Defining Religion

This is a silly question, isn't it? I know I thought it was when I decided to write about it. What is Religion? Now I know...we all know what religion is...you do. Now explain it to me...that was the question that stumped me, my father (The archaeologist) asked me one day. What is religion...I was stumped, I understand, but it's hard to put into words to clinical and logical words. Though one thing we all know religion is tied up in is Faith. Religion and Faith go hand in hand and I'll talk about that later.

Let's take a look at anyone's religion. What is it? How do you see it? How do you experience it? Does your religion have some sort of representative to communicate with higher powers? Priests? (Though not all religions have them.) You have prayers and the churches and ethical and moral laws you have your scriptures. Now no, not all of these are universals.

All religions are for the most part unique. But lets take a look at these. What are they essentially? Aren't they just a collection of symbols, rituals and beliefs that express your religious faith in higher powers? You have faith, this is how you show it, and that is religion.

Inherently in most religious structures, the world without it is chaotic vast and at the core unknowable. This seems pretty true doesn't it? You can't predict the world....we always encounter those situations that leaves us scrambling, that stretch us to our limits. This is when we use our faith, our religion, to let us understand the universe without knowing it.

God/s created the world and said it shall be this way and so it is, we do not know this but we understand it and have faith in it. Chaos through faith is converted into order. It is made to be patterned and regular. We have faith, and this gives meaning and answers to the world. We have faith and it secures us against the dangers of the world, and this is religion.

Most religions provide a vessel for communication with higher powers through faith. We use this communication to entreat our deities, our gods or God, for protection or for influence. We are allowed to use this established communication through our religion to reach out to the higher power/s and ask questions or gain protection. We have faith, and through it we are connected to higher powers, this connection is the vessel to our faith and that is religion.

In conclusion, let's look up at those last three paragraphs. Religion provides us something to place our faith in, it provides us an expression of our faith and in turn it allows us to use that faith in the higher powers to gain meaning, answers and protection. That is religion: the vessel of, expression of and application of Faith.