Rudolf Otto
„Das wovon wir reden und was wir versuchen wollen einigermaßen anzugeben, nämlich zu Gefühl zu bringen, lebt in allen Religionen als ihr eigentlich Innerstes und ohne es wären sie garnicht Religion …. Ich bilde hierfür zunächst das Wort: das Numinöse, (wenn man omen ominös bilden kann, dann auch von numen numinös), und rede von einer eigentümlichen numinosen Deutungs- und Bewertungs- kategorie die allemal da eintritt wo jene angewandt, das heißt wo ein Objekt als numinoses vermeint worden ist.“
OTTO, Rudolf (1917): Das Heilige, Über das Irrationale in der Idee des Göttlichen und sein Verhältnis zum Rationalen, Breslau, S. 5-7.
Edward B. Tylor
"...belief in Spiritual Beings."
TYLOR, Edward B. (2008[1871]): Religion in Primitive Culture, in LAMBEK, M.: A Reader in the Anthropology of Religion, 2. Ausg., Malden et al.: Blackwell, S. 25.
Durkheim, Émile
"A religion is a unified system of beliefs and practices relative to sacred things, that is to say, things set apart and forbidden - beliefs an practices which unite into one single moral community called a Church, all those who adhere to them."
DURKHEIM, Émile (2008[1912]): The elementary forms of religious life, in: LAMBEK, M.: A Reader in the Anthropology of Religion, 2. Ausg., Malden et al.: Blackwell, S. 45, Hervorhebung im Original.
Geertz, Clifford
"...(1) a system of symbols which acts to (2) establish powerful, pervasive, and long-lasting moods and motivations in men by (3) formulating conceptions of a general order of existence and (4) clothing these conceptions with such an aura of factuality that (5) the moods and motivations seem uniquely realistic."
GEERTZ, Clifford (2008[1966]): Religion as a cultural system, in: LAMBEK, M.: A Reader in the Anthropology of Religion, 2. Ausg., Malden et al.: Blackwell, S. 59, Hervorhebung im Original.
Melford Spiro
"...an institution consisting of culturally patterned interactions with culturally postulated superhuman beings."
SPIRO Melford (1973): Religion, problems of definition and explanation, in BANTON, M. (Hg.): Anthropological Approaches to the Study of Religion, ASA Monographs 3, London: Tavistock, S. 96.
Birgit Meyer
"Rather than working with universal definitions, we need to realize that religion is always situated in history and society. [...] I take it that, broadly speaking, religion refers to the ways in which people link up with, or even feel touched by, a meta-empirical sphere that may be glossed as supernatural, sacred, divine or transcendental."
MEYER, Birgit (2006): Religious Sensations. Why Media, Aesthetics and Power Matter in the Study of Contemporary Religion, Amsterdam: Vrije Universiteit, S. 6.
