ABSTRACT
The following exercise will help illustrate the rationale for phenomenology of religion and several of its major characteristics. Most societies and cultures have been described as ‘religious.’ Several billion human beings today describe themselves as ‘religious.’ Some of our most common language – emphasizing such terms as ‘God,’ ‘soul,’ ‘heaven,’ ‘salvation,’ ‘sin,’ and ‘evil’ – is ‘religious.’ Even human beings who claim that they are not ‘religious’ usually think that they know what they reject.
