Religion as the fourth subsystem of culture (a study of world religions)

Religion is regarded as an autonomous subsystem of culture along with environmental, social and regulatory subsystems. We propose to define religion as a system of ideal and material means of human activity aimed at adaptation to the immaterial world, that is the establishment and regulation of interaction between human and the immaterial world. As an example we have considered the religious worldview in Christianity, Islam and Buddhism, as well as a number of practices determined by these religions. It is concluded that adaptation as the main function of religion emphasizes the primacy of the idealism in religious studies, pluralism of religious worldview; avoids standards, and rely upon the principles of the necessity and sufficiency in studying religious practices.