▷What is Religion?
▷The Sacred and the Spiritual
▶Religion of world
  ☞India and Hinduism
  ☞Buddhism
  ☞Confucianism
  ☞Taoism
  ☞Koran and Islam
  ☞Judaism
  ☞Christianity

≫India and Hinduism  

Fundamental beliefs and basic history
Because it integrates a large variety of heterogeneous elements, Hinduism constitutes a very complex but largely continuous whole, and since it covers the whole of life, it has religious, social, economic, literary, and artistic aspects. As a religion, Hinduism is an utterly diverse conglomerate of doctrines, cults, and ways of life.
The distinction between the level of popular belief and that of elaborate ritual technique and philosophical speculation is very marked and attended by many stages of transition and varieties of coexistence. Primitive magic and fetishism, animal worship, and belief in demons occur beside, and often combined with, the worship of more or less personal gods, as do mysticism, asceticism, and abstract and profound theological systems or esoteric doctrines. For example, worship of female local deities does not, in the same milieu, exclude the belief in pan-Indian higher gods, or even in a single High God. Such deities are also frequently

looked upon as manifestations of a High God.
In principle, Hinduism incorporates all forms of belief and worship without necessitating the selection or elimination of any. The Hindu is inclined to revere the divine in every manifestation, whatever it may be, and is doctrinally tolerant, leaving others - including both Hindus and non-Hindus - whatever creed and worship practices suit them best. A Hindu may embrace a non-Hindu religion without ceasing to be a Hindu, and since the Hindu is disposed to think synthetically and to regard other forms of worship, strange gods, and divergent doctrines as inadequate rather than wrong or objectionable, he tends to believe that the highest divine powers complement each other for the well-being of the world and mankind. Few religious ideas are considered to be finally irreconcilable.
The core of religion does not even depend on the existence or nonexistence of God or on whether there is one god or many. Since religious truth is said to transcend all verbal definition, it is not conceived in dogmatic terms. Hinduism is, then, both a civilization and a conglomerate of religions, with neither a beginning, a founder, nor a central authority, hierarchy, or organization. Every  attempt at a specific definition of Hinduism has proved unsatisfactory in one way or another, the more so because the finest Indian scholars of Hinduism, including Hindus themselves, have emphasized different aspects of the whole.

Background of Relativism
What is the base of Indian culture? This is not simple question, but these can be as Hinduism and Caste. It’s really hard to say with somthere is no concept of unchangeable eternity. Principles of Hinduism have been changed at any time according to time, place, and religious desire and willingness of the people words about these likewise all culture in India. Hinduism is a live religion from the prehistoric age to now. So Hinduism is not a religion can be drawn a limit clearly. Also it is not determined specifically for the scripture.  Hinduism is both physical religion based on reality and non-physical one surpassing reality. It contains all types of belief from logical philosophy to illogical belief. So there is no concept for oppression and heresy in Hinduism. This means e. There is an indissoluble connection between Hinduism and Caste. Caste is social system centering on “awareness of contamination”. Contamination is a material by secreted and produced by animal, and infected to others through contact and so on. A group permanent, viviparous, and professional with contamination belongs to low grade of rank. On the contrary,  a group distant contamination belongs to the highest grade. So the lowest grade in this system is a cleaner for a corpse, especially body of cow, and a scholar is in the highest grade of rank. Cleanness is a relative concept of contamination. Cleanness comes from live cow and its products such as secret, milk, butter and air, sun, and the Ganges. Personal contamination can be removed temporarily by source of cleanness. So the Hindu wash their body in the Ganges, and clean their house with cow’s urine. But permanent and collective contamination can not be washed by source of cleanness. There is a grade of rank based on contamination in Caste, but it is not drawn clearly. Just because one is high grade in Caste, it doesn’t follow that he has real power. Also Caste is not a fixed system not to allow movement permanently. Caste has bigger meaning from the wedding and food stand point of view than from power and grade point of view.  The important function of Caste in society is limitation about wedding and food. Different grade of Caste can not marry together.

India religion
The Hindu is born as the Hindu. Religion to Indian is not selectable. Everyone belongs to one of branches already when he is born, and can not escape from its girth. This is his life. Hinduism is regulating Indian life up to today since it originated in BC 3000. The “Hindu” is Persian pronunciation of “Sindu”, Sanskrit of the Indus River. Hindu itself means India. So Hinduism is the very Indian religion. For Indian, religion is not special one and is not critical thing. That is just form for living. Because life is the very religion, Hindu aware religion specially are not common. For foreigners, they show religion as Indian life itself. Indian doesn’t really think themselves as religious. There is an indissoluble connection between Hinduism and Indian life like this.  

God
Like that all people are not same in their life pattern, it’s not strange to them that there are many Gods in Hinduism. One might wonder how such a multitude of beliefs about the divine could possibly co-exist in one religion. But they do. There is, however, a widespread recognition that none of the personal gods of Hinduism is in any way exclusive or unique. They are all simply different ways of conceiving of the one reality behind all things - Brahman. Many gods or incarnations of gods are worshiped by Hindus. Chief among them are Shiva, a fierce figure representing both the creative and destructive sides of divinity as well as the ideal of yogic meditation, and Vishhnu, who incarnates himself many times through history in order to bring the message of salvation to man. The gods are sometimes amoral; their freedom from the usual restraints necessary to humans is often celebrated, and they are often represented with sexual imagery. Many lesser cults worship a complex variety of gods, all of whom are usually seen as manifestations of the one supreme being, Brahman. Brahman is seen by many Hindus as a personal, loving God who desires the salvation of all man. More usually, however, he is described as a supreme, impersonal being completely above all creation and uninvolved with life on earth.

