Religion is a broad and largely nebulous field that encompasses a huge variety of beliefs, rituals, and practices. It is a part of culture, and studying it involves textual, historical, anthropological, philosophical and other approaches. Religion is both pervasive and powerful, so it is essential to understand how a concept that encompasses so many different things has come to hold such a central position in the human mind.
One of the most important contributions to understanding Religion was made by the anthropologist James Frazer in his classic The Golden Bough (1854–1941), who argued that early humans began with magic, then moved on to belief in supernatural beings whose needs must be propitiated for the sake of human well-being. More recently, scholars have pulled back to examine the nature of Religion, seeing how the way we define it shifts according to the context in which we use the term.
The most basic definition is that of the French philosopher Emile Durkheim, who saw religion as a set of societal functions such as maintaining solidarity, organizing a person’s values, and providing a compass for behavior. A functional approach can also be seen in Paul Tillich, who defined religion as whatever dominant concern serves these purposes (whether or not it involves belief in unusual realities). All of these definitions acknowledge that Religion is something a person does, rather than a thing that exists in some distant heavenly realm. For this reason, a person’s religion is the result of his or her participation in religious activities and institutions.