Posted: Apr 13, 2019 5:04 pm
Mononoke wrote:willhud9 wrote:
Then Harris is a moron and needs to take a course on sociology and anthropology and realize what religion is. Religion has always been about social-cultural issues facing societies. It adapts to culture. It evolves and shapes itself to civilization. The Greco-Roman world much to the chagrin of entlitenment elitists was very much a religious world where their religion blended with their culture.
It don't think its accurate to say religion evolves to fit Cultures. There is a lot of interplay. And some religions are more about evolving with the culture it is practiced in and others are less so.
Agreed. But I don't think Willhud9 was wrong, just perhaps too brief.
Religions evolve wholly within the context of a culture - the culture is part of their fabric at all times and all places. This is not really saying much, obviously, because religion is a quantum of culture, and can't exist independently of a culture anymore than it can exist independently of language or people.
However, where it becomes interesting and Will's point becomes more accurate is when religion spreads to other cultures, and has to modify itself (using teleological terms here that are absolutely inapplicable) in order to become sufficiently acceptable to that culture (or fails to do so in a process of selection), before it has the power to effect changes in that culture to suit it. There's a kind of memetic battle-ground where just as with genes, there is an interplay between conflict and cooperation - syncretism and assimilation.