≫Buddhism   

Fundamental beliefs and basic history
Buddhism was founded by Gautama Buddha, north of Hindustan, about the middle of the sixth century BC. Is present adherents are chiefly in Burma, Nepal, Ceylon, Thailand, Tibet, and China, with small numbers in Japan. It has, in recent years, made some inroads into Europe and North America, though chiefly those in the West are immigrants from Asia.
Buddhism is regarded by many as not a new religion, but rather a reformation of Hinduism, and specifically of the Hinduism as practiced by the highest caste, the Brahmans.
The attraction of Buddhism, especially in its original environment, was the spirit of universal charity and sympathy that it breathed, as contrasted with the exclusiveness of caste. It was, in fact, a reaction against the exclusiveness and formalism of Hinduism - an attempt to render it more universal and to throw of its burden of ceremonies. Buddhism did not expressly abolish caste, but declared that all followers of the Buddha who embraced the religious life were thereby released from its restrictions. This opening of its ranks to all classes and to both sexes no doubt gave Buddhism one great advantage over Hinduism.
The Chinese Buddhists have always looked on India as their "holy land", and beginning with the fourth century of our era, a stream of Buddhist pilgrims continued to flow from china to India during six centuries. Several of these pilgrims have left accounts of their travels, which throw a light on the course of Buddhism in India, and on the internal state of the country in general, that is looked for in vain in the literature of India itself.
A prominent name in the history of Buddhism is that of Asoka, King of Magadha in the third century BC, whose sway seems to have extended over the whole peninsula of Hindustan and even over Ceylon. This prince was to Buddhism what Constantine was to Christianity. He was at first a persecutor of the faith, but being converted - by a miracle, according to the legend - he became a zealous propagator of the religion - not, however, as princes usually promote their creed, for it is a distinguishing characteristic of
Buddhism that it has never employed force, rarely even to resist aggression. Asoka showed his zeal by building and endowing viharas (monasteries) and raising topes and other monuments over the relics of Buddha and in spots remarkable as the scenes of
his labors. Hiouen-Thsang, in the seventh century of our era, found topes attributed to Asoka from the foot of the Hindu Kush to the extremity of the peninsula.
For the glimpses we get of the state of Buddhism in India we are indebted chiefly to the accounts of Chinese pilgrims. Fahien, at the end of the fourth century, found some appearances of decline in the east of Hindustan, its birthplace, but it was still strong in the Punjab and the north. In Ceylon it was flourishing in full vigor, the ascetics or monks numbering nearly 100,000. In the seventy century - i.e. 1200 years after the death of the Buddha - Hiouen Thsang represents it as dominant but decaying, though patronized by powerful rajas.
During the first four or five centuries of our era, Buddhists, perhaps driven from the great cities, retired among the hills of the west, and there constructed those cave temples which, for their number, vastness, and elaborate structure, continue to excite wonder. There are reckoned to be not fewer than 900 Buddhist excavations still extant in India. How the destruction of the Buddhist faith in Hindustan came about - whether from internal corruption, or the persecution of powerful princes, adherents of the old faith - we do not know. But it is certain that from the time of Hiouen-Thaang's visit its decay must have been rapid, for about the eleventh or twelfth century the last races of it disappear from the Indian Peninsula.

Doctrine
According to Buddhist belief, when a man dies he is immediately born again, or appears in a new shape. That shape may, according to his merit or demerit, be any of the innumerable orders of being that compose the Buddhist universe - from a clod to a divinity. If his demerit would not be sufficiently punished by a degraded earthly existence - in the form, for instance, of a woman, or a slave, or of some persecuted group, or a disgusting animal - he will be born in one of the 136 Buddhist hells, situated in the interior of the earth. These places of punishment have a regular gradation in the intensity of the suffering and in the length of time the sufferers live, the least term being ten million years; the longer terms are almost beyond the powers of Indian notation to express. A meritorious life, on the other hand, secures the next birth either in an exalted and happy position on earth, or as a blessed spirit, or even divinity, in one of the many heavens, in which the least duration of life is about ten billion years. But however long the life, whether of misery or of bliss, it has an end, and at its close the individual must be born again and may again be either happy or miserable - either a god or the vilest inanimate object.
The Buddhist conception of the way in which the quality of actions - which is expressed in Sanskrit by the word karma, including both merit and demerit - determines the future condition of all sentient beings, is peculiar. They do not conceive any god or gods as being pleased or displeased by the actions, and as assigning the actors their future condition by way of punishment or of reward. The idea of a god, as creating or ruling the world, is utterly absent in the Buddhist system. God is not denied; he is simply not known.
Another basis of Buddhism is the assumption that human existence is on the whole miserable and a curse rather than a blessing. An enervating climate and political conditions may have aided in producing the feeling common to Hindu and Buddhist that life is evil. But the root of the matter is philosophical. Life is a whole; nature is a whole; to be born is to become separate or individualized from the whole. Individuality implies limitation; limitation implies error; error implies ignorance. Hence birth is an evil because it is inseparable from ignorance, and it is only the removal of ignorance which can lead to the suppression of desire, while only the suppression of desire can lead to peace. This desire, which Buddha identified with the "will to live," he called trshna (Pali,Tanha) or "thirst." The little value that Hindus set upon their lives is manifested in many ways. The punishment of death has little or no terror for them and is even sometimes coveted as an honor.
Death was no escape from this inevitable lot, or, according to the doctrine of transmigration, death was only a passage into some other form of existence equally doomed. Guatama saw no escape but in what he called Nirvana, literally "extinction", "blowing out," or "annihilation." Yet it would be wrong to hold that the man who has freed himself from desire and has recognized the essentially illusory character of this world is utterly devoid of sentiment; on the contrary, the Buddha and his followers lay stress on Love, which is the cardinal virtue of Buddhism. While, in his perfect peace of mind, the "enlightened" man is entirely indifferent to pleasure and pain and unmoved by the vicissitudes of this world, his soul is not dead, but filled with love and sympathy for everything which is still in the thrall of desire, but without undue preference of one object over another. This love, or charity, is called in Sanskrit Maitri. Complete Nirvana, which in the original meaning of the term is attainable during life, was in fact, attained by Guatama himself. The process by which the state is attained is called Dhyana and is neither more nor less than ecstasy or trance, which plays so important a part among mystics of all religions. The individual is described as losing one feeling after another, until perfect apathy is attained, and he reaches a state "where there are neither ideas, nor the idea of the absence of ideas."
The key of the whole scheme of Buddhist salvation lies in what Gautama called his four sublime verities (truths). The first asserts that pain exists; the second, that the cause of pain is desire or attachment; the third, that pain can be ended by suppressing desire; and the fourth shows the way that leads to this. This way consists in eight things: right faith, right judgment, right language, right purpose, right practice, right effort, right thinking and right meditation.
In order to understand how this method is to lead to the proposed end, we must turn to the metaphysical part of the system contained in the "concatenation of causes," or "chain of causation" (Pratityasamutpada), which may be looked upon as a development of the second "verity", viz., that the cause of pain is desire (Trshna) - or rather, as the analysis upon which that verity is founded. The immediate cause of pain is birth, for if we were not born we should not be exposed to death or any of the ills of life. Birth, again, is caused by previous existence; it is only a transition from one state of existence into another.  Contemplation and science or knowledge are ranked as virtues in Buddhism and hold a prominent place among the means of attaining Nirvana. It is reserved, in fact, for abstract contemplation to effect the final steps of the deliverance. Thought is the highest faculty of man, and, in the mind of an Eastern philosopher, the mightiest of all forces. A king who had become a convert to Buddhism is represented as seating himself with his legs crossed and his mind collected; and "cleaving with the thunderbolt of science the mountain of ignorance," he saw before him the desired state. It is in this cross-legged, contemplative position that the Buddha is almost always represented - that crowning intellectual act of his, when, seated under the Bo tree he attained the full knowledge of the Buddha, saw the illusory nature of all things, broke the last bonds that tied him to existence, and stood delivered for evermore from the necessity of being born again, being considered the culmination of his character and the highest object of imitation to all his followers.

