The definition of religion is a controversial and complicated subject in religious studies with scholars failing to agree on any one definition. Oxford Dictionaries defines religion as the belief in and/or worship of a superhuman controlling power, especially a personal God or gods.[1][failed verification] Others, such as Wilfred Cantwell Smith, have tried to correct a perceived Western bias in the definition and study of religion. Thinkers such as Daniel Dubuisson[2] have doubted that the term religion has any meaning outside of Western cultures, while others, such as Ernst Feil[3] doubt that it has any specific, universal meaning even there.
Scholars have failed to agree on a definition of religion. There are however two general definition systems: the sociological/functional and the phenomenological/philosophical.[4][5][6][7][8]
Emile Durkheim defined religion as "a unified system of beliefs and practices relative to sacred things, that is to say things set apart and forbidden - beliefs and practices which unite into one single moral community called a church, all those who adhere to them."[9]
Max Lynn Stackhouse, defined religion as "a comprehensive worldview or 'metaphysical moral vision' that is accepted as binding because it is held to be in itself basically true and just even if all dimensions of it cannot be either fully confirmed or refuted".[10]
Some jurisdictions refuse to classify specific religions as religions, arguing that they are instead heresies, even if they are widely viewed as a religion in the academic world.[11]
Religion is a modernWestern concept.[12] Parallel concepts are not found in many current and past cultures; there is no equivalent term for religion in many languages.[13][14] Scholars have found it difficult to develop a consistent definition, with some giving up on the possibility of a definition.[15][16] Others argue that regardless of its definition, it is not appropriate to apply it to non-Western cultures.[17][12]
An increasing number of scholars have expressed reservations about ever defining the essence of religion.[18] They observe that the way we use the concept today 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).[19] The MacMillan Encyclopedia of Religions states:
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 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.[20]
[…] 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."[21]
Alluding perhaps to Tylor's "deeper motive", Geertz remarked that
[…] 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.[22]
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
[…] the entirety of the linguistic expressions, emotions and, actions and signs that refer to a supernatural being or supernatural beings.[23]
Peter Mandaville and 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
[…] 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.[24]
According to the MacMillan Encyclopedia of Religions, there is an experiential aspect to religion which can be found in almost every culture:
[…] 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.[25]
Classical
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".[26]
His contemporary Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel disagreed thoroughly, defining religion as "the Divine Spirit becoming conscious of Himself through the finite spirit."[27]
Edward Burnett Tylor defined religion in 1871 as "the belief in spiritual beings".[28] 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".[29] By the term divine James meant "any object that is godlike, whether it be a concrete deity or not"[30] to which the individual feels impelled to respond with solemnity and gravity.[31]
The 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".[32] 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 things are not, however, limited to gods or spirits.[note 1] 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".[33] 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.[34]
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".[35] Similarly, for the theologian Paul Tillich, faith is "the state of being ultimately concerned",[36] which "is itself religion. Religion is the substance, the ground, and the depth of man's spiritual life."[37]
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.[38]
Religion as a modern Western construct
Fresco of St. Augustine of Hippo, Maria Steinbach. Saint Augustine was a Christian theologian and the bishop of Hippo Regius in north Africa and is viewed as one of the most important Church Fathers in Western Christianity for his writings. Among his most important works are The City of God, On Christian Doctrine and Confessions.
A number of scholars have pointed out that the terminology used in the study of religion in the West derives from Judeo-Christian tradition, and that the basic assumptions of religion as an analytical category are all Western in origin. This idea was first raised by Wilfred Cantwell Smith in his 1962 book, The Meaning and End of Religion.[39] Among the main proponents of this theory of religion are Daniel Dubuisson, Timothy Fitzgerald, Talal Asad, and Jason Ānanda Josephson Storm. These social constructionists argue that religion is a modern concept that developed from Christianity and was then applied inappropriately to non-Western cultures.
While few would dispute that the concept of religion does have a historical genealogy, there is some disagreement about what the Western origin of the term has meant historically. Some such as Tomoko Masuzawa have felt that the equation of religion with Christianity had the effect of diminishing other traditions, especially in the study of comparative religions as it developed during the high point of Western imperialism.[40] Others[who?] have felt that this sort of criticism overestimates the influence that Western academic thought had on the rest of the world.
