Religion encompasses people’s relations with that which they regard as sacred, transcendent, spiritual, divine, or worthy of especial reverence. It also includes a person’s ultimate concerns, such as life after death and their relationships with other human beings, nature, and the universe.
It is common today to take the term “religion” to refer to a genus of social formations rather than to a specific set of practices or beliefs. Such a genus-concept approach allows scholars to focus on the properties of the concept rather than attempting to find a single definition that applies universally.
For example, the philosopher Rodney Needham notes that, despite the fact that religious belief in some forms can be very different from one another, there are some characteristics that all religions seem to share. These include, for instance, worship and piety, sermons, prayer and meditation, the commemoration or veneration of deities or saints, sacrifices, feasts, trancelike states, marriage and funeral ceremonies, and other activities and events.
Some scholars, like Edward Burnett Tylor, have sought to narrow the scope of what constitutes a religion by proposing that a religion must involve a belief in spiritual beings. This criterion, however, excludes many people from the category of religion and thus is inadequate.
Other scholars, such as Paul Tillich and Émile Durkheim, have taken a more functional approach to the concept of religion. They argue that it is a process that organizes society, creates social stability, serves as an outlet for emotions, provides paths to conflict resolution and softens penalties imposed by barbarian law, and promotes psychological and physical well-being.