The Taxon Religion

Abstract

Religions as taxa consist of a group of adherents’ common religious knowledge and not of the religious knowledge of individuals. The beliefs and practices of individual believers, of individual adherents of a certain religion, are not decisive for the entire communication and information system “religion”, but rather the individual communities with their internally communicated notions and cultic practices, which represent the individual religion’s repertoire of characteristics. The religious capital of the respective community is characterized by the total sum of the beliefs and behaviours communicated within the respective communities.