Daniel Dubuisson, a French anthropologist, argues that the idea of religion has changed a lot over time and that one cannot fully understand its development by relying on consistent use of the term, which "tends to minimize or cancel out the role of history".[17] "What the West and the history of religions in its wake have objectified under the name 'religion' is ... something quite unique, which could be appropriate only to itself and its own history."[17] He notes that St. Augustine's definition of religio differed from the way we used the modern word religion.[17]
Dubuisson prefers the term "cosmographic formation" to religion. Dubuisson says that, with the emergence of religion as a category separate from culture and society, there arose religious studies. The initial purpose of religious studies was to demonstrate the superiority of the living or universal European world view to the dead or ethnic religions scattered throughout the rest of the world, expanding the teleological project of Schleiermacher and Tiele to a worldwide ideal religiousness.[41] Due to shifting theological currents, this was eventually supplanted by a liberal-ecumenical interest in searching for Western-style universal truths in every cultural tradition.[40]
According to Timothy Fitzgerald, religion is not a universal feature of all cultures, but rather a particular idea that first developed in Europe under the influence of Christianity.[42] Fitzgerald argues that from about the 4th century CE Western Europe and the rest of the world diverged. As Christianity became commonplace, the charismatic authority identified by Augustine, a quality we might today call religiousness, exerted a commanding influence at the local level. As the Catholic Church lost its dominance during the Protestant Reformation and Christianity became closely tied to political structures, religion was recast as the basis of national sovereignty, and religious identity gradually became a less universal sense of spirituality and more divisive, locally defined, and tied to nationality.[43] It was at this point that religion was dissociated from universal beliefs and moved closer to dogma in both meaning and practice. However, there was not yet the idea of dogma as a personal choice, only of established churches. With the Enlightenment religion lost its attachment to nationality, says Fitzgerald, but rather than becoming a universal social attitude, it now became a personal feeling or emotion.[44]
Talal Asad later refined this notion by showing that many assumptions about religion derive specifically from post-Enlightenment Christianity.[45] Asad argues that before the word religion came into common usage, Christianity was a disciplina, a rule just like that of the Roman Empire. This idea can be found in the writings of St. Augustine (354–430). Christianity was then a power structure opposing and superseding human institutions, a literal Kingdom of Heaven. It was the discipline taught by one's family, school, church, and city authorities, rather than something calling one to self-discipline through symbols.[46]
These ideas are developed by S. N. Balagangadhara. In the Age of Enlightenment, Balagangadhara argues that the idea of Christianity as the purest expression of spirituality was supplanted by the concept of religion as a worldwide practice.[47] This caused such ideas as religious freedom, a reexamination of classical philosophy as an alternative to Christian thought, and more radically Deism among intellectuals such as Voltaire. Much like Christianity, the idea of religious freedom was exported around the world as a civilizing technique, even to regions such as India that had never treated spirituality as a matter of political identity.[48]
In The Invention of Religion in Japan, Josephson Storm argued that while the concept of religion was Christian in its early formulation, non-Europeans (such as the Japanese) did not just acquiesce and passively accept the term's meaning. Instead they worked to interpret religion (and its boundaries) strategically to meet their own agendas and staged these new meanings for a global audience.[49] In nineteenth century Japan, Buddhism was radically transformed from a pre-modern philosophy of natural law into a religion, as Japanese leaders worked to address domestic and international political concerns. The European encounter with other cultures therefore led to a partial de-Christianization of the category religion. Hence religion has come to refer to a confused collection of traditions with no possible coherent definition.[50]
In more recent work, Storm has sought both to generalize and to move beyond the critique of the category of religion using what he terms a metamodern perspective. Storm argues that the problems with the category of religion reflect broader ways different concepts in the human sciences may be deconstructed; in particular, Storm analogizes the debate about the definition of religion to classificatory disputes about art.[51] In turn, developing a theory of social kinds influenced by philosophy of biology, Storm argues that both the concept of religion and individual religions should be analyzed as "property clusters" that temporarily gain stability according to an "anchoring process."[52] For this reason, Storm proposes studying both the concept of religion and individual religions by identifying causal processes that worked in multiple directions, rejecting both essentialism and oversimplified critiques of the definition of religion as a Western imposition.[53]
George Lindbeck, a Lutheran and a postliberal theologian (but not a social constructionist), says that religion does not refer to belief in God or a transcendent Absolute, but rather to "a kind of cultural and/or linguistic framework or medium that shapes the entirety of life and thought ... it is similar to an idiom that makes possible the description of realities, the formulation of beliefs, and the experiencing of inner attitudes, feelings, and sentiments."[54]
↑ 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 and the practices derived from them"Durkheim 1915
↑ Johann Figl: Handbuch Religionswissenschaft: Religionen und ihre zentralen Themen. Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2003, ISBN3-7022-2508-0, S. 67.
