Category Archives: transnational cultures

The Christian Culture of Altruistic Love

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Being originated from the ancient Greek philosophy, the word “agape” defining this kind of selfless and all-giving love, elevated in Christian teachings as the universal love of mankind, the love for all and for everyone. The core feature of agape love is altruism, along with its unconditional kindness, compassion, and empathetic feelings for others.

Ancient Greek Origins of Agape Love

The word “agape” and the term “agape love” originated from the philosophy of the Ancient Greeks. Since those times, it has conveyed the meaning of universal love for all and for everyone. It is love of mankind. However, it also carries the meaning of unconditional and empathetic love, connotated with kindness, compassion, and concern for others. In this regard, agape love is selfless love. It serves the interests and wellbeing of others without expecting anything in return. Because of this, the concept of agape love is often associated with the concept of altruistic love.

Agape love was one of many kinds of love in ancient Greece, along with philia, storge, eros, and pragma.

Agape love was elevated in the Christian Scriptures as the transcendent love, the highest form of love. It was contrasted with the erotic love of eros and the brotherly love of philia.

What Is Agape and Altruistic Love in Christianity?

Agapē in the New Testament was defined as the fatherly love of God for humans and the human reciprocal love for God. The culture of Christianity further elevated the ideals of selflessness and unconditional love, known to the ancient Greeks as agape (Post, 1990, 2002).

In Christian culture, the altruism of agape love means universal love. Agape is the highest type of Christian love; it is the “gift of love” (Lewis, 1960; Post, 2003; Templeton, 1999).

The unconditional, compassionate, and caring love that God has for all people is referred to as agape love. It is regarded as the most important theological virtue. The agape, as noted above, represents both the love that God has for humanity and the love that humanity has for God in return. These kinds of love also serve as models for the love that people should have for one another—through their relationship with God.

The teachings of Jesus Christ revolve around selfless and unconditional love as the core religious value. The love that Jesus has for his followers transcends all boundaries. And the Gospel of Luke emphasizes this (Meisinger, 2000). In the parable of the Good Samaritan, we see a perfect illustration of altruistic love that puts others before oneself (Luke 10:25–37). The moral of this teaching is that benevolence and kindness should be extended to all people.

The Christian Perspective on Agape Love

Here is a summary of Jesus’s commandments:

“Love [agapao] the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: ‘Love [agapao] your neighbor as yourself.’ All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.” (Matthew 22:36-39, NRSV).

According to Christian teaching, love entails taking responsibility for the wellbeing of other people. In other words, this idea emphasizes the significance of loving the people around oneself, including members of one’s immediate family as well as strangers. The Christian principle of universal love implies the meaning of altruistic love for everyone. Such agape love does not require anything in return. It is the highest form of love.

The golden rule of love entails the following:

“In everything do to others as you would have them do to you; for this is the law and the prophets” (Matt 7:12 NRSV).

Throughout the centuries, Christian religion and theology have had a significant impact on many different cultures, not only in Europe and North America but also in other parts of the world (Karandashev, 2022a).

Love in the Aryan Caste Culture

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In scholarly literature, the term “Aryan culture” has frequently referred to the “Indo-European” cultures of the past associated with ancient Indo-Iranian languages. These prehistoric cultures existed many centuries ago. The Indo-Aryan migration occurred approximately between 2000 and 1500 BCE. The early Aryans were nomad warriors who colonized northern India around 1500 BCE. These ancient people with fair skin settled in Iran and northern India in those times. Initially, the Aryans were hunter-gatherers. As they migrated to India, they learned agriculture and constructed settlements and cities, thereby initiating the Aryan civilization. Literature, religion, and social structure have had a significant impact on Indian culture.

Through the centuries, the Aryan cultures have experienced a very long history of cultural evolution. This evolution has been reflected in social and personal relationships between people. At various epochs of Aryan culture in India, gender relations and the position of women differed greatly, and the attitudes towards love varied substantially.

The Transition of Aryan Culture to Brahminism

The Aryan culture during the period of Indo-Aryan migration in the 2000s–1500s BCE was very conducive to free interpersonal relationships and love in the modern sense. Prior to the introduction of Brahminism, women were held in high regard, granted various privileges, and permitted to engage in free social relations with men. For many Aryans, monogamy was the accepted form of marriage.

However, during the Late Vedic Period (c. 1100-500 BCE), Brahmanism developed as a belief system, asserting that Brahman is the supreme being. Since then, Brahmanism has continued to have a significant impact on Hinduism. The various tenets of Brahmanism influenced the development of Hinduism in India. Brahmanism encouraged inequality and supported the brutalization of the lower classes. They emphasized the elite position of Brahmins. They introduced and maintained the caste system in Indian society.

The Aryan Caste Culture

In Ancient India, the caste system was a very important aspect of the Aryan culture of that period. According to Brahmanism, it was believed that people were born into their caste for the rest of their lives. Their caste determined the work they did, the man or woman they could marry, and the people they could eat with.

 The importance of cleanliness and purity was also emphasized. Those deemed the most impure due to their work as butchers, gravediggers, and trash collectors lived outside the caste structure. They were dubbed “untouchables” because even their presence jeopardized the ritual purity of others. They had no rights and were unable to advance or marry outside of their caste.

