Religion is a cultural phenomenon with a profound impact on most people’s lives. Some 5.4 billion people on Earth belong to some religious group, from Christianity and Islam to Rastafarianism and Scientology. There is no one way of looking at religion, but it seems to play a necessary and often challenging role in the lives of almost everyone.
The term “religion” has a wide range of definitions, from the classic, “substantive,” approach that defines a religion in terms of belief in a distinctive kind of reality to a more modern, “functional,” view that treats all forms of life as having a prototype and looks for patterns in the ways they function in different contexts. Some critics reject thing-hood altogether, arguing that the concept of religion is a modern invention that goes hand in glove with European colonialism and that we should cease to treat it as though it names something real.
Most religions offer a means to achieve the most important goals humans can imagine, whether they be proximate, meaning that they can be achieved within this life (e.g., a more wise, generous, productive, or successful way of living) or ultimate, which have to do with the final condition of this or any other human being or even the cosmos itself. Religions also have a profound influence on everyday life through practices such as prayer and ritual, through figures of authority that set limits on behavior, through codes of moral conduct, and through music, art, and architecture.