Is There Such a Thing as Religion

Is there such a thing as religion?

The term ‘religion' is one that is mentioned often in modern everyday life. It is a term that many do not invest much thought in, as the meaning seems relatively straightforward. However, it is a term that can mean many things to many people, many things to even one person if they pause to think about it. Interestingly enough, the debate for a true definition of this word is even more potent among theologians, scholars of religion and social scientists. With academic thought, the hunt for a single definition and explanation of this word becomes even more complex. There are number of reasons for this complexity: differing opinions over the origin of this word, especially with its modern usage, what it actually groups together under a meaning, the limits to its function and what, if any central essence is denoted by the word ‘religion'. Many theories of religion have been discussed and developed and it seems no thorough definition of religion can be found without theories to fit these definitions into. Some argue that religion is a useless construct that seeks to find unity where there simply is not any, others argue for a common essence of the world's religions that by being united under the category of ‘religion' can help to explain the phenomena that is religion. Some seek this essentialist theory in the hope that it will show the fundamental similarity of all the major religions and a harmony in doctrine that could then result in a harmony of faith and practice. Yet others are far more sceptical about the very origin of the modern usage of ‘religion', seeing in it the colonial drive to dominate the world with western superiority, even in the area of personal belief. It is clear looking at this academic area of study that there are no straightforward answers and to come to any conclusion over the question of whether the categorical term ‘religion' has any useful meaning at all, we must look at the theories surrounding its use.

Historically, religion has had an interesting evolution: from its classical meaning of ‘rendering due service to God' and it underwent a transformation in Christian hands to refer to special virtue, in giving God his duty, in worship and prayer. From this very Christian bent, it has become less theological but religion has become a far more potent word. It carries heavy connotations that can split a room, even without clear understanding of what exactly is being meant. It is not surprising considering the Christian roots of the word that, it seems western in its outlook of religion as a system of belief with beliefs analogous to theistic outlooks with ritual structures that are directed towards a personal God. The true universality of the word ‘religion' is compromised even in its history.

Yet this does not stop the mission to find an explanation for this area of life that does seem to appear in some guise across the world. There is something instinctively ‘problematic about the very existence and meaning of the facet of life we know as human religion' . It is somehow felt necessary that we must be able to explain religion as a whole, and thus there are so many theories today which aim to do just that, radical, large scale theories, that by their very nature assume that there is some natural unifying feature of religions that enables them to be put in the same group. With this as an assumption the task begins to find exactly what that unifying factor is. With the rise of social science in the twentieth centuries, theories of religion became less philosophical and more empirically based. An important difference, however, must be maintained when looking at the more scientifically analogous modes of argument, as unlike science, where an expert's opinion, with his higher level of knowledge and understanding will be taken as the last word, even if it goes against the instincts, whereas if a religious theorist where to suggest a unifying factor for the category of religions, that was to leave out a central example of religion, such as Islam or Judaism, it would not be accepted as a valid theory of religion. When hunting down this definition, we must therefore be careful of adopting methods of reasoning which are not completely suitable for this very particular area of study. Furthermore, the attempt to fit all ‘religions' into an overarching theory with an explanatory, external cause undermines the fundamental beliefs of each of those religious systems.

The overarching debate of a radical theory of religion can be seen to be between the functionalist school of thoughts and the substantive theory and definition of religion. The latter group identify a religion through the content of its beliefs, usually referring to the theistic content of the specific ‘religion'. A typical example of this type of definition would be that of E.B. Tyler's ‘belief in spiritual beings' or M. Müller who argues that a religion must have include a relationship to the Infinite. The functionalist argument, which tends to be more popular, focuses not on what the religion believes, but how the religion is believed, what function in the society or individual it fulfils. The theorist specifies the needs and whichever religion can be seen to fulfil such needs are then classified as such. Both forms of theory clearly lay down boundaries for what would fall within the classification of religion and what would not. Though, one reason for functionalist framework being marginally more popular is that it offers more flexibility and more chance of a central unifying core. However, for that very reason it is goes a bit further than one might be comfortable with in our everyday understanding of religion as by its rules social ideologies, like Marxism are included under the bracket of religion. Yet the substantive theories are fairly exclusive quite tightly, it leaves belief systems like Buddhism and Jainism out of the bracket of religion, because they have no central belief in ‘supernatural beings' or in a god or gods.

Both approaches are problematic and an alternative is that of the family resemblance method developed by Wittgenstein in his Philosophical Investigations. Rather than setting hard and fast boundaries, there is a central list of characteristics that a religion must share of number of to be called a religion. No religious group must necessarily have any combination of the central characteristics and religions thus bound together in an analogous relationship with each other, with overlapping similarities rather than a strict identity. This does allow for non-theistic religions, but seems the least problematic definition of religion. Though functationlists would argue that it