Definitions of Religion
 Def: (O.E.D.) A state of life bound by religious vows; the condition of belonging to a religious
order.
 Belief in or acknowledgement of some superhuman power or powers (esp. a god or gods)
which is typically manifested in obedience, reverence, and worship; such a belief as part of a
system defining a code of living, esp. as a means of achieving spiritual or material
improvement.
 “A religion is 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”
 Emile Durkheim, Elementary Forms of the Religious Life (Durkheim was a Sociologist.)
 “[Religion is] …the feelings, acts and experiences of individual men {or women} 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. (James was a psychologist.)
 “[T]he religious aspect points to that which is ultimate, infinite, unconditional in man’s
[people’s] spiritual life. Religion, in the largest and most basic sense, is ultimate concern.”
 Paul Tillich, Theology of Culture (Tillich was a protestant theologian.)