Religions don't always have "doctrine" or "beliefs" -- so they don't always rely on failing to question them. This was one of the earliest difficulties that st

Religions don't always have "doctrine" or "beliefs" -- so they don't always rely on failing to question them. This was one of the earliest difficulties that students of comparative religion had to grapple with when the field was getting started -- around 1800 -- and they began to look into classical cults like the Eleusinian Mysteries in a serious manner. The substance of many religions is just ritual. There is a mythic story to back the ritual, for sure; but the elaboration of this story into a vast body of doctrine with an attempt at logic holding it together is rare in the history of religion. Most religious behaviour is a little like the conceit of NORAD tracking Santa Clause. It's pursued in a serious way, and there is a serious ethic behind it -- the promise of just rewards will be kept -- but the function of it is more in the practice and sincerity of the people working together on the religious performance than it is in any particular ideas that they have. If you asked the people at NORAD, if they believed in Santa Clause, and if they were really tracking him, they would say no, but it would not change their behaviour one iota, because the show they are putting on is not about the "fact" of Santa Clause's existence. Religion is, for the most part, a dramatisation of sincerely held community values. It is rare in history for religion to have the kind of gate keeping power over scientific matters, or even over ideas, that the Catholic Church famously exercised over Galileo, and it is rare for religion to care that much or to try to exercise that kind of power. In many parts of the world, religions coexist and share believers, without any drive to bring their ideas in line with one another. In historical China, the "Three Sages" -- Laozi, Buddha and Confucious -- were often worshipped together, although it was accepted that they were the founders of different religions. One can easily find similar examples of syncretism throughout East Asia today. Religion is how people connect their lives to one another and to story. It is present whenever people gather in remembrance or humble themselves before some great symbol -- the Starship Enterprise, the great cube at Mecca, the old corn cob pipe of a famous movie star -- which embodies shared values or hope for the future. Religion is something fundamental to human behaviour, universal when you can recognise it -- and subtly powerful and controlling when you can not.