Religion is the organized effort to achieve spiritual and moral goals. It can encompass a wide range of beliefs and practices, such as prayer, meditation, ritual, and adherence to certain writings, persons, or places. It can also include social and economic practices, such as zakat, tithes, and almsgiving. It can even involve physical culture and habits, such as fasting and avoiding meat or alcohol.
The study of religion is an interdisciplinary field with roots in many disciplines, including sociology, history, philosophy, anthropology, and psychology. It traces its origins to the 19th century, when several key intellectuals began to explore religion from various perspectives. William James, for example, wrote the Gifford Lectures and book The Varieties of Religious Experience that are considered foundational texts for the modern study of religion. Other key figures were Emile Durkheim, who explored Protestant attitudes and doctrines regarding suicide in Suicide, and Max Weber, who studied religion from an economic perspective in The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism.
While these scholars were exploring religion from many different perspectives, they all agreed on a basic definition: Religion is a system of spiritual and supernatural components that influences an adherent’s worldview, behavior, beliefs, values, and culture. Some scholars have added a fourth dimension, the community, to that definition.
Another common agreement among scholars is that religion is real. They believe that the concept of religion names a phenomenon that would exist even without the concept, and that it operates in the world in a way that is consistent with other phenomena that have been studied empirically. They have also agreed that it is not possible to understand religion without understanding its social and political contexts.
However, some scholars have argued that it is dangerous and distorting to think of religion in terms of beliefs or any subjective mental states at all. Rather, they argue that it is more useful to focus on the structures and institutions that define a religion. This approach is often referred to as a “functional” definition of religion, and it is also known as structural analysis.
As the discipline of religious studies has evolved over time, so has the definition of religion. Traditionally, it was considered a substantive concept, meaning that it required an acceptance of a distinctive kind of reality. The last few decades, however, have seen the emergence of an alternative: a functional definition of religion that drops this element.
Whether you define religion by its belief in the supernatural or by its function, it is important to remember that it is an essential part of human life, influencing every aspect of it. It shapes an individual’s daily routine and values, his or her family structure and social relations, and even the way he or she interacts with the rest of the universe. For this reason, studying it is an extremely challenging task that requires a broad-minded approach and multiple disciplinary tools. The most successful scholars are those who can combine the approaches and concepts described above into a coherent whole.