Page "Religion" Paragraph 9

There are numerous definitions of religion and only a few are stated here.

The typical dictionary definition of religion refers to a " belief in, or the worship of, a god or gods " or the " service and worship of God or the supernatural ".

However, many writers and scholars have noted that this basic ' belief in god ' definition fails to capture the diversity of religious thought and experience.

Edward Burnett Tylor defined religion as simply " the belief in spiritual beings ".

He argued, back in 1871, that narrowing the definition to mean the belief in a supreme deity or judgment after death or idolatry and so on, would exclude many peoples from the category of religious, and thus " has the fault of identifying religion rather with particular developments than with the deeper motive which underlies them ".

He also argued that the belief in spiritual beings exists in all known societies.