ABSTRACT
Religious belief is widespread within the human species. While the form of religious expression will necessarily be different from culture to culture, the fact that the worship of someone or something is found in virtually all peoples suggests that religious belief is a universal characteristic of human societies. In the twentieth century, many feared that atheism would increasingly replace Christianity and other religions around the world. It was this fear that fueled, at least partially, the Cold War between the United States and the Soviet Union. The most obvious, perhaps, are physics, chemistry and biology. Most people would agree that individuals working in these fields are doing science, and that the results of research in these areas represent true scientific knowledge. An anthropologist's characterization of religion will no doubt be different from the definition given by a psychologist or that of a theologian.