Morality and Religious Observances
There are ten moral precepts or "precepts of aversion." Five of these are of universal obligation: not to kill, not to steal, not to commit adultery, not to lie, and not to be drunken.
The other five are for those entering on the direct pursuit of Nirvana by embracing the religious life: to abstain from food out of season (i.e., after midday); to abstain from dances, theatrical representations, songs, and music; to abstain from personal ornaments and perfumes; to abstain from a lofty and luxurious couch; to abstain from taking gold and silver.
For the regular ascetics, or monks, there are a number of special observances of a very severe kind. They are to dress only in rags, sewed together with their own hands, and to have a yellow cloak thrown over their rags. They are to eat only the simplest food and to possess nothing except what they get by collecting alms from door to door in their wooden bowls. They are allowed only one meal, and that must be eaten before midday. For a part of the year they are to live in forests, with no other shelter except the shadow of a tree, and there they must sit on their carpet even during sleep, to lie down being forbidden. They are allowed to enter the nearest village or town to beg food, but they must return to their forests before night.
Besides the absolutely necessary "aversions and observances" above mentioned, there are certain virtues or "perfections" of a supererogatory or transcendent kind that tend directly to "conduct to the other shore" (Nirvana). The most essential of these are almsgiving or charity, purity, patience, courage, contemplation, and knowledge. Charity or benevolence may be said to be the characteristic virtue of Buddhism - a charity boundless in its self-abnegation and extending to every sentient being. Benevolence to animals, with the tendency to exaggerate a right principle, is carried among the Buddhist monks to the length of avoiding the destruction of fleas and the most noxious vermin, which they remove from their persons with all tenderness. The sect of the Jains carried this to absurd extremes.
There are other virtues of a secondary kind, thought still highly commendable. Thus, not content with forbidding lying, the Buddha strictly enjoins the avoidance of all offensive and gross language, and of saying or repeating anything that can set others at enmity among themselves; it is a duty, on the contrary, especially for a Sramana, to act on all occasions as a peacemaker. Patience under injury and resignation to misfortune are strongly inculcated. The Buddhist saints are to conceal their good works and display their faults. As the outward expression of this sentiment of humility, Gautama instituted the practice of confession. Twice a month, at the new and at the full moon, the monks confessed their faults aloud before the assembly. This humiliation and repentance seems the only means of expiating sin that was known to Gautama. Confession was exacted of all believers, only not so frequently as of the monks.
The ritual or worship of early Buddhism is very simple in character. There are no priests, or clergy, properly so called. The Sramanas or Bhikshus (mendicants) are simply a religious order - a class of monks, who, in order to accomplish the more speedy attainment of Nirvana, have entered on a course of greater sanctity and austerity than ordinary men; they have no sacraments to administer nor rites to perform for the people, for every Buddhist is his own priest. The only thing like a clerical function they discharge is to read the scriptures or discourses of the Buddha in stated assemblies of the people held for that purpose. But in northern Buddhism there is a complete ritual, with rites and worship strangely like that of the Roman Catholic Church, through whose missionaries these traits may have been introduced.
In some countries the monks are exceedingly numerous; around Lhassa in Tibet, for instance, they are said to be one-third of the population. They live in monasteries, and subsist partly by endowments, but mostly by charity. Except in Tibet, they are not allowed to engage in any secular occupation. The vow is not irrevocable. This incubus of monasticism constitutes the great weakness of Buddhism in its social aspect.
Lamaism, the form of Buddhism prevalent in Tibet and Mongolia is a combination of Buddhism with Sivaism and Shamanism or spirit worship. The nature worship of the nomad Mongols was probably influenced by the precepts of Lao-Tse and Confucius and the preaching of Nestorian monks before it absorbed a Buddhism which had already become weak.
The acceptance of Buddha as an incarnation of the divine essence resulted in the establishment of a hierarchy in Tibet. There were two Lama popes, the Dalai-lama or "grand lama" and the other bearing the titles of Tashi-lama, Bogdo-lama, or Pen-Ch'en.
While both popes have the same rank and authority, the Dalai-lama's diocese was larger, giving him greater influence.
Lamaism possesses a lower clergy, which recruits its ranks on the principle of merit. It has four orders: the novice; the assistant priest; the religious mendicant; and the teacher. All these make a vow of celibacy, and live in convents. At the head is a Khubilghan, or an abbot. Lamaism also has its nuns.
The adoration of the statues of the Buddha and of his relics is the chief external ceremony of the religion. This, with prayer and the repetition of sacred formulas, constitutes the ritual. The central object in a Buddhist temple, corresponding to the altar in a Catholic church, is an image of the Buddha, or a dagoba or shrine containing his relics. Here flowers, fruit, and incense are daily offered, and processions are made with singing of hymns. Of the relics of the Buddha, the most famous are the teeth that are preserved with intense veneration in various places.
With all their admiration of the Buddha, his followers have generally never made a god of him. Gautama is only the last Buddha - the Buddha of the present cycle. He had predecessors in the cycles that are past (24 Buddhas of the past are enumerated); and when, at the end of the present cycle, all things shall be reduced to their elements, and the knowledge of the way of salvation shall perish with all things else, another Buddha will appear, again to reveal to the renascent beings the way to Nirvana. The Buddha, then, is not a god; he is the ideal of what any man may become; and the great object of Buddhist worship is to keep this ideal vividly in the minds of the believers.

