Marie Foster <mfos@ieway.com> wrote:
> My personal religious faith has to do with loyalty to the truth (even
> though I haven't totally sorted out what that is...). The second
> definition in WWWebster for religion is:
>
> "a personal set or institutionalized system of religious attitudes,
> beliefs, and practices"
>
> (Don't you hate it when they use a word to define itself?) But this
is
> the closest I can come to religion. Nor can I find any fault with
that.
>
My religion course has said that no "true" definition of religion can
actually encompass all of the things religion is to people. In a sense,
what we have on earth is not "religion", but rather "religions"... there
is no archtype, just examples. It also mentions that in many cultures,
there is *not* a word corresponding to "religion." It is simply
untranslatable into that language.
That said, there are many interesting definitions proposed.
"Religion is what we live *for*" (meaning)
(I like this one)
"Religion has to do with life enhansement"
(soooooo broad!)
"Religion as society reacting to its own existence, a kind of inchoate
sociological awareness" (Durkheim)
ERiC