How geography and culture effected the development of relegions
Answers
Answer:
Whether it is religion or other beliefs, we are influenced by the cultures and regions we are from. Perhaps unknowingly, geographic factors can shape our beliefs not only in our early life and development years, but they can also affect us as we move and change where we reside throughout our lives.
However, we are not hapless victims of our geography and other factors have been shown to shape beliefs about a variety of topics.
Geography does not only affect where particular religions or belief systems, such as the world’s major faiths, are located but it can affect how specific beliefs are practiced and behaviors that it encourages.
Explanation:
For example, a study in Nigeria showed that clergymen wanting to build or have access to a library were influenced not only by their wider religion but others around the clergymen, including other clergy, would influence attitudes on what is appropriate for a library or information access for clergymen.
In other words, specific beliefs can be influenced by local, geographically-bound networks and those networks can create a wider cultural understanding where people live in a relatively closed community practicing given beliefs that are localized to that community or area.
While beliefs in general and religion even specifically have been seen to be affected by geography, other geographers are also critical of using geography as a primary driver of beliefs.
Agency, that is actions and choices originating from individual initiative, they argue, could be a powerful influencer in beliefs, including choices individuals make and different form of social and geographical networks individuals may become associated with.
Some cultural geographers argue that beliefs are more complex and factors that include communities and our geography as well as personal agency shape the types of beliefs that ultimately emerge.
Other studies have showed that communities, including online rather than physical, geographically local communities, that actively share knowledge are more likely to influence beliefs, such as about how to design software among programmers, where behaviors mimic what may have previously been more geographic-related interactions. In other words, geographic factors could be replaced and networks or communities that form virtually could also be a major factor that shape certain belief systems.