Editing Religion (section)

==Definition of Religion==
Almost since the inception of the term, scholars have failed to agree on a definition of religion.  While there are some belief systems that always count as religions, some have applied the term to various things such as political ideologies, or groups when they reach a certain point.  There are however two general definition systems: the sociological/functional and the phenomenological/philosophical.  

The two most widely accepted are:
* "a unified system of beliefs and practices relative to sacred things, that is to say things set apart and forbidden - beliefs and practices which unite into one single moral community called a church, all those who adhere to them."	
* "a comprehensive worldview or 'metaphysical moral vision' that is accepted as binding because it is held to be in itself basically true and just even if all dimensions of it cannot be either fully confirmed or refuted".

As stated before, one common element that every religion which fits the criteria has is humanity's relation to supernatural forces, as all of them have at least one [[God|god]] and/or an afterlife even where there are exceptions; Buddhism doesn't have any gods or its own idea of the cosmos' origins but has afterlives and the existence of the eternal soul (unless a persons achieves nirvana), and Taoism doesn't have an afterlife in the conventional sense but is pantheistic and has supernatural beings.  Religions with a God/god/gods fall under monotheistic (one God) or polytheistic (more than one god), though some of the latter have a variant called henotheistic (multiple gods but only one of them is served).  Interestingly, most polytheistic religions have an all-powerful Creator God as the supreme authority in the cosmos who also created the other gods (such as Ptah from Egyptian mythology, Brahma in Hinduism and Nyame from the mythology of Ghana's Akan people).

=== Note ===
It's notable that "religion" is also often used as snarl word - along with derived pejorative terms like "fanatic" and "zealot" - in ideological discussions, particularly in the Western world, either for people considered too thoughtless or forceful in endorsing a cause or the cause itself.  This even happens when the cause or the people endorsing it are non-religious or, ironically, even anti-religious.