What is religion and belief?

All religions, arts and sciences are branches of the same tree. All these aspirations are
directed towards ennobling man's life, lifting it from the sphere of mere physical existence
and leading the individual towards freedom.
Albert Einstein

Belief is a state of the mind when we consider something true even though we are not
100% sure or able to prove it. Everybody has beliefs about life and the world they
experience. Mutually supportive beliefs may form belief systems, which may be religious,
philosophical or ideological.
Religions are belief systems that relate humanity to spirituality. The following definition from
Wikipedia provides a good overview of the many dimensions of religion:
Religion is a collection of cultural systems, belief systems, and worldviews that relate
humanity to spirituality and, sometimes, to moral values. Many religions have narratives,
symbols, traditions and sacred histories that are intended to give meaning to life or to
explain the origin of life or the universe. They tend to derive morality, ethics, religious laws
or a preferred lifestyle from their ideas about the cosmos and human nature. […] Many
religions have organised behaviours, clergy, a definition of what constitutes adherence or
membership, congregations of laity, regular meetings or services for the purposes of
veneration of a deity or for prayer, holy places (either natural or architectural), and/or
scriptures. The practice of a religion may also include sermons, commemoration of the
activities of a god or gods, sacrifices, festivals, feasts, trance, initiations, funerary services,
matrimonial services, meditation, music, art, dance, public service, or other aspects of
human culture. However, there are examples of religions for which some or many of these
aspects of structure, belief, or practices are absent. 1

Beliefs in the spiritual dimension of life have existed since time immemorial. Many human
societies have left us historical evidence of their systems of belief, whether it was worship of
the sun, of gods and goddesses, knowledge of good and evil or of the sacred. Stonehenge,
the Bamiyan Buddhas, the Almudena Cathedral in Madrid, Uluru at Alice Springs, the
Bahá'í Gardens of Haifa, Fujiyama, the sacred mountain of Japan, Kaaba in Saudi Arabia or
the Golden Temple in Amritsar all bear testament to the human experience of spirituality,
which may be an objective reality or a result of the human yearning for an explanation of the
meaning of life and our role in the world.
In the simplest sense, religion describes "the relationship of human beings to what they
regard as holy, sacred, spiritual or divine". 2 It is usually accompanied by a set of organised
practices which foster a community of people who share that faith. As discussed above,
belief is a broader term and it also includes "commitments which deny a dimension of
existence beyond this world".3

Religions and other belief systems in our environment have an influence on our identity,
regardless of whether we consider ourselves religious or spiritual or not. At the same time,
other parts of our identity, our history, our approach to other religions and groups
considered "different" will influence how we interpret that religion or belief system.