Religion is an institution or system for the recognition and organisation of human beings and a community, and for regulating their behaviour and values. It also provides them with hope. One major theory is that religion evolved out of curiosity about the big questions of life and death and fear of uncontrollable forces. Religion then transformed this human need into a desire for immortality and life after death, for a kind creator who watches over humans, and for an ultimate meaning to life.
The word religion, in its simplest form, evokes the notion of binding oneself to God through a life of poverty, chastity, and obedience to a hierarchy of more or less solemn vows. However, the word also describes a range of social and cultural activities, including rituals, moral teaching, and devotion to saints or heroes. This diversity means that there is no single definition of religion. This has led to the growth of a number of schools of study. These include the sociology of religion and the historical analysis of religions.
Sociological perspectives on religion look at the effects of religious beliefs and practices on society, both good and bad, for individuals and groups in it. The historical analysis of religions focuses on the origins of different religions and their development, both within and beyond a particular culture. These analyses often have implications for understanding the ways that religion can bring people together or divide them, and how it influences human behaviour.
A polythetic approach to the concept of religion is often favoured by academics because it allows for a wider range of properties to be considered when analysing whether something has’religious’ characteristics. This may seem confusing to those who are used to using monothetic approaches to concepts, but in practice it can be a very useful way of sorting out what has been going on in a specific social context.
For example, a polythetic approach allows for the fact that many religious phenomena are overlapping in terms of their features, such as devotion to a set of saints or heroes. This enables us to see how they interact and which aspects are dominant. It allows us to compare the different religions and to understand how they have influenced the societies in which they have operated.
In addition, a polythetic approach can also be useful in clarifying how and why religions have developed as they have. This is because it avoids the trap of using an analytical method – such as a hermeneutical one – that fixes on a key interpretative concept as the sole means of grasping the nature of a particular phenomenon. This can lead to distortion and bias in the interpretation of religions.
