Ethnic religion

An ethnic religion is generally defined by the ethnicity of its adherents, and conversion essentially equates to cultural assimilation into that ethnoreligious group. Ethnic religions are distinguished from religions that actively seek converts worldwide, regardless of ethnic affiliation. In contrast, ethnic religions have (diasporas excluded) limited geographic scope, and membership is (by definition) determined by ethnic affiliation.

Religion was a defining part of a nation's culture, along with language and customs. With the rise of the aggressively proselytizing religions that actively sought to cross ethnic boundaries, in particular Christianity and Islam, many of the established ethnic religions began to be polemically belittled as "pagan" (rustic), "heathen" (uncivilized) or shirk (idolatrous, polytheistic), kafirun (unbelieving). In the last 2,000 years, most ethnic religions have been supplanted or marginalized by either one of these two proselytizing religions: In Europe, for example, the indigenous Slavic, Germanic, Celtic, Norse, Greek and Roman ethnic religions were supplanted by Christianity. Accompanying colonial expansion, the same occurred later for the indigenous ethnic religions in the Americas and in Central and Southern Africa. Similarly, Islam replaced not only the traditional religions of the Arabs and the Zoroastrianism of the Iranians. Less stridently, Buddhism, another (historically) proselytizing religion, contributed a moral and ethical framework to various ethnic belief systems in eastern Asia, and these are now considered variants of Buddhism. Some ethnic religions however remain numerically strong, for instance Hinduism of the Indians, Judaism of the Judeans/Jews, Shenism of the Han Chinese, and Shinto of the Japanese.

Ethnic group

An ethnic group or ethnicity is a category of people who identify with each other based on common ancestral, social, cultural or national experience. Unlike most other social groups, ethnicity is primarily an inherited status. Membership of an ethnic group tends to be defined by a shared cultural heritage, ancestry, origin myth, history, homeland, language and/or dialect, symbolic systems such as religion, mythology and ritual, cuisine, dressing style, art, and physical appearance.

Ethnic groups, derived from the same historical founder population, often continue to speak related languages and share a similar gene pool. By way of language shift, acculturation, adoption and religious conversion, it is possible for some individuals or groups to leave one ethnic group and become part of another (except for ethnic groups emphasizing racial purity as a key membership criterion).

Ethnicity is often used synonymously with ambiguous terms such as nation or people.

Depending on which source of group identity is emphasized to define membership, the following types of (often mutually overlapping) groups can be identified:

Civil war (disambiguation)

A civil war is an armed conflict within a nation.

The term "The Civil War" redirects here. See List of civil wars for a longer list of specific conflicts.

For the 17th century Civil War in England, see English Civil War.

For the 19th century Civil War in the United States, see American Civil War.

Civil war may also refer to:

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Middle East

The Middle East (also called the Mid East) is a transcontinental region centered on Western Asia and Egypt. The corresponding adjective is Middle-Eastern and the derived noun is Middle-Easterner. Formerly, the Eurocentric synonym Near East (as opposed to Far East) was commonly used. Arabs, Azeris, Kurds, Persians, and Turks constitute the largest ethnic groups in the region by population, while Armenians, Assyrians, Circassians, Copts, Druze, Jews, Maronites, Somalis, and other ethnic and ethno-religious groups form significant minorities.

The History of the Middle East dates back to ancient times, with the (geo-political) importance of the region being recognized for millennia. Several major religions have their origins in the Middle East, including Judaism, Christianity, and Islam; the Baha'i faith, Mandaeism, Unitarian Druze, and numerous other belief systems were also established within the region. The Middle East generally has a hot, arid climate, with several major rivers providing irrigation to support agriculture in limited areas such as the Nile Delta in Egypt, the Tigris and Euphrates watersheds of Mesopotamia, and most of what is known as the Fertile Crescent. Most of the countries that border the Persian Gulf have vast reserves of crude oil, with the dictatorships of the Arabian Peninsula in particular benefiting from petroleum exports. In modern times the Middle East remains a strategically, economically, politically, culturally and religiously sensitive region.

Religion

Religion is a cultural system of behaviors and practices, world views, ethics, and social organisation that relate humanity to an order of existence. About 84% of the world's population is affiliated with one of the five largest religions, namely Christianity, Islam, Hinduism, Buddhism or forms of folk religion.

With the onset of the modernisation of and the scientific revolution in the western world, some aspects of religion have cumulatively been criticized. Though the religiously unaffliated, including atheism and agnosticism, have grown globally, many of the unaffiliated still have various religious beliefs. About 16% of the world's population is religiously unaffiliated.

The study of religion encompasses a wide variety of academic disciplines, including comparative religion and social scientific studies. Theories of religion offer explanations for the origins and workings of religion.

Etymology

Religion

Religion (from O.Fr. religion "religious community", from L. religionem (nom. religio) "respect for what is sacred, reverence for the gods", "obligation, the bond between man and the gods") is derived from the Latin religiō, the ultimate origins of which are obscure. One possibility is an interpretation traced to Cicero, connecting lego "read", i.e. re (again) + lego in the sense of "choose", "go over again" or "consider carefully". Modern scholars such as Tom Harpur and Joseph Campbell favor the derivation from ligare "bind, connect", probably from a prefixed re-ligare, i.e. re (again) + ligare or "to reconnect", which was made prominent by St. Augustine, following the interpretation of Lactantius. The medieval usage alternates with order in designating bonded communities like those of monastic orders: "we hear of the 'religion' of the Golden Fleece, of a knight 'of the religion of Avys'".