religionThere really is no such thing as “religion”. Most people who live in modern societies think that there is such a thing out there as “religion”, meaning a kind of social and cognitive package that includes views about supernatural agency (gods and suchlike), notions of morality, particular rituals and sometimes particular experiences, as well as membership in a particular community of believers and the constitution of specific organizations (castes of prests, churches, etc.).
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But all this is a recent invention. Most of human evolution took place in small-scale communities that did not have any religious institutions. This was also the case of most human groups outside modern economic development until recently, and it is still the case in remote places outside the direct influence of modern states. In all these places, there is no unified domain of “religion”. True, there may be various ideas about superhuman agents, there may be ideas about morality (often not connected with those agents), there may be notions about ritualized sequences that must be performed (some with and many without a connnection to spirits etc.), there may be community affiliation (generally unrelated to morality or superhuman agency), but there is nothing that would justify putting all these things together.
Do you think that it makes sense to speak about religion as if it were a well defined package?
Is Pascal Boyer claiming he doesn’t think there is no definition of religion? This is the author of a book called “Religion Explained”. It seems contradictory that he makes that claim and then provides a definition in the next sentence.
Religions have enough traits in common that I’m sure anyone with a functioning brain can recognize one and make rational arguments against it. This sounds like the old theist trick of claiming that you can’t argue against their particular god unless you first provide a concise definition of their god.
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