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, Hervorhebung im Original.
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.
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.
