Religious symbolism is the use of symbol

Symbol

A symbol is something which represents an idea, a physical entity or a process but is distinct from it. The purpose of a symbol is to communicate meaning. For example, a red octagon may be a symbol for "STOP". On a map, a picture of a tent might represent a campsite. Numerals are symbols for...

s, including archetypes, acts, artwork, events, or natural phenomena, by a religion

Religion

Religion is a collection of cultural systems, belief systems, and worldviews that establishes symbols that relate humanity to spirituality and, sometimes, to moral values. Many religions have narratives, symbols, traditions and sacred histories that are intended to give meaning to life or to...

. Religions view religious texts, ritual

Ritual

A ritual is a set of actions, performed mainly for their symbolic value. It may be prescribed by a religion or by the traditions of a community. The term usually excludes actions which are arbitrarily chosen by the performers....

s, and works of art as symbols of compelling ideas or ideals. Symbols help create a resonant mythos

Mythology

The term mythology can refer either to the study of myths, or to a body or collection of myths. As examples, comparative mythology is the study of connections between myths from different cultures, whereas Greek mythology is the body of myths from ancient Greece...

 expressing the moral

Moral

A moral is a message conveyed or a lesson to be learned from a story or event. The moral may be left to the hearer, reader or viewer to determine for themselves, or may be explicitly encapsulated in a maxim...

 values of the society

Society

A society, or a human society, is a group of people related to each other through persistent relations, or a large social grouping sharing the same geographical or virtual territory, subject to the same political authority and dominant cultural expectations...

 or the teachings of the religion, foster solidarity among adherents, and bring adherents closer to their object of worship.

The study of religious symbolism is either universalist, as a component of comparative religion

Comparative religion

Comparative religion is a field of religious studies that analyzes the similarities and differences of themes, myths, rituals and concepts among the world's religions...

 and mythology, or in localized scope, within the confines of a religion's limits and boundaries.


A number of these are represented in Unicode

Cultural, political, and religious symbols in Unicode

Unicode contains many characters that represent various cultural, political, and religious symbols. Many but not all of these are in the Miscellaneous Symbols block....

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Religious symbolism may have a long history that could be over 100,000 years old.