This essay looks at the three major areas humanity. The big guys that effect the belief subscriptions of most of the people in the world.
The Coexistence of Science and Religion
Culture is the behavioral style of a group of people. Looking at the large cultures, one will find general behavior patterns. For example, comparing individualism to collectivism between regions, or piousness to religious apathy, etc. The list goes on. Culture, at its base, is the result of years of evolution in the behaviors patterns of residents of an area. People are taught these behaviors from their parents, or pick them up from their experiences in their environment and society. A culture will define most peoples choices for social relationships, what work you do, what you believe your rights are, your beliefs, etc. To really imagine how culture evolves, think of it in this way.
Say, for example, that long ago there were twenty people living in a community. Say Jake, either through hard work, luck, whatever was able to obtain a lot of grain one year and kept it for himself. Then one day, another person, Kraz, decides to kill Jake in order to take his food.
Now if the culture was in an environment where food was plentiful if one worked. Then it would surely punish Kraz for killing Jake to take his food. (There are many reasons why they would do so, the first one to come to mind in self-preservation. How can you live and prosper with a Kraz in your neighborhood?) However, if the environment was one of difficulty, resulting in a culture that had more mutual dependence. Killing Jake might be seen as more acceptable, because in this situation, a person like Jake who keeps the food for himself is seen as more of a threat to the survival of everyone else.
Eventually, you might find that the people in the first society promote hard work and individualism more. Meanwhile, the people in the second society might promote working together and promoting the mutual welfare more.
Now there are all sorts of variations on the possibilities because environments can be so diverse. And of course, once the members of a culture are numerous enough, visible subcultures form, that compete in the complex environment that includes people themselves as a major force driving competition. So, with several different environments for humanity and several years of cultural evolution, you will develop a plethora of very different cultures.
Note: Humanity isn't just about survival either. Once it gets the time, it tends to be creative and have fun. Those things are in a way necessary for survival, as you will see in "Other Aspects of Humanity". And they become an important part of a culture as well.
The Problem with Culture:
The problem with culture is that old behaviors that worked in past environments, can persist in new ones, even when they are inefficient or actually detrimental to survival.
Most of the behaviors of a culture are taught from an early age to those born into it. This strongly imprints those values in a person's mind. Most people do not have the time or ability to deduce the best decision for each problem, so they fallback on what was taught to them by their culture. In part because, a member of a culture is generally trained to only see things from it's culture's point of view. Blocking out other information. To combat this problem, it is important to look at behaviors of yourself and your people, and see how much sense they make in present day, and for your plans for the future.
Something interesting to note is how society/culture strives to keep its “self” alive. Most people believe their culture is very important. A culture that teaches very successful rules, will also generate a strong mechanism for copying those rules for the next generation (For those of you familiar with meme theory, you see how it is similar to meme copying.) Some of these are various rites of passage, methods of teaching children, social events, etc. The culture will also develop ways to punish those who go against its ideals.
Religion is generally a set of rules that tell a person how they should live. In a way, it similar to culture, which teaches a series of behaviors to its members. However, it is different in that it generally appeals to some greater force or greater good that goes with it. And usually has some extreme reward or punishment system to go along with it. This makes people really want to at least pay attention, if not follow, a religion just in case.
Where did religion come from?
Most likely, religion started as humans tried to understand the curious parts of the world. To humans 6000 years ago, there were a great many mysteries in world (as there still are now). People where able to figure out some things after a while, but others seemed really mysterious, and so they just accredited it to acts of God or gods. This is not as absurd as it seems. Because once humanity learned to control certain things, like growing plants, it may seem obvious that a higher power is controlling us.
Of course, once the idea of gods and spirits came about, well, everyone started associating them with all mysterious things that happened. Our view of gods are sometimes based on our view of our parents when we were children. So the idea of Gods punishing or rewarding us based on our behavior becomes prevalent as well.
Well, what is the proper behavior in order to appease God(s). For that, people started looking at there culture. And generally what happened was that, behaviors that became important for the survival of a culture at the time, became ingrained in a more permanent way within the religion of that culture. That's why culture and religion are usually so intertwined. Because it is the official religion of a culture that is responsible for a large part of the propagation and continuance of a religion.
How religions are now.
Well, there are several major religions in the modern world. They have their own strict belief and behavior system and they are codified in their books such as the Bible, Koran, Sutras, or they are passed down verbally. The truth is, many of the ideas in these religions are genuinely helpful and still valid. For example keeping yourself clean, or a day of rest, helping your neighbor, and acceptance of others. When analyzed, these ideas make sense, and combined can provide for very good system of behavior. Another important benefit is that many religions inspire hope in their followers during tough times. And that in itself is very important if it helps them persevere.
The Problem with Religion.
Many religions by necessity, have clauses that force their followers to completely accept the religion on the basis of "faith". Those that truly adhere to this law lose their ability to make their own decisions and make their own judgments. So they are pawns for others who decide to "interpret" their religion to serve their own needs.
