Introduction

If religions are primarily concerned with otherworldly dimensions of human ideas such as God, the afterlife, rebirth, etc., these ideas clearly intersect with people’s individual and social needs. These connections makes religions salient for the economy, because the individual social needs of humans are given an otherworldly dimension that lends the economy a new dimension, namely the sacralisation of human-individual needs such that humans attribute a divine legitimization to their individual materials needs and practices.