It seems you are distinguishing societies that are theocratic from societies that are secular and insisting that in one there are legislated values that are religious while in the other legislation addresses law for the sake of secular modernity only. I don’t see the distinctions as clearly as you do. If I did I would agree with people like brianthebiker who has created an SI Death Cult that searches the internet for the most vile and disgusting anecdotes and reports to us that this is the Truth about Islam.
The word culture when applied to societies is adopted from ‘cultivation’ or tillage of land. It also implies having learned the best practices to produce healthy crops and enrichment of property. Within societies, culture has come to mean the same thing, an enrichment of the group based on the traditions leading to achievements of its people.
"For without culture or holiness, which are always the gift of a very few, a man may renounce wealth or any other external thing, but he cannot renounce hatred, envy, jealousy, revenge. Culture is the sanctity of the intellect." [William Butler Yeats]
Human values are time and circumstance independent. They transcend dogma, nationality, political persuasion, ethnicity, religion, etc. In so doing, we find these values at the heart of social rule making within all cultures. Is wellness a value? Is mercy a value? Are life and liberty values? Is property ownership a value? Is justice a value? Are these religious values or values of modernity? They are both of course. And so, global human culture has reference from which to compare and contrast from one among the others.
We can compare and contrast the qualities from one society to another society regarding manners, mores, intellectual growth, communication, and enrichment, and the laws and legislation that secure those societies, which help us to define culture.
Governments are organized to enact legislation that will secure and advance the culture of a specific society. |
