Alice Shade
December 12th, 2006, 08:04 PM
Comparative overview of several worldspread religions and philosophies, and Googlism.
Googlism.
Young "religion". By the concept, Googlism is a spin-off from agnosticism, based around premise of addressable god. Googlism is not a religion in broad sense of the word, as it does not have defining axiomatic set of beliefs inherent. Rather, the core of Googlism is one of the most powerful humanity creations, which does not require defining axiom because of factual existance. This fact places Google between philosophy and religion, seeing as followers of Googlism both acknowledge a deity in a form of search engine, and logically define such deity in no uncertain terms.
Born as a "parody religion", Googlism stirs certain controversy, as it could be taken entirely seriously, opposed to numorous parody religions based on worshipping day-to-day objects (food, game, television). Reason for such difference lies in the fact, that Googlism offers logical proof, why Google is indeed a close approximation to deity (in the primary sense of the word).
The trademark of Googlism is free-will conversion - the concept of Googlism has no defined punishment whatsoever for straying from its following, or not belonging to said following at all, and thus, no negative consequences for not joining or leaving the following (again, shifting it closer to philosophy).
Agnosticism.
Philosophy of reason, agnosticism presumes, that every event has logical explanation and reason, knowledge of which could be eventually used to recreate the event. The cornerstone under all rational science, agnosticism disproves a big amount of religions by simply testing the defining axiomatics, and proving them to be false/contradictive/unproven.
While not being actively offencive particularly to religions, agnosticism is, nevertheless, at odds with most of them, because of questioning the defining axiomatics. Historically, agnostics were often a target for religious prejudice, so nowadays, this stigma still hangs on, despite the acceptance of agnosticism as valid philosophy.
Moreover, individual agnostics are fairly often disproving of religions for a variety of reasons, starting from disagreement in philosophy questions, and ending with personal grudges against certain religion or organised religions in general. Agnosticism, naturally to philosophy, was never organised, so there is no official view to talk about, nor any set of axioms besides basic - "Everything needs proof."
Christianity.
As an old religion, Christianity has the advantage of indoctorination and time-proof. Out of all the world religions, Christianity is probably the most powerful, politically, and certainly, one of the most centralised ones (note, that Christianity leader (Pope), is a world-wide celebrity, quite unlike any other religion). However, great political potential also makes Christianity one of the most inertial and cautiously-treading in official statements. This is also tied with the fact, that Christianity had long ago split into branches, which are largely (or even completely) self-managing.
In total controversion to official stance, individual Christians quite often show intolerance towards other religions, often aggressively attempting to convert people to Christianity, and threatening with eternal damnation in afterlife in case of non-compliance. Needless to say, that to those who do not believe in afterlife, this behavior is quite annoying.
Christianity axiomatics often come in conflict with scientific facts, and in some cases, openly reject scientific proof against them. On the other hand, main axiomatics include a fair deal of moral and common sense rules. Historically, Christianity recruited followers aggressively, and this trend had been preserved till nowadays mostly unchanged. Standard converting procedure applies to the abstract danger of forfeiting soul to eternal torture in afterlife in case of not joining the following and strict adhering to axiomatics. Often, refusal to do so might provoke verbal condemnation. (Most prominent in semi-anonymous web encounters.)
Satanism.
A mix of agnosticism, solypsism, polytheism, mysticism and subverted christianity, satanism is a "rebel religion", initially born as a resistance to christianity imposing rigid (and often hypocritical) guidelines on society and society members. There were several brands of satanism, but in essence, all of them could be divided on "Devil worshipping", which is a form of polytheism, and "True satanism", which unites elements of agnosticism, solypsism and mysticism.
In all forms, satanism is extremely disproving of christianity, to the point of open hostility. Due to historically-long christian propaganda, satanism is usually associated with abnormal worshipping practices, violent and disturbing. This assumption is partly true, especially in regards to "Devil worhipping", though cause and outcome are mixed up. Generally, it is considered, that "Devil worshipping" is "evil", because it`s following consists of violent/disturbed/"evil" persons. In fact, it`s vice-versa - violent/disturbed/"evil" persons take up "Devil worshipping" because of common opinion that this is the religion for them.
