DEFINITIONS OF RELIGION

Author or Source                                        Suggested Definition

Patrick H. McNamara "Try to define religion and you invite an argument."

American Heritage  "Belief in and reverence for a supernatural power recognized as the creator and governor of
Dictionary the universe; A particular integrated system of this expression; The spiritual or emotional
attitude of one who recognizes the existence of a superhuman power or powers."

St. Augustine  "If you do not ask me what time is, I know; if you ask me, I do not know."
Jalalu'l-Din Rumi  "The lamps are different, but the light is the same."
Thomas Hobbes  "To say that [God] hath spoken to [someone] in a dream, is no more than to say he dreamed
that God spoke to him!"
Immanuel Kant  "Religion is the recognition of all our duties as divine commands."
Ludwig Feuerbach  "Religion is a dream, in which our own conceptions and emotions appear to us as separate
existences, being out of ourselves."
E. B. Tylor "Belief in spiritual things"
Frederich Nietzsche "God is dead. God remains dead. And we have killed him."---"What is it: is man only a
blunder of God, or God only a blunder of man?"
Emile Durkheim …"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."
Alfred North Whitehead  "Religion is what an individual does with his solitariness."

William James  "The very fact that they are so many and so different from one another is enough to prove that
the word 'religion' cannot stand for any single principle or essence, but is rather a collective
name."
Rudolph Otto  "Religion is that which grows out of, and gives expression to, experience of the holy in its
various aspects."
Sigmund Freud  "Religion is comparable to childhood neurosis."
John Dewey  "The religious is any activity pursued on behalf of an ideal end against obstacles and in spite
of threats of personal loss because of its general and enduring value."

Karl Marx  "Religion is the sigh of the oppressed creature... a protest against real suffering... it is the
opium of the people... the illusory sun which revolves around man for as long as he does not
evolve around himself."
Paul Tillich  "Religion is the state of being grasped by an ultimate concern, a concern which qualifies all
other concerns as preliminary and which itself contains the answer to the question of the
meaning of life."
Friedrich  "The essence of religion consists in the feeling of absolute dependence."
Schleiermacher
Hick  "Religion constitutes our varied human response to transcendent Reality."
Horton "An extension of the field of people's social relationships beyond the confines of a purely
human society... one in which human beings involved see themselves in a dependent position
vis-a-vis their non-human alters…”

Otto Rank "All religion springs, in the last analysis, not so much from fear of natural death as of final
destruction."
R. Forrester Church Religion is "our human response to being alive and having to die…"

Robert Bellah "...a set of symbolic forms and acts that relate man to the ultimate conditions of his existence."

Ernest Becker ..."culture itself is sacred, since it is the 'religion' that assures in some way the perpetuation of
its members." "Culture is in this sense 'supernatural,' and all systems of culture have in the end
the same goal: to raise men above nature, to assure them that in some ways their lives count in
the universe more than merely physical things count."
 THE FIVE DIMENSIONS OF RELIGION

“There is no one definitive definition of religion that is generally accepted by scholars.” Sharing this statement by Bryan
Ronald Wilson and others we prefer below to articulate the main factors of religion instead of an overall definition. It seems to be
possible to approach the phenomenon usually called “religion” from five angles which are found in all the literate and non -literate
societies it has been possible to study so far. This comparative religio-phenomenological model has been more thoroughly
presented and applied into practice in Juha Pentikäinen’s monograph “Oral Repertoire and World View” (Academia Scientiarum
Fennica, FFC No. 219, Helsinki 1978):

 1. The cognitive dimension of religion comprises the conscious, intellectual factors such as their view of the universe and
the world, their system of values, their beliefs in the existence of the “supernatural,” i.e. one or more gods or other
“supranormal” figures and powers which are supposed to watch over their fates, their needs and their values. It is typical
of religions that they are maintained by traditions transmitted from one generation to another or from people to people,
including narratives, mythologies and beliefs about the “other.”

