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Assess The Claim That The Most Compelling Reason For Studying Religion Today Is To Reach A Better Understanding Of Contemporary Society

It is only possible to assess the reasons for studying a particular subject, if one has an understanding of what exactly the subject is. This may seem an obvious statement to make, but when the subject in question is that of religion, we encounter a problem.
The word religion is very familiar to most and I would argue that most people have a fairly clear idea in their heads of what defines religion. When pushed for a definition however, it is easy to find an example of what most people would define as a religion that falls outside of their given definition. For example, most of the people I asked when researching this essay mentioned the word God or Gods. Whilst it is true that many of the established religions are centred round worship of a God or Gods, Buddhism is not, yet it would still be described by most as a religion.
The very word, religion, only appeared during the Enlightenment in eighteenth century Europe, in order to give a group name to all the cultural traditions of faith and worship that have been practiced throughout the world, over the entire course of human history. The scale and diversity of these traditions make a conclusive definition near impossible to obtain. Couple this with the fact that many languages do not even have a word comparable to religion and it is easy to see the difficulty in getting a satisfying answer to the question of, what is religion?
So, it seems we may have to accept that we will probably never find a definitive answer, but this should in no way deter us from embarking on a study of such an important subject. As long as one has a reasonable understanding of the concept of religion, an individual can study it academically in order to expand his knowledge of the subject and its impact on the world in which we live.

There are many different reasons an individual may choose to study religion. These reasons can be placed into two separate categories. The first includes all the reasons that enable someone to...