Response paper to WC Smith's Reification of Religion (Academic study of Religion)

The WC. Smith's reification  is obviously not enough to cover all of the things in the word “religion” as practice and concept and also the group of meaning, faith and belief. According to Smith, the concept of religion comes from the cumulative tradition and faith. At the first time, the term of religion has no meaning, simply just a faith. As the time goes by, the meaning of religion got broader than before. It contains such as traditions, interpretations, practices and many others.

But, this concept is more using materialist view than a comprehensive view. The name of reification is one of the sign why it is important to be criticized. Reification means that everything in the word can be materialized. Everything can be found as a real thing which can be examined by our sense or by our logical. It is very dangerous because it does not give us a comprehensive view about religion. For me, religion is not only tradition and faith, but it contains more than them. For instance, all of religion requires its followers to believe the teaching or values they could do. Sometimes it is illogical, but it still be done by their follower. It gives more explanation why we need not to reify our religion at all.