The Concept of Religion
Religion is, at its most general, a person’s relationship to that which he or she regards as sacred, ultimate, spiritual, divine, or worthy of especial reverence. In religious traditions that focus on beliefs in disembodied spirits and cosmological orders, these relationships and concerns are typically described in terms of belief in gods or spirit, but in others they may be expressed in more humanistic or naturalistic ways. The concept of religion is also widely defined to include the ritual, meditative, and emotional aspects of people’s lives.
One of the main functions that many religious people claim their faith serves is to bring about social cohesion. Religion provides moral guidelines for behavior, helps to create a sense of community, and fosters mutual support among members of a society.
However, research has also shown that religiosity can promote prejudice and discrimination, and lead to violence and war between religious groups. It can also undermine individual self-control and encourage people to conform to group norms, even when these norms are destructive of ethical principles.
Most attempts to analyze the phenomenon of religion have used a “monothetic” approach, in which the definition of a religion is based on an essential property or set of properties that distinguish it from other phenomena. Tylor’s monothetic definition, for example, states that a form of life must contain belief in spiritual beings to be considered a religion. More recently, some scholars have shifted to functional definitions of religion, which treat the concept as a complex that has multiple dimensions.