Religions can be understood in their largest sense as a means whereby humans, recognizing the limitations of phenomenal reality, undertake specific practices to effect self-transformation and community cohesion within cosmological and natural contexts. Religions refer to those cosmological stories, symbol systems, ritual practices, ethical norms, historical processes, and institutional structures that transmit a view of the human as embedded in a world of meaning and responsibility, transformation and celebration. Religions connect humans with a divine presence or numinous force. They bond human communities, and they assist in forging intimate relations with the broader Earth community. In summary, religions link humans to the larger cultural, biological, and material matrices of life. Most definitions of religion are based on concepts from Western Abrahamic religions of God and salvation. These concepts are presented as universal, but generally do not take into account the varied kinds of religious sensibilities in the world religions, especially from Asian or indigenous traditions. Most Asian religions, for example, do not require belief in a Creator God or in redemption and salvation outside this world. Some, such as Buddhism, are considered to be atheistic, or not focused on God or supernatural beings. Religious sensibilities, thus, are not limited to...