It also means that ideas that are outdated will continue to be taught and possibly enforced. This is similar to the problem with culture. For example, the Bible says abstinence until marriage. That made sense in the past before contraceptives, because otherwise, a women getting pregnant in those times would have had a very rough time raising her child. It also helped prevent the spread of venereal diseases. But now, in days of contraceptives, etc., it doesn't make sense on just that basis alone. Or the interpretations in certain Christian and Islamic sects that result in making women second class citizens.
There is another practical problem. Remember most of the ideas religions, from their histories to laws, were all written down and communicated by humans. Thus, many “holy messages” and laws may simply reflect the culture of the person communicating it. One can then never be sure about how much of a religious text or rule is based on a word from a god or from a person’s own psych.
What is science? Science is the continuous search for abstract models that can explain and predict our world. Where did science come from?
Science come from the same field way back that religion probably did. It was an attempt to explain the mysteries of the world. And, it used to not be very different from religion in the past. But while religion continued down the route of what is mystical and unobservable. Science started concentrating on things that it could observe, and explaining the process.
Eventually theories were made up to unify the diverse observations that were made. Ideas are proposed and the ones that make the most sense and are the best for practical prediction were kept. Of course, some of the explanations may sound crazy, because the idea of how things works, is continuously changing. That's why science used to think there was an ether purveying across the whole universe. Or that the mind was run by an id, ego, and superego.
Science has gotten to the point were it understands that ideas of the way things work change constantly. For example, we used to think there was an id, ego, and superego driving our thoughts. Now we don't (for the most part). So by now, if a strong theory comes out, explaining present data better, and having superior predictive powers than an older theory, then it will replace the older theory.
Problems with Science.
The main problem with science is that people have a tendency to completely accept the popular theory of the time, as completely true. Especially those who work in the fields of applied science. This is why it takes a long time for new ideas to gain a foothold if an old theory is especially entrenched in the minds of the present scientists.
For example, until recently, modern medicine equated acupuncture with witchcraft. They didn't believe that it could actually have any helpful effects, because there was nothing in the training of the doctors that said something like this would be helpful. But eventually someone finally decided to test this, and they found, hey, acupuncture actually can work! Now, former detractors are finally investigating the treatment themselves. There are many other examples were the unbelievable has become believable once more data was collected.
There is a logical basis why one should be skeptical of science. Science is based on theories. But the problem with theories is that logically, you can have a lot of evidence to support it. But, you can never be sure if it is actual truth. So when believing in science, you always have to keep that fact in the back of your head. So you can believe in a theory, but you must always know the assumptions and data that the theory is based on.
The Coexistence of Science and Religion
There is difficulty is seeing how the two can coexist with one another, because at first glance, they seem to communicate opposite belief systems. But science and religion can, based on the simple fact that no one knows how everything works yet. Nexus theory prefers science for practical life, but when it comes to areas that science still is shaky on in terms of predictive and explanatory power, one shouldn’t hesitate to look at other, supposedly non-scientific ways of thinking. These belief systems have power because they allow humans to make sense of their world. Humans need that as an extension of the need for survival. The more you know, the easier it is to do what you need.
Science and Religion and Nexus Theory.
Science and religion have always had an uneasy relationship. The extremists on both sides always say that the other is false or wrong. But there is a way for science and religion to coexist.
Science is based on theories that can never be completely proven. On the other hand, many religions are based on ideas that cannot be easily refuted by logic, especially when you bring in the possibility of interpretations. Humanity was never around 2000 years ago, and if miracles occurred, we cannot be sure. We can say that, hey, Jesus couldn't have walked on water, because that's impossible by the laws of physics, same with Moses parting the Red Sea. But, we can't really prove that they did not happen. We can only assume. It the same that the existence of God cannot be proven or refuted by reason or science.
However, for the workings of modern life, science is usually the dominant force. Simply because it is better in predicting so many things and is thus, more practical. You know can be pretty sure that a light will turn on when you flip the switch, but you can never be too sure if God will answer your prayer to light your candle.
Despite this, the fact remains that science still cannot explain everything. (If it could, that would put us in the position of gods ourselves. ) That means science is not complete, and that allows leeway in have other beliefs to fill in the gaps. That's were religion can pop in. And it can be handy, because having strange beliefs can sometimes keep your mind open to make new discoveries. Newtonian physicists certainly thought Relativity was weird. Einstein himself didn't like quantum physics. And all of those physicists would have thought that the crazy possibilities under the new Superstring theory would be outrageous. The idea that Einstein, considered one of the most brilliant scientists of the 20th century also deeply believed in God must show something.
One can use probability to decide what to believe. Which works more consistently in our world. Science or religion. Science will win in many cases. But in the areas were science in still weak, religion can still have some answers. Even in places were science in strong, there is no refuting certain religious undertones for its workings. For example, a pure science person can can say, "The world works according to the laws of physics. And then a religious person can counter "Well, yes, but it was God who invented the laws of physics."
In Nexus theory, the best way to judge beliefs systems is to observe the world first, and then apply your observations to the systems and decide if it works. If it doesn't work, then Nexus fully supports making up your own system of thinking. In addition, a person should always keep their beliefs systems open for new experiences and ideas, because no one knows everything, yet.