As far as their sources are concerned, a main distinction may be made between literate and illiterate religions. But the
orally narrated mythologies of the illiterate cultures, the highly schematized theological dogmatics of the canonical texts
of the “book religions” and the corpus of religious philosophies all have this dimension of religion. It has often become
expressed as briefly formulated “creeds” to have been publicly confessed by the adherents in the missions of such
conscious missionary religions as Christianity, Islam and Buddhism, in particular.

 2. The affection or emotional level refers to religious feelings, attitudes, and experiences. Man usually feels that he or she
is dependent on something supernatural and, at the same time, feels some kind of link with it. A religious experience is a
state of interaction between the natural and the supernatural, a state in which a religious person or rather, tradition acting
through him, actualizes a meeting with one of the supernatural figures or powers that dominate his/her religious beliefs.

 3. The conative or behavioral aspect in religion is seen on the actional level as a form of behaviour. Included here are
rites, social conventions, such as sacrifices, prayers, charms and claims with the aid of which an individual, a group or a
society can achieve by traditional methods some kind of spiritual union or connection with their supernatural figures.

Another important part of the conative dimension is related to morals. Besides rituals and cults, religions usually
presuppose certain ethical behaviour. This becomes manifest, e.g., in the observation of certain norms in order that the
values maintained may be achieved, the rewards promised by the religion obtained, and possible punishments for
violation of the norms and taboos avoided.

 4. The social factor forms a fundamental part of every religion. Religion usually presupposes the existence of a group or a
society whose duty it is to watch over the religious views of the followers, to carry out certain tasks together, and also to
control the cultic and ethical behaviours of the believers.

The members of these societies on a bigger scale, sometimes even as a state, or in small groups, usually work together in
order to achieve the common goals imposed on them by their common religion in this world or in “the other.” Although
religious behaviour even today is very social and controlled, the strictly established religions seem to lose a lot of their
former importance. Instead, the privacy of unconscious and unestablished religiosity is emphasized, and many of the
functions of the established churches are accordingly replaced by less formal cults.

 5. The cultural level is an often neglected but a very influenceable and comprehensive factor as far as every religion is
concerned. It essentially becomes manifest in the dependence of religion, both in time and space, on the ecological,
social and cultural environments in which respective religions are practiced.

Language and ethnicity are the two most important variables of “religions as cultures.” What should be taken into
special consideration is the fact that for many people “religion” means more a “special way of life” or “life style” than
any dogmatic confession or dependence on any creed. In the contemporary world the conscious national, ethnic and
regional variables of even the so-called “world religions” have become important when people have refound their
religio-socio-cultural identity after having migrated to new milieus, as refugees in their new host countries and
environments, or from rural societies to the urban world, as immigrants in the streets and ghettos of the third world
metropolis.

The conclusion of our scrutiny is that the concept of “religion” should be undressed from its theoretical and Western connotations
rather than to press the wide variety of the global phenomenon to accept the very definition it does not fit into.

NAME: ______________________________________________________

ASSESSMENT
1. Why is it important for us to define religion? (to be facilitated on google classroom)
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2. How will you relate your religion to the 5 dimensions? (Be guided by the rubric below)

CRITERIA NEEDS IMPROVEMENT ADEQUATE EXEMPLARY

3 points 7 points 10 points
Answers are partial or incomplete. Answers are accurate Answers are comprehensive,
Key points are not clear. and complete. Key accurate and complete. Key ideas
Content Questions are not adequately points are stated and are clearly stated, explained, and
(10 points) answered. supported. well supported.
Organization 2 points 3 points 5 points
(5 points) Organization and structure detract Organization is mostly Well organized, coherently
Answers are clearly from the answer. clear and easy to follow. developed, and easy to follow.
thought out and
articulated
Writing Conventions 2 points 3 points 5 points
(5 points) Displays four errors in spelling, Displays one to three Displays no errors in spelling,
(Spelling, punctuation, punctuation, grammar, or sentence errors in spelling, punctuation, grammar, and
grammar, and complete structure. punctuation, grammar, sentence structure.
sentences) and sentence structure.

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NOTE: Submit the activity sheet only