Lesson 1.2

Earlier I thought religion was exactly how Nye had described it to be. Verbatim. It was a way of life that was typically thought through sacred texts, rituals, etc., but I learned that religion influences culture and culture “influences the way religion is experienced” as Nye so accurately described it. I used to think religion can be separated from culture, but it is often not and the lines get blurred, yet they still are two separate “entities”. As a follower of Islam, who was born and raised in America, the religious experience I had went through was vastly different from the one’s my cousin’s experienced in Pakistan, yet we are the same age, grew up with similar parenting styles, and have similar values. Nye shows in “Religion: Some Basics”, that a person’s geographical location and culture, effects how strongly their religion is influenced. For example, in America, many people do not learn to read Arabic proficiently (in order to read the Qur’an), but in Pakistan it is taught as a part of the school curriculum. But on the other side of the coin, the religion affects the way the culture takes shape, including economics and politics. Another example of this would be that in certain parts of the Middle East, the law of Islam is the law they use in their government, and laws are much less open to change/amendments, because, in Islamic belief, those laws were established by a Divine being.