Religion is a cultural system that includes beliefs, behaviors and ethics. It may also include rituals, symbols and holy places. Various religions exist, including Christianity, Hinduism and Judaism. In addition, Shinto is a religion unique to Japan and hockey is a religion in Canada. Religion can answer questions that science cannot address, such as the origin of life and the afterlife. Many people turn to religion for comfort in difficult times.
In the early days of human culture, tribal totems and ancestor worship formed the basis for religious beliefs. Then, over time, beliefs in guardian and protective gods led to more complex belief systems. Myths, or stories about the creation of the world and tales of individual gods and goddesses became a fundamental part of religion. Along with myths, religion usually includes sacred texts, rituals and rules of behavior.
It is often assumed that religion is something universal and that it exists in all cultures. But this assumption is misguided. It has its roots in the functional approach to religion, based on the idea that if one defines religion as whatever beliefs and practices generate social cohesion or provide orientation in life, then this concept can be applied to all cultures. This type of functional definition does not work, though, for several reasons.
Over the past forty years or so, scholars have pulled back from this functional approach to the concept of religion and have argued that the idea of religion is actually a kind of social taxon used to sort and label cultural types. These sorts of claims have been criticized by some for going too far, since they imply that the term “religion” can be applied to things that are not really religion at all, such as cosmology or ecology — fields of study that most people would not regard as religious.
There is a second problem with this view of the concept of religion. It has been argued that the development of religion as a social category went hand in hand with European colonialism. Thus, a reevaluation of the concept of religion is needed.
Some people argue that this reevaluation should be based on the fact that people’s religious beliefs seem to affect their lives in significant ways. For example, some research suggests that religious people tend to be healthier than those who do not attend church services regularly. This effect, however, may be attributed to the fact that church attendance provides social contact and a sense of belonging.
Regardless of the precise nature of the effect, it is clear that religion has profound impacts on people’s lives. It is important to understand this impact in order to protect the rights of religious people and to ensure that those rights are respected in all societies, regardless of whether they have a particular religion. In this way, the study of religion is an essential area of philosophical inquiry. This article is a part of our series on Philosophy of Religion.