Religion may have its etymological roots in Latin Religare, to bind up or tie together, as a community is united by its devotion to a divinity which it fails to see as the victim of its unanimous, sacrificial violence.
Often described as an ensemble of beliefs and practices that organize a culture, religion consists chiefly of prohibitions regarding objects dangerous to desire, of rituals that carefully reenact violent disorder and perform reverence for sacred origins, and of myths that recount origins while disguising the foundational role of the scapegoat victim.