what is religion?

Scholastic definition/criteria for a religion :

1. A belief in some Ultimate Reality, such as a supreme or eternal truth that transcends the here and now of the secular world;

2. Religious practices directed towards understanding, attaining or communing with this Ultimate Reality; and

3. A community of believers who join together in pursuing this Ultimate Reality.

Religion is a culture and language in which spiritual truths of the past are preserved and passed to the future. In the present people share experiences and thoughts in dialog with each other and the past keeping the religion meaningful to today without losing the meaning of the past.

There is no personal religion. Personal spirituality, yes. A shared spirituality is a proto-religion.

Noun: religion

1. A strong belief in a supernatural power or powers that control human destiny

2. An institution to express belief in a divine power

[WordWeb.info]

Religion is what people do based upon their theology of their God. Their thinking and way of life is usually impacted by what they believe about their God / gods. Religion has to include worship of the deity, and it usually follows that people believe their deity to require a certain way of worship, living, and to believe certain things. So religion is the sum total of all those things done based upon the things they believe.

However, in this day and age there do not have to be conventional gods for religious devotion. We all know that the worship of sticks and stones has become the worship of stocks and shares. Mammon is a ‘god’ to billions of people today, even if they don’t realise it. But their lives revolve around money, they live (and some die) for money, giving their all on the altar of Mammon, going regularly to its shopping mall temples (especially at this time of year.) So please don’t be limited in your thinking about this subject of what constitutes religion. For other people, sport is their religion, or food, or their career. Whatever they live for and adore becomes their god, and they believe certain things about that, which makes them live a certain way. AiH

Christianity

A collection of myths perpetrated by ancient man to explain a world around him he couldn’t understand, which is still widely believed by a number of gullible people.

Superstition

Organised group who believe in God’s.

any unsupported belief held by a group which then uses rituals and hierarchy to maintain it can be classed as a religion

God exists. The systems we use to deal with that, and perhaps even communicate with Him are called “religion.”