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.
Émile Durkheim
"_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.
Clifford Geertz
"...(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.
