A human is a collection of experience, it is not this or that but everything. When a child is born, he or she knows nothing. We rely solely on the foundation our parents have set, and from there, we start building our own. The starting point is all about what the foundation set by our parents is made of. For some parents, religion comes before culture and for some, culture comes before religion. Depending on which of the two is more potent, it becomes the first knowledge a child will be exposed.
In my own case, both were introduced simultaneously. Most people treat religion like it has nothing to do with culture but it doesn't, both practice are intertwined. There are some of actions that I still don't know what to attach it to. I'm the kind of person that, whenever I'm walking through any neighborhood, I always feel inclined to greet any elder I meet in my way. If I don't, I feel uncomfortable, like I have done something terrible. Being a product of christian parents, it is very easy for people to see this as a good attribute of good Christian parenting but it is not.
The bible definitely teaches us to respect our elders and describes various way at which it can be done. But when it comes to greeting, the bible does not specify how it should be done. People seeing it as a Christian attribute is not entirely true. This is where culture comes in, as a Yoruba man, there is a manner at which we greet elders that a Christian from another tribe would not. We both feel the need to respect an elder but the manner at which we will might be different.
Which means, what constitutes this habit of mine is not necessarily religion but culture. Though I would have gone into details of religious inculturation within specific culture but that is a discussion for another day. This means that, it can be said that I'm experiencing expression of Yoruba culture of Christian values. In the sense that, both have worked simultaneously in formulating the habit I now possess and praising religion or culture for the values I posses is not possible.
Speaking of individual experience, it comes in phases but all phases are packaged in one body. Which means a human is a product of the phases. When I say phases, I refer to stages of a human life. For example, when we were children, there were things we experienced, though we were not completely aware of our environment but we form our own understanding based on what we we were thought. As we grew older, we start challenging some of the knowledge we have acquired and start feeling need to create our own understanding, without attaching the source to what we have been told.
It is a process of learning, unlearning and relearning at every point of our lives. So as an individual, if I were to ascertain what determines my moral standing, I would say everything. I am a product of every experience I have acquired, either through upbringing, religion, culture or personal experience. If I had missed any of this process, I wouldn't be were i have gotten to or acquire the knowledge and experience I now possess.
This write-up was inspired by weekly featured content titled Moral threshold in hive learners community.
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