≫Confucianism   

Confucianism, the philosophical system founded on the teaching of Confucius (551-479 BC), dominated Chinese sociopolitical life for most of Chinese history and largely influenced the cultures of Korea, Japan, and Indochina. The Confucian school functioned as a recruiting ground for government positions, which were filled by those scoring highest on examinations in the Confucian classics. It also blended with popular and imported religions and became the vehicle for articulating Chinese mores to the peasants.
The school's doctrines supported political authority using the theory of the mandate of heaven. It sought to help the rulers maintain domestic order, preserve tradition, and maintain a constant standard of living for the taxpaying peasants. It trained its adherents in benevolence, traditional rituals, filial piety, loyalty, respect for superiors and for the aged, and principled flexibility in advising rulers.

Confucius
Westerners use Confucius as the spelling for K'ung Fu-tzu-Master K'ung-China's first and most famous philosopher. Confucius had a traditional personal name (Ch'iu) and a formal name (Chung-ni). Confucius' father died shortly after Confucius' birth. His family fell into relative poverty, and Confucius joined a growing class of impoverished descendants of aristocrats who made their careers by acquiring knowledge of feudal ritual and taking positions of influence serving the rulers of the fragmented states of ancient China.
Confucius devoted himself to learning. At age 30, however, when his short-lived official career floundered, he turned to teaching others. Confucius himself never wrote down his own philosophy, although tradition credits him with editing some of the historical classics that were used as texts in his school. He apparently made an enormous impact on the lives and attitudes of his disciples, however. The book known as the Analects, which records all the "Confucius said, . . . " aphorisms, was compiled by his students after his death. Because the Analects was not written as a systematic philosophy, it contains frequent contradictions and many of the philosophical doctrines are ambiguous. The Analects became the basis of the Chinese social lifestyle and the fundamental religious and philosophical point of view of most traditionalist Chinese intellectuals throughout history. The collection reveals Confucius as a person dedicated to the preservation of traditional ritual practices with an almost spiritual delight in performing ritual for its own sake.

Doctrine
Confucianism combines a political theory and a theory of human nature to yield a tao-a prescriptive doctrine or way. The political theory starts with a doctrine of political authority based on the mandate of heaven. The legitimate ruler derives authority from heaven's command. The ruler bears responsibility for the well-being of the people and therefore for peace and order in the empire.
Confucian philosophy presupposes a view of human nature in which humans are essentially social animals whose mode of social interaction is shaped by li (convention or ritual), which establishes value distinctions and prescribes activities in response to those distinctions. Education in li, or social rituals, is based on the natural behavioral propensity to imitate models. Sages, or superior people-those who have mastered the li-are the models of behavior from which the mass of people learn. Ideally, the ruler should himself be such a model and should appoint only those who are models of te (virtue) to positions of prominence. People are naturally inclined to emulate virtuous models; hence a hierarchy of merit results in widespread natural moral education.
Then, with practice, all people can in principle be like the sages, by acting in accordance with li without conscious effort. At that point they have acquired jen (humanity), the highest level of moral development; their natural inclinations are all in harmony with
tao (way). The world is at peace, order abounds, and the harmony between the natural and the social sphere results in material well-being for everyone. This is Confucius' utopian vision, which he regards as modeled on the practice of the ancient sage kings.

Historical Development
Confucianism emerged as a more coherent philosophy when faced with intellectual competition from other schools that were growing in the fertile social upheavals of preimperial China (c.400-c.200 BC.) Taoism, Mohism, and Legalism all attacked Confucianism. A common theme of these attacks was that Confucianism assumed that tradition or convention (li) was correct.
Mencius (c.372-c.289 BC) developed a more idealistic version of Confucianism stressing jen as an innate inclination to good behavior that does not require education. Hsun Tzu (c.313-c.238 BC), on the contrary, argued that all inclinations are shaped by acquired language and other social forms.
Confucianism rose to the position of an official orthodoxy during the Han dynasty (206 BC-AD 220). It absorbed the metaphysical doctrines of Yin (the female principle) and Yang (the male principle) found in the I Ching (Book of Changes) and other speculative metaphysical notions. With the fall of the Han, the dynastic model, Confucianism fell into severe decline. Except for the residual effects of its official status, Confucianism lay philosophically dormant for about 600 years.
With the reestablishment of Chinese dynastic power in the T'ang dynasty (618-906) and the introduction of the Ch'an (Zen Buddhist) premise that "there is nothing much to Buddhist teaching," Confucianism began to revive. The Sung dynasty (960-1279) produced Neo-Confucianism-an interpretation of classical Confucian doctrine (principally that of Mencius) that addressed Buddhist and Taoist issues. The development of this philosophy was due mainly to Cheng-hao (1032-85) and Cheng-i (1033-1107), but for the orthodox statement of Neo-Confucianism, one turns to Chu Hsi (1130-1200). His commentaries on the four scriptures of Confucianism were required study for the imperial civil service examinations.
Neo-Confucianism focuses on the term li, which here means "lane" or "pattern." Correct behavior is held to follow a natural pattern (li) that is apprehended by hsin (heart-mind). Mencius' theory of the innate goodness of man is a theory of the innate ability of this heart-mind to apprehend li in situations and to follow it. To become a sage, one must study li and develop the ability to "see" it by a kind of intuition. Later, in the Ming dynasty (1368-1644), Wang Yang-Ming claimed that the heart projects li on things rather than just noticing external li. To become a sage, one cannot just study situations, one must act before li becomes manifest. Thus the heart-mind, which guides the action, is the source of li (moral patterns).
After the disastrous conflicts with Western military technology at the dawn of the 20th century, Chinese intellectuals blamed Confucianism for the scientific and political backwardness of China. Chinese Marxism, nonetheless, differs from Western Marxism
in ways that reveal the persistence of Confucian attitudes toward politics, metaphysics, and theories of human psychology. Anti-Confucianism has been a theme in various political campaigns in modern China-most notably during and just after the Cultural Revolution. Increased toleration for all religions since Mao Tse-tung's death may lead to a moderate revival of Confucianism, although the interest seems to be mostly in historical issues.
In Taiwan, by contrast, Confucian orthodoxy has survived and serves to underpin an anti-Marxist, traditional authoritarianism. Serious, ongoing Confucian philosophy, however, is found mainly in Hong Kong and among Chinese scholars working in the West.

≫Taoism  

The term Taoism refers both to the philosophy outlined in the Daode Jing (Tao Te Ching) (identified with Laozi or Lao-tzu) and to China's ancient Taoist religion. Next to Confucianism, it ranks as the second major belief system in traditional Chinese thought.