According to Schweiger Lerchenfeld (1846–1910), the Austrian scholar familiar with world history, instead of the monogamy of previous centuries, the Brahmins introduced polygamy. They set an example when a person sometimes married an entire family, “old and young, daughters, aunts, sisters, and cousins.” One Brahmin was known to have had 120 wives. In such cultural conditions, a man or a woman subordinated family feelings to caste considerations.

The Strange Cultural Beliefs of Brahmanism on Conjugal Love

The Brahmins also introduced the custom of “Suttee”, the burning alive of widows on the funeral pyre of the deceased husband. It was performed through a sophisticated interpretation of ancient laws. This practice was sometimes viewed as the apogee of conjugal love. However, actually it was merely what modern psychology calls an “epidemic delusion.” This cultural belief represented the poor women who were willing to sacrifice themselves and die in this manner particularly meritorious and voluptuous. On the other hand, those who refused to be immolated were treated as social outcasts. They were not permitted to marry again or adorn themselves in any way.

The Poor Status of Women in the Laws of Manu

The way the laws of Manu, or the Manusmṛiti, also known as the Mānava-Dharmaśāstra describe the roles of women in society demonstrates how badly they were thought of in Indian society of that cultural period. Here are some of the sayings that this book presents:

“A woman is the cause of dishonor, the cause of hatred, and the cause of a boring life. Because of this, women should be avoided. “

“A girl, a young woman, or a wife must never do anything on her own, not even in her own home.”

“A woman should serve her husband her whole life and stay true to him even after she dies. Even if he lies to her, loves someone else, or has no good qualities, a good wife should still respect him as if he were a god, and she shouldn’t do anything to make him unhappy, either in life or after she dies. “

According to the text, the women’s lives got so bad that Indian mothers “often drowned their female children in the sacred streams of India” to protect them from what life had in store for them.

(cited by H. Finck, 1887/2019, p. 77).

As Charles LeTourneau, the 19th century sociologist and ethnographer of Indian culture, commented,

“Hindu laws and manners have been based on the sacred precepts right up to the present day.”

It wasn’t proper for a woman to be able to read or dance. The Bayadere, an Indian courtesan, was to fulfill these futile social duties.

(cited by H. Finck, 1887/2019, p. 77).

Surprising Findings on How Religions Affect the Expression of Emotions

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Religious teachings give their followers lessons about the world, life, the mind, emotions, and behaviors. Among other important things in human life, religions teach believers the proper ways to experience and express emotions (for a review, see Karandashev, 2021a). In another article, I talked about emotional experiences. Here I’ll talk about expressions of emotions in accordance with religious cultural lessons.

As I commented elsewhere, many religious cultures teach people moderation in emotional experiences and expressions. The question remains how believers do this. Do they suppress their emotions?

Religious Cultures of Emotional Moderation

Many religious cultures believe that very strong positive and negative emotions are distracting to people and their behaviors. They especially discourage the expression of socially disruptive emotions. This is why many religions teach emotional moderation.

Religions offer spiritual justifications and techniques for coping with the disruptive nature of emotions such as guilt, despair, and anger. For example, Christian and Jewish teachings have been around for a long time telling people how to control bad feelings like anger, pride, and envy (Schimmel, 1997).

Suppression of Emotions and Sublimation in Religion

According to classical Freudian psychoanalysis, religions teach them to suppress their emotions. Religious sublimation is a defense mechanism when a person re-channels his or her unacceptable emotional urges, transforming them into productive aspirations and divine religious beliefs. Researchers looked at how people’s suppression of anger may affect the sublimation of their emotions in experimental situations (Kim, Zeppenfeld, & Cohen, 2013; Tsai & Clobert, 2019). I just want to remind readers that sublimation is a psychological defense mechanism when a person unconsciously suppresses their socially unacceptable desires, transforming their energy into socially acceptable actions or creative behaviors.

Studies of Sublimation among Christian People

For example, Kim and co-authors conducted an original experimental study, inducing in participants certain kinds of suppressed emotional experiences and measuring their creativity in the following tasks they needed to perform.

To induce the emotional experiences, they asked Protestants, Catholics, and Jewish people to relive their past emotional experiences by thinking about certain emotional events in their lives. Specifically, researchers asked participants of these three kinds of religious beliefs to experience (1) an anger-provoking incident by suppressing their thinking about it; (2) an anger-provoking incident by suppressing thinking about a neutral topic; or (3) recall a neutral event and suppress thinking about a neutral topic (Kim, Zeppenfeld, & Cohen, 2013).

Then, researchers gave those Jewish, Catholic, and Protestant participants creative assignments, such as making a sculpture, creating captions for cartoons, or making a collage. They were interested in knowing how different types of emotional suppression affect the participants’ sublimation expressed in their creativity. Expert judges of the creative assignments assessed the productivity of completed products such as sculptures, collages, or captions for cartoons.

