Controversy Over Culture and Religion

During the discussion in Wednesdays class regarding the difference between culture and religion, many people agreed that the two definitions were different from each other. The definition that we came up with in class is culture is the way people live their lives and their interactions with their surroundings. Religion is more or less how you view life, for example life and death and other spiritual beliefs.  However, depending on how one looks at the definitions, one could associate the two with each other. 

The both culture and religions reflect each other, you cannot have one without the other. On a broader sense, without religion; culture itself would take a severe hit and be engulfed into larger cultures. Religion helps define culture, if religion was non-existent, cultures all over the world would slowly begin to become one in the same. Religion is what keeps other cultures from seeming too a like and binds groups of people together creating communities, cities, states and countries. Culture and religion have their differences, however you cannot separate the two, they both reflect each other. Such an example can be seen in almost every aspect in our daily lives, for instance, government. Governments all over the world mix culture and religion together. As shown in history, the United States Government has had a very difficult time in keeping these topics separate. Many issues come around where religion is brought up that soon become touchy issues, like the dispute over abortion rights. Coming from a culture where religion is not far from anywhere you look, about 83% of American claim to belong to some form of religion. Because it is prevalent in our society it becomes difficult when deciding political issues without having any sort of bias view point. This example can be applied to just about any political system around the world today. Religion and culture can be closely associated with each other, however in certain areas like government, they need to be regulated more closely.