Defining Religion
"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."
- James Martineau
"Religion is an institution consisting of culturally patterned interaction with culturally postulated superhuman beings."
- Melford E. Spiro
"The essence of religion consists in the feeling of an absolute dependence."
- Friedrich Schleiermacher
"Religion is that which grows out of, and gives expression to, experience of the holy in its various aspects."
- Rudolf Otto
"Religion is what an individual does with his solitariness."
- Alfred North Whitehead
"Religion is the recognition of all our duties as divine commands."
- Immanuel Kant
"The religious is any activity pursued in behalf of an ideal end against obstacles and in spite of threats of personal loss because of its general and enduring value."
- John Dewey
"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 our life."
- Paul Tillich
"Religion is comparable to a childhood neurosis."
- Sigmund Freud
"Religion is the sign of the oppressed creature . . . . It is the opium of the people. . . . Religion is only the illusory sun which revolves around man as long as he does not revolve around himself."
- Karl Marx
"Religion can be defined as a system of beliefs and practices by means of which a group of people struggles with the ultimate problems of human life."
- Milton Yinger
"Religion is (1) a system of symbols which acts to (2) establish powerful, pervasive, and long-lasting moods and motivations in [people] by (3) formulating conceptions of a general order of existence and (4) clothing these conceptions with such an aura of factuality that the moods and motivations seem uniquely realistic."
- Clifford Geertz
"Religions is the varied, symbolic expression of, and appropriate response to that which people deliberately affirm as being of unrestricted value for them."
- T. William Hall
"Religion is a system of language and practice that organizes the world in terms of what is deemed sacred."
- William Paden
"Religion is that system of activities and beliefs directed toward that which is perceived to be of sacred value and transforming power."
- James C. Livingston
"Religion is human involvement with the sacred, expressed in thought, action, and social forms, constituting a total system of symbols, and providing a path of ultimate transformation."
- Theodore M. Ludwig
(See James C. Livingston, Anatomy of the Sacred: An Introduction to Religion, for a more thorough discussion of how such definitions function).