Challenge 2: Defining Religion

In this challenge, your group will consider the evidence you have collected so far in the class and use it to create a working definition of religion that you will use as a tool to analyze the information we learn about for the rest of the semester. There is no right or wrong response to this challenge, but please support your answer with the information below.

Warm-up questions: please discuss the questions below before creating your definition. Provide a summary of your group’s discussion.

1. Which definitions of religion resonate with you the most? Which resonate the least? Why?

2. In order for you to consider something “religion…”

• Is “belief” required? Why or why not?

• Does it need to involve a text and/or oral tradition of stories, lessons, and laws? Why or why not?

• Do the people who practice it have to define it as “religion?” Why or why not?

• Does it need to acknowledge separate realms like natural vs. supernatural, sacred vs. profane?

3. What are the evolutionary adaptations of religion? What are some social functions of the behaviors you consider religious?

4. Is religion unique to humans? Do non-human animals or early hominins, such as Neanderthals, exhibit behavior that you consider religious?

5. Is pluralism an important part of the way you think about or define religion?

Definition: Next, create your own definition of religion for purposes of analysis in this course. How would you describe the kind of behaviors, beliefs, and institutions that you consider relevant to the anthropological study of religion?

Congratulations, you’ve completed Challenge 2!