The Spectrum of Religious Thought

“All religions must be tolerated… for every man must get to heaven in his own way.”
— Epictetus

There is a spectrum of religious thought that goes from animism to atheism.

Animism

The belief that non-human entities — such as animals, plants, and inanimate objects — possess a spiritual essence.

Shamanism

A practice that involves a practitioner reaching altered states of consciousness in order to perceive and interact with a spirit world and channel these transcendental energies into this world.

Polytheism

The belief in multiple deities, usually assembled into a pantheon of gods and goddesses, along with their own religions and rituals. In most religions which accept polytheism, the different gods and goddesses are representations of forces of nature or ancestral principles.

Monist Polytheism

The belief in multiple gods that are aspects or emanations of a creator God or transcendental absolute principle, which manifests immanently in nature.

Trinitarianism

The belief that God exists as three persons (Greek hypostases) but is one being. The persons each have the same single identical essence or nature, not merely similar natures.

Monotheism

The belief in the existence of one god or in the oneness of God.

Deism

The belief that revelation and authority are insufficient as a source of religious knowledge and that reason and observation of the natural world are sufficient to determine the existence of a single creator of the universe.

Pantheism

The belief that all of reality is identical with divinity, or that everything composes an all-encompassing, immanent god. Pantheists thus do not believe in a distinct personal or anthropomorphic god.

Atheism

The belief that there are no deities.