The results of this experimental study demonstrated that emotional suppression affected the creativity of participants in certain conditions, thus demonstrating a sublimation effect. However, the specific effects and creativity of the products that people completed under suppressed emotions varied across religious denominations. The suppression of anger had little effect on creativity among Jewish and Catholic participants. Yet, the suppression of an anger-provoking emotional experience among Protestants motivated more creative and angry products of art. Thus, the effects of sublimation by emotional suppression were partially established but to a different extent by religious denomination.

The Role of Religious Values in the Suppression of Emotions among Religious People

It is widely known that Christian and Islamic beliefs affect experiences and expressions of emotions differently. Muslims tend to be more reserved and suppressed in their emotions compared to Christians. For instance, it was a cultural premise that “countries with more Protestants show lower levels of positive emotions” (van Hemert et al., 2007, p.918). Another cultural assumption was that “countries with a higher percentage of Muslims show lower levels of general emotional expression” (van Hemert et al., 2007, p.918).

However, empirical studies found no support for these cultural beliefs associated with different religious groups. They showed different cultural tendencies (e.g., van Hemert et al., 2007; Veenhoven, 1994). Contrary to theoretical expectations, a meta-analysis of many cross-cultural studies discovered that people in countries with a higher proportion of Protestants report more positive emotions (van Hemert et al., 2007, p.918). Also, contrary to the researchers’ expectations, meta-analysis found that people in countries with a higher or lower percentage of Muslims do not significantly differ in emotional expressivity (van Hemert et al., 2007, p.918).

Higher orthodoxy in religion also makes many people reserved and suppressed in their expressions of emotions. Several studies have shown the importance of religious values in emotional experience and expression (Karandashev, 2021a). However, the meta-analysis of many cross-cultural studies did not support the hypothetical expectation that “countries with higher levels of religiosity may be more restrictive in their expression of emotions” (van Hemert et al., 2007, p.918). Contrary to some previous opinions, the findings of meta-analysis demonstrated that “expression of emotions and particularly positive emotions, was higher in more religious countries” (van Hemert et al., 2007, p.933). Based on these controversial results, more studies are needed to investigate the effect of religions on emotional expressivity of people.

The Measurement Pitfalls of Research Designs in Cultural Studies of Religions

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Cross-cultural comparability and generalizability are the problems that come up in religious studies and need to be solved for scientific progress (Karandashev, 2021a; Karandashev et al., 2022; Fischer, 2022). When studying behavioral and social phenomena in various populations and religious contexts, culture matters. In this regard, the lead article by Ronald Fischer (2022) in the recent issue of the journal Religion, Brain & Behavior is particularly useful. The author of that article shares personal reflections on the study that their team reported on during their exploratory journey. Here is a summary of one of the two points covered in his commentary “Cultural lessons missed and learned about religion and culture.” It is about “how important cultural context is for thinking about, and researching, religion, morality, and evolution.”

The Typical Mistakes and Their Effective Solutions to Studying Religions from a Cross-Cultural Perspective

The study’s goal was to investigate the universality and evolutionary perspective of religious concepts. Researchers considered cultural dynamics throughout the process, including the specification of key variables, variable operationalization, measurement context, and result interpretation. Researchers summarized the new efficient translation methods (Harkness et al., 2003). They proposed the updated checklists for use by cultural researchers (Hambleton & Zenisky, 2010; Harkness et al., 2003, 2010; Hernández et al., 2020).

In this lead article, Ronald Fischer (2022) addressed two groups of methodological issues:

The first one is the problems of cross-cultural universality of the concepts under study, their conceptual equivalency, the selection of major variables, and their conceptual descriptions and operationalization. These questions are summarized in another article.

The second one is the problems such as cultural contexts of measurement, technical procedures of measurement, cultural biases in measurements, measurement invariance across cultural samples, and culturally sensitive interpretation of results. These questions are summarized in this article.

Confounding Cultural Variables in the Studies of Religions

In complex cross-cultural research, the design itself may create confounding factors. Who is a local co-religionist as opposed to a remote one in a religious context? Religions frequently make fine distinctions in group membership. In the cultural context of Candomblé religion, this includes questions about

  • who went through the initial initiation (“bori”) with you,
  • who is a member of the same “terreiro,” house of worship, typically organized around extended family ties),
  • who has the same sitting “orixá.”

Without knowledge of these regionally relevant group distinctions, the research design of a cultural study lacks these essential local details.

In addition, classic cross-cultural research has demonstrated that both familiarity and theoretically irrelevant features can influence

  • behavioral and cognitive responses (Serpell, 1979),
  • social expectation or experimenter effects that can be difficult to identify or avoid (Smith et al., 2013).

The Cultural Biases in Religious Studies

Typically referred to as technique biases, these difficulties involve

  • how tests are conducted,
  • by whom, and in what (implicit or explicit) context.

Humans are sociable experts. They try to predict what others want from them. These attempts may lead to an array of behavioral adaptations with the intentions

  • to make favorable impressions,
  • form alliances, or
  • gain tiny advantages over local competitors or
  • trade favors with outside visitors.

Depending on how the participants interpret the testing circumstances, these motivations can reverse the expected behavioral responses.

