You can have religion without having "a" religion. For Chris-
tians, Jews or Muslims it is quite clear that one belongs to a
religion and that there is a choice, as it were, between alterna-
tive views on the creation of the universe, the destiny of the
soul and the kind of morality one should adhere to. This
results from a very special kind of situation, where people live
in large states with competing Churches and doctrines. Many
people throughout history and many people these days live in
rather different circumstances, where their religious activity is
the only one that is conceivable. Also, many religious notions
are tied to specific places and persons. People for instance [9]
pray to their ancestors and offer sacrifices to the forest to
catch lots of game. It would not make sense to them to pray
to other people's ancestors or to be grateful for food that you
will not receive. The idea of a universal religion that anyone
could adopt—or that everyone should adopt—is not a univer-
sal idea.
You can also have religion without having "religion." We have a
word for religion. This is a convenient label that we use to put
together all the ideas, actions, rules and objects that have to
do with the existence and properties of superhuman agents
such as God. Not everyone has this explicit concept or the
idea that religious stuff is different from the profane or every-
day domain. In general, you will find that people begin to
have an explicit concept of "religion" when they live in places
with several "religions"; but that is a special kind of place, as I
said above. That people do not have a special term for reli-
gion does not mean they actually have no religion. In many
places people have no word for "syntax" but their language
has a syntax all the same. You do not need the special term in
order to have the thing.
You can have religion without "faith." Many people in the
world would find it strange if you told them that they "believe
in" witches and ghosts or that they have "faith" in their ances-
tors. Indeed, it would be very difficult in most languages to
translate these sentences. It takes us Westerners some effort to
realize that this notion of "believing in something" is peculiar.
Imagine a Martian telling you how interesting it is that you
"believe" in mountains and rivers and cars and telephones. You
would think the alien has got it wrong. We don't "believe in"
WHATISTHEORIGIN?