I studied on the concept of 'race' some time back and I understood that there is no real answer to what is 'race'? But many people do still think of 'race' as something real. I come from Mauritius and we are mixed! Do not ask me what is my 'race'? I do not know. I have ancestors and grandparents from various origins. Do not ask me what is my ethnicity because I celebrate all ethnicities in my daily life, my traditions and values. I am Mauritian and I am among those Mauritians who believe in, as in French we say, 'le metissage', the mixture of all origins, culture and traditions.

But yes, to cut it short, some people do take religion as a mode of 'racial' profiling.

Angela

Even though in legal terms "Race", "ethnicity" and "religion" are considered distinctive concepts, in several court cases the concepts were overlaped.

In my opinion, race, ethnicity and religion are difficult terms to categorize, especially in considering a person's individuality, but all form a part of a special cultural identity

Short answer: religion is part of the definition of ethnicity. It does not define human groups in biological terms, as it is a cultural construct. Human do not have "races", since there is no "breeding" of humans, and no defined reference archetype.

From a biological point of view, race and ethnicity are indirect (and often misleading) means to define populations.

From a strict taxonomical definition all humans are of one unique species and subspecies: Homo sapiens sapiens.

Race is a concept from animal husbandry identifying selection of animals for a given set of characteristics, known as breeds. A breed can arise from independent selections, and does not require population continuity. Animal breed (aka races) still belong to their originating species and subspecies.

Ethnicity is a sociological/anthropological concept, defined by common culture and heritage. Religion is already part of the definition of ethnicity.

For Biology humans do not have "races", since there is no "breeder". Humans do have populations, and these can be defined to varying degrees of granularity (pixelarity?), according to the needs. SNPs, mitochondrial DNA, genetic families of varying sizes are but some of the approaches to defining a human population of interest.

Ethnicity, on the other hand, is used as a shortcut (and often mistaken) for a representation of human populations. The two often overlap, especially since geographical mobility is measurably low and limited in the span of few generations.

Certain social constructs (i.e. marrying inside the religion, country, culture and social network) tend to reinforce the link between social/cultural group and biological population. However, those barriers are far from rigid, and the genetic flux within our species is affected but not coerced by them.

In my opinion, race is a concept that pretends to indicate biological characteristics of a human group but, as Rafael says, has no sense from a scientific point of view; it is a concept that was applied to human beings by racist political movements (nazism and fascism) with the aim of asserting the superiority of ona "race" upon others.

A Chinese and an Indian have not more genetic difference then me and my neighbour!

Ethnicity is a similar concept, but politically correct! It integrates cultural elements but still refers to physiognomy. For instance, if a white woman from the US goes to Nigeria, decides to live there and adopts local costums, would you say that her "ethnicity" is, for instance, Yoruba?

Furthermore, which are the frontiers of one "ethnic group"? If I was born in Barcelona, what would my ethnicity be? Catalan? Spanish? European? White? It is very subjective, it depends on the observer's perspective; for instance, if the observer is Black, I can just bedefined White. If she's from America, she sees me as European. If she's Spanish, she surely wants to know if I speak Catalan or Spanish as a mother tongue in order to identify my ethnicity....

Religion and ethnicity can be connected, but not necessarily: for instance, for Jewish people, religion is a criterion to identify a person as a Jew; so it was, theoretically, also for Nazists and it is for Israeli government. But then, some Israeli people are ateist, even if their mother is Jewess....

Another exemple: in Senegal most of people are Muslim, no matter which "ethnicity" they belong to (Mandinga, Serer, Wolof....), so that in this case, religion is not relevant...

I agree with Angela: we are all mixed! Human groups have travelled, encountered and loved each other across history, and that's the fantastic result!

About categorizing ethnicity, I recommend this article: Rogers Brubaker (2002), Ethnicity Without Groups, Available at: http://works.bepress.com/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1006&context=wrb&sei-redir=1&referer=http%3A%2F%2Fscholar.google.es%2Fscholar%3Fq%3Dethnicity%2Bwithout%2Bgroups%26hl%3Dit%26as_sdt%3D0%26as_vis%3D1%26oi%3Dscholart%26sa%3DX%26ei%3DzV1LUcnJNqWg7Abf_IGICw%26ved%3D0CCoQgQMwAA#search=%22ethnicity%20without%20groups%22

Goog luck!

In South Africa used to refer to the colour of your skin. Although apartheid has been abolished, race remains relevant in terms of black economic empowerment legislation. A peson's religion in this context has thus nothing to do with religion. The latter would be relevant for culture though. Thus, I have to agree with the other authors, the answer would depend on the historical and other contexts.