The history of the word " religion ", as a descriptive and analytical category, has passed through several distinct phases. In a first phase, " originelle " if you like, the word refers to the beliefs and practices of the inhabitants of a relatively circumscribed geographical area, Europe and its immediate margins, particularly on the southern shores of the Mediterranean once included in the Roman Empire. In a second phase, a " expansive " phase stretching from the 16th century to the middle of the 20th century, the word came to be applied much more widely, to such an extent that there was soon no place on earth to which a form of " religion " was not attributed, usually by a European observer or commentator. In this globalized religious and civilizational cartography came first the " great " religions, those that Max Weber would, in the years 1910 (i.e. in the context that saw the emergence of a comparative sociology of religion), identify and analyze as such ; i.e., the Christianity-Judaism-Islam trinity aside - what Weber confidently calls " Confucianism ", " Taoism ", " Hinduism " and " Buddhism ". In this symposium, we returned to these questions of definition and practice, through the study of a whole series of cases from the modern world, in Europe, Asia and America.
Symposium