"True satanism" offers a bit more complicated issue, as followers of it use agnosticism-influented axiomatics, which state, that everyone is a god to him/herself (which is not too far from agnostic view, though heavily mixed with solypsism). Arguably, satanism is the most lax of all religions, as among cornerstones of it are principles of hedonism and tolerance of other beings (with caveats). Nature of satanism makes organising followers very ardious, and even in case of success, organisation is very wobbly due to the fact, that satanism is strongly tied with anarchism in core beliefs.
Islam.
Islam is an extremely rigid religion. Based on strict monotheism, Islam considers its basic axioms, represented with Qur`an, to be infallable and non-arguable. However, even considering, as Qur`an defines a very wide area, from spiritual needs to consumed foods, it must be said, that followers of the religion are mostly tolerant of other religions. Qur`an references to Jews and Christians as "People of the Book", and while claiming, that their holy texts (Torah/Gospels, respectively) are alterations/substitutions of the word of god, Jews/Christians are considered more favorably then polytheists (for example, Muslims are permitted to eat the meat, if the animal was slayed by Jew/Christian, who adhered to Qur`an-described way of slaughtering).
Despite having arguably one of the most rigid sets of imposed limits out of all wide-spread religions, Islam is extremely wide-spread. Qur`an requires "Two testaments" to be the first thing a newborn hears, and first thing a toddler is taught to remember, once able to speak, with the rest of Qur`an as first book, so, Islam indoctorination is probably one of the most persistant, as well, contributing to it`s spreading.
Due to some caveats in Qur`an, Islam is a religion of a big amount of extremists, who exhibit complete intolerance to all non-Muslims. However, the number of extremists, comparable to total of Islamic followers, is astoundingly-small, taking into account their notoriety. Excluding extremists (who mostly use religious intolerance as casus belli to further political and economical means), Islam, in general, appears to be fairly unintrusive religion, which focuses more on adhering to own axioms internally, then converting non-followers. The point of interest is the code of laws "shariat" (inherent to muslim society), which, while being a subject to minor alterations, had been preserved in quite static state, lending a dose of stability to countries with Islam as official religion.
Judaism.
Judaism has common features with Islam, despite the fact, that followers were warring for centuries. Judaism bases around Torah and Talmud, which detail on a large amount of axioms. However, those scriptures were interpreted by each rabbi on practically individual basis, and while the scriptures remained the same, actual implementation of beliefs somewhat differed.
Given, that Christianity, Islam and Judaism share common root, it`s not entirely surprising, that Judaism is similar to those two, with a bit of special twist to give it distinct difference. Judaism appears to be least notorious as a religion among all three, as well, as least popular, but arguably the eldest.
It seems, that Judaism is converting new followers either by indoctorination since birth (completed with circumcision, which was until nowadays a sure sign of Jew), or by marriage. Other then that, followers of Judaism don`t seem to be either aggressively converting or being intolerant of other religions. Some of earlier scriptures hint, that Judaism did not objected to existance of other gods, but honored the God above them.
Buddhism.
Buddhism is a philosophy, and quite a wide-spread one. Buddhism is built around the idea of mental purification and self-evolution, which, in simplified interpretation, states, that by special regimen of mental excercises, meditation, and certain way of life, one can become "Buddha" - being, which understands "true nature of reality". By this theory, "Buddha" no longer suffers from ignorance and unhappiness, attaining a state called "nirvana", reaching this state by eliminating all desires. One who reaches "nirvana" breaks the cycle of reincarnations, and fully understands "nirvana" as the final death, when everything will disappear.
Buddhism is semi-organised - the nature of philosophy dictates, that over the course of progress, followers would have less and less desire to teach anyone anything, which creates interesting paradox (only people who would be willing to lead other Buddhists, has to be further from Nirvana, then whose, whom they are supposed to lead towards it). Nevertheless, despite the obvious inconsistency, a fair amount of "wise" men are available to impart the teachings of Buddhism on everyone willing to join.
Buddhism is spreading through persuasion and personal experience, at least in theory. There is no punishment for those not following the philosophy, other then having to live as they were before - Buddhism converts by offering a pleasant change in life, so everyone is free to practice it or not, as they wish. However, it is necessary to mention, that some religious spin-offs from Buddhism have considerably less relaxed attitude to followers leaving - the idea of religion urging followers to try and become nothing is very appealing to more practical people, who`d like to receive "material shackles" (in form of money and valuable possessions) of hapless followers for free.
