A word about linking
Religion traces to the Latin ligare, "to bind" or "to link," classically read as describing a bond between the human and the divine. What exactly should count as a religion remains debated among scholars and ordinary people alike, but most definitions describe a system of belief that attempts to explain the universe and human experience, often through one or more deities or other supernatural forces.
Common threads
Religious traditions typically address a similar set of questions: the nature of the sacred and the supernatural; a person's purpose in this life and any other state of being; what happens after death and how to prepare for it; the nature of God or the divine and what is asked of human beings; and how people are meant to relate to the divine, to each other, and to the world. Communal gathering around holy days and shared prayer is common across religions, but so is solitary practice, and many traditions pair these beliefs with a code of conduct and a body of texts they treat as sacred.