Quote:
Originally Posted by kennyc
Very much so, definitely part of the culture. As I always say Religion is insidious. 
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It is, but not necessarily in the way you think. The theology of your religion specifies
what you believe. The culture in which you are raised influences how you
express your belief.
There was an interesting front page article in the Wall Street Journal a while back about possible internal pressure in the Vatican for the Pope to canonize a couple of Latino saints. The problem was that the RC church in the US was losing market share in the Hispanic communities to some of the "charismatic" Christian sects.
One convert quoted in the article stated that the singing and testifying of the charismatic services made him feel "closer to Jesus". Religious belief resides on a gut level, and the Dionysian nature of the charismatic service was a better emotional fit for him than the reserved, dignified, Apollonian nature of an RC ceremony. It mapped better to his cultural background.
Ask yourself if Islam would look anything like it does today if the prophet Mohammed had been born a Teuton in what is now Germany instead of an Arab in Arabia. If you think it would, think again. Those are
very different cultures, and the expression of the religion would be affected by those differences.
(You may also assume that a lot of things thought part of Islam predate it, and were aspects of the underlying culture it arose in that Islam simply accepted and codified.)
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Dennis