The fact that, in her preparation, she failed to discover a definition of religion that she found satisfying suggested to me that there was something seriously wrong in the approach of trying to account for religion, and that a different approach might be required.
Since that lecture, I've had reason to read more literature in the area, and there seems to be a pattern. When authors attempt to offer a definition of the term, they always seem much better at tearing down previous attempts than at constructing reliable definitions of their own. I'll quote Pascal Boyer,
If people tell you "Religion is faith in a doctrine that teaches us how to save our souls by obeying a wise and eternal Creator of the universe," these people probably have not travelled or read widely enough. In many cultures people think the dead come back to haunt the living, but this is not universal. In some places people think that some special individuals can communicate with gods or dead people, but that idea is not found everywhere. In some places people assume that people have a soul that survives after death, but that assumption also is not universal. When we put forward general explanations of religion, we had better make sure that they apply outside our parish.(from Religion Explained)
One is left to wonder if there is anything considered universal across religions! Even the distinct concept of "religion" is not universally held, as it requires some understanding that there are different, incompatible, belief-systems. These difficulties notwithstanding, "religion" is still considered to play a direct and powerful role in most of the great undertakings of most or all human societies.
I am reminded of Popper's criticism of Marxism, which was related to his introduction of the doctrine of falsifiability. Popper noted that Marxists, when presented with evidence that contradicted the implications of their theory, were always quite ready to make post-hoc modifications to the theory so that it would fit the new data. It's worth noting that everyone probably does this, to an extent: new evidence much more often causes refinements to theory, rather than wholesale rejection. But when theory is usually incompatible with the results of observed phenomena at the time of observation, well, you can have...
This is the Turn of a Plausible Phrase(from The Space Child's Mother Goose, by Frederick Winsor)
That thickened the Erudite Verbal Haze
Cloaking Constant K
That save the Summary
Based on the Mummery
Hiding the Flaw
That lay in the Theory that Jack Built.
...but the flaw in the theory is still there. At some point, it's best to forget your assumptions and try something else. The generally agreed importance of religion in human affairs is probably, at least partially, achieved by constraining the definition of religion so that it can always account for things of importance in human affairs. The accepted transcendent role of religion in the Christian cultures from which our current empirical scientific culture first became established (and, we should remember, the old Catholic Church in Europe used to have power to rival or exceed that of kings - the "transcendent" importance of religion may have followed from this) may have lead to the belief that religion everywhere is transcendentally important.
I want to end with the constructive point that we can still make major progress in understanding religious behavior. I suspect that the major redirection of effort involved will be to stop focusing on why people have religion, and start focusing on the structure of the religious institutions with which they interact. Answering questions about the role of ritual, generally, will help explain religious institutions, but can also help explain fraternity hazing, military cohesion, cooperation in athletics, etc. Understanding why people evangelize will help to understand many religions, but can also explain the invasiveness of neoliberal economic policy, or of advertising and marketing. [UPDATE 3/23/03:There is also a valid question about whether a single, general explanation for religion can account for people's susceptibility to religious ideology within all cultures.] There is so much more understanding we can gain if we stop accepting the framing that dictates that "religion" is what must be explained, as opposed to the structure of religious institutions and of people's behavior within them.
-l
