Religion

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:

1. substantive definitions, which try to define what religion "is"; most of these define it in terms of relation to the supernatural
2. functional definitions, which try to define religion by the role it plays in the lives of individuals and/or societies