Your Religious Belief - Culturally Predetermined

[fluiddruid]

*Originally posted by eponymous *
*Originally posted by fluiddruid *
Often new religions come about as a reaction to/rejection of some or many of the religious beliefs that are preveleant in a particular culture. Many of them don’t just spring out from nowhere.

Nothing springs out of nowhere, but you’re not arguing that all human innovation is culturally determined, just religion.

New ideas, including religious ideas, do occur. Yes, Jesus relied on Judaism and wanted to reform it; yes, Hinduism certainly shaped the Buddha’s teachings. The question is not whether existing religions and cultural practices influence religion; they certainly do. The question is whether an individual’s religion is predetermined by culture. How can you fit in religious innovation under this thesis? (I’m truly asking; I want you to explain your idea better.)

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Because people who are adherents have either 1) been born and raised in that community or two 2) have decided to become followers of that religion in a culture where information about that particular religion is available and accessible by those people.**

I think we can both agree that the odds of a person being able to follow a religion of which they can obtain no knowledge is infintesimally low regardless of whether your thesis is correct. It is simply common sense.

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How many Norse pagans are living and practicing their religion in Saudi Arabia? I can predict with almost 100% accuracy that it is 0 or almost 0.**

But how many people in Saudi Arabia know about Norse paganism? I simply don’t see how it’s relevant to connect your idea to the very simple fact that you cannot follow a religion that you do not know exists!

The fact of the matter is that there are religious influences in culture – I certainly don’t deny it, and it is obvious. The religion of your parents, too, plays a major role. Yet, people choose to go their own way. You say that this is a “reaction”. Fine. But how would I disprove your theory? You say to follow the religion in which your ways is predetermined, but so is leaving it – for whatever religion I choose! How can that be so? Why is it predetermined for me to decide to leave Christianity, but not for so many others?

I think the obvious answer is that it’s not. We do choose. Some people opt not to think too much and stay where they are, or drift into atheism. Some think about it and end up athiests, or theists of a different flavor.

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Because you were born and raised in a culture (the U.S.) that’s relatively open, and living in a time when your options have been expanded. If you were born and raised in the U. S. 100 years ago, the likihood you reamaining a Lutheran would be higher, the likelihood of you being agnostic less still (although still quite probable), and you exploring Celtic pagaism and Buddhism the least likely. **

I will agree that the attitude of society is an influence. I don’t think it’s because we’re predetermined to do or think certain things because of culture, but rather that people tend not to be very public with things that are frowned upon. Gay people existed back when it would be very unwise to discuss it. Likewise there have been individuals who did not believe in the prevalent religion in every time period.

It is true that modern pluralism encourages minority religions, just as 100 years ago they were discouraged. It is just another influence, however. It does not prove predetermination in any way because there are exceptions to your rule.

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I can predict with a higher degree of probability that you becoming an agnostic was a reaction to/rejection of 1) aspects of Lutheran Christianity and 2) a reaction to/rejection of Christianity in general. Not Islam, not Buddhism, or some other religion. **

You would be incorrect. I swang into calling myself fully Pagan before I ended up more of an agnostic. That is simply because I think a lot of modern Pagan ideas are silly and I couldn’t rightly believe in them. I do, of course, reject Christianity, just as I rejected becoming a Buddhist (I can’t believe that life is suffering and that we should long to escape it). I can’t say I’ve studied and rejected every religion, but I don’t see why my choices are culturally predetermined.

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No, not 100% predictability and not for everyone. But for many, many people their religious beliefs are predictiable. I’ll use the same example I’ve used before. What is the likelihood that someone born in Saudi Arabia will be, if they are religious (have religious beliefs/convictions), Muslim? And what is the liklihood that if that person is an atheist/agnostic, then they became atheists/agnostics as a reaction to/rejection of Islam?**

I think it’s much easier to go back to what I said above – namely, you cannot accept nor reject a religion of which you have no knowledge. The most intimate knowledge of religion you will likely have in your life is the religion of your parents; hence, it is extremely likely you will choose to accept it or reject it, and that reaction, positive or negative, will, of course, affect you. (With evangelical religions, it is often likely that people will be less likely to leave because of fear, as well.) This isn’t cultural predetermination; it’s simply a matter of exposure. Why? Because we can be exposed to other things through our own choices. You can choose to abandon a religion of your childhood, move on to something else, study it in depth and it can be a greater influence on you than the original religion. Your culture doesn’t decide what knowledge you have access to unless it prohibits learning about other religions and leaving. I could possibly agree with you that some cultures – those that are particularly repressive or isolated – have predetermined religious outcomes (having only believers or nonbelievers). Again, this is just a matter of knowledge and exposure.

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In many respects, human beings do not have free will. I am not arguing that human beings have no free will whatsoever. But what I am saying is that the culture into which someone has been acculturated constrains the options that that person has available to them.**

Of course. Constrained options does not make predetermination, however. If I offer you an apple or an orange, your options are limited, but your choice is hardly predetermined.

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An individual is born and raised in the United States into a family where English was the native language spoken. She lived and went to school where English was the language used to communicate. … Now, can you predict, with a high degree of probability that the language that individual speaks, reads, writes, and understands is English?**

1.) To learn a language is not the same as adhering to a religion. You can learn multiple languages, so of course it is likely that this person will learn English at first.

2.) Learning a language is a poor analogy because it does not allow for people to learn about something but reject it. A person cannot be raised learning English, but decide they really like Spanish better and forget it. (People can, and do, move to other places in the world and use another language more often than the one they learned as a child. Perhaps the probability is low, but is that because of cultural predetermination of language or because people just don’t tend to move out of their native country?)

Certainly you could easily say that you will be influenced by the majority religion of your country and that it would be very difficult not to learn some of its tenets. That is a far cry from accepting them. Remember, you are saying predetermination, not simple influence. It is obvious that we will be influenced by our culture and by predominant ideas. The question is whether or not this influence trumps free will entirely and becomes predictable and predetermined without individual will.

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How much “free will” do we have to speak, read, write, and understand any language we want to, rather than the one into which we have been acculturated?**

It goes without saying that one must learn about a language, or religion, or anything else, first. People certainly do learn new languages when they have the ability to do so.

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Even if we decide to learn a new language, there’s still the process of translation. That is, understanding the new language in relationship to the old language. **

It is not impossible for a person to not translate backward to their native tongue. I have managed to reach a level of foreign language myself that would qualify, and I am not much of a linguist. It is especially easy for the young, for simply physical reasons – our brains are not wired to learn new languages as well as adults.

Yes, there is always a relationship of understanding. We compare things we know to everything we learn. This is still a simple matter of influence. It goes without saying that nobody is raised in a vaccuum.

I think you need to decide on what exactly you think. Something is either predetermined or it isn’t. You can’t say religion is predetermined by culture, but then ignore people who don’t fit in the mold. Do you want me to say that yes, many people tend to stick to what they know? That goes for everything – food, music, whatever. There are still many more people who try new things and end up far beyond where they began.

Everyone would be different in every sense if they grew up in a different country, or family, or just a different town. Experience shapes us. We learn from what we see, from mistakes that we make, from the ideas of others. That does not mean free will does not exist. The fact that all possible outcomes are not available for every individual is a matter of circumstance.