What is religion?
This question hasn’t been asked since 2009, so I thought I’d do it again.
There is a professor at my university who is writing a book on this topic. He tells me that there are hundreds of different definitions and they cover all kinds of territory. Just for example, there is the issue of whether a religion must have a god (or gods).
So this is about you. Please refrain from saying any particular definition is right or wrong. Just tell us what your idea of religion is. What does it include for you?
And please also refrain from critiquing anyone else’s idea of religion—at least until we have ten different definitions. Critiquing tends to stop other people from throwing a hat in the ring. I just want to get a lot of different ideas so I can understand the territory people are living in.
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17 Answers
I make no value judgments with this definition, it’s only an attempt at semantic clarity.
Religion is a ideology that involves the worship of a deity or deities—that is, powerful, supernatural beings that have an active interest in human history and morality.
So this definition of religion would exclude Zen Buddhism, Pantheism, and Deism.
Religion is a system of beliefs centered around a higher power(s), which includes a set of ideals and morality (way of life), revolves around ritualistic behaviors such as prayers/meditation/sacraments/etc, and deals with the question of what happens after death.
I like Mark Twain’s definition:
Faith is believing what you know ain’t so.
If people were certain of the truths of their religion, they would not feel threatened by someone else’s beliefs. They could just snicker to themselves how they were on the right path and everyone else was doomed to ignorance.
The word religion is associated with quite a lot of negative things these days. Hell, the westboro “baptist” “church” has done wonders for making religious people look like raving lunatics. “Priests” in catholic churches make Catholicism look bad. Televangelists make religion look like a gimmick or a magic show. All in all, the true nature and benevolent tradition of the honest and sincere religious people worldwide has suffered massively.
Defining religion is simple on the surface if you just throw down a dictionary quote and call it a day. I’m certain that even a full book couldn’t cover it.
I get what you’re saying. In my opinion, if a belief system contains gods (of any sort), then it’s a religion. Otherwise, I would think of it as a philosophy, or well… a belief system… but an atheist one.
So, for example, Buddhism is supposed to be a “godless” religion, but there are gods associated with it (even if they are not creators), so yes, I think of it as a religion. If anyone can give me an example of a “religion” without gods, I would personally not think of it as a religion.
I guess any ideology that attempts to explain (or patently claims to know) the meaning of the universe and life by assigning a higher power.
But it’s easy to call anything a religion. There definitely are multiple definitions.
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Religion is a set of beliefs that unite people with some common thoughts about life, how we interact with each other, and death.
The most universally applicable definition I’ve come across ascribes four necessary elements to religion, the “four Cs”:
Creed – A doctrine.
Cult – A set of devotional practices.
Code – A prescription of moral behavior.
Community – A connection with a body of practitioners.
This is one of the few definitions that is broad enough to account for Buddhism, which doesn’t require any belief in supernatural beings, god figures or “higher powers”, at least not in the common usage of the term.
To me, religions that revolve around higher powers are merely attempts to hide that someone doesn’t have the answer to something such as how did the universe come to be and are too lazy to put forth the effort to find the truth whatever it may be. Religion is a crumbling shelter for those described by Nietzsche as the last men, content with what they have as truth though it may be a lie.
Religion is a faith-based belief (as opposed to an evidence-based belief) of a spiritual nature that is shared with a community of like-minded people.
It’s the best I could come up with.
Religion is big business but instead of writing your own company guide lines you just manipulate what is already there, bending and twisting to accommodate the parts you dislike.
“Religion is the everlasting dialogue between humanity and God” Franz Werfel (1890 – 1945)
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It’s a social construction that manifests itself at the macro and micro levels of society through religious institutions and personal values tied to dogma. Very needed by many, but not all.
Religion is the belief in and/or worship of a supernatural power, usually a deity or multiple deities.
I’ll try again! :-/
Religion, I repeat, is a form of bondage…… keep it in the bedroom I say. *snarc.
“The root of the word “religion” is usually traced to the Latin religare (re: back, and ligare: to bind), so that the term is associated with “being bound.” The idea may reflect a concept prominent in biblical literature”.
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