Ex nihilo creation is found in creation stories from ancient Egypt, the Rig Veda, the Bible and the Quran, and many animistic cultures in Africa, Asia, Oceania and North America.

Modern Shinto began as the various ancient animistic traditional spirituality of Japan, which only became an institutionalized spirituality much later as a result of efforts to separate out influences of other religions brought into Japan from abroad.

The difference between modern Shinto and the ancient animistic religions is mainly a refinement of the kami-concept, rather than a difference in definitions.

In Arabic superstition, the qarînah () is a spirit similar to the succubus, with origins possibly in ancient Egyptian religion or in the animistic beliefs of pre-Islamic Arabia ( see Arabian mythology ).

The creation of harvest wreaths in Europe can be traced back to ancient times, and is associated with animistic spiritual beliefs.

Second only to the verbal proclamation of the Gospel, Bible translation took place in all sorts of settings: among ancient Christian churches, such as the Armenians and the Assyrian church ; cultures with a written language and a written religious heritage, such as the Marathi ; and creating written languages in cultures without them, such as among the animistic people in Hawaii.

According to the concept of väki being divided in two ( into power and folk of haltijas ) the ancient Finns believed that the world was totally animistic in that no force of nature or intelligent life existed without väkis or haltijas.

It is based on the animistic monotheistic religion practiced by ancient Mizo people.

In 1453 when the last vestige of ancient Roman power fell to the Turks, the city officially shifted religions -- although the Patriarch, or Pope, of the Orthodox Church continued to live there, and still does -- and became the capital of the Ottoman Empire.

Allegory has been used widely in ancient sacred texts of Hinduism and all the religions that have sprouted off it ; and throughout the history of art in all forms of artwork.

Clement then criticizes the simplistic anthropomorphism of most ancient religions, quoting Xenophon's famous description of African, Thracian and Egyptian deities.

Again in second-wave feminism in the U. S., as well as in many European and other countries, religion became the focus of some feminist analysis in Judaism, Christianity, and other religions, and some women turned to ancient goddess religions as an alternative to Abrahamic religions ( Womanspirit Rising 1979 ; Weaving the Visions 1989 ).

The Western tradition of hymnody begins with the Homeric Hymns, a collection of ancient Greek hymns, the oldest of which were written in the 7th century BC, praising deities of the ancient Greek religions.

Multiple religions, both ancient and contemporary, require or advise one to allow their hair to become dreadlocks, though people also wear them for fashion.

Karma ( ; ) in Indian religions is the concept of " action " or " deed ", understood as that which causes the entire cycle of cause and effect ( i. e., the cycle called saṃsāra ) originating in ancient India and treated in the Hindu, Jain, Buddhist and Sikh religions.

Misogyny has been characterised as a prominent feature of the mythologies of the ancient world as well as various religions.

The Protestant Ethic formed the earliest part in Weber's broader investigations into world religion: he would go on to examine the religions of China, the religions of India and ancient Judaism, with particular regard to the apparent non-development of capitalism in the corresponding societies, as well as to their differing forms of social stratification.

This fundamental characteristic of Christianity ( when compared to Far Eastern religions ) stems originally from ancient Jewish prophecy.

Nirvāṇa (;, nibbāna ; ) is an ancient Sanskrit term used in Indian religions to describe the profound peace of mind that is acquired with moksha ( liberation ).

* Neopaganism: A movement by modern people to revive nature-worshipping, pre-Christian religions or other nature-based spiritual paths, frequently also incorporating contemporary liberal values at odds with ancient paganism.

Many ancient religions had sacred sites, temples, oracles and sacred groves to which pilgrimages were made.

( Note: Apparently this only goes for religions that are widely practiced today, since gods and goddesses of ancient religions are obviously acceptable to the IAU.

Given any of the above definitions of " myth ", the myths of many religions, both ancient and modern, share common elements.

In a number of ancient religions, a life-death-rebirth deity is a deity which dies and resurrects.

In some instances, such as Izanagi-no-Mikoto and Izanami-no-Mikoto, kami are personified deities, similar to the gods of ancient Greece or Rome.

The concept of kami has been changed and refined since ancient times, although anything that was considered to be kami by ancient people will still be considered kami in modern Shinto.

Although the ancient designations are still adhered to, in modern Shinto many priests also consider kami to be anthropomorphic spirits, with nobility and authority.

To give them authority in their dealings with daimyo, they were often ranked at 10 000 koku and given the title of kami ( an ancient title, typically signifying the governor of a province ) such as Bizen-no-kami.

It is believed that some of ancient sumo matches were a purely religious event with a predetermined outcome as an offering to kami.

The Nachi Shrine is an ancient site of kami worship

In ancient Japan, it was customary for every clan to claim descendancy from gods ( ujigami ), and the royal family or clan tended to define their ancestor as the dominant, or most important kami of the time.

