A great many human societies have a set of beliefs and practices that they refer to as religion. The concept of religion as a social genus may be at least two thousand years old, though the religious phenomena that are so labeled are likely much older.
The term religion is commonly used to describe people’s relation to that which they regard as holy, sacred, absolute, spiritual, divine, or worthy of especial reverence. It also includes the concerns that these faiths address, such as one’s ultimate fate after death or how to deal with life’s difficulties.
There are a number of different ways to analyze religion, but most approaches use the word to describe an abstract category that is adaptable to many diverse referents. For example, some scholars use the idea of religion to distinguish between belief systems that are functionally similar but culturally distinct. Others apply the idea of religion to identify a group’s primary worldview and the way it dictates one’s beliefs, values, and practices.
There are also those who see religion as a way of dealing with ultimate questions that are inherently philosophical and cannot be addressed by science or other secular means. Yet others have criticized the utility of the concept for its analytic purposes, arguing that it creates a distinction between the secular and sacred elements of human existence that does not accurately reflect these realities. Moreover, some philosophers have argued that the idea of religion is a modern concept developed by Western culture that does not apply well to non-Western cultures.