Taoist Philosophy
The formulation of Taoist philosophy is attributed to Laozi (fl. 6th or 4th century BC) and Zhuangzi (Chuang-tzu) (c.369-c.286 BC) as well as the Lie Xi (Lieh-tzu) (compiled during the Han dynasty, 202 BC-AD 220). Three doctrines are particularly important:
Tao (way) is nonbeing (wu), the creative-destructive force that brings everything into being and dissolves everything into nonbeing; return (fu) is the destiny of everything-that is, everything, after completing its cycle, returns to nonbeing; and nonaction (wu wei), or action in harmony with nature, is the best way of life. Zhuangzi taught that, from a purely objective viewpoint, all oppositions are merely the creations of conceptual thought and imply no judgments of intrinsic value (one pole is no more preferable than its opposite). Hence the wise person accepts life's inevitable changes. The Lie Xi said that the cultivation of Tao would enable a person to live for several hundred years. Taoism teaches the devotee to lead a long and tranquil life through the elimination of one's desires and aggressive impulses.

Taoist Religion
Often regarded as a corruption of Taoist philosophy, the Taoist religion began in the 3d century BC with such practices as alchemy (the mixing of elixirs designed to ensure the immortality of the body). The alchemy was carried out by Taoist priest-magicians at the court of Shih Huang-ti of the Qin (Ch'in) dynasty (221-207 BC). These magicians were also acclaimed as spirit mediums and experts in levitation. They were the heirs of the archaic folk religion of China, which had been rejected by the early Confucianists. Among the prominent features of Taoist religion are belief in physical immortality, alchemy, breath control and hygiene (internal alchemy), a pantheon of deities (including Laozi as one of the three Supreme Ones), monasticism and the ritual of community renewal, and revealed scriptures. The Taoist liturgy and theology were influenced by Buddhism. Its scriptures, the Daozang (Tao-tsang), consist of hundreds of separate works totaling more than 5,000 chapters.
Among the principal Taoist sects to emerge was the Heavenly Master sect, founded in West China in the 2d century AD. It advocated faith healing through the confession of sin and at one time recruited members as soldiers and engaged in war against the government. The Supreme Peace sect, also founded in the 2d century, adopted practices much like those of the Heavenly Master sect and launched a great rebellion that went on for several years before ending in AD 205. The Mao-shan (Mount Mao) sect, founded in the 4th century, introduced rituals involving both external and internal alchemies, mediumistic practice, and visionary communication with divinities.
The Ling-pao (Marvelous Treasure) sect, also founded in the 4th century, introduced the worship of divinities called T'ien-tsun (Heavenly Lords). The Ch'uan-chen (Completely Real) sect was founded in the 12th century as a Taoist monastic movement.
Eventually the Heavenly Master sect absorbed most of the beliefs and practices of the other sects and, in the 20th century, became the most popular Taoist group.
Tao can be roughly translated into English as path, or the way. It “refers to a power which envelopes, surrounds and flows through all things, living and non-living. The Tao regulates natural processes and nourishes balance in the Universe. It embodies the harmony of opposites. Taoism is a philosophy that is deeply embedded into the traditions and history of China. It is difficult to distinguish between what is Taoist and what is Confucian because they both have many of the same ideas about man, society, rulers, heaven, and the Universe. Confucianism deals with the practical and the earthly while Taoism deals with the esoteric and the heavenly. Both beliefs stem from traditional Chinese ideas that were not delegated to one religion. Therefore, it is difficult to place the origins of Taoism. The Tao-Te Ching is the basis of many other works in Taoism. Most of the Tao-Te Ching deals with the interaction of yin and yang and their influences upon nature. Yin represents the female and is serene and without motive. Yang represents the masculine aspects of the universe, which are hot, dry, and active. The ideal balance is to able to retain the characteristics of both. Taoist do not concern themselves with society. Taoism is a very individual philosophy in that Taoists are expected to value their own life above all else. They should not worry about wealth and power. These are not the concerns of people. There is no need to sacrifice oneself for the good of society. Everyone is responsible for their owns. Taoism looks upon death and a natural occurrence that one should not fear or dread. Yet, as the philosophy evolved into different sects, there are some who seek immortality. These believe that, even though death is natural, it can be avoided by practicing Taoism so completely that the energy of the soul is released and the person becomes pure cosmic energy. Taoism, in it’s involvement in maintaining the balance of the natural order, is preoccupied with repairing that balance. Through medicine and meditation, this balance in maintained. Therefore, many of the Taoistic ceremonies center around this need. There have been various discussions about “ What is Taoism?” from long ago, so there have been lots of opinions for this.

≫Koran and Islam  

This includes religion and popular customs. Islam is one of the major religions. One who follows Islam is Muslim. Traditionally, its followers have regarded Islam as extending over all areas of life, not merely faith and worship which are commonly viewed as the sphere of religion today. Thus many Muslims prefer to call Islam a way of life rather than a religion. It is for this reason too that the word Islam, especially when referring to the past is often used to refer to a society, culture or civilization, as well as to a religion. Islam is a theocracy, which means that Moslem laws govern both religion and civil state: both personal and public laws. Muslims today claim that Islam can bridge the gap between Jews and Christians. History of Islam discusses political developments, literacy and artistic life, taxation and landholding, tribal and ethnic migrations, etc.

The last prophet, Muhammad
Islam is not a new religion by Prophet Muhammad. Muhammad was chosen by God to deliver His Massage of Peace, namely Islam. He was born in Arabia, and was entrusted with the Message of Islam when he was at the age of forty years. The revelation that he received is called Koran, while the message is called Islam. Muhammad is the very last Prophet of God to mankind. He is the final Messenger of God. His message was still to the Christians, the Jews and the rest of mankind. He was sent to those religious people to inform them about the true mission of Jesus, Moses, Jacob, Isaac, and Abraham. Muhammad is considered to be the summation and the culmination of all the prophets and messengers that came before him. He purified the previous messages from adulteration and completed the Message of god for all humanity. He was entrusted with the power of explaining, interpreting and living the teaching of the Koran.

Koran  
Koran is not the Bible
In this Book, the Holy Prophet’s life, the history of the Arabs and the events which occurred during the period of the revelation of the Koran have not been mingled with the Divine Verses, as is the case with the Bible. The Koran is the pure word of the God. Not one word therein is divine. Not a single word has been deleted from its text. The Book has been handed down to our age in its complete and original form since the time of Prophet Muhammad. Whenever some Divine Message was revealed, the Holy Prophet would call a scribe and dictate its word to him. The Holy Prophet used to instruct the scribe about the sequence in which a revealed message was to be placed in a particular chapter. In this manner, the Holy Prophet continued to arrange the text of the Koran in systematic order till the end of the chain of revelations. Again, it was ordained from the beginning of Islam that a recitation of the Holy Koran must be an integral part of worship.