Hinduism.
Hinduism is monotheistic religion, which is very often mistaken for polytheistic. Reason behind that mistake, is that while followers of Hinduism really worship a number of gods (Vishnu, Shiva, etc.), they are all defined as human projections of one god Brahmin, which, being one, only and everything, is so unimaginable by a human, that they need to address it through humanised projections. This god is used to explain everything - as it is existance and knowledge (in short, everything).
Because of the axiom, that god is everything, it is somewhat hard to specify any certain way, in which Hinduism advocates to worship god. Among the followers, common thread seems to be performing certain rituals to achieve certain effects - praying to aspect of god representing success before some endeaveour, praying to aspect of god representing knowledge before attempting to learn something, and so on. Given such diversity in worshipping practice, it`s really impossible to claim Hinduism having some particular guideline for followers to honor. There are several "yogas" to get closer to god, but they are as diverse, as methods of worshipping. The ideal of hinduism is unclear - followers recognise heaven and hell only as something temporal. The ideal seems to be to be closer to god and in end, have personal exeprience with it, but it`s not entirely clear, how can one be closer to what is a part of him/herself. The idea seems to be fairly close to Buddhism ideal.
Hinduism as a religion seems to be fairly unintrusive, but somewhat assuming, as it accomodates very wide range of worshipping. It`s entirely too hard to pinpoint something exact in conversion methods, aside from being born into the religion.
Taoism.
One of the most baffling religions/philosophies (at least to non-chinese), Taoism incorporates a heavy mix of polytheism and philosophy. The amount of deities is overwhelmingly-big - big enough to permit them to be organised into a bureaucracy system, reflecting the real system used in China. Quite practically, a lof of deities are former humans, deified after death for some outstanding deeds.
Taoism proposes a search of "tao" as a main goal. A crude translation of "tao" might be interpreted as "way" - and while this way can be defined as "natural way of the universe", actual interpretation is still quite unclear. A fair chunk of taoism is the ability to find such way, and determine, that it is correct way to go. Actual process could be ranging from bowing to altar with stick of of incense to writing a number of books.
To someone not native to China and chineze folklore, taoism usually appears to be quite convoluted and uncertain. Ir seems to be divided into religious and philosophical parts, but they overlap significantly, and include a big range of areas counting astrology, mythology, mysticism, spiritualism, folklore, philosophy and a number of other (including statemanship and dietology). Taoism does not converts people into following in any way - joining taoism following is entirely voluntary and a bit ardious/complicated. While there are literally tons of writs provided on taoism, they represent views of individual taoists, and in no way offer ridid set of guidelines.
Polytheism.
More accurately, great polytheistic religions of past. Nordic, Greek, Roman, Egypt - all of those religions had common features, inherent to all the polytheistic religions. Those religions axiomate, that there is a group of gods, with each one specialising in some particular area - like god of harvest, god of war, god of death, god of arts, etc.
Polytheism religions stem from far more ancient beliefs in the "land of dead". Out of fear of being dead, ancient people had invented imaginary land of death, where everyone goes after the death. Past that simple belief, the idea of dead people peeking back at the land of living, and possibly helping living, had arisen. Beliefs in "great ancestors" are colorful example of that.
Later, for the purposes of deity unification, uniform "great ancestors" were adapted - which were later transformed by folklore into multiple deities. Followers of those religions were usually aggressive towards other religions, in a "childish" way - "My gods are more powerful, then yours!". Which statement was often proved or disproved in a brawl immediately after. Due to relative primitivity and humanising of deities, polytheistic religions had not came into direct opposition with science (being largely abandoned before science became strong enough to question said gods). Due to lack of any major purely-polytheistic religion nowadays, it is not possible to offer any insight on mechanics of worshipping and converting. Judging by historical evidence, both were quite brutal.
Paganism.
While akin to polytheism, paganism is even more ancient, and revolves around a multitude of "nature spirits", rather then several parton deities. Thise kind of religion is usually inherent to more primitive societies, and might be an ancestor religion for polytheism. Quite often, paganism does coexists with polytheism peacefully.
