RELIGIOUS

Religion is usually defined as a social–cultural system of designated behaviors and practices, morals, beliefs, worldviews, texts, sanctified places, prophecies, ethics, or organizations, that generally relates humanity to supernatural, transcendental, and spiritual elements;^[1] however, there is no scholarly consensus over what precisely constitutes a religion.^[2][3]

Different religions may or may not contain various elements ranging from the divine,^[4] sacred things,^[5] faith,^[6] a supernatural being or supernatural beings^[7] or “some sort of ultimacy and transcendence that will provide norms and power for the rest of life”.^[8] Religious practices may include rituals, sermons, commemoration or veneration (of deities and/or saints), sacrifices, festivals, feasts, trances, initiations, funerary services, matrimonial services, meditation, prayer, music, art, dance, public service, or other aspects of human culture. Religions have sacred histories and narratives, which may be preserved in sacred scriptures, and symbols and holy places, that aim mostly to give a meaning to life. Religions may contain symbolic stories, which are sometimes said by followers to be true, that may also attempt to explain the origin of life, the universe, and other phenomena. Traditionally, faith, in addition to reason, has been considered a source of religious beliefs.^[9]