What happens to a people’s culture if they dump their religion?
Posted in Current Culture Culture, Customs, People, Religion And Culture
Desiree asked:
In other words, how intrinsic is the link between religion and culture? I think religion is one of the major indicators of culture. Sure there are other things that contribute to culture like language, system of economy, customs, laws, diet, art, clothing, geographic location, climate etc, but I think religion is probably the most recognizable identifier of culture. Take Americans for example; I you think of the American culture you’d think, mostly nutty Protestant Christians, English speaking, extreme capitalists. So what would happen to cultures if religion was dumped? Would there be as much diversity and variety in the world if it was entirely secular?
November 20th, 2007 at 10:01 am
It begins to thrive!
November 21st, 2007 at 6:06 am
“language, system of economy, customs, laws, diet, art, clothing, geographic location, climate”
All but two (maybe three) are all based on religion. Like it or not…you are living in a culture (wherever you live) based on religion.
Smile…you live by a world controlled in the very thing you ****
November 22nd, 2007 at 7:43 pm
John 10:29
(29) My Father, which gave them me, is greater than all; and no man is able to pluck them out of my Father’s hand.
November 23rd, 2007 at 9:41 am
Depends on religion.
Atheists tried it and didn’t worked well. I know, I been there.
November 24th, 2007 at 8:25 pm
i think most people don’t think religion when they think of americans. i think they see us as war-mongering, power-mad, selfish, fat people.
(hey, i’m just keeping it real)
but on the flip side of that coin, we are the first people they call when there is trouble….
November 26th, 2007 at 6:22 pm
Judging by cases in Europe, I’d say it makes things better in some ways.
November 27th, 2007 at 8:47 pm
Proverbs 29:18
Where there is no vision, the people perish.
November 30th, 2007 at 10:26 pm
You could have a look at Sweden, which seems to be doing OK with only a small minority following Jesus or indeed, Odin.
But even as an atheist I have to admit that the world would be a profoundly boring place if everyone believed the same thing.
December 1st, 2007 at 3:20 pm
You are correct in the main :
Religion and the Rise of Western Culture by Christopher Dawson
The respondent who mentioned Sweden makes me laugh. All of Europe is in a seemingly irreversible decline… They aren’t even reproducing anywhere near replacement rate. That is almost the definition of life isn’t worth living !!!
On second thought read Toynbee.. He is ironclad on the point :
Arnold Toynbee’s ten-volume analysis of the rise and fall of civilizations, A Study of History, is acknowledged as one of the greatest achievements of modern scholarship. “Of all the books published so far in this century,” Clifton Fadiman once said, “the one most assured of being read a hundred years from now is A Study of History.” The Los Angeles Times called it “a veritable masterpiece of erudition and one of the most suggestive, stimulating and inspiring studies of this age.”
In The Study, Toynbee revolutionized the writing of history. By encompassing virtually all civilizations–the Egyptian, the Sumeric, the Mayan, the Iranian, the Japanese, the Hellenic, and the West, to name only a few–within the scope of his monumental work, he achieved the first all-embracing synthesis of world history. Before Toynbee, world histories were histories of the West, and only specialists wrote Babylonian, Arabian, or Aztec history. But Toynbee’s scheme includes all nations and, more remarkably, by his emphasis on general patterns–on the genesis, growth and breakdown of civilizations–he was able to give a shape to this incredibly diverse material, making it comprehendable to the general reader.
December 3rd, 2007 at 10:28 pm
History says over and over the culture degenerates.
December 7th, 2007 at 1:59 am
Um…it’s possible to uphold non superstitious tradition, dress, diet, etc. without any religion that may have inspired them.
I have no “culture” to choose from, at least beyond the white trailer trash/redneck/”praise teh Lawd” white southerner stereotypes. I don’t consider myself white trash or a redneck, and I’m certainly not a Christian of any type, so…I guess I have to make my own culture?
December 10th, 2007 at 9:01 am
You got it right.
Diversity would be damaged with a monolithic society. I am all for diversity, and the creator seems to favor it as well.
December 10th, 2007 at 6:48 pm
Many Gods, One Humanity
The Anomalous Nature of Religious Diversity
The number of major gods recognized around the world and recorded in world history are in the hundreds.
The number of religions, current and past, centered on these gods, is in the thousands.
The number of lives lost in the attempts to advance or defend religious beliefs is in the millions.
The number of humans negatively affected by this cultural anomaly is in the billions.
Remove religion and life can only get better.
Skip
December 13th, 2007 at 11:58 pm
Soviet Union…. China… French Revolution…. Khmr Rouge… Stalin….
December 15th, 2007 at 10:58 am
Usually, that society becomes more just and socially equitable.
December 18th, 2007 at 7:55 am
In America religion is often the glue that holds together the semblance of culture that we have. In Sweden, where religion is essentially absent from the mainstream people are knit together through a shared egalitarian outlook as well as food, art, language, etc.
December 18th, 2007 at 2:13 pm
A culture can have more than one religion. Some cultures have one religion dominant over others.
Religion is a part of one cultures. But I think not the biggest part. Maybe in some cultures.
In America, there is freedom of choice regarding religion. So choice of religion is of American culture. While in Iran, Islam is the religion & other religions are persecuted.
It is written that blessed are the people (nation, etc.) whose God is the Lord. That would be the LORD God of Israel, who through Jesus & the Good News of restoration to God, we in America can freely worship the LORD God in Jesus Name.
But there are a number of different religions in the US where the people pray to the LORD God. So, we are blessed.
December 21st, 2007 at 9:03 pm
America is composed of many cultures and many religions. There are many different races, nationalities and religions in this country. Africans were brought here and their religion and culture was erased. I’m sure I will receive much controversy here, but I know that is the reason African Americans have had such a difficult time coming back into this society as a people. Other peoples (i.e., American Indians, Hispanics, Asians, Spaniards, East Indians, people of muslim countries, etc.) were able to retain their religion and culture when they came to this country and have, for that reason, been able to live a successful life. African Americans have had a very very difficult time because, without one’s religion and culture, one is a nobody — no roots, no history and consequently, no culture.
December 24th, 2007 at 3:56 am
I think religion is holding us back from being the best countries and world we can be. Like somebody else said, Europe is much more secular than the USA, way more open with the idea of religion not being so awesome and they have a much lower crime rate.
I don’t agree with you saying that religion is the most recognizable trait in a culture. Perhaps it is in some very small groups of people, not a big city