This is another challenge for cultural research. Individuals in small-scale societies converse and make assumptions as to why someone may or may not have received the money. The questions arise

“Does the payout matrix align with the implicit group lineages that participants construct while participating in the experiment?

Does the knowledge of pay-outs affect the next participant’s strategy of playing? ” (Fischer, 2022, p. 214)

In environments with greater interdependence, individuals are likely to respond depending on who has already been tested or how many individuals remain to be evaluated (Yamagishi et al., 2008). These different techniques’ biases provide considerable obstacles for evaluating the outcomes of money distribution and frequently necessitate ingenious and observant researchers conversant with local cultures and standards.

The Pitfalls of Priming Research Designs in Cultural and Religious Studies The research with priming tasks poses other questions. The procedure of priming requires locally salient categories regardless of the question of replicability concerns with priming. This brings scientists back to the principles of functional and structural equivalence, which we talked about above.

“What is a moralistic god vs. a local god?”

(Fischer, 2022, p. 214).

The Christian “God,” which is not part of the Candomblé religion, and Ogum, a particular orixá linked with ironwork and war, are very different planes of existence. Therefore, a contrast between those two may not convey what the researchers intended.

For Candomblé believers, the Christian “God” is familiar. It is simple to identify and acknowledge this deity’s significance in the larger community. However, it is not necessarily an entity with personal meaning for a Candomblé devotee. In the same vein, depending on the context, Ogum may be appropriate for particular goals or for particular individuals.

What is an adequate and comparable indication of the idea of interest within the local cultural context? Questions like this are very important in the context of structural equivalence, specifically the issue of conceptual domain representation.

The Importance of Local Context in Cultural Research In conclusion, Ronald Fischer (2022) encourages cultural researchers to pay more attention to the local cultural context of their studies. He suggests learning the lessons from researchers of previous generations who made progress through these challenging paths.

Unexpected Conceptual Challenges in Cultural Studies of Religions

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Cultural studies of religions encounter the problems of cross-cultural comparability and generalizability, which need to be resolved for further scientific progress in this field (Karandashev, 2021a; Karandashev et al., 2022; Fischer, 2022). Culture matters when we study behavioral and social phenomena in different populations and religious contexts. The lead article by Ronald Fischer (2022) in the recent issue of the journal Religion, Brain & Behavior is very valuable in this respect. In that article, the author presents personal reflections of the study that their team reported on their exploratory journey. Here I summarize one of the two points on which his commentary “Cultural lessons missed and learnt about religion and culture” focuses. It is about “how important cultural context is for thinking about religion, morality, and evolution and researching them.”

The Best Way to Explore Religions in a Cross-Cultural Perspective

The research team intended to explore the universality and evolutionary salient dynamics. Therefore, they considered cultural dynamics all the way, including the specification of key variables, operationalization of variables, the measurement context, and the interpretation of the results. Researchers developed effective translation options (Harkness et al., 2003). They also made checklists for researchers to use (Hambleton & Zenisky, 2010; Harkness et al., 2003, 2010; Hernández et al., 2020).

There are two groups of methodological issues which Ronald Fischer (2022) addresses in his lead article:

The first set of questions concerns the issues of conceptual equivalency and cross-cultural universality of the concepts under study, the selection of key variables, their conceptual definitions, and the operationalization of those variables. These questions are summarized in this article.

The second set of questions concerns the issues of technical procedures of measurement, cultural contexts of measurement, measurement invariance across cultural samples, cultural biases in measurements, and culturally sensitive interpretation of results. These questions are summarized in another article.

Conceptual Problems in Cross-Cultural Studies of Religions and Their Solutions

The author (Fischer, 2022) illustrates some conceptual questions with concrete examples. They are mainly taken from Afro-Brazilian Candomblé, one of the field sites. The religious landscape project began with 20 community members being interviewed and asked to name five gods or spirits. The prominence of these gods or spirits in people’s lives was ranked. In an environment with a single deity or a list of widely known gods or spirits, it may be easy to answer these questions and discuss them with strangers. It was a different social situation in the case of that study due to cultural circumstances that:

  • these are the religious systems in which gods or spirits are individualized: each person has a guardian spirit,
  • religious information may not be given to non-initiates,
  • spirits may not be identified, or
  • the prominence of a god or spirit depends on the topic or occasion.

The Cultural Case of Candomblé Religion in Brazil

The religion of Candomblé is a fascinating case study because a person is a “filho/a de santo,” that is, the “son” or “daughter” of a particular “orixá” (ancestor figure). Hence, a person has a highly intimate bond with a potent ancestor spirit. Individuals who have not reached the same level of initiation should not be given specific information about what these orixás may or may not do. It’s important to know that there are different kinds of Candomblé, each with its own rules and taboos.

Given individualized relationships on the one hand and what a respondent may or may not be able or permitted to say with non-religious outsiders, researchers encounter a challenge. They may or may not obtain a consensus by interviewing 20 individuals. These people may hesitate, considering how acceptable it is to disclose one’s personal gods to an outsider. The question of insider vs. outsider knowledge is central to traditional indigenous research procedures such as pagtatanong-tanong in the Philippines (Pe-Pua, 1989) and in other cultural cases.

