Religion

== Definition ==
{{Main|Definition of religion}}

Scholars have failed to agree on a definition of religion. There are, however, two general definition systems: the sociological/functional and the phenomenological/philosophical.<ref>Vgl. Johann Figl: ''Handbuch Religionswissenschaft: Religionen und ihre zentralen Themen.'' Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2003, {{ISBN|3-7022-2508-0}}, S. 65.</ref><ref>Julia Haslinger: ''Die Evolution der Religionen und der Religiosität,'' s. [[#Religionsgeschichte|Literatur Religionsgeschichte]], S. 3–4, 8.</ref><ref>Johann Figl: ''Handbuch Religionswissenschaft: Religionen und ihre zentralen Themen.'' Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2003, {{ISBN|3-7022-2508-0}}, S. 67.</ref><ref>Peter Antes: ''Religion, religionswissenschaftlich.'' In: EKL Bd. 3, Sp. 1543. S. 98.</ref>

=== Modern Western ===
The concept of religion originated in the [[modern era]] in the [[Western culture|West]].<ref name="Fitzgerald">{{Cite book|first=Timothy|last=Fitzgerald|title=Discourse on Civility and Barbarity|url=https://archive.org/details/discourseoncivil00fitz|url-access=limited|publisher=Oxford University Press|year=2007|pages=[https://archive.org/details/discourseoncivil00fitz/page/n57 45]–46|isbn=978-0-19-530009-3}}</ref> Parallel concepts are not found in many current and past cultures; there is no equivalent term for religion in many languages.<ref name="Nongbri" /><ref name="50 great" /> Scholars have found it difficult to develop a consistent definition, with some giving up on the possibility of a definition.<ref>McKinnon, AM. 2002. [https://aura.abdn.ac.uk/bitstream/2164/3073/1/McKinnon_Definition_of_Religion_author_version_no_format.pdf "Sociological Definitions, Language Games and the 'Essence' of Religion"] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160304070842/http://aura.abdn.ac.uk/bitstream/2164/3073/1/McKinnon_Definition_of_Religion_author_version_no_format.pdf|date=4 March 2016}}. ''Method & Theory in the Study of Religion'', vol 14, no. 1, pp. 61–83.</ref><ref>Josephson, Jason Ānanda. (2012) ''The Invention of Religion in Japan.'' Chicago: University of Chicago Press, p. 257</ref> Others argue that regardless of its definition, it is not appropriate to apply it to non-Western cultures.<ref name="dubuisson" /><ref name="Fitzgerald" />

An increasing number of scholars have expressed reservations about ever defining the essence of religion.<ref>{{cite journal | last=McKinnon | first=A.M. | date=2002 | title=Sociological definitions, language games, and the 'essence' of religion | journal=Method & Theory in the Study of Religion | volume=14 | issue=1 | issn=0943-3058 | doi=10.1163/157006802760198776 | pages=61–83 | hdl=2164/3073 | url=https://aura.abdn.ac.uk/bitstream/2164/3073/1/McKinnon_Definition_of_Religion_author_version_no_format.pdf | access-date=20 July 2017 | citeseerx=10.1.1.613.6995 | archive-date=4 March 2016 | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160304070842/http://aura.abdn.ac.uk/bitstream/2164/3073/1/McKinnon_Definition_of_Religion_author_version_no_format.pdf | url-status=live }}</ref> They observe that the way the concept today is used is a particularly modern construct that would not have been understood through much of history and in many cultures outside the West (or even in the West until after the [[Peace of Westphalia]]).<ref>{{cite book |last=Smith |first=Wilfred Cantwell |date=1978 |title=The Meaning and End of Religion |location=New York |publisher=Harper and Row}}</ref> The MacMillan Encyclopedia of Religions states:

