ABSTRACT
Religious ideas, beliefs and representations constitute religious cosmologies or ‘world views’ in individual and collective appearances. They are logically prior, although not necessarily chronologically before rituals and institutions. For there to be religion at all, there must be religious ideas that are expressed, propagated, codified and solidified in religious traditions. Religious convictions and beliefs are often very strongly held, they are deeply normative and influence the ways in which humans perceive their worlds and are fundamental to the world views and ethoses of individuals and groups – thus they may conceived as dispositions for humans to feel, act and think. The question of where beliefs come from and what they are made of are dealt with in detail in psychological, semiotic and cognitive theories. Religious modes of knowledge and communication constitute important and complex subjects and so the peculiarities of religious language and discourse concerning their meaning, reference and power are reviewed and explained along with a section on interpretations of myths and mythology.
