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Religion: Difference between revisions
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#substantive definitions, which try to define what religion "is"; most of these define it in terms of relation to the supernatural | #substantive definitions, which try to define what religion "is"; most of these define it in terms of relation to the supernatural | ||
#functional definitions, which try to define religion by the role it plays in the lives of individuals and/or societies | #functional definitions, which try to define religion by the role it plays in the lives of individuals and/or societies | ||
The former have been criticized as being too narrow: for example, some of them would exclude [[Buddhism]], which most people regard as a religion. The latter, on the other hand, have been criticized as too broad, allowing all sorts of things to be regarded as some people's "religion": sport, art, politics, drugs etc. | |||
Revision as of 16:57, 29 March 2012
There is no consensus on the definition of religion (Clarke & Beyer, The World's Religions, Routledge, 2009, page 136). Traditional definitions have tended to try to formulate the "western folk conception" of religion, i.e. the rather vague ideas ordinary westerners have of what religion is, based on their experience of religion in the west. As long ago as 1912, Leuba (Psychology of Religion) listed 50 different definitions, and many more have been suggested since. Most observers classify academic definitions into two types:
- substantive definitions, which try to define what religion "is"; most of these define it in terms of relation to the supernatural
- functional definitions, which try to define religion by the role it plays in the lives of individuals and/or societies
The former have been criticized as being too narrow: for example, some of them would exclude Buddhism, which most people regard as a religion. The latter, on the other hand, have been criticized as too broad, allowing all sorts of things to be regarded as some people's "religion": sport, art, politics, drugs etc.