Religion and Culture Intertwined Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1750 words

Religion and Culture Intertwined - Essay Example Like language, religious practices can vary through time, as they reflect the needs of the people, may it be on the intellectual level or spiritual level. Culture, as in arts, politics, economics, and gender norms, also change to reflect the needs of the people. Not only that, religion as a unit of culture greatly affects those other units since religion is a very powerful force. In fact, religion is the major force in major changes in humanity, as faith usually guides most people’s decisions (Neihardt, 2000), like in politics and economy, even if they say it’s completely logical. Thus, one cannot say that religion is separate, or bigger than culture; no one can either say that culture is independent and greater than religion. They are both interrelated and they both affect each other, as demonstrated in this paper. Culture is generally defined as a total of learned, socially transmitted behavior. A society also means a large group of people living in the same territory , independent of other people and having a common culture. Sometimes, societies resist ideas that seem to be threatening to their own values. It’s impossible for societies to be all the same, but there are cultural universals that help societies interact with each other. These universal are modified means to meet the basic need for food, shelter, clothing and reproduction. Examples of cultural universals are marriage, laws, sexual restrictions, folklore, dancing, etc. These actions are understood in almost all kinds of societies, although they are expressed in a variety of ways. Religion is also a cultural universal. 86% of the world population belongs to a certain religion. Religion has been found long ago, over 100,000 years, as soon as civilization started, to provide explanations about origin, purpose and deaths of humans. Religion is a â€Å"societal glue†. It gives a society ultimate values that make up a social system that hold the people together and integrate people as well. The integrative function of religion is especially apparent in preindustrial societies. In these societies, relationships, harvesting of crops, leadership are all governed by religious laws. For example, crops would be blessed by God, sacrificing is done to please the Gods so that the harvest would be plentiful (Neihardt, 2000). These activities rule people’s behavior too, making religion a veritable aspect of culture. This is very evident in Native American culture. Their society was preindustrial. Although it was preindustrial, their culture was quite developed. They have integrated social structures at the time and they also have sophisticated technology. When discussing Native Americans, people have this notion that they are savages. This is untrue; the whole notion developed because the history books were written by the European conquistadors who had that opinion. Native Americans inhabited the Americas before the Europeans came and colonized it. There we re various tribes scattered across America and these tribes have specialties that help them in their activities, like hunting and farming (Neihardt, 2000). They are very diverse. Native American religions bind them together, and although they have many different tribes, their religions are quite similar. The common aspect is dualism. They have one God for their creation story, which is the Creator; and they have different gods per tribe. This creator guides them on how to live their lives, teaches how to behave according to their culture, etc. Other characters in their religion are the deities. These are spirits that control the