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Classifying Religion by the Divine

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Religions are classified by what they hold divine: polytheism (multiple gods), monotheism (a single god), animism (divinity in nonhuman beings), totemism (a human-nature divine bond), and atheism (no deities).

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Ancient Greek belief systems were polytheistic, Shinto is animist, and Judaism and Islam are monotheistic.

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Some traditions resist a single box; the Christian Trinity is debated between monotheistic and near-polytheistic readings.