Does it require one or more gods?
Does it require a creation myth, flood myth, famous prophet, sacred ritual, sacred ground, magic wands or special clothing?
Does it require a sacred text?
Rather than argue my answer, I think it would be useful to state your own first.
But, that said, I’ll go first, since I’m right here.
I’d say none of those things, individually, is the key.
And I would distinguish religion from belief in gods or supernatural forces…
Just an insistance that any one authority trumps all that follow.
The authority can be text, lore, prophet, unquestioned ancestor, teacher or living charismatic leader.
It’s hard sometimes to find the defining borders among religion, superstition and cult.
I’ll assume that you’re not looking for ironic, sarcastic or political statements that cast things like finance, football and television as “religions,” and that you’re looking for a real description of religion.
I think you have to have three things: Deity, liturgy and moral code.
Certainly, a deity is necessary for a religion, which is, after all, the worship of something. That something is a deity. Without the deity, all you have is a philosophy, or maybe a lifestyle.
The liturgy is the codification of beliefs. It includes scripture, ceremony and organization. Liturgy is preferably written, but some primitive religions have been kept alive for centuries by oral liturgy.
Moral code is the way an adherent conducts his/her daily life, and is circumscribed by the liturgy. This isn’t part of the actual liturgy, but rather the way the liturgy extends into an adherent’s daily life. It’s how the religion is “lived.”
Of course, these are my own definitions, not to be confused with real terminology by someone who knows what they’re talking about. But, then, if you’d wanted that, you’d have gone to a library.
It would be interesting to see what various countries count as a religion for tax relief purposes.
In my sleazier moments, I always fancied setting up a religion. It would be perfectly pleasant in tone (to avoid criminal investigation), involve only simple ceremonies and require regular tithes … to me.
I go right back to the original meaning of religio in Latin: a non-legislated rule following which one structures one’s life. (This is, by the way, why monks, nuns, etc. are termed “religious”: Not that they’re any more religious-in-the-popular-sense than anyone else, but that they formally vow to live according to a prescribed rule of life.)
That rule may be inherent in the religionist’s understanding of the universe, as in Buddhism or Taoism, in the religionist’s view of human social structure, as in the formal humanist groups, or prescribed by a deity or deities or his/their minions, as in Christianity, Judaism, Islam, Saivite Hinduism, Sikhism. It may or may not have a holy Book or canon of sacred writings. It may or may not have a transcendent or tutelary deity. It may or may not have a concept of an afterlife. It is likely to have ritual of some sort, but even that remains somewhat optional. But it will have a set of prescribed behavioral norms to which followers are expected to adhere.
I would add to Polycarp’s excellent comment that a religion needs to be sufficiently codified and organised that it can be adhered to by more than one person. It can’t depend on the particular quirks of one individual; more than one person has to be able to participate fully, which means that the essential stuff needs to be articulatable in some fashion.
(I know a lot of people with quirky personal spiritualities, which aren’t things that they share with others – I used to be one of them. I couldn’t say that I had a religion at that time; I had a spiritual mish-mash. Being able to share the experience with others makes a difference.)
Church. Certain characteristics are generally attributed to churches. These attributes of a church have been developed by the IRS and by court decisions. They include: distinct legal existence; recognized creed and form of worship; definite and distinct ecclesiastical government; formal code of doctrine and discipline; distinct religious history; membership not associated with any other church or denomination; organization of ordained ministers; ordained ministers selected after completing prescribed courses of study; literature of its own; established places of worship; regular congregations; regular religious services; Sunday schools for the religious instruction of the young; schools for the preparation of its ministers.
The IRS generally uses a combination of these characteristics, together with other facts and circumstances, to determine whether an organization is considered a church for federal tax purposes. The IRS makes no attempt to evaluate the content of whatever doctrine a particular organization claims is religious, provided the particular beliefs of the organization are truly and sincerely held by those professing them and the practices and rites associated with the organization’s belief or creed are not illegal or contrary to clearly defined public policy.
I notice that the IRS does not require “belief in a form of the divine,” which is good. Otherwise there would be more than a few startled Unitarian Universalists.
•It’s a perspective that substantially illuminates questions of meaning, reason, and purpose.
• In addition, since “religion” is a term already in use, it must overlap in sufficient ways with the general set of content / assertions made by other such perspectives that self-identify as “religions”.
In other words, it’s pretty loose and arbitrary. For any new perspective not already historically dubbed a “religion”, the question of whether that perspective constitutes “a religion” could be highly debatable. Mine would fail the OP’s standard pertaining to authority, for instance.
As a rough first draft, I’d say a religion consists of…
A set of beliefs about the ultimate nature of reality, including the Meaning of Life[sup]TM[/sup], the existence and nature of a Supreme Being and/or other supernatural beings, the nature of humanity, an afterlife, etc.
A set of vocabulary, symbols, images, metaphors, by which to understand and refer to such matters
A set of rituals, ceremonies, practices, formalizing its people’s relations with God/gods/the universe and with one another
A set of moral and ethical rules, principles, guidelines by which to live in light of all of the above
A community who share more or less all of the above
Belief in some supernatural aspect is required. Faith (or knowing and being wrong) also.
Some form of ritualistic behaviours. They don’t necessarily have to be shared exactly with others, though.
On the other hand, there should be some “standard” elements of it. Some basic tenets that some people generally adhere to, even if they don’t agree at all with each other on other parts.
I’m not even sure whether a religion has to have all of the characteristics I mentioned, or just some of them.
And “a set of beliefs about … the existence and nature of a Supreme Being and/or other supernatural beings” could well include a belief that they don’t exist, or that we can’t know whether they exist, or that it doesn’t matter whether they exist.
I would say that, while atheism per se is not a religion, an atheistic religion is not necessarily a contradiction in terms.
re·li·gion /rɪˈlɪdʒən/ Pronunciation Key - Show Spelled Pronunciation[ri-lij-uhn] Pronunciation Key - Show IPA Pronunciation
–noun 1. a set of beliefs concerning the cause, nature, and purpose of the universe, esp. when considered as the creation of a superhuman agency or agencies, usually involving devotional and ritual observances, and often containing a moral code governing the conduct of human affairs.
2. a specific fundamental set of beliefs and practices generally agreed upon by a number of persons or sects: the Christian religion; the Buddhist religion.
3. the body of persons adhering to a particular set of beliefs and practices: a world council of religions.
When ONE Person Belives that the Great Farplewumpus is telling them the secrets of the universe, the meaning of life, and why they will be rewarded eternally if they wear a pink tutu, - it is a psychosis
When ONE person convinces 20 others of the TRUTH of the Farplewumpus’s divine message, it is a cult.
When 20 million people BELEIVE in the Great Farmplewumpus’s Message, it is a religion…