Religion is an institution that binds people together through common beliefs and practices. It also teaches the meaning of life and how to deal with death. Buddhism, Judaism, Christianity, Hinduism, Islam and many other faiths exist and have millions of followers.
The word religion comes from the Latin religio, which means “to bind.” In addition to defining beliefs and practices, it binds together people of similar beliefs and values. Religions offer comfort, hope and guidance for people during difficult times in their lives. They also offer explanations for the existence of the universe and answers to questions about the afterlife.
Different definitions for religion have been used in the social sciences. One approach, called a functional definition, looks for ways that beliefs and behaviors fit into categories. This way, theories can be developed about how the phenomena relate to each other and to society. This type of definition is often used when studying new religious movements.
Functionalism focuses on the idea that religion is a response to a need in humans for a sense of ultimate meaning, purpose and value. People seek to express and transmit this valuation, and they are willing to suffer and even die for their beliefs. In the modern world, this need is filled by religions such as Christianity, Islam and Hinduism.
Other scholars have tried to move beyond this functionalist definition of religion. Talal Asad, for example, has attempted to balance the Protestant bias toward the subjective with a disciplinary approach by analyzing how social structures produce inner states such as belief systems. This approach is often referred to as the “verstehen” (understand) approach.
Scholars who take this approach look at how the phenomena in a particular culture are organized, and they attempt to discover patterns and similarities among them. They may then develop a theory about why these religious traditions have the features that they do.
This theory is based on the idea that all human societies have religious dimensions, even if they are not necessarily institutionalized. Some of these religions have become so influential that they affect the entire world, such as Christianity, Islam and Hinduism. Other religious communities are much smaller and more local, such as the Amish community in Wisconsin.
Another way to define religion is by examining what characteristics are shared between the various beliefs and rituals. This method is sometimes used in biology. For instance, a computer program could sort bacteria according to certain criteria and then try to determine what properties they have in common. Then it might be possible to use this information to categorize the bacteria and predict their behavior. For example, the software might find that a group of bacteria have certain characteristics and that they are all resistant to a specific antibiotic. These results would be a useful clue in developing a drug that might kill the bacteria. In the same way, this technique might be used to classify religions in order to predict their effect on their followers and society as a whole.