Paganism is quite closely associated with witchcraft, and employs a big number of rituals, which are used to somehow invoke the "spirits". Those risuals involve some sort of sacrifice fairly often. Sacrifice could take any form - from a piece of paper with written prayer/request, to foods, to goods, to slaughtering. There were historically-recorded cases of human sacrifice (as well, as in polytheism, however, and even in some cases of monotheism (note, that all Abrahamic religions mention sacrifice - Christianity, Islam and Judaism alike)).
Due to sheer age and wide spread, paganism could only be loosely defined as religion - factually, every practicioner of paganism follows own personal polytheistic religion. Obviously, paganism is organised at best as "covens" sharing common axioms. Nowaday forms of paganism are extremely diverse, due to loose definition of axiomatics, and historical disambiguation of brands. This form of religion is often adapted as instinctive one by young people and (or) people, who have interests in esotheric/occult. Given a desire, paganism could be approximated to most of wide-spread religions quite easily.
Atheism
Not to be confuzed with Agnosticism, Atheism is much more simple and lax philosophy. While Atheism shares the denial of the existance of supernatural deities with Agnosticism, it does not necessarily demands reasons and proofs. Followers of atheism might be accepting doctrines inherent to mysticism, agnosticism, solipsism and existentionalism fairly easily.
Atheism is entirely unorganised, as a logical conclusion of the lack of any axiomatic other then "There is go god." Followers of atheism, akin to paganism, could be performing a big amount of rituals - if only they will usually deny, that those rituals are acts of worship. Atheism is one of the choice "instinctive" religions, along with paganism, fairly popular among young people. The primary ideas are so primitive and simple, that everyone can grasp them.
However, just like paganism, atheism can not be really defined clearly outside of "no god" statement. In fact, atheists are so diverse, that denial of god is the only thing, that defines them all as atheists. Taking this definition literally, Agnosticism and Buddhism, and by a considerable margin, Paganism and Taoism could all be considered elative to Atheism. This definitions also raises curious paradox with Googlism - considering that Googlism could be easily taken as form of Agnosticism, and Agnosticism in turn could be taken as form of Atheism, one can conclude, that Googlism is based on Atheism, which contradicts with fact, that Googlism following recognises Google as god. Possible answer to this controversion might be, that Google is "closest approximation to deity", and is not axiomatically imbued with supernatural powers by Googlism axioms.
Googlism.
Young "religion". By the concept, Googlism is a spin-off from agnosticism, based around premise of addressable god. Googlism is not a religion in broad sense of the word, as it does not have defining axiomatic set of beliefs inherent. Rather, the core of Googlism is one of the most powerful humanity creations, which does not require defining axiom because of factual existance. This fact places Google between philosophy and religion, seeing as followers of Googlism both acknowledge a deity in a form of search engine, and logically define such deity in no uncertain terms.
Born as a "parody religion", Googlism stirs certain controversy, as it could be taken entirely seriously, opposed to numorous parody religions based on worshipping day-to-day objects (food, game, television). Reason for such difference lies in the fact, that Googlism offers logical proof, why Google is indeed a close approximation to deity (in the primary sense of the word).
The trademark of Googlism is free-will conversion - the concept of Googlism has no defined punishment whatsoever for straying from its following, or not belonging to said following at all, and thus, no negative consequences for not joining or leaving the following (again, shifting it closer to philosophy).
Agnosticism.
Philosophy of reason, agnosticism presumes, that every event has logical explanation and reason, knowledge of which could be eventually used to recreate the event. The cornerstone under all rational science, agnosticism disproves a big amount of religions by simply testing the defining axiomatics, and proving them to be false/contradictive/unproven.
While not being actively offencive particularly to religions, agnosticism is, nevertheless, at odds with most of them, because of questioning the defining axiomatics. Historically, agnostics were often a target for religious prejudice, so nowadays, this stigma still hangs on, despite the acceptance of agnosticism as valid philosophy.
Moreover, individual agnostics are fairly often disproving of religions for a variety of reasons, starting from disagreement in philosophy questions, and ending with personal grudges against certain religion or organised religions in general. Agnosticism, naturally to philosophy, was never organised, so there is no official view to talk about, nor any set of axioms besides basic - "Everything needs proof."
Christianity.
