There is no consensus among Jews about what happens after death, in large part because the Torah (the first five books of the Hebrew scriptures) says little on the subject. There are some references, in the book of Psalms for instance, to a dark place deep in the earth called She'ol, alongside references to the dead going "down to the Pit," but they are not elaborated on. Elsewhere, death is described as a return to the dust from which man was created, as in Ecclesiastes 3:20, which says, "All go unto one place; all are of the dust, and all turn to dust again." While this implies there is no afterlife, another view appearing repeatedly in the Torah says the virtuous are reunited with their ancestors after death (the wicked are conversely "cut off" from their people), suggesting some form of life continues.

Olam ha-ba, literally "the world to come" in Hebrew, is another debated concept of the afterlife and appears in the Talmud, a vast compilation of oral laws and rabbinical commentaries central to Orthodox Judaism. Of the two chief interpretations of the term, one says it refers to the immortality of the soul, which is said to persist after physical death. According to this doctrine, the righteous will go to Gan Eden, the Garden of Eden, after death, while everyone else goes to Gehinnom, a hell based in the pit imagery of the Torah where souls are purified for up to one year. The other interpretation of the term says it refers to this world as it will be after after the messiah arrives and the dead are resurrected, known tehiyat ha-metim. Though most traditional Jewish movements believe in the messianic resurrection of the dead, the Reform movement officially rejects the doctrine.

The term hijab, which literally means "partition" or "barrier" in Arabic, refers to both the headscarf worn by Muslim women and the practice in Islam of women dressing modestly outside the home. The emphasis on modest dress stems from the Koran, which says that Muslim women "should not display their beauty and ornaments" (Koran 24:31), and that "they should cast their outer garments over their persons" (Koran 33:59). The world's various Muslim societies have interpreted these passages differently, with some only requiring that a woman veil her face and hair while others insist that a woman cover herself entirely from head to foot.

The Book of Shadows is among the most important sacred texts in Wicca, but there is no definitive version. Each coven, or group of witches (the term "witch," incidentally, often refers to both men and women), has its own, containing the spells, rituals, incantations and basic beliefs of the coven. Traditionally, witches copy their books from others but keep only those elements that appeal to them, ensuring that no two books are exactly alike.

While there is no single text describing a set of beliefs common to all Wiccans, all Wiccans are expected to abide by a rule called the Wiccan Rede: "An it harm none, do as ye will."

In Catholicism, can you go to heaven without being baptized?

For most of the last 800 years, the answer was no. From about the beginning of the 13th century to the middle of the 20th, Catholic doctrine held that, without being absolved of original sin through baptism, unbaptized children and unbaptized adults who lived virtuously went to limbo after death. But limbo, which was never officially defined as Catholic dogma, has long been troubling to Catholics who could not understand why God would deny admittance to Heaven to children who had not sinned themselves. In the 1960s, limbo began to go out of favor, and it was eventually omitted from the catechism. In April of this year, a Vatican-appointed panel of theologians declared limbo a "problematic" concept, inconsistent with a God that "wants all human beings to be saved," and announced that Catholics were free to disregard the doctrine.

Kabbalah is a body of Jewish mystical thought based on the belief that the Hebrew Scriptures contain the keys to understanding the mysteries of god and the universe, concealed in the form of alphanumeric codes and esoteric symbols. The exact origins of the kabbalist tradition are uncertain. One popular version has it that God imparted the knowledge, along with the 10 Commandments, directly to Moses on Mt. Sinai, after which it was passed down orally (hence the term "kabbalah," which is Hebrew for "reception"). But its origins are likely more recent, perhaps dating to the middle ages.

Though the term “secular humanism” has only been in use about thirty years, the movement traces its philosophical lineage back to classical Greek philosophers like Epictetus and Epicurus as well as to Chinese Confucianism. As the name makes clear, it is a nonreligious movement, though it is not by definition an atheistic one. Rather it asserts that morality, which it says should play a central role in life, exists independently of god and religion, and that religious belief is not a prerequisite for behaving ethically. Another core tenet says the only reliable knowledge of the world comes from scientific inquiry and reason, not faith or scripture, and denies supernatural explanations for the basic mysteries of existence, such as how the universe originated. Instead, it seeks natural, materialist answers, meaning explanations observable in the physical world.

