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Related articles The Elementary Forms of the Religious Life Purity and Danger Myth and ritual Archaeology of religion and ritual Poles in mythology Lived religion Elite religion
Major theorists Augustin Calmet Akbar S. Ahmed Talal Asad Joseph Campbell Mary Douglas Émile Durkheim Mircea Eliade Arnold van Gennep René Girard E. E. Evans-Pritchard James Frazer Fustel de Coulanges Clifford Geertz Robin Horton Claude Lévi-Strauss Robert Marett Steven Ozment Roy Rappaport Saba Mahmood Marshall Sahlins Melford Spiro Stanley Tambiah Victor Turner Edward Burnett Tylor Daniel Martin Varisco Anthony F. C. Wallace
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Profane, or profanity in religious use may refer to a lack of respect for things that are held to be sacred, which implies anything inspiring or deserving of reverence, as well as behaviour showing similar disrespect or causing religious offense.^[1] The word is also used in a neutral sense for things or people not related to the sacred; for example profane history, profane literature, etc.^[2] In this sense it is contrasted with "sacred", with meaning similar to "secular".

The distinction between the sacred and the profane was considered by Émile Durkheim to be central to the social reality of human religion.^[3]

^ "Definition of profanity". Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English – online. Retrieved 11 September 2014.
^ "profane". Oxford English Dictionary (Online ed.). Oxford University Press. doi:10.1093/OED/3577715803. (Subscription or participating institution membership required.) Adjective, 2
^ Durkheim, Émile (1976). The Elementary Forms of the Religious Life, p. 37. London: George Allen & Unwin (originally published 1915, English translation 1915).