A religion is an organized collection of beliefs, cultural systems, and world views that relate humanity to an order of existence.[note 1] Many religions have narratives, symbols, andsacred histories that aim to explain the meaning of life, theorigin of life, or the Universe. From their beliefs about thecosmos and human nature, people may derive morality, ethics,religious laws or a preferred lifestyle.

Many religions may have organized behaviors, clergy, a definition of what constitutes adherence or membership, holy places, and scriptures. The practice of a religion may includerituals, sermons, commemoration or veneration (of a deity,gods, or goddesses), sacrifices, festivals, feasts, trances,initiations, funerary services, matrimonial services, meditation,prayer, music, art, dance, public service, or other aspects of human culture. Religions may also contain mythology.

The word religion is sometimes used interchangeably with faith or set of duties;[2] however, in the words of Émile Durkheim, religion differs from private belief in that it is "something eminently social".[3] A global 2012 poll reports 59% of the world's population as "religious" and 23% as not religious, including 13% who are atheists, with a 9% decrease in religious belief from 2005.[4] However, their 2015 poll found that only 22% of the world population is not religious and only 11% were "convinced atheists".[5] On average, women are "more religious" than men.[6] Some people follow multiple religions or multiple religious principles at the same time, regardless of whether or not the religious principles they follow traditionally allow for syncretism.