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Chances are that you’re religious, but if you’re not, there’s no doubting that you’ve seen at least a few of these religious symbols before.
Religion is such a prominent part of daily life and our larger culture that it’s hard to miss the sheer amount of religious imagery we see every day. Drive by a church and you’ll probably see a crucifix. Go online and, depending on your interests, you might see the symbol of the triple moon goddess. Even the more obscure symbols show up in ways you’d least expect as in the case of the Shinto which is sometimes used in anime and Japanese video games.
Though they often look like they’re just there for decoration and as a way to represent a religion, each of the religious symbols of the world’s biggest religions has a deeper meaning that tells us about a faith’s fundamental beliefs and even its history.
1. The Islamic Crescent Moon and Star
The crescent moon and star is one of the most easily recognizable symbols on this list. Along with the crucifix, the crescent moon and star represents one of the most widespread religions in the world, Islam.
About fifty countries have a population comprised of a Muslim majority. This can range as high as Mauritania’s all-Muslim demographics or as low as Bosnia and Herzegovina where the Muslim majority is just 50.70%, making the difference just slightly above a coin toss. Of these predominantly Muslim nations, quite a few use the crescent moon and star as part of their flag. You can see this with Pakistan, Algeria, Turkey, Malaysia, and Tunisia.
So, why all the hype around this religious symbol?
Let’s start with the star. The five-pointed star represents the five pillars of Islam: professing one’s faith, prayer, giving to the poor, fasting, and completing a pilgrimage to Mecca. As for the crescent moon, remember how the moon marks the passage of time? Months, for example, were conceptualized based on the lunar cycle. As an Islamic religious symbol, the crescent moon marks the beginning and end of the fasting period during Ramadan.
That said, the crescent moon and star isn’t a universal Islamic symbol. There’s speculation that this symbol’s historic origins may be less than halal. The crescent moon and star are ancient celestial symbols with deep ties to pagan and animistic religious practices that were common to Central Asia. Because of this, it’s unsurprising that the popular symbol is rejected by some Muslims.
2. The Christian Crucifix
Few religious symbols are as widely used in pop culture as the Christian crucifix. It shows up in religious films and horror movies alike, often used as the supernatural equivalent of pepper spray, except you’re fending off vampires, demons, and ghosts instead of human attackers.
Depending on what specific subgenre of the Christian faith you belong to, the crucifix can look a little different. Okay, majorly different. Many protestant Christian faiths avoid the use of human-looking symbols and imagery because they believe that it’s a form of idolatry. Biblical scripture is filled with anti-idolatry passages, the most famous of which is the story of the golden calves that were worshipped instead of capital G god in Christianity’s pre-Ten Commandments era.
On the other hand, you have Catholic Christians who use crucifixes that explicitly show the body of Christ hanging on the cross. A Catholic crucifix may even have a sign above Jesus’ head that says “INRI” which stands for Iesus Nazarenus Rex Iudaeorum, meaning “Jesus of Nazareth, King of the Jews.”
Whether you’re a Jesus on the crucifix or no Jesus on the crucifix Christian, the meaning of this religious symbol stays the same: the crucifix symbolizes the sacrifice of Jesus Christ. The teaching that “Jesus died for our sins” is the central idea that underpins most of the Christian faiths.
Aside from the physical crucifix, Catholics will perform a sign of the cross before and after prayers by bringing their hand up to their forehead, the chest, the left shoulder, and then the right shoulder.
Like the Islamic crescent moon and star, this religious symbol shows up in a lot of countries’ flags. The crucifix or cross shows up in flags of Denmark, Sweden, Iceland, Greece, Norway, and basically all of the flags that feature a union jack.
3. The Hindu Svastika
Out of all the religious symbols to enter mainstream consciousness, the Hindu svastika has to be the worst case of cultural appropriation.
The svastika, as they say it in Sanskrit, was originally a symbol of good fortune and prosperity. It’s so auspicious that even the word means “conductive to well-being.” But if you’ve been forced to sit through a boring history class in high school, the svastika might not have the same positive associations that the other religious symbols on this list do.
The svastika became popular thanks to World War Two and it couldn’t have had worse associations if we tried. Adolf Hitler and his Nazi party took this symbol of Hindu faith and plastered it on their flags, logos, and propaganda material which were then used in the systematic oppression and genocide of Jewish people in Germany and nations that Nazi forces occupied. The Holocaust left roughly 6 million Jewish people dead in its wake, subjected to unethical medical experimentation, starvation, and even gas chamber executions.
The bloody associations of this religious symbol make it divisive, to say the least. It’s still a symbol of good luck for Hindus and is often used during Diwali, the festival of light, as a way to express well wishes for their household and other people. But thanks to Hitler, it’s easy for misunderstandings to happen when Hindus bring out their svastikas for Diwali.
The Hindu svastika and Hitler’s swastika are, fortunately, not entirely identical. The svastika has a completely upright orientation whereas the Nazi swastika is slightly tilted on its side.
