Defining Religion: Sociological Perspectives
Religion is a complicated subject that means a great deal to the majority of humanity - something that is easy to forget, living in a largely secular and multicultural society where open discussion of faith is regarded as being taboo as to avoid arguments (along with the topics like sex and politics).Â
When thinking of the definition of religion, most people probably expect concepts like, say, a belief in a higher power, an established system of governance over a sub-culture that shares in a belief, a promise of reward and punishment for our deeds based on the morality defined by doctrine, the existence of doctrine that includes myths, rituals, legends, folklore, etc. You could probably go on forever trying to find exactly what defines a religion. The problem is that our common notions about religion often leave out some groups and include others that maybe shouldnât be considered as faiths.Â
This is one of the most contentious issues in the Sociology of Religion. Iâm going to skip over some of the drama that exists in the field and get into the nitty-gritty here. There is no single definition that can authoritatively explain what religion really is, but the many definitions that do exist fall on a spectrum between two types: The Substantive and the Functional. Substantive definitions concern themselves with what a religion contains in its beliefs, rituals, customs, practices, etc. Functional definitions serve to define what a religion does for a person: how does it give meaning to life, how does it define right and wrong, and so on.
These are some of the most prominent definitions of religion in the field of sociology that I have summed up a bit.Â
1. Emile Durkheimâs Definition
A religion is a unified system of beliefs and practices relative to sacred things - that is to say things that are set apart and forbidden - which unite into a single moral community. Religion is Sociological not Psychological
2. Rational Choice Theory
Religion can be defined as the expenditure of perceived costs in order to gain supposedly supernatural rewards and avoid supposedly supernatural punishments. These rewards and punishments are split into the immediate (can happen in the foreseeable future) and the compensatory (to happen at an undisclosed time in the future, often in the afterlife).
3. Religion as Misattribution
People desire answers to questions and make poor attributions (or misattributions) when attempting to answer these questions - often coming to the conclusion that all good comes from the divine, whereas evil is rooted in the natural world (particularly in people). Religious Misattribution can be defined as the assignment of causation regarding social, medical/physiological, emotional/psychological, physical, or environmental issues to a supernatural realm.
My personal perspective tends to fall a bit more to the functional side - what a religion does, rather than what a religion contains. To me religion is any system that takes philosophical stances regarding ethics and transforms them into systems of morality, in short turning ideas of right and wrong into ideas of good and evil. The beliefs, rituals, customs, and so on are not what defines a religion, but rather are the tools that a religion utilizes to cement its moral perspective.
