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Originally Posted by Michael Chui  You could say something similar about cultures, though, and languages.
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What is language? It, too, is artifically constructed, poorly defined. Anthropologists have the same problem with culture. Where does it end or begin? Do children have a different culture from their parents? They frequently have different habits, expectations, practices... Heck, it's the children who invent creoles. |
Yeah, these are actually parallels that come up quite often -- they seem to go in and out of style ... um .... like it's going out of style? Wow, I must be tired or something. :-) It used to be all the rage to talk about the evolution of languages and use that as an example of the evolution of religions. That's fallen out of favor -- the whole evolutionary model has -- but it's a good example.
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Originally Posted by Michael Chui Religion, like culture, is an answer to the question, "Why do people do things?" But religion isn't culture; it's just one particular type of culture. Granted, it might be true that you can classify cultures into religious and secular, and that dichotomy might be all-encompassing, but I think it's hard to say that there is no culture without religion. |
I like this. Especially the parts I bolded. I agree, religion isn't culture -- it's more like a subset. There are aspects of culture that are religious, but there are also aspects that aren't. On the other hand, I do believe that you won't find a culture (or maybe 'subculture' is a better word here, what with all the so-called 'cultural mixing pots' that places have become) that doesn't have some aspect of religion to it. There is religion in every culture. How so? Just ask people what happens after death. They may say 'nothing', they may say 'you go back to the Source', they may say 'I don't know', they may say any number of things. Then ask them why they believe that to be the case ('because there is no God', 'because it's impossible to know such things', 'because we are just biological beings and death just means that our bodies have run their course', 'because I'm a part of a greater whole', 'because there is a God', etc.). I've never heard anyone give an answer to that question that is not, in its essence, religious.
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Originally Posted by Michael Chui And behind reasoning, you have culture: the source of the reasoning. And I would argue that religion is simply one type of culture. |
I'd agree, but with a slight modification. I'd say that religion is one subtype, one aspect of culture.