Some Definitions of Religion
- "The feelings, acts, and experiences of individual men in their solitude, so far as they apprehend themselves to stand in relation to whatever they may consider the divine" (William James, The Varieties of Religious Experience)
- "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.... [Religion is] the self-validation of a society by means of myth and ritual." (Emile Durkeim, The Elementary Forms of the Religious Life)
- "The state of being grasped by an ultimate concern, a concern which qualifies all other
concerns as preliminary, and a concern that in itself provides the answer to the question of
the meaning of our existence" (Paul Tillich)
- "A system of symbols which acts to establish powerful, persuasive, and long-lasting moods and motivations.... by formulating conceptions of a general order of existence and clothing these conceptions with such an aura of factuality that the moods and motivations seem uniquely realistic." (Clifford Geertz, “Religion as a Cultural System”)
- "A system of symbols (creed, code, cultus) by means of which people (a community) orient themselves in the world with refference to both ordinary and extraordinary powers, meanings, and values" (Catherine L. Albanese, America: Religions and Religion)
- "'Lived religion' ... involves three crucial aspects: scripts, or sets of symbols that imaginatively explain what the world and life are about; practices, or the means whereby individuals relate to, and locate themselves within, a symbolic frame of reference; and human agency, or the ability of people to actively engage the religious worlds they create." (Wade Clark Roof, Spiritual Marketplace)
- "The impingement of holy Being" (John Mcquarrie)
- "An experience of the unification of all life" (Dorothée Solle)
- "A means of ultimate transformation" (Frederick Streng)
- "A means of ultimate transformation and ultimate orientation."
- "[Religion is] a subject that possesses a variety of referents and can be employed within numerous frames of discourse, and thus can be defined in a multiplicity of ways. One cannot make sense of the word until one knows within which context, frame of reference, or world of discourse the word is intended to register." (Walter H. Capps, Religious Studies: The Making of a Discipline)
Ninian Smart's Seven Dimensions of Worldviews
(secular or religious)
- Myth
- Ritual
- Doctrine
- Ethics
- Social dimension
- Experiential dimension
- Artistic dimension
