Religion is one of the earliest important institutions of human society. Both human society and the human life whether primitive or modern is marked the influence of religion. It is universal, permanent, pervasive and perennial interests of human being. This is the reason for which right from the time of the origin of sociology the efforts are being made to have scientific study of religion. Comte, Spencer, Durkheim, Weber and Parsons have made scientific contribution towards the sociological study religion. Karl Marx went ahead on saying that religion is the opium of the masses. It is concerned with the shared beliefs and practices of human beings. It is a human attempt to understand supernatural power. The man has been engaged in search for this power which is unknown. Human belief in the existence of this unknown and unseen power or force is religion.
Mazumdar and Madan explain etymologically that the term ‘religion’ has its religion from the Latin word ‘Religion. It is derived from two root words. The first root word is ‘Leg’, which means to gather, count or observe. The second root is ‘Lig’ which means ‘to bind’. Hence, religion is a belief in supernatural power or it may mean the performance of -practices which binds together or links human beings with the supernatural power.
The concept of religion is complex. Because of its complex nature it is very difficult to give a satisfactory definition of it. Even the sociologists and anthropologists have tried to define religion in different ways. A few definitions are given below.
Mazumdar and Madan define religion as ‘a belief in some super-natural powers which control our life and mold our destiny’.
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A. W. Green says that religion is “a system of beliefs and symbolic practices and objects, governed by faith rather than by knowledge which relates man to an unseen supernatural realm beyond the known and beyond the controllable”.
MacIver and page have defined; “Religion as we understand the term, implies a relationship not merely between man and men but also between man and some higher power”.
Durkheim defines religion as a “unified system of beliefs and parties, relative to sacred things, that is to say, things set apart and forbidden”.
In the light of the definitions, we may define religion as a system of beliefs and practices by means of which human being tries to cope of with the supernatural power.