And thus it has been proposed by Westerners that Hinduism itself can’t be considered a religion at all, but rather many different but related belief systems that have interacted with and borrowed elements from each other over millennia. Neither is there a single text that one could refer to, a saviour or one all-mighty and all-knowing god. In Hinduism, on the contrary, there is no centralized body, organization, or system, which regulates the average Hindus belief. These two elements give Christianity a very centralized and highly organized character on all levels of worship.
So even though there are multiple different Christian Churches that put emphasis on slightly different aspects of the faith, there is a very large degree of overlap due to the fact that they are all based on one book and the teachings and philosophies of Jesus Christ. Additionally, there is only one holy scripture, the bible, which gives answers to all of life’s questions, from the most trivial to the most fundamental. The Catholic Church is organized systematically, meaning there is a hierarchical top-down system, with the Pope at its head, through which information in regards to how to practice the Catholic faith is communicated to priests of all ranks and through them to the Catholic believers all around the world. Let’s look at the Catholic Church in comparison with Hinduism as an example: The issue that arose in this context, however, is that our concept of religion, dominated by the three aforementioned Abrahamic faiths was challenged by the decentralized, seemingly unorganized newcomers. In the last decades, especially since the peace movements of the ’60s, complex eastern religious systems and philosophies such as Buddhism, Hinduism, and Taoism have gained not only recognition but an active following among Westerners.
These belief systems have in common that they’re centered around one god, one book, and a relatively small number of sects/churches in which its followers are organized.
Nowadays in the Western Hemisphere Christianity, Islam, and Judaism are the most influential faiths, both from a cultural and a historical perspective. Thus, before attempting to reconstruct Proto-Indo-European Religion, we need to take a look at the meaning of faith in our modern world and see if its definition applies to the beliefs of our ancestors or if a different one is needed to start with. The Oxford Languages dictionary defines Religion as “the belief in and worship of a superhuman controlling power, especially a personal God or gods” or “a particular system of faith and worship” the question of whether the term “Religion” can be applied to the beliefs of the Indo-Europeans and their ancestors, the Proto-Indo-Europeans (abbreviated as ‘ PIE‘ or ‘ PIEs‘ in the following), is a controversial one, to say the least. Reconstructing Proto-Indo-European Mythology.
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