andy_d

Not really sure if this is a specifically Non-Abrahamic issue, but it deals specifically with a quote from a Buddhist, so i'll stick it here.

Just received a quote from a Buddhist monk who travels widely, teaching students across the whole world:

He says himself: "Teaching to western world is interesting to me. I could see people searching more meaning, digging more deep into Dharma [Buddhist teachings] rather than culturely follow up and blandly jump into teaching. I like to teach this kind of people. In this way, I have often got many interesting questions as well as funny questions too."

Which is an idea i've always found interesting. Just how much of any religion is cultural, as opposed to doctrinal? I would venture to say that the majority of the world's population subscribe to their relevant religion out of pure habit, rather than making a conscious choice about what belief system matches them.

To my mind, the interchange between the different societies of the world is bound to affect the religions, as people from other cultures take on foreign philosophies out of choice, rather than it simply being a default part of their social fabric.

Traditionalists are often horrified to see their cherished traditions stripped of the comfortable cultural trappings, while the new adherants often see themselves as clearing the system of the baggage it has picked up over the centuries in it's traditonal society. Refining it back to the original message if you like.

The question is, what is the status of these philosophies in their new context? Can they be considered part of the same tradition, or is culture so inextricably linked to religion that it should be considered a new "sect" due to the new context? Can any religion transcend it's original cultural background and become universal?

Heathen Dawn

Such a change, I believe, was effected by Paul when he turned Judaism into Christianity. Judaism is a cultural religion par excellence, totally inextricable from the Jewish nationality and culture. Paul, by dropping off the Jewish law, turned it into a universal religion.

Christianity still seems like a Middle-Eastern religion with a touch of Graeco-Roman trappings, but it's largely deculturalised. Islam is a universal religion too, but it's more deeply tied to Arabic culture (translations of the Qur'an are null and void). Hinduism is about as cultural as Judaism. Buddhism seems as universal in application as Christianity. The pagan religions (including their neopagan reconstructions) are cultural.

Christianity, Islam and Buddhism have a universal message for all mankind and are therefore non-cultural religions. But variants of these three may catch cultural trappings, such as Rastafarianism, Islam in the Maldives and Tibetan Buddhism.

SiliconWolf

I'm not sure if this is what you're asking, but I think many aspects of religious doctrine are derived from the culture or region in which the religion began.

Consider the Muslim calendar, for example. It is strictly lunar with no attempt to keep it in sync with the solar cycle. Such a concept seems to be the obvious outcome of Islam's origins in the Arabian desert. A similar calendar developed in a colder, wetter climate would have been quickly adjusted to make it more useful for agriculture. Also, new Islamic months start not on a certain day known in advance, but on the evening on which you can first SEE the waxing crescent moon. That works fine in the desert, but it's probably not the sort of thing Mohammed or his followers would have come up with had they lived in London or Seattle, where the sky can stay cloudy for weeks at a time.

SiliconWolf

Now to answer the other question you might be asking. That is, do people evaluate all religions or usually choose the dominant one in their culture?

The former has been almost universal throughout history. Peer pressure has a lot to do with it. The ancient Hebrews considered Judaism a gift to their ethnic group and you weren't supposed to be anything else. By the Christian period, the practice continued but usually because you would be killed or have an economic disadvantage if you didn't belong to the same religion as everyone else. In the modern times, the trend seems to be shifting toward evaluating world religions and letting each person choose the one that best suits him/her. The increase in Buddhists, pagans, etc. in North America wouldn't have been possible otherwise. However, while the recent decades have seen a lot more experimentation, most people still seem to be keeping the religion they learned from their parents. The trend has a long way to go before experimentation becomes the rule rather than the exception.

Interestingly, this question is one of the reasons I stay deconverted. I was raised xian and sometimes (rarely) I long for it. But I have never felt such a connection to Islam, Hinduism, etc. However, if I had grown up in another part of the world, I probably would feel connected to one of those instead of xtianity. Therefore, I conclude that religion is just part of culture rather than the teachings of god(s).

andy_d

I agree.

I'd be very keen to see a few hundred years into the future, however. I get the feeling that as traditional religions cross boundaries and lose some of their social engineering functions, it'll cause a change in their message.

Volker.Doormann

Your question reminds me on the discussion of Konfuzius and Lao=Tsu 2500 years ago: As Lao=Tsu - born in 604 B.C.E. already was 87 years old, Kung=Tse (Konfuzius), he wanted to learn something from him over the politics and answered this, as he visited him: "The philosophers, of whom you speak, have decomposed long ago even if their teachings of expression of their time were left for us. Knowing what is, is timeless. If the responsible of their time become just, they are leaders and blessing for their people; if not, they remain driven, that hold advance and perfection of the people open. In vain each attempt, people and people, to alter through outer reforms. Tame your vanity therefore, lets drive your carelessly knowledge! Give up from the carried of the beautiful programs, that don't help the people! The people renew themselves from itself if it reigns itself freely. The human being ennobles himself through his self: through this his immanent quest of self-realization. All remaining one is vain and useless. Your way is the way of the people; my way is that of the heaven. Going it is be called to find to peace and find to the perfection. Your way originates from the temporalness and finishes in it. My way leads to the eternal from the timeless: to the fulfillment of the sense of the life. Your way is the way of the bustle. My way is the way of the nonedoing, with which nothing not done remains, the way of the silence and silence, from which the right moved being originates from." I think not. A religion is ever a dead thing. That, what has a meaning, cannot be saved in a dead religion. The Buddha has listened to many religion teachers, but to his own cognition as individual he has said: �Whom can I name teaches through me alone? "No teacher cleared up me!�. To the dead teachings of the religions of his teachers he has said: �Not this teachings leads to the departure, to the turn, to the dissolution, to the annulment, to the transparent, to the awaking, to the erasing but only to the contemplation into the empire of the border of possible perception. And I, this teachings found insufficiently, you monks, and unsatisfied from them I moved away.� (Majjhima Nikaya, M. 26. (III,6) Ariyapariyesana Sutta). It is not the religion, which has any meaning, it is the own individual true being unbiased from any religious culture, which can lead to become universal.

Volker

premjan

truth is a pathless land.

-- J. Krishnamurti