Editing Religious cosmology (section)

{{Short description|Religious explanation}}
{{About||other approaches to the study of the universe in its totality|Cosmology|other approaches to the origin of the Universe|Cosmogony}}
[[File:Schnorr von Carolsfeld Bibel in Bildern 1860 007.png|thumb|God rests with his creation. [[Julius Schnorr von Carolsfeld]] 1860]]
'''Religious cosmology''' is an explanation of the origin, evolution, and eventual fate of the [[universe]] from a religious perspective. This may include beliefs on origin in the form of a [[creation myth]], subsequent evolution, current organizational form and nature, and eventual fate or destiny. There are various traditions in religion or [[Religion and mythology|religious mythology]] asserting how and why everything is the way it is and the significance of it all. Religious cosmologies describe the spatial lay-out of the universe in terms of the world in which people typically dwell as well as other dimensions, such as the seven dimensions of religion; these are ritual, experiential and emotional, narrative and mythical, doctrinal, ethical, social, and material.<ref>{{Cite journal|last=Tucker|first=Mary Evelyn|date=1998|title=Religious Dimensions of Confucianism: Cosmology and Cultivation|journal=Philosophy East and West|volume=48|issue=1|pages=5–45|doi=10.2307/1399924|jstor=1399924 |issn=0031-8221}}</ref>

Religious mythologies may include descriptions of an act or process of [[Creation myth|creation]] by a [[creator deity]] or a larger [[pantheon (gods)|pantheon]] of deities, explanations of the transformation of chaos into order, or the assertion that existence is a matter of endless cyclical transformations. Religious cosmology differs from a strictly scientific [[cosmology]] informed by contemporary [[astronomy]], [[physics]], and similar fields, and may differ in conceptualizations of the world's physical structure and place in the universe, its creation, and forecasts or predictions on its future.

The scope of religious cosmology is more inclusive than a strictly [[Scientific method|scientific]] cosmology ([[physical cosmology]] and [[quantum cosmology]]) in that religious cosmology is not limited to experiential observation, testing of hypotheses, and proposals of theories; for example, religious cosmology may explain why everything is the way it is or seems to be the way it is and prescribing what humans should do in context. Variations in religious cosmology include [[Zoroastrian cosmology]], those such as from India [[Buddhist|Buddhism]], [[Hindu]], and [[Jain]]; the religious beliefs of China, [[Chinese Buddhism]], [[Taoism]] and [[Confucianism]], Japan's [[Shinto|Shintoisim]] and the beliefs of the [[Abrahamic religions|Abrahamic faiths]], such as [[Judaism]], [[Christianity]], and [[Islam]]. Religious cosmologies have often developed into the formal logics of [[metaphysics|metaphysical systems]], such as [[Platonism]], [[Neoplatonism]], [[Gnosticism]], [[Daoism|Taoism]], [[Kabbalah]], [[Wuxing (Chinese philosophy)|Wuxing]] or the [[great chain of being]].