Religion is the world’s oldest, most widespread, and most diverse collection of beliefs. Its adherents make up about 85% of the world’s population, with Christianity the most popular (at 2.38 billion people), followed by Islam and Judaism. The other categories on the global scale include Hinduism, Buddhism, and a slew of smaller faiths such as Shintoism, Sikhism, Taoism, and Jainism. In addition, a significant portion of the world’s population is either nonreligious or atheist.
Many scholars critique the usefulness of religion as a concept, arguing that it creates (or reifies) a distinction between secular and sacred elements of human existence that may not always correspond to the lived experience of believers. To ask for a single concept to capture the whole complexity of social reality would be like yearning for a comprehensive law to describe and regulate every area of life.
This critique focuses on two issues: the nature of the category religion and its use as a tool for comparative analysis. It also addresses some of the philosophical issues that emerge for a concept used to sort cultural types, such as the notion of thing-hood, and whether it is appropriate to treat the notion of religion as having an essence.
For these reasons, it is often difficult to define religion. Scholars generally agree that it comprises a belief in supernatural powers, the attempt to propitiate or please these powers, and an associated system of morality, although definitions differ about what exactly this involves.