Basic doctrine: Five Pillars of Islam
God instructed the Muslims to practice what they believe in. Five duties have traditionally been seen as obligatory for all Muslims. These duties are the so-called Five Pillars of Islam.
1. Creed (Shahada): The verbal commitment and pledge that there is only One God and that Muhammad is the Messenger of God, is considered to be the Creed of Islam.
2. Prayers (Salat): The performance of the five daily prayers is required of Muslims.
3. Fasting (Saum): Fasting is total abstinence from food, liquids and intimate intercourse (between married couples) from dawn to sunset during the entire month of Ramadan.
4. Purifying Tax (Zakat): This is an annual payment of a certain percentage of a Muslim’s property that is distributed among the poor ot other rightful beneficiaries.
5. Pilgrimage (Hajj): The performance of pilgrimage to Makkah is required once in a life time if means are available. Hajj is in part in memory of the trials and tribulations of Prophet Abraham, his wife Hagar and his eldest son Prophet Ishmael.
The pillar balances external action with internal conviction, the other four, although they take belief for the granted, consist predominantly of external acts. There are other duties and practices regarded as obligatory. The eating of pork is prohibited and male circumcision is the norm. Consumption of alcohol is forbidden. Meat must be slaughtered according to an approved ritual or else it is not halal.

Islamic Law
Although the essence of Islam is acceptance of one God and of the prophethood of Muhammad, in practice adherence to Islam has traditionally been manifested by living a life according to Islamic law within an Islamic community. The law is regarded as of divine origin: although it is administered and interpreted by human beings, it is understood as the law of God. To obey the law is to obey God. One should not underestimate the importance of questions of belief and dogma in Islam, but generally speaking for Muslims, Islam has been more a matter of right behavior than of concern with the niceties of belief.
Traditionally, Muslims have held that the law was revealed by God in the Koran and in the Sunna. Islamic law concerns itself with far wider areas of public and private life than does a modern secular legal system. Economics, politics, matters of diet and dress, penal and civil law, welfare, and many other aspects of social and private life are, in theory at least, regulated by Islamic law. To live a life according to the law has probably been the main religious ideal for most Muslims, although one should not conclude that Islam is merely a legalistic religion.

Moral system of Islam
Islam has laid down some universal fundamental rights for humanity as a whole, which are to be observed and respected under all circumstances. To achieve these rights Islam provides not only legal safeguards but also a very effective moral system. Thus whatever leads to the welfare of the individual or the society is morally good in Islam and whatever is injurious is morally bad.
Islam attaches so much importance to the love of God and love of man that it warns against too much of formalism.
We are given a beautiful description of the righteous and God-conscious man in these verses. He should obey salutary regulations, but he should fix his gaze on the love of God and the love of his fellow men.

We are given four heads:
a) Our faith should be true and sincere,
b) We must be prepared to show it in deeds of charity to our fellow-men,
c) We must be good citizens, supporting social organizations, and
d) Our own individual soul must be firm and unshaken in all circumstances.
This is the standard by which a particular mode of conduct is judged and classified as good or bad. This standard of judgment provides the nucleus around which the whole moral conduct should revolve. Before laying down any moral injunctions Islam seeks to firmly implant in man's heart the conviction that his dealings are with God who sees him at all times and in all places; that he may hide himself from the whole world but not from Him; that he may deceive everyone but cannot deceive God; that he can flee from the clutches of anyone else but not from God. Thus, by setting God's pleasure as the objective of man's life, Islam has furnished the highest possible standard of morality. This is bound to provide limitless avenues for the moral evolution of humanity. By making Divine revelations as the primary source of knowledge it gives permanence and stability to the moral standards which afford reasonable scope for genuine adjustments,
adaptations and innovations, though not for perversions, wild variation, atomistic relativism or moral fluidity. It provides a sanction to morality in the love and fear of God, which will impel man to obey the moral law even without any external pressure. Through belief in God and the Day of Judgment it furnishes a force which enables a person to adopt the moral conduct with earnestness and sincerity, with all the devotion of heart and soul.
It does not, through a false sense of originality and innovation, provide any novel moral virtues nor does it seek to minimize the importance of the well-known moral norms, nor does it give exaggerated importance to some and neglect others without cause. It takes up all the commonly known moral virtues and with a sense of balance and proportion it assigns a suitable place and function to each one of them in the total scheme of life. It widens the scope of man's individual and collective life - his domestic associations, his civic conduct, and his activities in the political, economic, legal, educational, and social realms. It covers his life from home to society, from the dining-table to the battlefield and peace conferences, literally from the cradle to the grave. In short, no sphere of life is exempt from the universal and comprehensive application of the moral principles of Islam. It makes morality reign supreme and ensures that the affairs of life, instead of dominated by selfish desires and petty interests, should be regulated by norms of morality.
It stipulates for man a system of life which is based on all good and is free from all evil. It invokes the people, not only to practice virtue, but also to establish virtue and eradicate vice, to bid good and to forbid wrong. It wants that the verdict of conscience should prevail and virtue must not be subdued to play second fiddle to evil. Those who respond to this call are gathered together into a community and given the name "Muslim". And the singular object underlying the formation of this community ("Ummah") is that it should make an organized effort to establish and enforce goodness and suppress and eradicate evil.

