ABSTRACT
This chapter demonstrates as clearly as possible what it means to say that "religion" is a social construction and will simultaneously respond indirectly to Gary Lease's essay on "The History of 'Religious' Consciousness and the Diffusion of Culture" by commenting on what is the most striking statement in this text: "there is no religion". It begins by stating explicitly some assumptions. First assumption: words are tools that humans use to delimit from the stuff of the world what is of interest to them. Second assumption: the uses of words are variable. Third assumption: variable uses are all we have there are no Platonic forms or essences behind the various uses. Fourth assumption: definitions and descriptions are two different things. The word yellence has a monothetic definition: anything that is both yellow and a fence counts as a yellence; anything that is not both yellow and a fence is not a yellence.