{{blockquote|The very attempt to define religion, to find some distinctive or possibly unique essence or set of qualities that distinguish the religious from the remainder of human life, is primarily a Western concern. The attempt is a natural consequence of the Western speculative, intellectualistic, and scientific disposition. It is also the product of the dominant Western religious mode, what is called the Judeo-Christian climate or, more accurately, the theistic inheritance from Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. The theistic form of belief in this tradition, even when downgraded culturally, is formative of the [[dichotomy|dichotomous]] Western view of religion. That is, the basic structure of theism is essentially a distinction between a transcendent deity and all else, between the creator and his creation, between God and man.<ref>{{cite encyclopedia |last=King |first=W.L. |date=2005 |article=Religion (First Edition) |editor-link=Mircea Eliade |editor-first=Mircea |editor-last=Eliade |title=The Encyclopedia of Religion |publisher=[[Gale (publisher)|MacMillan Reference US]] |edition=2nd |page=7692}}</ref>}}

The anthropologist [[Clifford Geertz]] defined religion as a:

{{blockquote|... system of symbols which acts to establish powerful, pervasive, and long-lasting moods and motivations in men by formulating conceptions of a general order of existence and clothing these conceptions with such an aura of factuality that the moods and motivations seem uniquely realistic.{{sfn|Geertz|1993|pp=87–125}}}}

Alluding perhaps to Tylor's "deeper motive", Geertz remarked that:
{{blockquote|... we have very little idea of how, in empirical terms, this particular miracle is accomplished. We just know that it is done, annually, weekly, daily, for some people almost hourly; and we have an enormous ethnographic literature to demonstrate it.{{sfn|Geertz|1993|p=90}}}}

The theologian [[Antoine Vergote]] took the term supernatural simply to mean whatever transcends the powers of nature or human agency. He also emphasized the cultural reality of religion, which he defined as:
{{blockquote|... the entirety of the linguistic expressions, emotions and, actions and signs that refer to a supernatural being or supernatural beings.<ref name="vergote">Vergote, A. (1996) ''Religion, Belief and Unbelief. A Psychological Study'', Leuven University Press. (p. 16)</ref>}}

[[Peter Mandaville]] and [[Paul James (academic)|Paul James]] intended to get away from the modernist dualisms or dichotomous understandings of immanence/transcendence, spirituality/materialism, and sacredness/secularity. They define religion as:
{{blockquote|... a relatively-bounded system of beliefs, symbols and practices that addresses the nature of existence, and in which communion with others and Otherness is ''lived'' as if it both takes in and spiritually transcends socially-grounded ontologies of time, space, embodiment and knowing.<ref name="Paul James and Peter Mandaville 2010">{{cite book |last1=James |first1=Paul |last2=Mandaville |first2=Peter |year=2010 |name-list-style=amp |title=Globalization and Culture, Vol. 2: Globalizing Religions |url=https://www.academia.edu/4416072 |publisher=Sage Publications |location=London |access-date=1 May 2014 |archive-date=25 December 2019 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20191225133622/https://www.academia.edu/4416072 |url-status=live }}</ref>}}

According to the ''MacMillan Encyclopedia of Religions'', there is an experiential aspect to religion which can be found in almost every culture:
{{blockquote|... almost every known culture [has] a depth dimension in cultural experiences ... toward some sort of ultimacy and transcendence that will provide norms and power for the rest of life. When more or less distinct patterns of behavior are built around this depth dimension in a culture, this structure constitutes religion in its historically recognizable form. Religion is the organization of life around the depth dimensions of experience—varied in form, completeness, and clarity in accordance with the environing culture.<ref>MacMillan Encyclopedia of religions, ''Religion'', p. 7695</ref>}}

Anthropologists Lyle Steadman and Craig T. Palmer emphasized the communication of supernatural beliefs, defining religion as:
{{blockquote|... the communicated acceptance by individuals of another individual’s “supernatural” claim, a claim whose accuracy is not verifiable by the senses.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Steadman |first1=Lyle |last2=Palmer |first2=Craig T. |title=The Supernatural and Natural Selection |date=2008 |publisher=Paradigm |isbn=978-1-59451-565-1 |page=ix |url=https://www.researchgate.net/publication/291523214}}</ref>}}

=== Classical ===
[[File:Будажап Цыреторов.JPG|thumb|Budazhap Shiretorov (Будажап Цыреторов), the head shaman of the religious community Altan Serge (Алтан Сэргэ) in [[Buryatia]]]]
[[Friedrich Schleiermacher]] in the late 18th century defined religion as ''das schlechthinnige Abhängigkeitsgefühl'', commonly translated as "the feeling of absolute dependence".<ref>{{Cite journal |doi=10.1017/S0034412504007462|title='Feeling of absolute dependence' or 'absolute feeling of dependence'? A question revisited|journal=Religious Studies|volume=41|pages=81–94|year=2005|last1=Finlay|first1=Hueston E.|s2cid=170541390}}</ref>

