ABSTRACT
This chapter provides a response to the objection that the adopted definition of ‘religion’ fails to make the religious a special case of the spiritual. It discusses theories of religion, and the correlations between adopted definition of ‘religion’ and those theories of religion. Standard reference works typically divide the religions of the world, by origin, into something like the following major categories: Semitic religions, Indian religions, East Asian religions, Indigenous religions, and New religions. East Asian religions include Taoism and Confucianism; these two religions are sometimes known as the great post-Axial Taoic religions. All East Asian religions are taken to share some teaching about the Tao or Do. Smaller East Asian religions, which may also be classified as Indigenous religions or New Religions, include Shinto, Tenriism, Korean Shamanism, Cheondoism, Caodaism, Hoahaoism, Falun Gong, and Han Folk Religion.
