Religion: A Subset of Culture and an Expression of Spirituality

Abstract

Cultures or cultural values, which are described as constructively created behaviors based on collective beliefs, are omnipresent at multiple levels in every human behavior and interaction, including in the sphere of religion. Scholars described religion as a cultural system of symbols, which establish powerful, pervasive, and long-lasting moods and motivations and naturalized conceptions of a general order of existence. Thus, religion is considered to be a part of culture and it acts as one among many forms of overtly expressing and experiencing spirituality that is inward, personal, subjective, transcendental, and unsystematic. In other words, cultural values are seen as a foundation to religiosity. Based on this assumption, this paper reviewed the literature to provide empirical evidence to the overt practice of religiosity that is embedded in particular cultural experiences and values as a form of expressing and experiencing the human universal of spirituality.