Religion is the belief in and worship of a god or gods, or in general a set of beliefs explaining the existence of and giving

meaning to the universe, usually involving devotional and ritual observances, and often containing a moral code governing the conduct of human affairs. The development of religion has taken many forms in various cultures, with continental differences. The word religion refers both to the personal practices related to communal faith and to group rituals and communication stemming from shared conviction. Religion is sometimes used interchangeably with faith or belief system,[2] but it is more socially defined than personal convictions, and it entails specific behaviors, respectively. Religion is often described as a communal system for the coherence of belief focusing 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, tradition, rituals, andscriptures are often traditionally associated with the core belief, and these may have some overlap with concepts in secular philosophy. Religion is also often described as a "way of life" or a life stance. The history of religion refers to the written record of human religious experiences and ideas. This period of religious history typically begins with theinvention of writing about 5,000 years ago (3,000 BCE) in the Near East. The prehistory of religion relates to a study of religious beliefs that existed prior to the advent of written records. The timeline of religion is a comparative chronology of religion. The word "religion" as it is used today does not have an obvious pre-colonial translation into nonEuropean languages. Daniel Dubuisson writes that "what the West and the history of religions in its wake have objectified under the name 'religion' is ... something quite unique, which could be appropriate only to itself and its own history."[1] The history of other cultures' interaction with the religious category is therefore their interaction with an idea that first developed in Europe under the influence of Christianity.[2] The earliest evidence of religious ideas dates back several hundred thousand years to the Middle and Lower Paleolithic periods. Archeologists refer to apparent intentional burials of early homo sapiens from as early as 300,000 years ago as evidence of religious ideas. Examples of Upper Paleolithic remains associated with religious beliefs include the lion man, the Venus figurines, cave paintings from Chauvet Cave and the elaborate ritual burial from Sungir. Newer present-day world religions established themselves throughout Eurasia during the Middle Ages by: Christianization of the Western world; Buddhist missions to East Asia; thedecline of Buddhism in the Indian subcontinent; and the spread of Islam throughout the Middle East, Central Asia, North Africa and parts of Europe and India. During the Middle Ages, Muslims were in conflict with Zoroastrians during the Islamic conquest of Persia; Christians were in conflict with Muslims during the Byzantine-Arab Wars,Crusades, Reconquista and Ottoman wars in Europe;

Christians were in conflict with Jews during the Crusades, Reconquista and Inquisition; Shamans were in conflict with Buddhists,Taoists, Muslims and Christians during the Mongol invasions; and Muslims were in conflict with Hindus and Sikhs during Muslim conquest in the Indian subcontinent. Many medieval religious movements emphasized mysticism, such as the Cathars and related movements in the West, the Bhakti movement in India and Sufism in Islam. Monotheismreached definite forms in Christian Christology and in Islamic Tawhid. Hindu monotheist notions of Brahman likewise reached their classical form with the teaching of Adi Shankara. Modern period European colonisation during the 15th to 19th centuries resulted in the spread of Christianity to Sub-Saharan Africa, the Americas, Australia and the Philippines. The invention of the printing press in the 15th century played a major role in the rapid spread of the Protestant Reformation under leaders such as Martin Luther and John Calvin. Wars of religion followed, culminating in the Thirty Years War which ravaged central Europe, 1618-1648. Both protestant and Catholic churches competed in a global endeavor to Christianize the world. The 18th century saw the beginning of secularisation in Europe, gaining momentum after the French Revolution. By the late 20th century religion had declined to only a weak force in most of Europe.In the 20th century, the regimes of Communist Eastern Europe and Communist China were explicitly anti-religious. A great variety of new religious movements originated in the 20th century, many proposing syncretism of elements of established religions. Adherence to such new movements is limited, however, remaining below 2% worldwide in the 2000s. Adherents of the classical world religions account for more than 75% of the world's population, while adherence to indigenous tribal religions has fallen to 4%. As of 2005, an estimated 14% of the world's population identifies as nonreligious.

