Suppose I wanted to establish that the game of cricket has always and everywhere - throughout history and across the entire globe - been one of the regular activities of humankind. You might raise an eyebrow if I then made good this claim by telling you that by 'cricket' I referred to processes of cleansing parts of one's body from time to time.
Just so does Andrew Brown proceed in support of the proposition that religion is a universal and ineradicable phenomenon. If I am asked, for my part, whether I think there could be a society without religion, I would say: I don't know, but probably not. However, Brown achieves instant certainty thus:
Very roughly, you could define the religion that scientists study as "the stories and practices that individuals and societies use to explain and create their relation to each other and their meaning in the world".
This is a deeply unsatisfactory definition, but it's still better than any less vague alternative. Simply as a matter of empirical fact, any narrow definition fails to capture a lot of the behaviour that is obviously religious, or, if you like, faith-based. But, of course, the consequence of this is that there can be no society that is without religious beliefs...
To eliminate religion, in [the] wider definition, is to eliminate all social bonds...
Brilliant. Religion is stories and practices sustaining the relations between human beings, hence and hey presto there can be no social bonds without it. That other people associate religion with some sort of belief in supernatural powers doesn't detain the man longer than it takes to write the words 'narrow definition'. Top-notch journalism.