↑ In: Friedrich Schleiermacher: Der christliche Glaube nach den Grundsätzen der evangelischen Kirche. Berlin 1821/22. Neuausg. Berlin 1984, §3/4. Zit. nach: Walter Burkert: Kulte des Altertums. Biologische Grundlagen der Religion. 2. Auflage. C.H. Beck, München 2009, ISBN978-3-406-43355-9, S. 102.
↑ Peter Antes: Religion, religionswissenschaftlich. In: EKL Bd. 3, Sp. 1543. S. 98.
↑ MacMillan Encyclopedia of religions, Religion, p. 7695
↑ Finlay, Hueston A. (2005). "'Feeling of absolute dependence' or 'absolute feeling of dependence'? A question revisited". Religious Studies. 41 (1): 81–94. doi:10.1017/S0034412504007462. S2CID170541390.
↑ Max Müller. "Lectures on the origin and growth of religion."
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The history of religion refers to the written record of human religious feelings, thoughts, and ideas. This period of religious history begins with the invention of writing about 5,200 years ago. The prehistory of religion involves the study of religious beliefs that existed prior to the advent of written records. One can also study comparative religious chronology through a timeline of religion, or the interrelationships and historical diversification of religious ideologies through the use of evolutionary philosophy and broad comparativism. Writing played a major role in standardizing religious texts regardless of time or location, and making easier the memorization of prayers and divine rules.
Religion is a range of social-cultural systems, including designated behaviors and practices, morals, beliefs, worldviews, texts, sanctified places, prophecies, ethics, or organizations, that generally relate humanity to supernatural, transcendental, and spiritual elements—although there is no scholarly consensus over what precisely constitutes a religion. Different religions may or may not contain various elements ranging from the divine, sacredness, faith, and a supernatural being or beings.
Religion and mythology differ in scope but have overlapping aspects. Both are systems of concepts that are of high importance to a certain community, making statements concerning the supernatural or sacred. Generally, mythology is considered one component or aspect of religion. Religion is the broader term: besides mythological aspects, it includes aspects of ritual, morality, theology, and mystical experience. A given mythology is almost always associated with a certain religion such as Greek mythology with Ancient Greek religion. Disconnected from its religious system, a myth may lose its immediate relevance to the community and evolve—away from sacred importance—into a legend or folktale.
Sociology of religion is the study of the beliefs, practices and organizational forms of religion using the tools and methods of the discipline of sociology. This objective investigation may include the use both of quantitative methods and of qualitative approaches.
A ritual is a sequence of activities involving gestures, words, actions, or revered objects. Rituals may be prescribed by the traditions of a community, including a religious community. Rituals are characterized, but not defined, by formalism, traditionalism, invariance, rule-governance, sacral symbolism, and performance.
Anthropology of religion is the study of religion in relation to other social institutions, and the comparison of religious beliefs and practices across cultures. The anthropology of religion, as a field, overlaps with but is distinct from the field of Religious Studies. The history of anthropology of religion is a history of striving to understand how other people view and navigate the world. This history involves deciding what religion is, what it does, and how it functions. Today, one of the main concerns of anthropologists of religion is defining religion, which is a theoretical undertaking in and of itself. Scholars such as Edward Tylor, Emile Durkheim, E.E. Evans Pritchard, Mary Douglas, Victor Turner, Clifford Geertz, and Talal Asad have all grappled with defining and characterizing religion anthropologically.
Organized religion, also known as institutional religion, is religion in which belief systems and rituals are systematically arranged and formally established, typically by an official doctrine, a hierarchical or bureaucratic leadership structure, and a codification of proper and improper behavior.
Irreligion is the absence or rejection of religious beliefs or practices. It encompasses a wide range of viewpoints drawn from various philosophical and intellectual perspectives, including atheism, agnosticism, skepticism, rationalism, and secularism. These perspectives can vary, with individuals who identify as irreligious holding a diverse array of specific beliefs about religion or its role in their lives.
Religious studies, also known as the study of religion, is the scientific study of religion. There is no consensus on what qualifies as religion and its definition is highly contested. It describes, compares, interprets, and explains religion, emphasizing empirical, historically based, and cross-cultural perspectives.
