traditional beliefs
Handed-down convictions
Traditional beliefs are ideas, values, or convictions passed down through generations within a culture, community, or family.
These beliefs often concern religion, morality, social customs, or explanations of natural phenomena.
The phrase typically appears in contexts contrasting inherited worldviews with modern, scientific, or progressive thinking: Traditional beliefs about gender roles are being questioned.
Sometimes used respectfully to describe indigenous or folk knowledge systems; other times dismissively to imply outdated thinking.
- customsTraditional practices or import taxes
- ceremoniesFormal observances with ritual
- sacred textsHoly religious writings
- ritualsCeremonial repeated practices
- legendsTraditional stories or icons
spiritual practices · superstitions · morality · taboos · faith · epic narratives · spirit world · oral traditions · passed down · divination · shamanism · medicine man · divine law · cosmology · ancestral practices · village elders · heritage · myths
- folklorefairy tales, fairytales, folktales, folk tales, folk tale
- native spiritualitymedicine man, sacred ceremonies, native rituals, vision quest, sweat lodge
- CameroonFulani, francophone, reunification, coastal lowlands, Santa
- Malagasy beliefsancestor veneration, spirit possession
- demographicspopulation density, population growth, age distribution, population, gender ratio
- folk beliefssuperstition, superstitions, folk beliefs, omens, good luck
traditional beliefsmodern innovations
Novel developments of today
progressive ideas · modernism · futurism · transhumanism · neophilia
traditional beliefsrationalism
Reason as knowledge source
empiricism · evidence-based reasoning · skepticism · freethought · materialism