Researchers should take this personalized status as crucial in light of one of the key distinctions: “What is an omniscient or punitive god?” (Fischer, 2022, p. 214). Depending on which orixá and the relationship of the believer to that orixá, an orixá may be both or either. This distinction may not make sense to participants when viewed:

  • through a functional lens: “Does the concept or idea make “sense” within the local cultural context?”
  • through a structural equivalence lens: “What are appropriate empirical instantiations of the concept or idea?” (Fischer & Poortinga, 2018; Fontaine, 2005; van de Vijver & Leung, 1997).

The question remains whether these issues communicate this confusion to an outsider. Maybe yes, but maybe not.

Three Surprisingly Unusual Matriarchal Cultures in Asia

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Many of us are familiar with traditional patriarchal societies that are widespread across the world. In patriarchy, the father is both the home and family head in many respects.

Can a matriarchal culture of gender relations be possible and viable? In a matriarchal system, the mother is the head of the home and family. Some matriarchal communities are successful worldwide.

Is Patriarchy the Only Possible Type of Culture?

Many of us know about patriarchal societies, which have been prevalent throughout history in many traditional societies of the past. In a patriarchal system, the father is the head of the household and family. In a patriarchy, the father holds the position of authority within the family and is in power. Over the course of history, cultures around the world began to adopt a more patriarchal framework, which is prevalent in most traditional societies and communities. That social system entails many consequences for gender inequality and corresponding stereotypical gender roles. Cultural norms and customs favor men, who have higher status in gender relationships. Women in such patriarchal societies presumably have lower status and lower rights in family relationships. Women are respected and admired mostly for being able to bear and raise children.

What Is a Matriarchal Culture?

A matriarchal system, on the other hand, is a social system in which the mother is the head of the household. Some of these societies with matriarchal cultures of social relationships have been successful across the world. These matriarchal communities have managed to survive to the present day. In these societies, women are the most important guiding force in politics and the economy, as well as in all other areas.

Let us look at some of them, which the editorial fellow at Town & Country, Sarah Madaus, briefly described. Let us learn about how these cultural communities have deviated from the western-patriarchal cultures. Within these communities, located in different parts of the world, women are in charge of everything, including the political system, the economy, and the larger social structure. This article focuses on three cultural groups in Asia.

The Minangkabau people of Indonesia

The Minangkabau people, commonly referred to as Minang, are an ethnic group that lives in the Minangkabau Highlands of West Sumatra, Indonesia. The Minangs are the largest matrilineal culture in the world. It has a complex social system built on matrilineal clans and property passed down through female lineage, including land and homes.

The cultural beliefs of Minangs are that the mother is the most important person in society. Women in their society rule the domestic sphere. In Minangkabau society, marriage is permitted, but partners must have separate sleeping quarters.

The Khasi people of India

The Khasi people are an ethnic group native to Meghalaya in north-eastern India. Even though most Khasis live in Meghalaya, a large population of Khasis also reside in the neighboring state of Assam and certain regions of Bangladesh.

In the hilly Indian state of Meghalaya, property names and wealth are passed down from mother to daughter instead of from father to son. This is because in Meghalaya, the Khasi people have a matrilineal system of inheritance in their communities.

In this particular system, lineage and descent are determined by the clan that one’s mother belongs to. When women marry within the Khasi tribe, their surname is passed down rather than their husbands’.

The Khasi family is referred to as a “ling.” A ling commonly includes a mother, her husband, her unmarried sons, her married daughters, their spouses, and their offspring. In matrilineal families, such as those of the Khasis, the husbands visit their wives. Only mothers and mothers-in-law are permitted to care for children. Men are usually not permitted to attend family gatherings.

The Mosuo people of China

The Mosuo people are a small ethnic group that lives in the provinces of Sichuan and Yunnan in China. They are also known as the Naxi amongst themselves. Geographically, they reside close to the border with Tibet. They adhere to the teachings of Tibetan Buddhism.

The Mosuo people have a system of matriarchy in their society. The family lineage is determined by the women of the family. Their society is matrilineal, which means that ownership of property is passed down the same line of female ancestors. The mother has the primary role in raising the children in the family.

The Mosuo live in a surprisingly modern way. In many regards, women are equal to men. In other gender relationships, women are superior to men. Both women and men can have as many or as few sexual partners as they want without judgement. Extended families raise children and care for the elderly. Mosuo men build houses. They are responsible for livestock and fishing. They also assist in the upbringing of their sisters’ and female cousins’ children.

Several Fascinating Facts about Emotional Experiences in Religious Cultures

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Religious cultures teach their followers about various aspects of the world and life. Religious teachings also educate people about the human mind, emotions, and behavior, among other important things in their lives.

So, believers’ emotional experiences, expressions, and even their overall emotional well-being have always been heavily influenced by the religious cultures and communities in which they were raised and lived (e.g., Saroglou, 2010; 2011; Tsai et al., 2013; for a review, see Karandashev, 2021a).

Desirable and Undesirable Emotions in Religious Cultures

Cross-cultural researchers explored the desirability of happiness, pride, love, gratitude, and jealousy; and sadness, shame, guilt, and anger. Some emotions are of special interest to us in this context. Researchers discovered that Christians more often than Buddhists and Muslims prefer to experience love ideally. At the same time, Christians tend to experience love in real life more frequently than people of the other two religious groups.

