God, the Salmon, and the Flag

 On one view, for example, totemic practices reflected the ignorance of “primitive” man who worshipped a salmon totem because he thought himself a descendant of the salmon. On a functionalist view, by contrast, the clan worshipped the totem because salmon was an important commodity, and the survival of the clan required that the salmon be accorded sacred status. Against both of these views, Lévi-Strauss argued that the rituals and beliefs surrounding the totem were the means by which individuals expressed fundamental ideas about their relations to each other and the environment. 

Religion s the expression or recognition of "something greater than ourselves".  Religion, or its referent deity, is the recognition that we do not exist separate from the world or others, which is in turn symbolized by a deity or totem.  

If I state that "There is more to existence than just me," I am making an existential statement that has no clear referent.  This amorphous "something more" is abstracted into a symbol such a "God" or "the salmon" to which all can refer and identify, even though individually, our concept of the referent may be quite different.