≫Judaism  

Fundamental beliefs and basic history
Judaism traces itself back to Moses, who is regarded as the author of the first five books of the Bible, where he laid down the law of God to the nation. Salvation was a work of God, demonstrated by the Exodus. Since God had the power to save the nation from Egyptian , so God had the power to save people from to sin. The law was given after salvation from Egypt, not accidentally; it illustrates that salvation is a work of God, and that obeying the law is a consequence of the work God has begun
in the heart - a loving response to his grace.
Unfortunately, as so often happens, the concept of the nature of salvation quickly became perverted. Israel quickly fell into allowing their beliefs to be dictated by their culture, and as the surrounding culture was polytheistic, they quickly started worshipping other gods in addition to Yahweh. The prophets warned the people of God's displeasure, but repentance was never complete until after Israel suffered the indignity of first Assyrian and then Babylonian exile and captivity.
Afterward, Israel was never tempted to worship idols or other gods; however, Judaism became increasingly legalistic in its orientation, with salvation being tied to keeping the law, performing the sacrifices, and doing what the priests ordered. The cart was placed before the horse, as it was.
Three main sects developed in Judaism, the Pharisees, who believed in the books of Moses and also the Writings and the Prophets and who taught that external righteousness was the way to achieve God's favor. The only difference that the Saducees, another sect had with the Pharisees, what that the Saducees did not accept any of the Bible but the five books of Moses.
Consequently, they also didn't believe in angels, demons, or the resurrection of the dead (no afterlife at all, in fact). The Eseens were like the Pharisees in most ways, except they viewed the nation as hopelessly corrupt, and so they separated themselves and lived in the hills, waiting for God to send a reformer like Moses who would eliminate the corruption and restore a legalistically pure religion.
The zealots were entirely political in orientation, and argued for the use of force to drive out the Romans. They contented themselves with acts of terrorism until they eventually became the dominant force in the nation and in AD 66 began a seven year struggle, ultimately unsuccessful, to drive out the Romans.
The result of their activity was the destruction of the nation and the burning and destruction of the temple, ending the possibility of sacrifice.
As most of the Saducees had been priests, they mostly died when the temple was destroyed. The zealots were also mostly dead at the hands of the Romans, and the Esseens didn't involve themselves with anyone. Also, being celibate, they didn't reproduce and finally died out.
The only group left to reconstitute Judaism after the disastrous Jewish War were the Pharisees, and so modern Judaism is essentially the child of the Pharisees and bears scant resemblance to the Judaism of the Old Testament.
Since the temple no longer exists, Judaism had tried to get around this significant lack by arguing that God prefers acts of righteousness and mercy better than sacrifice. The result is that Judaism emphasizes doing good deeds in order to stay of God's good side and to ensure a good afterlife. Salvation is a process of personal redemption by bettering oneself and bettering mankind.

Introduction
Never great by world standards, the small nation of Israel was repeatedly defeated and finally dispersed throughout the world. But the Jews are unique in that they maintained their identity in the midst of a large number of diverse cultures. Thus, although a religion closely tied to one ethnic group, Judaism has had a profound effect on beliefs and practices throughout the West and the Near East.
There is a bewildering variety of Jewish groups and nationalities, many of whom are strange to each other. One loose way of dividing modern Judaism is into four groups: Orthodox Jews maintain strict adherence to traditional customs; Reform or Liberal Jews attempt to apply broadly Judaic notions to contemporary culture in a humanistic manner; Conservative Jews try to forge a middle way between the previous two, hoping to maintain strong Jewish identity; and Hasidic Jews follow a mystical path, although many Hasids are little other than the right wing of Orthodoxy.
Jews hold a large number of writings besides the Old Testamant as authoritative.
The Holocaust, in which over six million Jews were killed under Nazism and other forms of anti-Semitism, has become a major theme of Judaic thought in recent years.

God
The complete unity of God--both as a powerful, just ruler and as a merciful, loving deliverer--is central to Judaism. That means that Jews do not flinch from confronting the problem of the existence of pain and suffering, although they freely admit that it is a mystery.
Somehow God is Lord even in the midst of a painful and evil world.
God is not merely some supreme force but is a person, one with emotions of anger, sadness, and joy. He is above all a person with whom one can have a relationship; He desires to share the full gamut of emotions with men.
At the same time God has a certain remoteness. He is above the world, and His ways are often inscrutable to man. The tension between God's nearness and farness is a recurring theme of Judaism, leading to passionate appeals by Jews for communication with Him.
God is seen as continually active in a creative way, constantly working in the world to offer men the opportunity to fulfill their obligations toward Him and toward fellow men.

Man and the Universe
The material world is considered on the whole "very good" (Genesis 1:31), and man has a unique responsibility to order it according to God's purposes. Some Jews go as far as to say that all people, animals, and things contain a "divine spark," which man is assigned
to call forth to completeness through loving action.
The personhood of God and His need for relationships form an analogy for man's most pressing need: to live in harmony with other men.
History is the arena of God's purposeful activity, and Jews often look for signs of His approval or judgment in historical events.
The great responsibility of man as well as his frailty and wickedness are emphasized. The distinguishing mark of humans is their ability to make ethical choices; it is to those choices that Judaism most often addresses itself directly.

Salvation and the Afterlife
One's eternal existence in the hereafter is determined by moral behavior and attitudes. Although there is no Christian notion of saving grace in Judaism, it is taught that God always offers even the most evil men the possibility of repentance (teshuva, "turning").
After such repentance one can atone for one's rebellion against God's ways by positive action.
But the notion of individual salvation and heavenly existence is not prominent in Judaism. In fact many Jews criticize Christianity for being a "selfish" religion, too concerned with personal eternal rewards.
The notion of an afterlife is not well developed in the Old Testament.
Later writers speculated unsystematically about a final day of judgment.
Jews still hope for the coming of the Messiah, who will hand out eternal judgment and reward to all. This hope is largely communal; the entire Jewish race and the whole of creation is in view more than individual men.
In the end the moral life of man here on earth is considered the most proper concern of man; final judgments are best left to God.

Morals
Torah ("to point the way, give direction"), often translated "law," refers in Judaism to a total pattern of behavior, applicable to all aspects of communal and individual life. It is to be found not only in the Old Testament Scriptures but also in a wide variety of oral traditions, rituals, ceremonies, stories, and commentaries on Scripture.
Jews have often tried to develop rules of behavior to cover each situation encountered in their various cultures. Thus a gigantic literature covering codes of conduct has arisen. From time to time movements have emerged that have tried to cut through those rules and get back to the original meaning of torah, but legalism has been a perennial problem of Judaism.
As can be seen in the Ten Commandments, much of Jewish morality is related primarily to the good of the community. The Jewish prophets were perhaps the first strong proponents of social justice in the ancient world, and concern with economic justice continues to be an integral part of Judaism.
But material possessions are generally not considered bad in themselves, even the prophets did not denounce wealth as such, but wanted a greater number of people to have more.
Marriage and children are held in high regard by Judaism. Singleness is looked down on even for religious leaders, and much time is spent teaching children the precepts of the faith.