On the other hand, Muslims tend to consider sadness and shame more normative in daily life compared to Jews, Christians, Buddhists, and Hindus. Muslims also tend to experience these two emotions more frequently in their real lives than Jews, Christians, Buddhists, and Hindus.

Another interesting finding is that Buddhists experience fewer dips or peaks in any emotion in comparison with the emotional experiences of Jews, Christians, Muslims, and Hindus. Buddhism teaches people that life is full of suffering, sorrow, and grief. And to achieve the state of “enlightenment” is the best way to end this suffering in our daily lives (Kim-Prieto & Diener, 2009; Smith, 1991).

What Religion Tells Us About Gratitude in Life

According to many religious cultural norms and practices, experiences and expressions of gratitude are possibly the most valuable elements of a person’s daily emotional life.

A cross-cultural study found that religious people tend to have a grateful attitude in their lives. This is how they perceive themselves and how their peers perceive them. Religiously spiritual people feel more thankful in their daily dispositions and moods than others.

For instance, Christians believe that expressions of thankful joy, gratitude, and love toward God are indications of people’s sincere emotional experiences. (McCullough, Emmons, & Tsang, 2002; McCullough et al., 2002). From a small study of Catholic priests and nuns, it was found that gratitude and love are the two feelings that people have toward God the most (Samuels & Lester, 1985).

The religious cultures of Judaism, Hinduism, Buddhism, and Islam also greatly praise the values of emotional gratitude. For them, it is among the important and desired emotional attitudes for people to live a good life (Emmons & Crumpler, 2000; Kim-Prieto & Diener, 2009).

What Religion Tells Us About Forgiveness in Life

Religious culture also teaches people about other desirable prosocial emotions. For example, people who are religious place a higher value on being forgiving than people who are not religious (Rokeach, 1973). It is important for us to keep in mind that the concept of forgiveness might have different connotations depending on the religious culture (Cohen et al., 2006).

What Religion Tells Us about Values of Negative and Positive Emotions in Life

Cultural attitudes toward experience and expression of guilt and anxiety vary within Christianity. It would appear that those who adhere to Catholicism are more motivated by emotions of guilt and anxiety than those who follow Protestantism (Hutchin­son, Patock-Peckham, Cheong, & Nagoshi, 1998).

When compared to Catholics in Europe, Protestants in the United States of America have more emotionally positive personality traits, such as high extraversion and low neuroticism. They feel less discomfort encountering new challenges, and they are more open to new experiences in their lives. This is in contrast to Catholics in Europe (Saroglou, 2010).

Here are the three summaries of other interesting findings: Dispositional attributions are more common among Protestants than Catholics in situations they encounter and emotions they experience. They are more likely to attribute their experiences to their own internal and personal qualities than to external circumstances (Li et al., 2012). This can explain why, in the case of marital divorce, Protestants experience fewer and less extensive negative emotional effects than Catholics (Clark & Lelkes, 2005).

Protestants in Germany experience deeper and more frequent trust in other people in various circumstances of life than Catholics. And both Protestants and Catholics have more trust in others than non-religious people (Traunmiiller, 2011). Christians and Buddhists are similar in some respects, while they are different in others. People who identify themselves with Christian or Buddhist religious culture value the positive emotions of low arousal and intensity. In addition, there are some religious and cultural differences. Christians are more inclined than Buddhists to support high-arousal positive states. Christians are also less likely than Buddhists to support low arousal positive states (Tsai, Miao, Seppala, 2007).

What Do Religious Cultures Teach Us About Emotions?

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Religious and cultural traditions have a big impact on how people experience and express emotions in their lives. Religions teach them what feelings are moral, good, and desirable and what actions are right, ethical, and appropriate in specific situations and contexts. Religions also teach them what feelings and actions are bad, undesirable, immoral, sinful, and should be avoided (Karandashev, 2021).

Religions not only tell us which emotions are appropriate, but also which are preferable. Religions advise people how intense feelings should be and teach how a person can cultivate intense positive emotions while regulating negative emotions.

Researchers elucidated the diversity in religious teachings about emotions. They show how cultural aspects of different religions impact people’s emotional lives (e.g., Koopmann-Holm, 2013; Silberman, 2003).

Love, in a variety of its meanings and types, is a central tenet of many religious beliefs. Therefore, religions teach people how to experience and express love, admiration, and gratitude (Karandashev, 2021a).

Conservative Religious Values of Positive and Negative Emotions

In general, people prefer to experience positive emotions. On the other hand, they wish to avoid negative emotions. Between these two opposite desires, they tend to prefer to avoid negative feelings more than to experience positive feelings. Religions and cultures have different ideas about what is normative and good about pursuing or avoiding certain desires and feelings. Religions usually follow their cultural traditions of emotional life over the centuries. Many are conservative and advocate moderation in the pursuit of pleasure, novelty, and excitement. For instance, Protestants, Catholics, Jews, Greek Orthodox, and Muslims discourage their religious followers from experiencing the emotions and motivations associated with pursuing change, novelty, and excessive pleasure in life. The religious teachings of Dutch Roman Catholics, Dutch Protestants, and Israeli Jews advise more traditional, reserved motivation and discourage hedonistic motivation.