As an old religion, Christianity has the advantage of indoctorination and time-proof. Out of all the world religions, Christianity is probably the most powerful, politically, and certainly, one of the most centralised ones (note, that Christianity leader (Pope), is a world-wide celebrity, quite unlike any other religion). However, great political potential also makes Christianity one of the most inertial and cautiously-treading in official statements. This is also tied with the fact, that Christianity had long ago split into branches, which are largely (or even completely) self-managing.
In total controversion to official stance, individual Christians quite often show intolerance towards other religions, often aggressively attempting to convert people to Christianity, and threatening with eternal damnation in afterlife in case of non-compliance. Needless to say, that to those who do not believe in afterlife, this behavior is quite annoying.
Christianity axiomatics often come in conflict with scientific facts, and in some cases, openly reject scientific proof against them. On the other hand, main axiomatics include a fair deal of moral and common sense rules. Historically, Christianity recruited followers aggressively, and this trend had been preserved till nowadays mostly unchanged. Standard converting procedure applies to the abstract danger of forfeiting soul to eternal torture in afterlife in case of not joining the following and strict adhering to axiomatics. Often, refusal to do so might provoke verbal condemnation. (Most prominent in semi-anonymous web encounters.)
Satanism.
A mix of agnosticism, solypsism, polytheism, mysticism and subverted christianity, satanism is a "rebel religion", initially born as a resistance to christianity imposing rigid (and often hypocritical) guidelines on society and society members. There were several brands of satanism, but in essence, all of them could be divided on "Devil worshipping", which is a form of polytheism, and "True satanism", which unites elements of agnosticism, solypsism and mysticism.
In all forms, satanism is extremely disproving of christianity, to the point of open hostility. Due to historically-long christian propaganda, satanism is usually associated with abnormal worshipping practices, violent and disturbing. This assumption is partly true, especially in regards to "Devil worhipping", though cause and outcome are mixed up. Generally, it is considered, that "Devil worshipping" is "evil", because it`s following consists of violent/disturbed/"evil" persons. In fact, it`s vice-versa - violent/disturbed/"evil" persons take up "Devil worshipping" because of common opinion that this is the religion for them.
"True satanism" offers a bit more complicated issue, as followers of it use agnosticism-influented axiomatics, which state, that everyone is a god to him/herself (which is not too far from agnostic view, though heavily mixed with solypsism). Arguably, satanism is the most lax of all religions, as among cornerstones of it are principles of hedonism and tolerance of other beings (with caveats). Nature of satanism makes organising followers very ardious, and even in case of success, organisation is very wobbly due to the fact, that satanism is strongly tied with anarchism in core beliefs.
Islam.
Islam is an extremely rigid religion. Based on strict monotheism, Islam considers its basic axioms, represented with Qur`an, to be infallable and non-arguable. However, even considering, as Qur`an defines a very wide area, from spiritual needs to consumed foods, it must be said, that followers of the religion are mostly tolerant of other religions. Qur`an references to Jews and Christians as "People of the Book", and while claiming, that their holy texts (Torah/Gospels, respectively) are alterations/substitutions of the word of god, Jews/Christians are considered more favorably then polytheists (for example, Muslims are permitted to eat the meat, if the animal was slayed by Jew/Christian, who adhered to Qur`an-described way of slaughtering).
Despite having arguably one of the most rigid sets of imposed limits out of all wide-spread religions, Islam is extremely wide-spread. Qur`an requires "Two testaments" to be the first thing a newborn hears, and first thing a toddler is taught to remember, once able to speak, with the rest of Qur`an as first book, so, Islam indoctorination is probably one of the most persistant, as well, contributing to it`s spreading.
Due to some caveats in Qur`an, Islam is a religion of a big amount of extremists, who exhibit complete intolerance to all non-Muslims. However, the number of extremists, comparable to total of Islamic followers, is astoundingly-small, taking into account their notoriety. Excluding extremists (who mostly use religious intolerance as casus belli to further political and economical means), Islam, in general, appears to be fairly unintrusive religion, which focuses more on adhering to own axioms internally, then converting non-followers. The point of interest is the code of laws "shariat" (inherent to muslim society), which, while being a subject to minor alterations, had been preserved in quite static state, lending a dose of stability to countries with Islam as official religion.
Judaism.
Judaism has common features with Islam, despite the fact, that followers were warring for centuries. Judaism bases around Torah and Talmud, which detail on a large amount of axioms. However, those scriptures were interpreted by each rabbi on practically individual basis, and while the scriptures remained the same, actual implementation of beliefs somewhat differed.
