Review Of Richard Smith's Religion: What It Is, And Why It Matters

In his book, Religion: What It Is, How It Works, and Why It Matters, Richard Smith wants to shift the common debate on religion from it concepts to its standing in reality. From the onset, Smith makes it clear that he wants to analyze the nature of religious beliefs and practices, as well as approach religion from a theoretical standpoint. With this stance, he hopes that his book will be used as a tool for readers to gain an explanation for any religion. With the heterogeneous nature of religion, this appears to be a daunting task.
Smith begins his analysis by desiring to maintain a distinction between what religion is and what it does. In chapter one, he starts by describing what religion is. He says, “religion is a complex of culturally prescribed practices, based on premises about the existence and nature of superhuman powers…which seeks to help practitioners gain access to and communicate or align themselves with these powers, in hopes of realizing human goods and avoiding things bad.” At first glance, …show more content…
He says that religion works due to people associating life events with the invention and influence of superhuman power. He describes this notion as making attributions. He suggests that this usage of religion as justification for causal events is not significantly different from mundane, secular justification for similar events. He says, “the only difference when it comes to making religious attributions is that…religious people include in the mix the influences of superhuman powers.” He recognizes that making attributions is not restricted to religion. Therefore, it would be difficult to use this notion of “making attributions” to advance the argument of religion as being sui generis. Rather than being a unique force that operates in the world, it is a natural part of life’s discourse. At the same time, however, he asserts that religion will collapse without this notion of making