Timeline of Religion
Before Religion
A sense of supernatural is definitely
universal to humanity
Sense of the numinous (feeling of
mystery and awe)
Common thread across the globe:
- Ancestor worship, nature spirits,
shitoism
- Elements still resonate and
incorporated among many
practitioners of world religions
around the globe
- Live on through burial/memorial
practices and sainthood,
sacred places(keramat, grottoes,
chapels, holy sites) and
lesser beings (angels, demons, jinns)
Major Transformations of Religion
Axial Age (Karl Jaspers) (800 to Age of Western Expansion and Colonialism (after From Religion to Religions
200 BCE) 15th C.)
Parallel developments Missionisation resulted in the spread of 18th C. religion written about in a more
in Greece, Iran, India, Christianity worldwide pluralistic manner
China Extensive exposure of Europeans to non- Religions compared to each other as cultural
Hebrew Tanakh, Hindu Western practices systems
Bhagavad Gita, works Compared primarily against Christianities and
of Plato & Aristotle Judaism
Socrates (469-399 Evolution from Religio to Religion: Assumption that all religions required several key
BCE), Gautama Buddha elements:
Patterns of worship in relation to a certain
(563-493 BCE), a central text divinely inspired, doctrinal
god
Confucius (551-479 exclusivity only one religion at a time
Referred to religions (orders) within
BCE), Lao Tse (6th C. a separate domain distinct from economics or
Roman Catholic church
BCE), Zarathustra politics
Religio referred to variations in practice,
New philosophies and but NOT in belief Other parts of the world had no such concept of
theologies that religion
15th C. (Renaissance in Christian Europe)
converged on ideas of Exonyms > Judaism, Hinduism, Shinto, Taoism,
religion as a universal capacity for
a transcendent source Buddhism, etc.
piety and worship among the civilized
of morals/ethics and 19th C. European ideas about what counts as a
Eastern Orthodoxies, Islam, Judaism,
social/cosmic order real religion profoundly influenced/shaped how
Protestant Reformation
17th C. (Enlightenment in Christian other religions, cultures, and countries understood
Europe) religion as a system of beliefs, religion
rather than a matter of personal piety
Recognised diversity of beliefs within
Europe (incl. paganism)
Awareness and appreciation of other
systems of belief due to increased trade
and travel outside Europe