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Defining religion.  

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Defining religion Defining & measuring religion is very hard. Religion can be so personal that it's impossible to express and to quantifiably measure There tends to be 2 ways: Substance - trying to get what the essence of religion is Function - what religion does in society Inclusivist & exclusivist o Inclusivist definitions take a broad view of what constitutes 'religion'. They could include [political movements, social movements and organisation etc. as long as they seem to carry out the functions of religion. o This could be a tautological way to define religion - a religion is something that appears to carry out the function of a religion. But what are the functions of religion? Who decides and on what criteria? o Exclusivist definitions take a narrower view of what constitutes a religion. They try and narrow down to the specifically religious and would exclude political movements for eg. o The problem here is in defining what constitutes 'religious'....

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