It shares with Konkokyo the belief in the benevolence of Konjin, who was previously considered an evil kami, and shares with other ancient Shinto schools the teachings that proclaim the achievement of personal virtue as a step to universal harmony.

Miko traditions date back to the ancient Jōmon era of Japanese history, when female prophets who would go into “ trances and convey the words of the gods ” ( the kami ), an act comparable with “ the pythia or sibyl in Ancient Greece .”

The badge depicts a golden kite, a messenger of the kami as described in the ancient Japanese chronicle Nihon Shoki, which helped Emperor Jimmu defeat his enemies in battle.

As the imperial clan claimed to descent from the goddess Amaterasu, in the Fujiwara tradition the clan descended from another ancient kami, Ame-no-Koyane.

Vis-à-vis the amount of religious references being Shinto ( animist presentation of nature as a living power, lyrics about kami, kagami or mikoto ), Buddhism ( mandala, music, " zen " blue shaded photography, animal headed anthropomorph beings ), the Bible ( Noah's Ark, Great Flood, Genesis ) or the Greek mythology ( Centaur, Chimera ), and connecting them with the depiction of fantasy ancient or future-races that are the mysterious creatures, this work could also be regarded as a mythological tale of Creation ( or Genesis ), in the likes of Stanley Kubrick's Space Odyssey.

Jury, judge and executioner were riding the range in the form of a single unknown figure that could materialize anywhere, at any time, to dispense an ancient brand of justice the men of the new West had believed long outdated.

It is only then that the ancient habits of feeling and the classic orderings of material and psychological experience were abandoned.

With the birth of the Turkish Republic after the First World War, St. Sophia became a museum, and the ancient mosaics, which were plastered over by the Moslems, whose religion forbids pictures in holy places, have been restored.

Gums were extracted from quince, psyllium ( fleawort ), flax, and locust ( carob ) seeds in ancient times.

They lay months away from the nearest Earth star by jump drive, and no one knew what they were good for, although it was felt that they would probably be good for something if it could only be discovered -- much like the continent of Antarctica in ancient history.

In ancient times, there were various explanations for the name Aegean.

A number of ancient cities were located here, such as Troy, Assos, Pergamon ( Bergama ), Sardis, Ephesus, Miletus, Halicarnassus ( Bodrum ), Smyrna ( İzmir ), Hierapolis ( Pamukkale ), Magnesia ( Manisa ), Philadelphia ( Alaşehir ), Didyma ( Didim ), Aphrodisias, Kaunos, Knidos, among others.

Two of the seven wonders of the ancient world were located in Anatolia: The Temple of Artemis in Ephesus and the Mausoleum of Halicarnassus.

Antimony compounds have been known since ancient times and were used for cosmetics ; metallic antimony was also known, but it was erroneously identified as lead.

Ancient Pueblo peoples or Ancestral Pueblo peoples were an ancient Native American culture centered on the present-day Four Corners area of the United States, comprising southern Utah, northern Arizona, northwest New Mexico, and southern Colorado.

The larger rivers were less important to the ancient culture, as smaller streams were more easily diverted or controlled for irrigation.

The ancient population centers such as Chaco Canyon ( outside Crownpoint, New Mexico ), Mesa Verde ( near Cortez, Colorado ), and Bandelier National Monument ( near Los Alamos, New Mexico ) for which the Ancestral Pueblo peoples are renowned, consisted of apartment-like complexes and structures made from stone, adobe mud, and other local material, or were carved into the sides of canyon walls.

In their day, these ancient towns and cities were usually multi-storied and multi-purposed buildings surrounding open plazas and viewsheds and were occupied by hundreds to thousands of Ancestral Pueblo peoples.

This suggests the ancient people were also more diverse than their material remains may suggest.

Modern Armenia term means Republic of Armenia which occupies part of historical Armenia, whose ancient centers were in the valley of the Araks River and the region around Lake Van in Turkey.

In contrast, there was an Old Text school that advocated the use of Confucian works written in ancient language ( from this comes the denomination Old Text ) that were so much more reliable.

While there are ancient relations between the Indian Vedas and the Iranian Avesta, the two main families of the Indo-Iranian philosophical traditions were characterized by fundamental differences in their implications for the human being's position in society and their view on the role of man in the universe.

The Sadducees were an ancient Jewish sect that generally believed that there was a God but no afterlife.

Principles of acoustics were applied since ancient times: Roman theatre ( structure ) | Roman theatre in the city of Amman.

Formulas for the surface areas of simple shapes were computed by the ancient Greeks, but computing the surface area of a more complicated shape usually requires multivariable calculus.

In ancient Greece sculptors and painters were held in low regard, somewhere between freemen and slaves, their work regarded as mere manual labour.

The ancient Greeks used baskets of stones, large sacks filled with sand, and wooden logs filled with lead, which, according to Apollonius Rhodius and Stephen of Byzantium, were formed of stone ; and Athenaeus states that they were sometimes made of wood.