Defining Religion?

Religion (Latin for reverence or re-connection to the divine)

Defining Religion: In thinking about religion, it is easy to be confused about what it is. Is there some essence which is common to all religions? And cannot a person be religious without belonging to any of the religions? The search for an essence ends up in vagueness — for instance in the statement that a religion is some system of worship or other practice recognizing a transcendent (beyond normal human understanding) Being or goal.

A common Definition of Religion:

· A group of beliefs concerning the supernatural, sacred, or divine, and the moral codes, practices, values, institutions and rituals associated with such belief.

I think it would be more accurate to say that this definition describes a very typical type of Religion - perhaps Organised Religion would be the most appropriate descriptor.

Here's a definition that I prefer:

A basic worldview about the cosmos (or the world around us) and what purpose or point we believe that it has for us and for others.

I would tend to argue that humans are intrinsically religious - that we are homo-religious. By this I am defining religion, at its most basic, to be a person's worldview, which encompasses a person's need for meaning and a sense of something greater to explain the world and the larger cosmos around them. These basic, often intuitive, beliefs help to form what people pursue in life. In the secularised west, I would suggest this bestirs itself through such phenomena as sport religion and cults of stardom. Matrixed worldviews such as marxism, maoism, materialism, humanism and even science (pseudo?) can similarly define the meaning of life for people - perhaps things such as music, art and reading could also be seen as aspects of the religious experience. Similarly atheism, secularism, humanism, agnosticism and anything else people sometimes define as non-religious fit the definition of religion I have set forth.

You might ask, Atheism? Well let's examine the concept of atheism, its worldview, essentially at least, is that the material universe is the Absolute or the Ultimate. In a sense one could say that an atheistic worldview defines the Universe as our Creator, which of course by inference means that that there is no external creator beyond the material universe. Such a worldview will help to form how an atheist will behave, believe and act in their life. This would particularly come to the fore when people from a different worldview/religion express their views to an atheist - say perhaps one of those infamous debates people have in regard to creation by God (by evolution or other means) versus creation by the Universe (by evolution or other means).

To get back to my orginal point, though it is certainly true that organised religions often attempt to define what is true religion or not, I think it is safe to say that organised religion is a form of religion and does not define what religion is. This would apply equally to some Christian groups who like to say that their belief system is about "relationship" rather than "religion" (Some take pride in saying that, "we are not a religion". By this they usually mean that they are not about rituals or traditions or reliance on "good works", things that they are defining as religious).