a prescribed set of beliefs, often taking the form of a legal entity (see religion-supporting organization). Other religions believe in personal revelation and responsibility. "Religion" is sometimes used interchangeably with "faith" or "belief system," but is more socially defined than that of personal convictions.

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A blue 'e-meter', a ritual device used by the Church of Scientology.
Scientology is a body of teachings and related techniques developed by American science fiction author L. Ron Hubbard. It began in 1952 as a self-help philosophy, an outgrowth of his earlier self-help system, Dianetics, and later described itself as a new religion. It claims to offer "an exact methodology" to help humans achieve awareness of their spiritual existence across many lifetimes and, simultaneously, to become more effective in the physical world. The name "Scientology" is also used to refer to the often controversial Church of Scientology, the largest organization promoting the practice of Scientology, which is itself part of a network of affiliated corporations that claim ownership and sole authority to disseminate Dianetics and Scientology.

A stated goal of Scientology is to "rehabilitate" the thetan (roughly equivalent to the soul) to regain its native state of "total freedom." Church spokesmen and practitioners claim that Hubbard's teachings (called "Technology" or "Tech" in Scientology terminology) have saved them from a plethora of problems and enabled them to better realize their highest potential in business and in their personal lives. However, outside observers—including journalists, lawmakers, and national governing bodies of several countries—have alleged that the Church is an unscrupulous commercial enterprise that harasses its critics and brutally exploits its members.

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Bagua with name and nature
Credit: BenduKiwi

The bagua (Chinese: 八卦; pinyin: bā guà; Wade–Giles: pa kua; literally "eight symbols") is a fundamental philosophical concept in ancient China. It is an octagonal diagram with one trigram on each side. The concept of bagua is applied not only to Chinese Taoist thought and the I Ching, but is also used in other domains of Chinese culture, such as fengshui, martial arts, navigation, and so on.

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Patañjali as an incarnation of Adi Sesha
Patañjali (Devanāgarī पतञ्जलि) is the compiler of the Yoga Sutra, a major work containing aphorisms on the philosophical aspects of mind and consciousness, and also the author of a major commentary on Panini's Ashtadhyayi, although many scholars do not consider these two texts to have been written by the same individual. In recent decades the Yoga Sutra has become quite popular worldwide for the precepts regarding practice of Raja Yoga and the philosophical basis of the Yoga movement for health and harmonizing bodymind. "Yoga" in traditional Hinduism involves inner contemplation, a rigorous system of meditation practice, ethics, metaphysics, and devotion to the one common soul, God, or Brahman.

Desiring to teach yoga to the world, he is said to have fallen (pat-) from heaven into the open palms (-añjali) of a woman, hence the name Patañjali.

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Did you know...

  • ...that in Shinto, the family is seen as the main mechanism by which traditions are preserved? Their main celebrations relate to birth and marriage.
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On this day...

October 7:
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the Chinese character dao (tao) in Taoism
The Tao that can be told is not the eternal Tao;

The name that can be named is not the eternal name.
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Amaterasu cave wide
Kojiki or Furukotofumi (古事記), also known in English as the Records of Ancient Matters, is the oldest surviving historical book recounting events of ancient earth in the Japanese language. A document claiming to be an older work, the Kujiki (which the Kojiki dates to AD 620), also exists, but its authenticity is questionable.

The Kojiki was presented by Ō no Yasumaro to Emperor Temmu in CE 680, based upon the events which had been memorized from the previous book, the Kujiki, and by those whom held the stories which had been passed down over generations, as well as stories which had been memorized by Hieda no Are in 712. Despite the fact that many note a difference in some precepts of the Kojiki and similar Chinese stories, it is thought that these may have been stories which had traveled and become known in areas of Japan and China. Nevertheless, the idea that the Kojiki mimics deities descending from China to Japan, is incorrect due to the fact that the Kojiki is a story detailing the creation of deities, and throughout Chamberlain's translation in 1882, the area in which the events were said to have unfolded is not explained, and is thought to occur upon the "island" or land-mass created by Izanami and Izanagi.

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