What is Religion?: A Brief Introduction
This is a brief explanation about the definition of religion from a grad student of Religious & Cross-Cultural Studies, based in Indonesia
Religion is not merely what is written on someone’s ID card nor recognized by the constitution. Also, religion is not limited by its definition in the dictionary. It is common for people to define religion as something that has to do with God, deity, highest power, or spiritual being. People’s understandings of religion are mostly about worshipping God, practicing sacred rituals, reading and studying holy scriptures, following the prophetic role-models, and believing in the afterlife. Those conceptions of religion are not incorrect, but not entirely correct though. Thus, if we broaden our view, we can see that some religions do not necessarily believe in divinity, they rather focus on maintaining the way of life and interpersonal relationship with other human beings and creatures. Therefore, regarding its complexity, it is inexact to define religion only by the narrow point of view.
The most general definition of religion comes from sociocultural perspective. Many scholars have defined religion as a set of beliefs or collection of ideas and practices/rituals which establish values and norms that can maintain the morality of the society. However, the definition of religion evolves and changes in conjunction with the development of religion itself and it is also inseparable from the development of civilization or society. This phenomenon likely seems to be a debatable discourse. Some people can conceive of the religions that bring up the evolution to the life of society. While some others conceive vice versa, they consider that it is people that render the evolution of religion. Let’s have a look at these following examples, using several of the oldest religions to comprehend this issue.
Started from Abrahamic Religions. Despite these religions are not the oldest based on history, Abrahamic Religions are the most widely spread and have most followers or believers around the world. Top three of them, Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, came from the same root and have three similar characteristic, that are monotheistic, presence of messengers, and having scripture. Nevertheless, each of Abrahamic Religions’ believers sometimes refuse to be included in the same category because they claim that they have different conceptions about the idea of God and Prophet Abraham — the common patriarch. According to history, the scriptures of Judaism and Christianity have undergone several revisions. While in Islam, the scripture has never been revised, yet its commentary continues to develop and sometimes Muslims have different interpretation of certain verses. However, all of those scriptures have contributed in the life of society. Many societies have created the law regarding social, economic, political, and even cultural based on religion scripture, or at least, the contents of their law is influenced by religion scripture.
It is the same case happened to Hinduism, a religion that is believed to be the oldest in the world, according to history. In India — country of the origin and the most followers of Hinduism, people’s life is greatly influenced by this religion. They carry the religion in almost every aspect of life to enforce orders or prohibitions. Also in Buddhism, that share some similarities with Hinduism in terms of concept and terminology. They believe in karma and samsara, they depict their deity through the sculptures, and they affirm peace and compassion. It can be said that in Hinduism and Buddhism there is no belief in afterlife, because they conceive life as a cycle and continue. In Buddhism, actually, there is no particular God that they worship. Hence, Buddhism sometimes is regarded as “a way of life” or a philosophy rather than a religion. Similarly with Confucianism — the oldest Chinese religion, which in Indonesia initially was not considered as a religion for some reasons. Confucianism manifested eight virtues as their value and idea based on traditional Chinese society. Same as Buddhism, they do not believe in particular God and afterlife, yet they concern more with self-cultivation.
Moving on now to Indigenous Religion. In Indonesia, Indigenous Religions are not recognized as “official religion” that are regulated on constitutions and oftentimes being underestimated. They are rather recognized solely as traditional belief or culture. Whereas, Indigenous Religions share some characteristics with other religions. They believe in spiritual being(s), they have scriptures, they perform sacred rituals, and even have their own House of worship. Moreover, many people still embrace the Indigenous Religions and try to obtain the right to freedom of religion, so that they can freely implement religious principles they have their faith in.
Back to the definition of religion, in conclusion, it is difficult to define religion simply. Since religion is something that always continues to evolve, so the definition will never reach the final form. The most important things to count something as religion are: there are communities or people who believe in it — believer or followers; and those believers believe that they are religious because they are attached to a certain system called religion.
