Religion is an organized group of beliefs, practices and ethics that give people a sense of meaning in life. Religion can also bring people together, and be a source of hope during times of crisis. However, it can also be a source of division and stress.
The concept of religion has shifted over time. It originally referred to a type of scrupulous devotion. It became a sociological term after the 19th century European industrialization and secularization. During this period, Emile Durkheim, Max Weber, and Karl Marx studied the role of religion in society.
One way to define religion is to analyze it from a functionalist perspective. Paul Tillich used this approach, in which the definition of religion is whatever values a person considers most important. This definition can be broad or narrow, and may or may not include belief in supernatural beings. This view can be criticized, because it can treat religion as something inevitable about human nature rather than an active social phenomenon.
Another way to define religion is to analyze it from the perspective of its internal logic. A theological approach focuses on what a religion believes, such as its understanding of God. It also focuses on its rituals and symbols, such as holy places and prayers. It may include a philosophy of life, including ideas about death and the afterlife. It may or may not also include a metaphysics, in which a religion seeks to explain the universe and its origins.
A third way to define religion is to analyze it from an anthropological perspective. This involves studying how a culture developed its religion and how that religion influences its people. It may also involve looking at how a culture relates to the world around it, including the environment and other cultures.
In the modern era, several scholars have developed theories about why people believe in religion. Psychologists have suggested that certain factors such as parenting and cultural influences contribute to religious belief. Other researchers have argued that the need to belong to a group plays an important part in religion, and that people tend to follow the religion in which they were raised.
There is a debate about whether the definition of religion should be substantive or functional. Substantive definitions of religion resist the notion of humans as passive, but they can be criticised for being too broad in that they would include belief in ghosts as a religion, and for failing to include faith traditions that emphasize immanence, such as Buddhism and Jainism. Functionalist definitions can be criticized for treating religion as something that necessarily emerges from all cultures, and for ignoring the fact that some religions have disappeared. These debates about how to define religion help to inform sociological research on it.