His contemporary [[Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel]] disagreed thoroughly, defining religion as "the Divine Spirit becoming conscious of Himself through the finite spirit."<ref>[[Max Müller]]. "Lectures on the origin and growth of religion."</ref>{{better source needed|date=October 2023}}

[[Edward Burnett Tylor]] defined religion in 1871 as "the belief in spiritual beings".<ref name="archive.org">Tylor, E.B. (1871) ''[https://archive.org/stream/primitiveculture1tylouoft#page/424/mode/2up Primitive Culture: Researches Into the Development of Mythology, Philosophy, Religion, Art, and Custom. Vol. 1]''. London: John Murray; (p. 424).</ref> He argued that narrowing the definition to mean the belief in a supreme deity or judgment after death or [[idolatry]] and so on, would exclude many peoples from the category of religious, and thus "has the fault of identifying religion rather with particular developments than with the deeper motive which underlies them". He also argued that the belief in spiritual beings exists in all known societies.

In his book ''[[The Varieties of Religious Experience]]'', the psychologist [[William James]] defined religion as "the feelings, acts, and experiences of individual men in their solitude, so far as they apprehend themselves to stand in relation to whatever they may consider the divine".{{sfn|James|1902|p=31}} By the term divine James meant "any object that is god''like'', whether it be a concrete deity or not"{{sfn|James|1902|p=34}} to which the individual feels impelled to respond with solemnity and gravity.{{sfn|James|1902|p=38}}

Sociologist [[Émile Durkheim]], in his seminal book ''[[The Elementary Forms of the Religious Life]]'', defined religion as a "unified system of beliefs and practices relative to sacred things".{{sfn|Durkheim|1915|p=}} By sacred things he meant things "set apart and forbidden—beliefs and practices which unite into one single moral community called a Church, all those who adhere to them". [[Sacred|Sacred things]] are not, however, limited to gods or spirits.<ref group=note>That is how, according to Durkheim, Buddhism is a religion. "In default of gods, Buddhism admits the existence of sacred things, namely, the [[Four Noble Truths|four noble truths]] and the practices derived from them" {{harvnb|Durkheim|1915|p=}}</ref> On the contrary, a sacred thing can be "a rock, a tree, a spring, a pebble, a piece of wood, a house, in a word, anything can be sacred".{{sfn|Durkheim|1915|p=37}} Religious beliefs, myths, dogmas and legends are the representations that express the nature of these sacred things, and the virtues and powers which are attributed to them.{{sfn|Durkheim|1915|pp=40–41}}

Echoes of James' and Durkheim's definitions are to be found in the writings of, for example, [[Frederick Ferré]] who defined religion as "one's way of valuing most comprehensively and intensively".<ref>Frederick Ferré, F. (1967) ''Basic modern philosophy of religion''. Scribner, (p. 82).</ref> Similarly, for the theologian [[Paul Tillich]], faith is "the state of being ultimately concerned",<ref name="Tillich, P. 1957 p.1" /> which "is itself religion. Religion is the substance, the ground, and the depth of man's spiritual life."<ref>Tillich, P. (1959) ''Theology of Culture''. Oxford University Press; (p. 8).</ref>

When religion is seen in terms of sacred, divine, intensive valuing, or ultimate concern, then it is possible to understand why scientific findings and philosophical criticisms (e.g., those made by [[Richard Dawkins]]) do not necessarily disturb its adherents.<ref>Pecorino, P.A. (2001) [https://www2.sunysuffolk.edu/pecorip/scccweb/etexts/phil_of_religion_text/CHAPTER_10_DEFINITION/The-Definition-of-Religion.htm ''Philosophy of Religion. Online Textbook''] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130619213234/https://www2.sunysuffolk.edu/pecorip/scccweb/etexts/phil_of_religion_text/CHAPTER_10_DEFINITION/The-Definition-of-Religion.htm |date=19 June 2013 }}. Philip A. Pecorino.</ref>