Secularity, also the secular or secularness, is the state of being unrelated or neutral in regards to religion. Origins of secularity can be traced to the Bible itself and fleshed out through Christian history into the modern era. In the medieval period there were even secular clergy. Furthermore, secular and religious entities were not separated in the medieval period, but coexisted and interacted naturally. The word "secular" has a meaning very similar to profane as used in a religious context.
Clifford James Geertz was an American anthropologist who is remembered mostly for his strong support for and influence on the practice of symbolic anthropology and who was considered "for three decades... the single most influential cultural anthropologist in the United States." He served until his death as professor emeritus at the Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton.
Religious violence covers phenomena in which religion is either the subject or the object of violent behavior. All the religions of the world contain narratives, symbols, and metaphors of violence and war. Religious violence is violence that is motivated by, or in reaction to, religious precepts, texts, or the doctrines of a target or an attacker. It includes violence against religious institutions, people, objects, or events. Religious violence includes both acts which are committed by religious groups and acts which are committed against religious groups.
Secular spirituality is the adherence to a spiritual philosophy without adherence to a religion. Secular spirituality emphasizes the inner peace of the individual, rather than a relationship with the divine. Secular spirituality is made up of the search for meaning outside of a religious institution; it considers one's relationship with the self, others, nature, and whatever else one considers to be the ultimate. Often, the goal of secular spirituality is living happily and/or helping others.
Talal Asad is a Saudi-born cultural anthropologist who is currently Distinguished Professor Emeritus of Anthropology and Middle Eastern Studies at the Graduate Center of the City University of New York. His prolific body of work mainly focuses on religiosity, Middle Eastern studies, postcolonialism, and notions of power, law and discipline. He is also known for his writing calling for an anthropology of secularism. His work has had a significant influence beyond his home discipline of anthropology. As Donovan Schaefer writes:
The gravitational field of Asad’s influence has emanated far from his home discipline and reshaped the landscape of other humanistic disciplines around him.
Sociological, psychological, and anthropological theories about religion generally attempt to explain the origin and function of religion. These theories define what they present as universal characteristics of religious belief and practice.
Spiritual naturalism, or naturalistic spirituality combines a naturalist philosophy with spirituality. Spiritual naturalism may have first been proposed by Joris-Karl Huysmans in 1895 in his book En Route.
Coming into prominence as a writer during the 1870s, Huysmans quickly established himself among a rising group of writers, the so-called Naturalist school, of whom Émile Zola was the acknowledged head...With Là-bas (1891), a novel which reflected the aesthetics of the spiritualist revival and the contemporary interest in the occult, Huysmans formulated for the first time an aesthetic theory which sought to synthesize the mundane and the transcendent: "spiritual Naturalism".
In religious studies and folkloristics, folk religion, traditional religion, or vernacular religion comprises various forms and expressions of religion that are distinct from the official doctrines and practices of organized religion. The precise definition of folk religion varies among scholars. Sometimes also termed popular belief, it consists of ethnic or regional religious customs under the umbrella of a religion; but outside official doctrine and practices.
"Spiritual but not religious" (SBNR), also known as "spiritual but not affiliated" (SBNA), or less commonly "more spiritual than religious" is a popular phrase and initialism used to self-identify a life stance of spirituality that does not regard organized religion as the sole or most valuable means of furthering spiritual growth. Historically, the words religious and spiritual have been used synonymously to describe all the various aspects of the concept of religion, but in contemporary usage spirituality has often become associated with the interior life of the individual, placing an emphasis upon the well-being of the "mind-body-spirit", while religion refers to organizational or communal dimensions. Spirituality sometimes denotes noninstitutionalized or individualized religiosity. The interactions are complex since even conservative Christians designate themselves as "spiritual but not religious" to indicate a form of non-ritualistic personal faith.
The archaeology of religion and ritual is a growing field of study within archaeology that applies ideas from religious studies, theory and methods, anthropological theory, and archaeological and historical methods and theories to the study of religion and ritual in past human societies from a material perspective.
Jason Ānanda Josephson Storm is an American academic, philosopher, social scientist, and author. He is currently Professor in the Department of Religion and chair in Science and Technology Studies at Williams College. He also holds affiliated positions in Asian studies and Comparative Literature at Williams College. Storm's research focuses on Japanese religions, European intellectual history from 1600 to the present, and theory in religious studies. His more recent work has discussed disenchantment and philosophy of social science.
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