Various Definitions of Religion

After reading some threads, I found this array of definitions of religion very interesting. All are true is some fashion.

Definitions by Academics and Others:
Dr. Irving Hexham of the University of Calgary in Alberta, Canada, has assembled a list of definitions of religion from various authors and theologians. A few are:

William James: "the belief that there is an unseen order, and that our supreme good lies in harmoniously adjusting ourselves thereto."

Alfred North Whitehead: "what the individual does with his own solitariness."

George Hegel: "the knowledge possessed by the finite mind of its nature as absolute mind." 7


In 1995, subscribers to the newsgroup "alt.memetics" attempted to define religion.

Scott Hatfield: Religion is "a behaviour, process or structure whose orientation is at least partially supernatural."

One subscriber quoted H.L. Menken 3: Religions' "...single function is to give man access to the powers which seem to control his destiny, and its single purpose is to induce those powers to be friendly to him."

Jerry Moyer: "Religion is a system of beliefs by which a people reduce anxiety over natural phenomena through some means of explication." He also cited a quotation from the writings of Paul Tillich: "Religious is the state of being grasped by an ultimate concern" 2


Joel Elliott, has published a slide set on "Defining Religion," 5 which cites: B. Malinowski: "relieves anxiety and enhances social integration."
Robert Bellah: "a set of symbolic forms and acts that relate man to the ultimate conditions of his existence."


David Carpenter has collected and published a list of definitions of religion, including: Anthony Wallace: "a set of rituals, rationalized by myth, which mobilizes supernatural powers for the purpose of achieving or preventing transformations of state in man or nature."
Hall, Pilgrim, and Cavanagh: "Religion is the varied, symbolic expression of, and appropriate response to that which people deliberately affirm as being of unrestricted value for them."
Karl Marx: "Religion is the sigh of the oppressed creature, the heart of a heartless world, and the soul of soulless conditions. It is the opium of the people." 6


Don Swenson defines religion in terms of the sacred: "Religion is the individual and social experience of the sacred that is manifested in mythologies, ritual, ethos, and integrated into a collective or organization." 8
Paul Connelly also defines religion in terms of the sacred and the spiritual: "Religion originates in an attempt to represent and order beliefs, feelings, imaginings and actions that arise in response to direct experience of the sacred and the spiritual. As this attempt expands in its formulation and elaboration, it becomes a process that creates meaning for itself on a sustaining basis, in terms of both its originating experiences and its own continuing responses." 4

He defines the sacred as: "The sacred is a mysterious manifestation of power and presence that is experienced as both primordial and transformative, inspiring awe and rapt attention. This is usually an event that represents a break or discontinuity from the ordinary, forcing a re-establishment or recalibration of perspective on the part of the experiencer, but it may also be something seemingly ordinary, repeated exposure to which gradually produces a perception of mysteriously cumulative significance out of proportion to the significance originally invested in it."

He further defines the spiritual as: "The spiritual is a perception of the commonality of mindfulness in the world that shifts the boundaries between self and other, producing a sense of the union of purposes of self and other in confronting the existential questions of life, and providing a mediation of the challenge-response interaction between self and other, one and many, that underlies existential questions."

Michael York of Bath Spa University College, Bath, UK defines religion as: "A shared positing of the identity of and relationship between the world, humanity and the supernatural in terms of meaning assignment, value allocation and validation enactment. A religion need not accept or believe in the supernatural, but it takes a position on. Likewise, some religions deny the reality or at least value of the world, but they still take a position." We feel that this is one of the most inclusive of any definition found to date.
David Edwards, author of Free to be Human defines religion as: "The sum total of answers we give to the problem of our relationship with the universe, we call religion." However, this definition contains an element of controversy, because it implies that religions, and thus perhaps deity/deities, are created by humanity and not the reverse. A less contentious meaning might be: "The sum total of answers to the problem of our relationship with the universe, we call religion."
Other definitions picked up through random surfing of the Internet: "The processes by which mankind tries to find meaning in a chaotic universe."
"That which is of ultimate concern."
"That which gives meaning to our life."




Some people do not consider their personal spiritual path as a religion: Many conservative Christians refer to Christianity not as a religion but as an intensely personal relationship with Jesus Christ.
Many Native Americans believe that their spiritual beliefs and practices are not a religion in the normal sense of the term. They form a integral and seamless part of their very being, totally integrated into their life experience.
Agnostics and Atheists often do not regard their beliefs to be a religion. To most, Atheism and Agnosticism simply represent a single belief about the existence or non-existence of a supreme being. They do not necessarily include ethical matters.
The New Age is sometimes referred to as a religion. However, it is in reality a collection of diverse beliefs and practices from which a practitioner selects those that appeal to her/him. The individual often grafts these beliefs and practices onto an established religion.

The Article: http://www.religioustolerance.org/rel_defn.htm

 

Good article, Ssstern. Thanks for posting it.

In talking with various people over the internet over the past several years, I'm seeing more and more of this type of thing. I'd be interested to hear from any who subscribe to this philosophy, what are you looking to get out of it? Are you looking for a basic code of ethics/morals, or are you looking for truth?