Religion: The Four Main Types Of Religion Around The World

Religion is a phenomenon that has caused wars, death and love. With almost every culture worldwide having some form of religion, there are many different types of religion all around the world, some similar streams and others vastly different. Every religion has four main aspects: Belief and believers, sacred texts and writings, ethics and rituals, and ceremonies. These form the basis of each religion and set them apart from the rest: each branch of religion vastly different.

Believers are the followers of a religion. They hold faith in its teachings and deities. Studies have proven that religion is a result of human instincts such as assuming random things have something or someone behind them (Azar, 2010). Humans find comfort in believing random occurrences and existence have a cause. It also brings people together as a society - like any shared interest it

The words of prophets and religious heroes are contained in these texts and they are often read out at religious gatherings, both formal and informal. In some monotheistic religions, the texts are written by many scribes and refer to the word of the deity. In others such as Buddhism, the canonical texts are called Sutras. They are the teaching of Buddha himself as the religion does not feature a deity. In Hinduism there is no agreed set of teachings or religious text, leaving a lot of it open to interpretation. Their worldview would be less dictated by The Vedas, the texts most widely accepted by the religion. Other types of sacred stories include parables and myths. A parable is a fictitious story told by a religious figure that has symbolism, often about ethics or religious principles (Webster,N.d). An example would be the many parables told by Jesus in the Bible. A myth is similar in the fact it is also a metaphoric narrative but it is usually of an unknown origin and involves things of a transcendent dimension or the supernatural (Britannica,