In the 1960s, at a time when right-wing military dictatorships were usurping populist governments in Latin America and the radical left was insisting Third World poverty resulted from exploitation by the West, a new school of thought calling for the church to play a direct role in effecting social and political change for the benefit of the poor and working classes was taking shape throughout the Americas, particularly in South America's Catholic churches.

The movement, encouraged by the liberal atmosphere created in part by the Second Vatican Council and the Second Latin American Bishops Conference, which spoke of the church "listening to the cry of the poor and becoming the interpreter of their anguish," received its name in 1971, when Peruvian priest and theologian Gustavo Gutiérrez published the seminal text, "A Theology of Liberation."

Liberation theology, which says the Gospels demand "a preferential option for the poor," spread rapidly in the 1980s. But the late Pope, John Paul II, with the help of Joseph Ratzinger, who was then a Cardinal and the Church's Defender of the Doctrine of the Faith, sought to curb its influence on grounds that it conflated Catholicism and Marxism, and in so doing narrowed the scope of the Church from heavenly salvation to earthly class struggle and social justice and focused on Jesus as a revolutionary rather than the Son of God.

In the mid-80s, the Vatican silenced liberation theorists, notably Brazil's leading proponent, Leonardo Boff, prohibiting him from publishing, lecturing or editing theological journals. Still, the movement persists, with some 80,000 communities active in Brazil alone.

Like other branches of Christianity, Mormons regard the Bible as a core text, but Mormonism (also known as the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints) centers on a supplemental work called the Book of Mormon.

First published in 1830 by Joseph Smith, Mormonism's founder, the Book of Mormon recounts how God commanded Lehi, a prophet living in Jerusalem around 600 BCE, to lead a small group of Hebrews to the American continent. There, Christ appeared to the descendants of the Hebrews after his resurrection several hundred years later to deliver his final testament and establish his true ministry. These events, compiled from ancient records, were inscribed on gold plates by a prophet named Mormon, then buried for safekeeping in what is today New York state by Mormon's son, Moroni. According to the Mormon tradition, in 1823 Moroni appeared to Smith as an angel and disclosed the hiding place of the plates, which Smith then translated into the Book of Mormon.

Two additional works, both authored by Smith, are considered sacred by Mormons. One, the Doctrine and Covenants, is a set of revelations and divinely inspired edicts, including messages and warnings directed at both Mormons and humankind generally. The other, the Pearl of Great Price, is a collection of Smith's writings on faith and church doctrine, such as his translations and revisions of certain books of the Bible.

Together these four works constitute the foundation of the Mormon faith.

How does the Greek goddess Gaia figure in modern-day earth worship?

In Greek mythology, Gaia (or Gaea) was the name given to the goddess who personified the Earth, worshipped by the Greeks as the mother of all creation.

In the 1970s, British atmospheric scientist James Lovelock and U.S. biologist Lynn Margulis adopted the moniker to describe their controversial theory that the Earth, with all its living and nonliving systems ostensibly interacting to sustain life, could be viewed as a single complex organism rather than the chaotic interplay of disparate processes.

The so-called "Gaia hypothesis" met with resistance in the scientific community, but numerous environmentalists, New Age thinkers and neopagans latched onto it.

The Earth goddess has enjoyed a resurgence in popularity since, and today many pagans still revere the deity as the mother of all nature.

Islam makes no distinction between the sacred and secular, thus Islamic law, or sharia, governs not only religious affairs but also daily ones, from criminal justice to banking and business ethics. Traditional sharia, for instance, dictates that Muslims should only invest in ventures that hew to Islamic doctrine. Since the Koran forbids drinking, investing in a winery is not permitted.

Sharia literally means "path" or "path to water," referring to the path a Muslim must follow to salvation. The law comprises multiple elements: most important is the instruction of the Koran, considered the literal word of God; next is the sunnah, or the model of how one should live set by the Prophet Muhammad; the final components are the ijma, or consensus of Islamic scholars, and the qiyas, a sort of reasoning by analogy that extends the law to issues not explicity addressed in the holy texts (for example, extending the drinking prohibition, drugs may also be assumed to be forbidden).

Most Middle Eastern countries have some degree of sharia law integrated into their legal codes. Mostly these measures deal with issues of personal-status, such as marriage and divorce, while sharia guidance on criminal law has largely been tempered with legislation that is seen as more modern or secular; generally adulterers are not stoned to death in the contemporary Middle East. Even so, Saudi Arabia and Iran claim to implement sharia fully in all matters.