Religions provide answers to life’s most fundamental questions. They offer ways to attain the highest goals imaginable. These may be proximate (a wiser, more generous, more successful way of life) or ultimate (eternal happiness or punishment). Religions also protect and transmit the means to achieve those goals.
Religion is one of the largest and most complex forces in history. Its influence reaches across all cultures and throughout history. Its impact has been both liberating and coercive. Religions have shaped the sciences, arts, and even technology. The study of religion is a central discipline in the social sciences and humanities.
For many scholars, the question is not whether religion exists but rather what it is. They argue that limiting the definition to mental states or beliefs is a Protestant bias and that a more accurate account would include the institutions and practices by which people organize their values. This view reflects the work of scholars such as Catherine Albanese and Ninian Smart.
Others, such as Durkheim and Paul Tillich, take a functional approach to the concept of religion, defining it as whatever dominant concern serves to organize a person’s values. This includes not only belief systems but also the rituals and behaviors that express those values and the ideational elements that support them. This view also reflects the work of scholars such as Rodney Needham and William Alston. It has the advantage of including many phenomena that have not traditionally been regarded as religious.