Some Definitions of Religion

1. “[Religion is] the belief in Spiritual Beings” (Edward B Tylor, Primitive Culture)

2. “By religion, then, I understand a propitiation or conciliation of powers superior to man which are believed to direct and control the course of nature and of human life” (James George Frazer, The Golden Bough).

3. “[Religion is] the feelings, acts, and experiences of individual men in their solitude, so far as they apprehend themselves to stand in relation to whatever they may consider the divine.” (William James, The Varieties of Religious Experience)

4. “A religion is a unified system of beliefs and practices relative to sacred things, that is to say, things set apart and forbidden – beliefs and practices which unite into one single moral community called a Church, all those who adhere to them.” (b) [Religion is] “the self-validation of a society by means of myth and ritual.” (Émile Durkeim, The Elementary Forms of the Religious Life)

5. “Religion is the opium of the people. It is the sigh of the oppressed creature, the heart of a heartless world, and the soul of our soulless conditions.” (Karl Marx, Das Kapital)

6. “For believers, religion is a special dimension of reality. Evans-Pritchard concluded that the religious aspects of another culture are best understood by those who acknowledge the validity of religious experiences in their own culture.” (Summary of Theories of Primitive Religion by Edward. E. Evans-Pritchard)

7. “[Religion is] “the state of being grasped by an ultimate concern, a concern which qualifies all other concerns as preliminary, and a concern that in itself provides the answer to the question of the meaning of our existence.” (Paul Tillich, Dynamics of Faith)

8. “[Religion is] a system of symbols which acts to establish powerful, persuasive, and long- lasting moods and motivations…. by formulating conceptions of a general order of existence and clothing these conceptions with such an aura of factuality that the moods and motivations seem uniquely realistic.” (Clifford Geertz, “Religion as a Cultural System”)

9. “Religion, like culture, is a symbolic transformation of experience.” (Thomas F. O’Dea, The Sociology of Religion)

10. “[Religion is] a system of symbols (creed, code, cultus) by means of which people (a community) orient themselves in the world with reference to both ordinary and extraordinary powers, meanings, and values.” (Catherine L. Albanese, America: Religions and Religion)