What Is Religion and Why It Is So Difficult to Define?

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Trying to define religion in terms of the role or function it plays on society or on the individuals will not take any further, since there have been and are many different conceptions on what is the rule or purpose of religion. In that respect, we have on one side, Karl Marx and his famous negative understanding of religion, which he defined as the “opium of the people”; and in the other side a more positive view on religion by Bronislaw Malinowski, for whom religion gives stability to society and fosters harmony.

Certainly, from a personal point of view, I would not have coped with the death of my mother to cancer at the age of 62 the way I did had it not been for my faith and the strength I gained from it. In that sense it is true that it is at times of crisis or difficulties where you can gain some sort of serenity or stability needed. That, however, cannot be told of every religion. Not every religion always help stability. In actual fact, at some times in history one religion or another has, on the contrary, tried to destabilize and destroy harmony. As pointed out in the introduction, it is sadly not infrequent, even today on the 21st century, to wake up with the news of a war or conflict in some country in the world with religious connotations.

Other sociologists such as Peter Berger in “The Sacred Canopy” or Niklas Luhnman, in his “The Function of Religion” hint that religion provides meaning to our life, amidst of chaos provides order, and it can provide a reduction of complexity, ultimately reducing reality for example to a single cause: God. Although it can be true, not only religion can reduce complexity. Other things, beside religion, indeed reduce complexity to life. It is not without a reason that that the TV is called in some languages “the silly box”. We as a society are constantly being anesthetized by dull gossiping programs, reality shows, etc. that stop us from thinking and help us evade us from reality. In a way, we have not evolved too much from the Roman “panem et circensis” (bread and entertainment) to keep people happy.

Given the difficulties presented with trying to define religion, probably inspired by Ludwig Wittgenstein and his analogy of “family resemblances” to try to define another elusive term such as “game” (many different things would be classified as game: solitaire, scrabble, golf, basketball, professional players, etc.), Austin Cline, to whom we have already cited, understand that “A better way to explain the nature of religion is to identify basic characteristics common to religions. These characteristics may be shared with other belief systems, but taken together they make religion distinct”[5]. These are the following, given by the Encyclopedia of Philosophy: a) belief in supernatural beings; b) distinction between the sacred and profane (objects, places, times); c) ritual acts focused on sacred objects, places, time; d) moral code with supernatural origin; e) characteristically religious feelings; f) prayer and other forms of communication; g) a world view and organization of one’s life based on the world view; h) a social group bound together by the above. Certainly, by defining religion that way, with a list of traits rather with a closed definition, we can argue in the same way as Wittgenstein did with games that not every religion has the same traits or features, but all religions have enough common features to be religions.

To sum up, after all the years of study and philosophizing about religion and its implications on our every day’s life, we haven’t made much progress than at the time of St. Augustine, to whom it has been attributed this quote: “Most of us know perfectly well what religion is—until someone asks us to define it”. Perhaps this is just an invitation to live and experience religion more than discussing what it is and what is it not. It was not without intention that you can read in the Gospels: “I bless you, Father, Lord of heaven and on earth, for hiding this things from the learned and the clever and revealing them to little children. Yes, Father, for that is what it pleased you to do.”[6]

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References

- Casey, Thomas, Introduction to Philosophy. What is religion?, St. Patrick’s College, December 2015

- Cline, Austin, in “What is Religion? Defining the of religion” in “About Religion”, URL=http://atheism.about.com/od/religiondefinition/p/WhatReligion.htm> , [last accessed 05/1/2016]

- Cox, Savannah, “The Maradonian Church” in “The Seven Most Unusual Religious Rituals and Beliefs, URL=http://all-that-is-interesting.com/seven-most-unusual-religious-rituals/2>, [last accessed 05/01/16

- Herling, Brad, “What is Religion?” on “Why Study Religion?” , URL=http://www.studyreligion.org/what/index.html [last accessed 05/1/2016]

- The New Jerusalem Bible, Study Edition, London, 1994

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