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About this quote

What does it mean?
Religion is defined as a person's total reaction to life.
In plain terms
Religion is how someone responds to life overall.
What can you take from it?
View religion as an overall response to existence.

Where it applies

  • personal belief
  • philosophical inquiry
  • cultural study

Putting it to work

  • reflect on life responses
  • define personal spirituality

Questions to consider

  • How do you react to life?
  • What defines your religion?

Another view

This definition may not fit all religious traditions.

More from William James

  1. Religion, therefore, as I now ask you arbitrarily to take it, shall mean for us the feelings, acts, and experiences of individual men in their solitude, so far…

    Permalink to quote #52
  2. Modern transcendental idealism, Emersonianism, for instance, also seems to let God evaporate into abstract Ideality. Not a deity in concreto, not a superhuman …

    Permalink to quote #54
  3. There must be something solemn, serious, and tender about any attitude which we denominate religious. If glad, it must not grin or snicker; if sad, it must not…

    Permalink to quote #55

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