Given, that Christianity, Islam and Judaism share common root, it`s not entirely surprising, that Judaism is similar to those two, with a bit of special twist to give it distinct difference. Judaism appears to be least notorious as a religion among all three, as well, as least popular, but arguably the eldest.
It seems, that Judaism is converting new followers either by indoctorination since birth (completed with circumcision, which was until nowadays a sure sign of Jew), or by marriage. Other then that, followers of Judaism don`t seem to be either aggressively converting or being intolerant of other religions. Some of earlier scriptures hint, that Judaism did not objected to existance of other gods, but honored the God above them.
Buddhism.
Buddhism is a philosophy, and quite a wide-spread one. Buddhism is built around the idea of mental purification and self-evolution, which, in simplified interpretation, states, that by special regimen of mental excercises, meditation, and certain way of life, one can become "Buddha" - being, which understands "true nature of reality". By this theory, "Buddha" no longer suffers from ignorance and unhappiness, attaining a state called "nirvana", reaching this state by eliminating all desires. One who reaches "nirvana" breaks the cycle of reincarnations, and fully understands "nirvana" as the final death, when everything will disappear.
Buddhism is semi-organised - the nature of philosophy dictates, that over the course of progress, followers would have less and less desire to teach anyone anything, which creates interesting paradox (only people who would be willing to lead other Buddhists, has to be further from Nirvana, then whose, whom they are supposed to lead towards it). Nevertheless, despite the obvious inconsistency, a fair amount of "wise" men are available to impart the teachings of Buddhism on everyone willing to join.
Buddhism is spreading through persuasion and personal experience, at least in theory. There is no punishment for those not following the philosophy, other then having to live as they were before - Buddhism converts by offering a pleasant change in life, so everyone is free to practice it or not, as they wish. However, it is necessary to mention, that some religious spin-offs from Buddhism have considerably less relaxed attitude to followers leaving - the idea of religion urging followers to try and become nothing is very appealing to more practical people, who`d like to receive "material shackles" (in form of money and valuable possessions) of hapless followers for free.
Hinduism.
Hinduism is monotheistic religion, which is very often mistaken for polytheistic. Reason behind that mistake, is that while followers of Hinduism really worship a number of gods (Vishnu, Shiva, etc.), they are all defined as human projections of one god Brahmin, which, being one, only and everything, is so unimaginable by a human, that they need to address it through humanised projections. This god is used to explain everything - as it is existance and knowledge (in short, everything).
Because of the axiom, that god is everything, it is somewhat hard to specify any certain way, in which Hinduism advocates to worship god. Among the followers, common thread seems to be performing certain rituals to achieve certain effects - praying to aspect of god representing success before some endeaveour, praying to aspect of god representing knowledge before attempting to learn something, and so on. Given such diversity in worshipping practice, it`s really impossible to claim Hinduism having some particular guideline for followers to honor. There are several "yogas" to get closer to god, but they are as diverse, as methods of worshipping. The ideal of hinduism is unclear - followers recognise heaven and hell only as something temporal. The ideal seems to be to be closer to god and in end, have personal exeprience with it, but it`s not entirely clear, how can one be closer to what is a part of him/herself. The idea seems to be fairly close to Buddhism ideal.
Hinduism as a religion seems to be fairly unintrusive, but somewhat assuming, as it accomodates very wide range of worshipping. It`s entirely too hard to pinpoint something exact in conversion methods, aside from being born into the religion.
Taoism.
One of the most baffling religions/philosophies (at least to non-chinese), Taoism incorporates a heavy mix of polytheism and philosophy. The amount of deities is overwhelmingly-big - big enough to permit them to be organised into a bureaucracy system, reflecting the real system used in China. Quite practically, a lof of deities are former humans, deified after death for some outstanding deeds.
Taoism proposes a search of "tao" as a main goal. A crude translation of "tao" might be interpreted as "way" - and while this way can be defined as "natural way of the universe", actual interpretation is still quite unclear. A fair chunk of taoism is the ability to find such way, and determine, that it is correct way to go. Actual process could be ranging from bowing to altar with stick of of incense to writing a number of books.
