When I think about what religion is, my first reaction is to give examples of the traditional ideas of religion such as Judaism, Christianity, Islam, Buddhism, Hinduism, and so on. However, I found Marty’s five features of religion that he laid out very thought provoking, especially the first one which is that religion focuses on our ultimate concerns. His different examples of these ultimate concerns made me think about how the definition of religion could stretch beyond my instinctive reaction to the word. While thinking about Marty’s five points and how he applies them to politics as well and religions in the traditional sense of the word, I began thinking that religion can really encompass anything. There are so many different features of religion, even just among the tradition ideas of religion, that I think Marty’s features only begin to scratch the service of what religion is. I think anything can be a religion if it is put into such a place of importance in our lives that it becomes one of the sole guiding principles of your life.
However, going back to Marty’s first feature, I think religion cannot just be anything that you hold in an exalted position and center your life around. I think it has to have some component of being larger than the individual who is subscribing to the religion. This grander focus could one of the ultimate concerns that Marty lays out in his point or it could be a different question, but I think religion, ultimately, has to be focused on some concept or idea greater than the individual, whether this is a country, another person or figure, an idea, or anything else. Ultimately, I do not think that religion is something that can be put in a box and easily defined. Instead, it varies from person to person and is more of a description of the way to approach and interact with different ideas and beliefs than a concrete thing that we can pin down and define.
I agree with your point that religion can be anything — anything that does go beyond the self. It must, in a sense, involve transcendence. But if someone believes that prostrating themselves in front of a big oak tree will save them from sin, can nature or religion of trees become a justified religion? It’s hard when things lack concrete bounds around which we can define them. Most things in life, however, have arbitrary borders that are up for interpretation. And that is where we as a society run into trouble.
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Religion provides a means for humans to obtain physical and emotional relief and pursue inner peace while hoping for the future. I too see your point that religion has to have some supernatural power or element to it that has the ability to instill order into a society where chaos is very easily found. But can we justify that these radical religions that claim their god-given mission is to spread their beliefs at all costs – which mostly results in harm and persecution – are reasonable ways of life to live by?
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I agree with you that religion is not something easily defined, which is why there are many critics of religion that is found in an academic setting. However, I don’t think that anything that can be though of as greater than the individual is necessarily a religion. This is an oversimplification of a system of beliefs that often relates to that that science cannot explain.
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While I agree that such a term as religion is hard to “put in a box” and while I would not dare attempt by myself to define it with what little knowledge I have on the topic, I disagree with the idea that it is different from person to person. While the way that an individual experiences and/or practices religion is, in fact, unique, the definition of the term should not be as open and ambiguous, especially since it is such an important aspect of understanding human interactions.
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