What is the difference between religious and ethnic group?

Answer 1

Ethnic Groups:

Ethnic groups are often related by closer cultural, racial, lingual and sometimes religious ties than they have with other people. They usually have a culture and a history that they can claim alone.

An ethnic group is bound in definition to where they're from. Some ethnic groups are Arabs, Native Americans, Chinese, Scandinavians and others, they come from specific areas of the world.

Members of an ethnic group are a people of the same race or nationality who identify with each other through a common cultural heritage.

Ethnic Group - A group of people who share the same ancestry, traditions, etc

Religious Groups:

Religious groups are only bonded by having the same religion or religious beliefs, and these ties often cross over ethnic lines.

Religious groups can span ethnic groups. These are groups that follow specific religions and can belong to any of the above ethnic groups. These include Mormons, Catholics, Buddhists, Muslims and more than 100 other religions. They can come from any region of the world.

Religious Group - A group of people who share the same beliefs

Answer 2

It depends on the religious group. In some cases, different people in the same ethnic group have different beliefs, and religious groups cross ethnic lines.

However, in many cultures, people are born into a particular group, and identified with that group by others even if do not actively practice its religion. In these cases, the religious identity is, in effect, a type of ethnicity, and though two groups may be labeled by their religious affiliations, they usually have many other differences that distinguish them, such as language, clothing, food, and other cultural practices. You'll sometimes see the term "ethnoreligious" (or "ethno-religious") used to refer to these groups.

Thus, when we hear about the Sunnis and Shi'a in Iraq, what we're really hearing about is two different ethnic groups that happen to distinguish themselves first and foremost by adherence to the two different branches of Islam, but that have other cultural differences as well. Moreover, no one ever includes the Iraqi Kurds in "the Sunnis," even though almost all of the Kurds practice Sunni Islam.

Likewise, even when two "ethnic" groups do not have religious labels, religion may still be one of the things that divides them: this is true, for example, of the Sinhalese (Buddhist) and Sri Lankan Tamils (Hindu) in Sri Lanka.

Answer 3

A religious group is a group based on worship of a superhuman controlling power, especially belief in and worship of a God or gods.

An ethnic group is a population subgroup with a common or cultural tradition.

Answer 4

Ethnic groups have distinctive features in their way of life, shared experiences, and often a common genetic heritage; these features may be reflected in their experience of health and disease.Where as ppl following same religion from different geographic locations usually dont share same genes