To someone not native to China and chineze folklore, taoism usually appears to be quite convoluted and uncertain. Ir seems to be divided into religious and philosophical parts, but they overlap significantly, and include a big range of areas counting astrology, mythology, mysticism, spiritualism, folklore, philosophy and a number of other (including statemanship and dietology). Taoism does not converts people into following in any way - joining taoism following is entirely voluntary and a bit ardious/complicated. While there are literally tons of writs provided on taoism, they represent views of individual taoists, and in no way offer ridid set of guidelines.
Polytheism.
More accurately, great polytheistic religions of past. Nordic, Greek, Roman, Egypt - all of those religions had common features, inherent to all the polytheistic religions. Those religions axiomate, that there is a group of gods, with each one specialising in some particular area - like god of harvest, god of war, god of death, god of arts, etc.
Polytheism religions stem from far more ancient beliefs in the "land of dead". Out of fear of being dead, ancient people had invented imaginary land of death, where everyone goes after the death. Past that simple belief, the idea of dead people peeking back at the land of living, and possibly helping living, had arisen. Beliefs in "great ancestors" are colorful example of that.
Later, for the purposes of deity unification, uniform "great ancestors" were adapted - which were later transformed by folklore into multiple deities. Followers of those religions were usually aggressive towards other religions, in a "childish" way - "My gods are more powerful, then yours!". Which statement was often proved or disproved in a brawl immediately after. Due to relative primitivity and humanising of deities, polytheistic religions had not came into direct opposition with science (being largely abandoned before science became strong enough to question said gods). Due to lack of any major purely-polytheistic religion nowadays, it is not possible to offer any insight on mechanics of worshipping and converting. Judging by historical evidence, both were quite brutal.
Paganism.
While akin to polytheism, paganism is even more ancient, and revolves around a multitude of "nature spirits", rather then several parton deities. Thise kind of religion is usually inherent to more primitive societies, and might be an ancestor religion for polytheism. Quite often, paganism does coexists with polytheism peacefully.
Paganism is quite closely associated with witchcraft, and employs a big number of rituals, which are used to somehow invoke the "spirits". Those risuals involve some sort of sacrifice fairly often. Sacrifice could take any form - from a piece of paper with written prayer/request, to foods, to goods, to slaughtering. There were historically-recorded cases of human sacrifice (as well, as in polytheism, however, and even in some cases of monotheism (note, that all Abrahamic religions mention sacrifice - Christianity, Islam and Judaism alike)).
Due to sheer age and wide spread, paganism could only be loosely defined as religion - factually, every practicioner of paganism follows own personal polytheistic religion. Obviously, paganism is organised at best as "covens" sharing common axioms. Nowaday forms of paganism are extremely diverse, due to loose definition of axiomatics, and historical disambiguation of brands. This form of religion is often adapted as instinctive one by young people and (or) people, who have interests in esotheric/occult. Given a desire, paganism could be approximated to most of wide-spread religions quite easily.
Atheism
Not to be confuzed with Agnosticism, Atheism is much more simple and lax philosophy. While Atheism shares the denial of the existance of supernatural deities with Agnosticism, it does not necessarily demands reasons and proofs. Followers of atheism might be accepting doctrines inherent to mysticism, agnosticism, solipsism and existentionalism fairly easily.
Atheism is entirely unorganised, as a logical conclusion of the lack of any axiomatic other then "There is go god." Followers of atheism, akin to paganism, could be performing a big amount of rituals - if only they will usually deny, that those rituals are acts of worship. Atheism is one of the choice "instinctive" religions, along with paganism, fairly popular among young people. The primary ideas are so primitive and simple, that everyone can grasp them.
However, just like paganism, atheism can not be really defined clearly outside of "no god" statement. In fact, atheists are so diverse, that denial of god is the only thing, that defines them all as atheists. Taking this definition literally, Agnosticism and Buddhism, and by a considerable margin, Paganism and Taoism could all be considered elative to Atheism. This definitions also raises curious paradox with Googlism - considering that Googlism could be easily taken as form of Agnosticism, and Agnosticism in turn could be taken as form of Atheism, one can conclude, that Googlism is based on Atheism, which contradicts with fact, that Googlism following recognises Google as god. Possible answer to this controversion might be, that Google is "closest approximation to deity", and is not axiomatically imbued with supernatural powers by Googlism axioms.