Religion is a system of beliefs, values and practices that organizes a group’s worldview, values and moral codes, provides a structure for social control and supports the existence of meaning and purpose in life. It is a central part of the identity of many people and has powerful influence on their lives, communities, national and global societies. It tries to answer fundamental questions of the origin of the universe and humanity’s place in it, as well as provide explanations for human events and experiences. Religions help to reduce social pathologies like out-of-wedlock births, drug abuse and crime, as well as promote health, education, economic development, self-control and empathy.
The concept of religion is at least two thousand years old. Its emergence as a label for a category of social kinds probably predated the development of language to express them, though it was only with the advent of modern anthropology and history that scholars devoted significant scholarly efforts to exploring religion.
The early anthropologists characterized religions as a collection of culturally specific ideas, beliefs and practices. The historian Emile Durkheim reframed the question of what constitutes a religion by viewing it as a set of sociological pillars supporting social cohesion and promoting behavior consistency, while also providing strength during life’s tragedies and transitions (purpose and meaning).
Subsequently, the field of Religious Studies developed as a discipline. While the’secularization theory’ of the twentieth century argued that modernization had contributed to the decline of religion, the revival of religions worldwide since the 1960s and the rise of ‘fundamentalist’ ideologies in the West have renewed interest in understanding how religion functions in the world.