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1. Religion -- Practices
   American government has long taken steps to promote or recognize religion in ways not involving financial aid: prayers in public schools and in legislatures, official Thanksgiving proclamations, and so forth. Such actions were pervasive in the de facto establishment, and the Court did not begin to scrutinize them until after Everson’s articulation of neutrality and separation principles. By that time, most of the overtly coercive practices had ceased, and relatively few cases of rank coercion have reached the Court. The more common argument against nonfinancial support of religion is that such actions depart from neutrality and officially endorse one religious position over another, or religion over nonreligion. As noted earlier, such endorsement is assertedly wrong not because it directly deprives anyone of liberty, but because—no matter how nondenominational and generic it is intended to be—it creates unwarranted discord and alienates those citizens with views on religion different from the government's.
2. Druze -- Religions
   These Druze and Nusairis are kaafirs, according to the consensus of the Muslims. It is not permissible to eat the meat they slaughter, or to marry their womenfolk. They do not agree to pay the jizyah, so they are apostates from the religion of Islam and are not Muslims, nor are they Jews or Christians. They do not agree that the five daily prayers are obligatory, or that fasting Ramadaan is obligatory, or that Hajj is obligatory. They do not regard as haraam that which Allaah and His Messenger have forbidden of dead meat or wine, etc. Even if they pronounce the Shahaadatayn, with these beliefs they are kaafirs according to the consensus of the Muslims.
3. Christianity -- Religions
   Although Christianity is the largest religion in the world and there are massive missionary efforts under way, as a whole it is declining in terms of the overall population. While the population of the world grows at roughly 1.25% per year, Christianity is growing at about 1.12% per year. By contrast, Islam is growing at 1.76% per year. The slow growth can be attributed to most of the Christian population residing in affluent nations where the birth rate is quite low. By contrast, Islamic nations have a higher birth rate and by effect have a larger growth percentage.
4. Taoism -- Religions
   The principal refuge of Taoism in the 20th century is on Taiwan. Its establishment on the island is doubtless contemporary with the great emigration from the opposite mainland province of Fukien in the 17th and 18th centuries. The religion... has received new impetus since the 63rd celestial master, Chang En-pu, took refuge there in 1949.
5. Paganism -- Religions
   Paganism is a general term which is usually understood as denoting any religious act, practice or ceremony which is not Christian. Anyone practicing paganism is usually known as a pagan. The word pagan comes from the Latin word paganus which means a country dweller. As Christianity grew the term pagan took on a different definition and unsavory connotations. Gradually a pagan referred to anyone not being a Christian; and paganism came to mean a non-Christian belief or religion. The Christian Church has vigorously attempted to eradicate it by implying that pagans are unsophisticated, uneducated and worship false gods.
6. Greek Religion -- Ancient Greek Religion
   Ancient Greek religion has been the subject of speculation and research from classic times to the present. Herodotus believed that the rites of many of the gods had been derived from the Egyptians. Prodicus of Ceos (fl. 5th cent. BC), a Sophist philosopher, seems to have taught that the gods were simply personifications of natural phenomena, such as the sun, moon, winds, and water. Euhemerus (370?-298 BC), a mythographer, in his Sacred History, gave expression to ideas long prevalent when he interpreted the myths as distortions of history and the gods as idealized heroes of the past. In modern times, studies along etymological and anthropological lines have produced the theory that Greek religion resulted from the synthesis of Indo-European beliefs with ideas and customs native to the Mediterranean countries, the original inhabitants of those lands having been conquered by Indo-European invaders.
7. Greek Religion -- Hellenistic Greece
   In the beginning of the Hellenistic period the religion seems exactly the same as early Greek. Although Greek religion spread quickly, throughout the East it did not catch on as quickly. This is because the Oriental religion was firmly established in the East. During the second century B C the two religions began to mix. The cults and mystery religions were still popular, but cults had changed a bit. They no longer required belief, and did not appeal to the emotions as much as they had before.
8. Greek Religion -- Gods
    Greek religion and mythology are supernatural beliefs and ritual observances of the ancient Greeks, commonly related to a diffuse and contradictory body of stories and legends. The most notable features of this religion were many gods having different personalities having human form and feelings, the absence of any established religious rules or authoritative revelation such as, for example, the Bible, the strong use of rituals, and the government almost completely subordinating the population’s religious beliefs. Apart from the mystery cults, most of the early religions in Greece are not solemn or serious in nature nor do they contain the concepts of fanaticism or mystical inspiration, which were Asian beliefs and did not appear until the Hellenistic period (about 323-146 B.C.). At its first appearance in classical literature, Greek mythology had already received its definitive form. Some divinities were either introduced or developed more fully at a later date, but in Homer’s Iliad and Odyssey the major Olympian gods appear in substantially the forms they retained until paganism ceased to exist. Homer usually is considered responsible for the highly developed personifications of the gods and the comparative rationalism that characterized Greek religious thought.
9. New Age Movement -- Religions
   The New Age Movement mimics Eastern religions, which distort the distinction between good and evil. Because of the New Age's monastic view that "all is One," how can it account for both good and evil? Is the one "essence," or "force" (the Hindu equivalent of God), both good and evil?
10. Greek Religion -- Homer
    [T]he student of Greek death continues to face formidable obstacles in the handling of data. To begin with, the literary allusions to death and the afterlife are, with the exception of Homer, piecemeal at best. This means that the interpretation of the relevant material, in the almost total absence of any eschatological framework, presents a huge challenge to the conscientious scholar. There are other attendant difficulties. The archaeological evidence is often unsystematically gathered and provides an unreliable indicator of change. Dating based on pottery, particularly less prestigious pottery, which tends to be highly uniform over large stretches of time, is untrustworthy.

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