4. The Jewish Star of David
The Star of David is another of the many Judeo Christian religious symbols. It’s primarily associated with the Jewish people and is featured on the Israeli flag. Also known as the six-pointed star, the Star of David is made up of two overlaid equilateral triangles with each triangle’s three points making up the points on the star itself.
Similar to the crescent moon and star of Islam, the Star of David didn’t have religious symbolic importance from the get-go. It was instead a decorative symbol, like the Shinto tomoe, and had magical associations as well.
So, why the change in meaning? As King David grew in popularity among Jewish mystics, they began to attribute magical powers to him. Since the six-pointed star now had ties to David, it was now also tied to the concept of God as protector, making it a popular protection charm among kabbalists, a branch of esoteric Jewish mystics.
Its ancient origins make the Star of David one of the oldest religious symbols of the Jewish faith, along with the menorah, and is today used to represent the Jewish community.
Because the Nazis had a talent for perverting other cultures’ religious symbols, they also tried to degrade the Star of David along with the Jews it symbolized. During the Holocaust, Nazi white supremacists forced Jews to wear a yellow six-pointed star as a way of singling them out for discrimination. Nazis distributed propaganda leaflets featuring the Star of David along with the message “Whoever bears this sign is an enemy of our people.” Yikes.
5. The Pagan Triple Moon
While most of the religious symbols mentioned so far have something to do with Judeo-Christian religions, the triple moon symbol is anything but.
The triple moon symbol is used by many practitioners of paganism and Wicca, a sort of pagan revivalist faith that draws from a mix of occult beliefs and magical practices seen in many pre-Christian religions that were practiced in northern and western Europe. Initiated by Gerald Brousseau Gardner, a British civil servant with a deep interest in esoteric practices, the belief is largely centered on reverence for nature and the worship of a typically female goddess.
The triple moon symbol represents the natural rhythms of the Earth, particularly the lunar cycle. But its symbolic meaning is also tied to the rhythms of human life. The triple moon symbol signifies the aspects of the triple goddess: The Maiden, the Mother, and the Crone.
The waxing moon represents the Maiden who symbolizes youth, innocence, and new beginnings. As for the full moon, it stands for the Mother who symbolizes a woman at the prime of her power, maturity, and sexual awareness. The waning moon is symbolic of the Crone, a wise and experienced woman who has learned from the previous two stages.
The triple moon symbol, along with the triple moon goddess, also has associations with agriculture. The Greek goddesses Demeter and Persephone are respectively identified with the Mother and the Maiden. The Maiden sows in spring and Demeter, an agricultural goddess, marks the harvesting season.
6. The Egyptian Ankh
The Egyptian gods aren’t as respected as they used to be. While there are still small pockets within the pagan community that revere the old Egyptian gods, there’s no denying that the faith can’t quite muster the numbers or resources needed for building a new temple or pyramid.
Despite this, the ancient Egyptian faith still has one of the most recognizable religious symbols in history and it’s one that we still see today. If you’ve watched an Egyptian-themed movie before or played Assassin’s Creed: Origins then you’ve seen an ankh before.
The ankh, sometimes called “the key of life”, is a religious symbol that represented the idea of eternal life spent in the duat, ancient Egypt’s version of heaven. It’s often seen in the tombs of pharaohs to symbolize their immortality as flesh and blood incarnations of gods.
Its powerful symbolic ties to the afterlife and immortality led the ankh to becoming a symbol of faith for 4th century Coptic Christians. Scroll back up to the photo of the crucifix and squint. You might be able to see how the ankh has been assimilated into modern Christianity.
7. The Shinto Tomoe
The tomoe of the Japanese Shinto tradition is one of the rarer religious symbols on our list. You probably wouldn’t normally associate a comma with a religion, but the tomoe translates to exactly that.
Tomoe doesn’t refer to the entire symbol you see here. Instead, the word specifically refers to just one of the “arms” of the symbol. The picture above shows a “Mitsu-tomoe”, the “three commas” version that’s often used in traditional Japanese crests, shrines, and taiko drums.
The use of this religious symbol as a drum decoration isn’t just decorative. Drums have strong associations with Raijin, sometimes translated as “Raiden,” the Japanese god of lightning, thunder, and storms.
The deity is often shown in paintings and statues standing on top of a cloud as he beats his drums, symbolizing the roar of thunder that comes with lightning storms during Japan’s rainy season.
The tomoe has existed as far back as 1,000 BCE when it was initially just a way of carving stone and jewels into a decorative shape. Limited tools meant that the oldest tomoe were standalone commas, unlike the more common Mitsu-tomoe that came after it.
It’s speculated that the tomoe developed religious associations after they were first made. Today, the tomoe is worn as a lucky charm, a protective symbol, and even a sign of cultural heritage.
Not all symbols are made equal. Some are seen as “evil” like the humble goat skull. Find out how it became a symbol of Satanism here.
