VALUES 101
Religion, Religious Experiences and Spirituality
Definitions of Religion
Author or Source Definition
Patrick H. McNamara "Try to define religion and you invite an argument."
Emile Durkheim 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 that adhere to them.
Clifford Geertz Religion is (1) a system of symbols which act to (2) establish
powerful, pervasive and long-lasting moods and motivations in
men by (3) formulating conceptions of a general order of
existence and (4) clothing these conceptions with such an aura of
factuality that (5) the moods and motivations seem uniquely
realistic.
Robin Horton Religion is an extension of the field of people’s social
relationships beyond the confines of purely human society.
R. Forrester Church Religion is our human response to being alive and having to die.
William James …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.
American Heritage Dictionary "Belief in and reverence for a supernatural power recognized as
the creator and governor of the universe; A particular integrated
system of this expression; The spiritual or emotional attitude of
one who recognizes the existence of a superhuman power or
powers."
John Ayto: Dictionary of "Latin religio originally meant 'obligation, bond.' It was probably
Word Origins derived from the verb religare 'tie back, tie tight' … It developed
the specialized sense 'bond between human beings and the
gods,' and from the 5th century it came to be used for 'monastic
life' ... 'Religious practices' emerged from this, but the word's
standard modern meaning did not develop until as recently as
the 16th century."
St. Augustine "If you do not ask me what time is, I know; if you ask me, I do
not know."
Jalalu'l-Din Rumi "The lamps are different, but the light is the same."
Thomas Hobbes "To say that [God] hath spoken to [someone] in a dream, is no
more than to say he dreamed that God spake to him!"
Immanuel Kant "Religion is the recognition of all our duties as divine commands."
Ludwig Feuerbach "Religion is a dream, in which our own conceptions and
emotions appear to us as separate existences, being out of
ourselves."
E. B. Tylor "Belief in spiritual things"
Frederich Nietzsche "God is dead. God remains dead. And we have killed
him."---"What is it: is man only a blunder of God, or God only a
blunder of man?"
Emile Durkheim #2 "Religion is only the sentiment inspired by the group in its
members, but projected outside of the consciousness that
experiences them, and objectified."
James G. Frazer Religion is "a propitiation or conciliation of powers superior to
man which are believed to direct and control the course of
Nature and of human life."
VALUES 101
Religion, Religious Experiences and Spirituality
Alfred North Whitehead "Religion is what an individual does with his solitariness."
Harriet Martineau "Religion is the belief in an ever-living God, that is, in a Divine
Mind and Will ruling the Universe and holding moral relations
with mankind."
Rudolph Otto "Religion is that which grows out of, and gives expression
to, experience of the holy in its various aspects."
George Bernard Shaw "There is only one religion, though there are hundreds of versions
of it."
Sigmund Freud "Religion is comparable to childhood neurosis."
John Dewey "The religious is any activity pursued on behalf of an ideal end
against obstacles and in spite of threats of personal loss because
of its general and enduring value."
Karl Marx "Religion is the sigh of the oppressed creature... a protest
against real suffering... it is the opium of the people... the
illusory sun which revolves around man for as long as he does
not evolve around himself."
Paul Tillich "Religion is the state of being grasped by an ultimate concern, a
concern which qualifies all other concerns as preliminary and
which itself contains the answer to the question of the meaning
of life."
Friedrich Schleiermacher "The essence of religion consists in the feeling of
absolute dependence."
Spiro "An institution consisting of culturally patterned interaction
with culturally postulated superhuman beings."
Bradley "Religion usually has to do with man's relationship to the unseen
world, to the world of spirits, demons, and gods. A second
element common to all religions … is the term salvation. All
religions seek to help man find meaning in a universe which all
too often appears to be hostile to his interests. The world
salvation means, basically, health. It means one is saved from
disaster, fear, hunger, and a meaningless life. It means one is
saved for hope, love, security, and the fulfillment of purpose."
J. Miltion Yinger "Religion is a system of beliefs and practices by means of which
a group of people struggle with the ultimate problem of human
life."
Hick "Religion constitutes our varied human response to
transcendent Reality."
Livingston "Religion is that system of activities and beliefs directed toward
that which is perceived to be of sacred value and transforming
power."
Swidler …"an explanation of the meaning of life and how to live
accordingly."
Wallace Religion is "a set of rituals, rationalized by myth, which
mobilizes supernatural powers for the purpose of achieving
or preventing transformations of state in man or nature."
Cunningham, et al. "Religion signifies those ways of viewing the world which refer to
(1) a notion of sacred reality (2) made manifest in human
experience (3) in such a way as to produce long-lasting ways of
thinking, feeling, and acting (4) with respect to problems of
ordering and understanding existence."
VALUES 101
Religion, Religious Experiences and Spirituality
Horton "An extension of the field of people's social relationships beyond
the confines of a purely human society... one in which human
beings involved see themselves in a dependent position vis-a-vis
their non human alters…”
Otto Rank "All religion springs, in the last analysis, not so much from fear
of natural death as of final destruction."
Robert Bellah "...a set of symbolic forms and acts that relate man to the
ultimate conditions of his existence."
Ernest Becker ..."culture itself is sacred, since it is the 'religion' that assures in
some way the perpetuation of its members." "Culture is in this
sense 'supernatural,' and all systems of culture have in the end
the same goal: to raise men above nature, to assure them that in
some ways their lives count in the universe more than merely
physical things count."
H. Smith "Wherever people live, whenever they live, they find themselves
faced with three inescapable problems: how to win food and
shelter from their natural environment (the problem nature
poses), how to get along with one another (the social problem),
and how to relate themselves to the total scheme of things (the
religious problem). If this third issue seems less important than
the other two, we should remind ourselves that religious artifacts
are the oldest that archaeologists have discovered."
Schmidt, et al. "Religions, then, are systems of meaning embodied in a pattern
of life, a community of faith, and a worldview that articulate a
view of the sacred and of what ultimately matters."
Aldous Huxley “Religion is the price we pay for being intelligent, but not as
yet intelligent enough.”
