Religion is a complex concept. Many scholars today use it to refer to the countless beliefs and practices that can be said to fall into one of two categories, or a sort of family resemblance, namely, those that share some kind of essential characteristics. But the development of this idea for sorting social kinds does not wait on language, and it may be that the idea of religion as a generic term is at least as old as the concepts for other abstract cultural types such as literature, democracy, or even culture itself.
The notion of religion is based on the conception that there is some Divine personality in and behind the forces of nature, the Lord God, the source and ruler of all things. Especially in lower grades of culture, the recognition that man cannot master the physical laws of the universe and utilize them for his own weal or woe, implies helplessness before forces that cannot be used in any human way, and a consequently profound need for Divine assistance.
In the higher religions, this conviction is strengthened by the knowledge that a loving God has a strict right to the worship of man for his own glory, and by a faith in a future life in which truth, beauty, and goodness will be realized in their highest degree. The virtue of religion thus entails the desire for and love of beauty, goodness, and truth, and a devotional love for the deities to whom they are dedicated.