Religion How is religion defined? What is religious practice and experience? Some definitions What if we said that religion was whatever involves a stated belief in spirits, gods, or mystical entities of some sort? With this definition, however, there are two problems 1)The first is that the anthropologist Rodney Needham of Oxford tried to apply and translate the word"belief"into the religious language of the people in Indonesia with whom he lived for some time. Needham claimed that there was no equivalent in their language for our concept of religious belief. 2)The second problem deals with what may be viewed as entities of a existence which is not part of this everyday world What is called"religion"may therefore look very different from one society to another. There may be an emphasis on religious belief, on religious practices such as certain kinds of rituals, or an emphasis on shared emotions. For our purposes we will consider religion as"an institution consisting of culturally patterned interaction with culturally postulated superhuman beings This definition was originally given, in part, by E B. Tylor a Oxford 100 years ago; and it has been reiterated by current scholars such as Jack Goody, Robin Horton and Mel spiro Pollution and Purity Many religions stipulate not just things people should do, such as sacrifice and ritual, but also things they should not do: eating certain foods, wearing certain clothes, coming into contact with people of other religions or of lower status, etc. Prohibitions and"taboos" are some of the most fundamental aspects of religion, in part because they distinguish and often socially separate, persons of different religions. They bring religious life into everyday social existence by estricting, sanctioning and prohibiting social interactions and behaviors Proscriptions and taboos regarding food and clothing are common aspects of many religions They often served to keep distinct and apart people and things deemed to be importantl different: men and women, impure people(menstruating women, unclean men) and pure people, high and low-status people, meat and milk products, etc. Rules about food-what to eat, when to eat it, with whom to eat it- are of central importance in many religions In the religions of the Middle East(Islam, Judaism, Christianity), meals serve as key symbols of religious affiliation and as a means through which religious acts are carried out. During the Passover Seder, the house must be cleansed of all leaven; throughout Ramadan, the Islamic month of fasting, Muslims may not partake of food from sun-up to sun-down; and the importance