1. Common Origen of Religion and Literature. Religion and literature spring from the same fundamental sources. Religion is the relation which man bears to ultimate Being. It is concerned with the substance which lies behind phenomena, and also with the duty which man owes to this Being, universal and eternal. It is concerned, too, with the questions what, whence, whither. Literature, in and its final analysis, represents the same fundamental relationship: it seeks to explain, to justify, to reconcile, to interpret, and even to comfort and to console. The Homeric poems are pervaded with the religious at mosphere of wonder, of obedience to the eternal, and of the recognition of the interest of the gods in human affairs. A significant place is held by religion in Greek tragedy. A Divine Providence, the eternity, universality, and immutability of law, the inevitableness of penalty, and the assurance of reward represent great forces in the three chief Greek tragedians. Less impressively, yet with significance, the poems of Vergil are bathed in the air of religious mystery and submission. The great work of Lucretius, De rerum natura, is, of course, an expression of the human mind in its attempt to penetrate the mysteries of being. The mythology, too, of the non-Christian nations of the north, as well as the literature of the medieval peoples, is concerned with the existence and the work of the gods. In Scandinavian mythology, literature and religion are in no small degree united. 2. Their Common Appeal to Life. Not only do religion and literature spring from the same fundamental sources, they also are formed by the same forces. They both make a constant appeal to life. They assume the presence and orderly use of the reason; they accept the strength of the human emotions of love, fear, curiosity,

reverence, and they both presume and accept the categorical imperative of the conscience and the freedom and force of the will of man. Both gain in dominance, prestige, and usefulness as they are the more intimately related to life. The great themes of religion and literature are similar and are vital: sin, its origin, penalties, and deliver ance therefrom; love-the passion, and the will-its place and its limitations; righteousness, and the relation of men to each other. In illustration of the identities of the themes of religion and literature, one may refer to Dante's " Divine Comedy," which is concerned with the passing from and through Hell, where live those who knew not Christ in the earthly life, or, if they knew him, refused to obey, through Purgatory, where dwell those whose sins are not mortal, and into the Paradise where dwell the righteous in an eternity of light and of love. The great poem of the Middle Ages is at once great literature and a certain type of religion. French literature is also pervaded by the religious atmosphere. The religious element in the system of Descartes-both philosophy in literature and literature in philosophy-and of his followers is marked, and from them later French literature drew religion and inspiration. This inspiration, be it said, was both emotional and intellectual. The whole field of modern fiction abounds in examples of the connection between literature and religion; Hawthorne significantly represents the more modern unity in America of the two forces, and among all his works The Scarlet Letter and The Marble Faun are in this respect most notable. In English fiction George Eliot exemplifies this unity, and of her works Adam Bede is an impressive illustration. 3. Similarity in Methods Religion and literature, moreover, adopt methods not dissimilar. They stand for the value of the imagination; they represent the artistic, rather than the scientific, methods of interpreting life and phenomena. If theology, which is the science of religion, lends itself to definition and to rational processes largely, religion be longs to the realm of the sentiments and sensibilities-the heart, the conscience, and the will. Literature, too, likewise declines to enter the realm of the formal definition; it is the product of the imagination, and to the imagination it makes its primary appeal, especially in poetry and, to some extent, in noble prose composition. Neither argues or dogmatizes; both intimate, suggest, and seek to interpret; neither holds definite and precise intellectual judgments regarding things eternal, universal, or divine, but each possesses general beliefs and assurances respecting the divine and the eternal. Neither has a system, a scheme, but each has an intellectual interpretativeness and emotional sympathy with the personal in life and in being. 4. Literature's Indebtedness to Religion. Religion gives to literature, moreover, vast and rich materials. Its sacred books themselves constitute great literatures and also furnish materials for great literature. The translation of the Bible into Gothic by Ulphilas not only preserved the Bible, but also helped to create and to perpetuate literature. Luther's translation of the Bible and the King James' Version are not only themselves great literatures, but also have helped to form great literatures in modern life. German and English speech, as well as letters, have been made more pure, more intellectual, and more inspiring by these great translations. It may be also added that the sermons of Robert South and of Isaac Barrow (qq.v.) are themselves worthy pieces of literature and might be compared with Burke's Orations. It is also to be remembered that the institutions of religion, as the monasteries and cathedral chapterhouses, were, for a thousand years, the custodians of the most precious treasures of literature. The medieval period was dark and damaging to humanity's highest interests. In times of war not only are laws silent, but also literature. It was the monks who preserved the manuscripts of ancient Greece and of Rome, copying and re-copying and commenting from the year 500 till the invention of printing. As the priests were astronomers, not only in Europe, but also in India, in order to fix and to preserve the feast and other holy days, so the monks of the Middle Ages in Europe, if not literary men themselves, were the guardians of the holy lamp of letters.