Religions give people the means to pursue a variety of important goals, some of which are proximate (a wiser, more charitable, or more successful way of life) and others that are ultimate (either within this or some future life, or in the process of rebirth). They also impose codes of recognition and behaviour and establish hierarchies that, at least implicitly, make social life a little more predictable.

Most attempts to analyze religion use a monothetic approach that operates on the classical view that any concept can be accurately defined by identifying the necessary and sufficient properties that define its meaning. The emergence of social concepts as a kind of social reality raises questions about this classical view, and more recently scholars have been trying to break with it.

A key challenge is the difficulty of defining the scope of what counts as religion. Some scholars, such as Clifford Geertz and Emile Asad, have tried to address this by adopting a hermeneutic or semiotic approach to culture, in which the meaning of actions is derived from their context. But this has tended to obscure the fact that human subjectivity is itself a product of social structures, and that a definition of religion must take account of this.

A recent wave of research suggests that being religious is associated with positive health outcomes. These findings are not proof of divine intervention, but they do suggest that religion improves the capacity to cope with stress.