Explain why you might think observing visible religious activity can help you to understand what part religion plays in a community?

Religion is an idea with many different interpretations, especially amongst varied societies, and cultures. Most people have some idea of what a religion is, whether they are insiders, outsiders or don't-know. It is commonly thought that our interpretations and assumption of what exactly a religion is are founded by our surroundings in society and the communities we live in. The six major world religions are Christianity, Islam, Buddhism, Judaism, Sikhism and Hinduism, each is very …

…the tradition to which they belong, while the others - a mixture of insiders, outsiders and don't-knows - are looking for intellectual explanations of what, in human terms, it is to be religious'. Studying a religious festival as an outsider will not give a scholar any experience of what happens in lived religion. The scholar would need to look further into who participates in the activities, how they are celebrated and why they are celebrated.