Cultural Variations in Religious Teachings about Emotions  

There is still some difference between religious cultures. For example, lexical content analyses of Christian and Buddhist classical texts showed that Christian teachings are more likely than Buddhist teachings to encourage positive states of high arousal.

Some cultural variability is still evident. In North America, where most people are Christian, and East Asia, where most people are Buddhist, the importance of happy feelings with high and low levels of arousal is different.

According to lexical content analyses, Christian texts more frequently than Buddhist classical texts praise high arousal positive states. The ancient basic texts of the two religions show that in the Gospels in Christianity and the Lotus Sutra in Buddhism, “high-arousal positive emotions, such as excitement, are valued more, whereas low-arousal positive emotions, such as calm, are valued less in Christianity than in Buddhism.” (Tsai et al., 2006).

These differences are consistent with the findings of empirical studies about ideal affective states in both Christianity and Buddhism. When researchers compared the ideal affect of Christian and Buddhist practitioners, they discovered that Christian and Buddhist texts and practices have a significant influence on their ideal affect. The findings of the studies showed that Christian practitioners place a higher value on high-arousal positive affective states and a lower value on low-arousal positive affective states in comparison with Buddhist practitioners (Tsai, Miao, & Seppala, 2007).

Cross-National Variation in Religious Emotional Experiences

Emotional cultural norms vary across national cultures, even within the same religion. For instance, Muslim people in the countries of Egypt and Bali have different dispositions toward experience and the expression of emotions. Egyptians regard emotional expressions as a cultural norm that is essential for good health. The Balinese believe that showing emotions is a threat to others and to themselves because it makes it hard to make rational decisions. Emotional reactions to death also differ between these two national cultures. People in Bali react calmly to the death of a child, whereas people in Egypt react with intense emotional reactions (Wikan, 1988).

Religions in Cultural Perspectives

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How Are Religious Cultures Different from National Cultures?

Religious cultures are similar to national cultures yet differ in several ways. Religion, like national and ethnic cultures, can be thought of as a type of culture and a cultural system (Cohen, 2009; Saroglou & Cohen, 2013).

Religious parameters of culture can strongly correlate with other cultural dimensions of the country. Such a correlation between the religious elements of culture and other cultural characteristics makes it difficult to disentangle the unique function of religion from that of other aspects of cultural life. Nevertheless, I argued in another article that the main reasons why religions should be considered as cultures with their own sets of cultural meanings, values, norms, and practices.

Cultural experts believe that religion has a considerable impact on the cultural characteristics of societies, but cross-cultural researchers overlook this factor (e.g., Cohen, 2009; McCutcheon, 1995, see review Karandashev, 2021a).

Four major cultural dimensions of religions

Researchers identified four major dimensions of religious cultures, which are present in many religions and denominations with some cultural variation (see Saroglou & Cohen, 2013 for a detailed review). These are

  1. Fundamentalist (orthodox) expression vs. questing expressions of religious beliefs and practices.
  2. Intrinsic vs. extrinsic reli­gious orientations.
  3. Traditional reli­giousness vs. modern spirituality.
  4. Mystical dimension of religion, focusing on the spirituality of the mystics

For example, the distinctions between fundamentalist and questing expressions of religious beliefs and practices are identified among Christians, Jews, Muslims, and Hindus. The differences between intrinsic and extrinsic religious orientations are found among Orthodox, Protestants, Catholics, Jews, and Muslims. Variations in the dimension of organized traditional reli­giousness vs. modern individual spirituality are discovered in many religious cultural contexts. The mystical dimension of religion, centered on the spirituality of the mystics, appeared to be common to many religions. In particular, it was found that mystic experiences are similar among Iranian Muslims and American Christians. They are also similar in religiousness among Indian Hindus, Tibetan Buddhists, and Israeli Jews (see for a detailed review, Saroglou & Cohen, 2013).

How Do Religious Cultures Influence National Cultures?

National cultures are the sets of cultural meanings, values, norms, and practices that have evolved due to the impact of various cultural factors, such as ecological, ethnic, social, political, and religious ones. All those variables, in a historical perspective, merged to form specific national cultures. On a daily basis, religions interact with other cultural factors, affecting people’s emotional and cultural lives.

Religious cultures have profound ties with national and ethnic cultures. Religions and religious cultural variables are among the strong factors that determine the national cultures of countries. So, countries with similar Christian, Muslim, or Buddhist religious cultures can have a lot in common with each other culturally.

Religions have historically shaped the cultural patterns of nations. However, the opposite effects have also occurred when a country’s culture influenced religious development in some ways (Norris & Inglehart, 2004). Religious culture comes into the national culture being modified and transformed.

For example, according to anthropological studies, Islam in different countries advocates different cultural values. The Muslim populations of Egypt and Bali maintain different cultural traditions, despite sharing the same faith and adhering to the same Islamic principles (Wikan, 1988).

