Ergebnis gesprochen von "Ben Kingsley" in Politik & Sozialwissenschaften

North, Central, and South American Indians have a rich religious heritage, though much has been lost since these peoples were conquered by Europeans. Characteristic features of Native American religion included the master of the animals, a protective spirit of a species or of all animals. Shamans, ecstatic medicine men, used supernatural powers to cure the ill. Totemism was a mysterious religious bond between the human clan and their animal guardians.

The religious ideas and practices of African peoples have much in common with each other, and with related religions in the Caribbean and the Americas. African Islam and African Christianity have developed separately since their earliest time in Ethiopia, Egypt, and the Sudan.

The longstanding ideas of humanism, agnosticism, and atheism have increasingly challenged traditional religious doctrines or practices. Yet reason alone often fails to secure the commitments and values of a healthy personal and communal life; spiritual and emotional life can diminish to the dangerous level of nihilism and despair. Meanwhile, some theologians have challenged the "truth" of any religion with the radical view that all beliefs are equally true.

The early myths of Mesopotamia, Egypt, Asia Minor, Canaan, Greece, and Rome have greatly and continuously influenced all of Western culture and civilization. Myths rely on imagination and intuition; they express fervently held convictions about the ultimate nature of things, exploring the mysteries of life and death, passion and suffering. Today, theological interest is resurging in goddess worship, and other early nature-based religions are receiving a renewed attention.

The religious practices and understandings of small indigenous societies are recognized by many to be in no way inferior to other religious beliefs. Many such cultures still exist; their prescientific, even prehistoric social and intellectual pattern includes shamans, sacrifices, totems, animism, taboos, and certain rituals and myths that reflect their unique and increasingly rare way of life.