Religion is a cultural phenomenon with a rich and varied history. Throughout time and across cultures, religious beliefs and practices have provided people with a sense of purpose, moral guidance, and meaning in their lives. Religion may also serve as a social glue, providing a common ground for individuals to unite with others and promote peace and stability. Yet, it is also possible for religions to inspire violence and conflict. For example, the religiously inspired belief in an afterlife has been a major motivating force behind wars and genocides.
Sociologist Emile Durkheim (1857-1912) argued that religion is a system of ideas and beliefs that provides a common ground for a group to share moral values and aspirations. He also believed that religion demonstrates the cohesive power of societal bonds, and that it would survive even if people abandoned its ideas or practices. Durkheim developed a formal definition of religion, specifying that it includes whatever ideas and practices bind a group together into a moral community—and he did not require that these practices involve belief in unique or unusual realities.
Other scholars have criticized this approach, arguing that the formal definition tends to exclude important aspects of the religious experience. For example, James defined religion as any feelings, acts, or experiences that individuals may have of the divine, stating that “any several of these features of religiousness might well be set side by side, without the one implying the other” (1902:39). A more recent and broader view rejects the need for a specific definition and employs a functional theory, which defines religion as any form of life that is shared by a group of people in a given culture.
A study of religion is a complex endeavor. Some researchers believe that to define the concept clearly is impossible, and that it is more useful to think of it as a social category that appears in every culture (Durkheim 1912). Others suggest that the concept can be used in a variety of ways, like other abstract concepts such as “literature” or “democracy”.
Some scholars argue that defining religion is a pseudoscientific enterprise, claiming that its development is subject to the same distortions that other social scientific theories suffer from. Others point to the historical evidence that religion has always been a part of human societies, and that studying it is as natural as studying any other aspect of our culture.
The study of religion involves understanding the role it plays in human society and the influence that it has had on other areas, such as economics, politics, art, and science. It is also necessary to understand how different beliefs and practices interact with each other. For example, religious rituals and ceremonies often include physical activities such as dancing, singing, and playing musical instruments. These activities, together with the symbolic interactions that take place, can be deeply moving and emotionally intense for participants. Such experiences have been known to transform the lives of some, while for others they simply reinforce the faith and provide a source of comfort.