The Ways How Religious Cultures Shaped Eastern and Western Civilizations Let’s look at how cultural differences between the West and the East have evolved and persisted for hundreds of years, in part because of their shared religious history.

The difference between individualistic Western societies and collectivist Eastern societies is the most well-known cultural difference between the West and the East.

Eastern societies tend to be largely collectivistic cultures, while Western societies are mostly individualistic.

The Buddhist religion is quite collectivistic in many respects. This can explain why Japanese culture tends to be a collectivistic culture. And generally, collectivistic cultural values and beliefs are commonly associated with Eastern religions. The cultural worldviews, social perspectives, and schools of thought of Eastern societies are substantially determined by their religions. Confucianist societies tend to be collectivistic, while Islamic societies are frequently hierarchical. On the other hand, Christianity, and Protestantism in particular, is strongly related to individualistic values and beliefs. This can explain why many Western European and European American societies are individualistic cultures. For instance, Protestant societies are often individualistic and egalitarian. Many aspects of Western national cultures and their worldview biases are substantially shaped by Christianity. Their scholarly, social, cultural, and political approaches to the modern world are Western and Christian-centric (Basabe & Ros, 2005).

The Religious Cultural Values of Interdependence and Independence There are several ways in which religious values can predispose people to think and feel in certain ways. For instance, in general, religious people are more interdependent than those who are not religious (Cohen & Rozin, 2001; Cukur, de Guzman & Carlo, 2004, Triandis, 1995). Religions differ in their values of interdependence. Those who are monotheistic are more self-sufficient, while non-theistic are more interdependent (Basabe & Ros, 2005).

Here Are the Main Reasons Why Religions Are Cultures

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What is religion and why can religion be considered as a culture? Actually, religion is a set of cultures, each of which follows its own cultural values, principles, norms, and practices. Judaism, Islam, Christianity, Buddhism, and Hinduism are among the largest world religions. Let us consider the main reasons why religions should be considered as cultures (Karandashev, 2021a).

What Is Culture?

Many authors have defined the concept of culture over the last several decades from different disciplinary perspectives and from different methodological positions. Despite the variety of definitions, they all revolve around the same general concepts.

Culture is a system of historically derived and socially constructed information, ideas, and meanings shared by a group of people. This cultural system is passed down from one generation to the next through values, beliefs, practices, languages, rituals, artifacts, and so on (Kroeber & Kluckhohn, 1952; Markus & Conner, 2013; Matsumoto & Hwang, 2012).

Culture teaches people what is good and bad, what is right and wrong, and what is moral and immoral. Culture teaches them what is and is not acceptable in daily life (Markus & Conner, 2013; Shweder, 2003). Culture includes several aspects of cultural reality. Material culture describes the ways in which people share services, goods, and technology. Subjective culture is the ideas, knowledge, and beliefs that a group of people share with each other. Social culture constitutes the institutions and social rules that they share (Chiu & Hong, 2006). Let us see below how religions fit to these criteria of culture in all aspects of material, subjective, and social culture. Religious cultures are shared by large groups of people across several countries or by a group of people within one country.

What Is Religion? And Why is It a Culture?

Generally speaking, religion is a cultural realm that is devoted to the search for meaning and significance in relation to some sacred things, such as values, beliefs, perceptions, and emotions, which believers recognize as “holy,” which are set apart from everything else, from the ordinary, and worthy of veneration and respect (Pargament, Magyar-Kussell, & Murray- Swank, 2005, p. 668). Religious beliefs are about the mighty nature of the Deity and the merciful power of God. Prayers bring a person a strong emotional experience of closeness to the sacred. Prayers to God impact the emotional well-being of devotees (Silberman, 2003).

“Loving God, I pray that you will comfort me in my suffering, lend skill to the hands of my healers, and bless the means used for my cure. Give me such confidence in the power of your grace, that even when I am afraid, I may put my whole trust in you; through our Savior Jesus Christ. Amen.”

— Enriching Our Worship 2

Beliefs in God and prayers transfer to subsequent emotional attitudes towards other people in close and broader social circles. For example, the positive emotional dispositions of love, gratitude, humility, forgiveness, hope, and self-control are highly valued in Hindu, Buddhist, Muslim, Jewish, and Christian, traditions. They have been extensively explored in many studies (see for review, Emmons & Paloutzian, 2003).

Thus, one can see that all world religions fit very well into the definitions of culture as I described it above.

The Key Cultural Elements of All Religions  

All religions across history, even nontheistic religions, include (1) believing, (2) behaving, (3) bonding, and (4) belonging, along with corresponding perceptions and emotions. All religions have these parts, though they look different in different cultures and religions. Furthermore, all these world religions entail:

(1) Spiritual beliefs, cognitions, and emotions involved in the person’s perception of transcendence,

(2) Moral values, norms, rules, and practices associated with religion

(3) Collective and individual cultural rituals associated with those beliefs, dispositions, and norms

(4) Religious ceremonies, combined with emotions, foster close bonds between people as well as transcendence.

(5) Spiritual feelings of personal identification with profoundly valuable and timeless groups, as well as with deity

(Saroglou, 2011).