≫Christianity  

Fundamental beliefs and basic history
Christianity affirms that Jesus Christ was God in the flesh; yet, since the Bible proclaims that there is but one God, but in the same breath affirms that the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit are each God, the doctrine of the Trinity was developed to reconcile this apparent contradiction. The biblical analogy to explain the nature of a single, triune deity is that of a family, inherent in the names of the three members of the godhead, and reflected in the femininity of the Holy Spirit, especially in the Old Testament.
Christianity also affirms that Jesus came to Earth for the express purpose of dying for the sins of humanity, solving what would otherwise be an insoluble problem. Christianity teaches that Jesus was born of a - essentially, to put it in modern terms, Mary was a surrogate mother. The reason that he had to be born of a is because sin is a genetically inherited trait; we are born this way. Therefore, for Jesus to escape the taint of original sin, he could not be descended from Adam.
 Christianity affirms that Jesus was crucified by the Roman authorities and died, was buried in a rich man's tomb, and that three days later, Jesus rose from the grave. He preached to his disciples for another forty days, and then ascended back to the Father in
Heaven, promising to return some day "in the same manner as you saw him leave."
The disciples of Christ, being average Jews of the first century, were not looking for a new religion; instead, their interest was in the coming of the promised Messiah, who would be king and would liberate the nation from the hated Roman oppressors. Even
following the resurrection, his disciples kept pressing him, "are you now going to establish the kingdom?" That is, are you now going to get rid of these horrid Romans.
After Jesus' ascension back to heaven, the Holy Spirit was sent to the followers of Christ. This altered, or corrected their thinking so that they finally fully understood that Jesus' purpose was not to liberate them from political , but rather to liberate them from spiritual .
Christianity remained a sect of Judaism, and was tolerated by the Roman government as such, until the Jewish War when the Jewish people attempted by use of force, to liberate themselves from Rome. Christians refused to participate in this action, and as a consequence were kicked out of Judaism.
With the rising numbers of non-Jews converting to Christianity, its Jewish nature has become increasingly obscured.

Catholicism
Catholicism claims an unbroken line from Peter, as the first Pope (Bishop of Rome, in charge of the visible Church of Christ) to the present. Salvation is considered to be the product of the sacrifice of Christ on the cross combined with certain good works and sacraments; therefore, a person contributes to their salvation by going to church, taking communion, and following the commands of the church. In Catholic theology, the words of the Pope, church councils and tradition are placed on the same authoritative level as the Bible, and the Bible is to be understood as it has been interpreted in the past. In fact, the laity is dependent upon the priests as their intermediaries to God, and as the explainers of the meaning of Scripture.

Protestantism
The result of Martin Luther's protest to the sale of indulgences was a split in the western church in the early 1500's AD. The pillars of the reformation are three:
1. Salvation by grace through faith, not by works.
2. Only Scripture is authoritative.
3. Priesthood of all believers.
Interestingly, in the late twentieth century, the Catholic church is more and more coming to recognize the correctness of Luther's ideas. In many ways, todays Catholicism is approaching the ideal that Luther had in mind. Unfortunately, this transformation in the Catholic Church for the most part has been limited to the upper leadership and theologians. Most of the laity, and even many in the priesthood, have yet to come to grips with the transformation.
The concept of Priesthood of the believer, where each individual Christian may for him or herself interpret the Bible and decide what to believe opened the floodgates for freedom; it also, not surprisingly, resulted in an increasing fragmentation within Protestantism over questions of doctrine. Divisions within Protestantism for the most part are over the following questions:

1. Church organization. There are three basic ways churches have organized themselves:
Authoritarian - church/denomination run by a single individual.
Presbyterian - church/denomination run by a group of elders elected by the          churches of the denomination.
Congregational - each church is autonomous and is run according to democratic principles, with the individual members voting for what they want. Denomination is run by the individual churches cooperating voluntarily.
2. Baptism
to baptize or not to baptize infants
is baptism a necessary part of salvation?
mode of baptism: by immersion only, or is pouring and sprinkling also valid methods?
3. Communion
The bread and wine become the literal body and blood of Jesus.
The body and blood of Jesus are mystically present in the bread and wine.
The bread and wine are merely symbolic representations to remind the believer of Christ's sacrifice.

Other divisions in Protestantism are largely the result of national divisions; for instance, the reason for different Lutheran denominations in the US is the consequence of them having been founded by German or Norwegian immigrants. Consequently, in the twentieth century we have witnessed the unification of some of these Lutheran denominations since all of them speak English now, rather than different languages.
Some of the divisions have been of relatively recent origin, the result of the so-called Modernist/Fundamentalist controversy over the nature of Scripture: is it an inerrant product of God, or is it of purely human origin and therefore, obviously, flawed. Several new Baptist denominations came out of the American Baptist Convention (formerly Northern Baptist Convention) over this issue.
The Baptists first split in the United states in 1845 over the issue of slavery. While the Northern Baptist Convention has since been renamed and has further fragmented, the Southern Baptist Convention retained its name and has yet to fragment, though in the 1980's it went through the same controversy.
Another division within Christianity since the early 1920's has been the so-called Charasmatic movement, which has emphasized personal spiritual experience and personal revelations, and "gifts of the Spirit", especially the speaking in tongues:
glossilalia. Within the last twenty years or so some of the fastest growing denominations and churches have been those which are explicitly charasmatic.
Traditionally, the issue that has separated Baptists from other denominations has been baptism by dunking people, and their insistence on separation of Church and state; only in recent years have some Baptists started to drift from this firm belief that churches have no business involving themselves in politics or vice versa.
Under Protestantism may be included the non-orthodox, marginal sects which arose in the United States in the 19th century, such as Jehovah's Witnesses, who deny the Trinity, see salvation as the result of works, and believe that Jesus is a created being, not God, and reject the notion of Hell. Mormonism also rejects the Trinity, sees salvation as the result of works, rejects the notion of Hell, and is explicitly polytheistic. They believe that God was once a man, and that someday each individual will rise to the same status and be put in charge of his own world. Extremely patriarchal, they believe that the purpose of women in eternity is to give birth to an endless supply of "spirit babies," to populate the worlds each man will control. Also, in the middle of the 1800's, the Millerites became a popular movement, which believed in the soon coming of Jesus Christ and set a date in 1847. When Jesus failed to materialize, the movement transformed itself and became what today is known as Seventh-Day Adventism. Seventh Day Adventists today are essentially orthodox, except for their insistance on conducting church services on the "sabbath" - i.e., Saturday - a strong legalistic streak, and a tendency toward vegitarianism; the writings of White are also a very strong influence on the group.