Journal essay

Interrelationships among an individual's beliefs and choices with the cultural and social institutions or practices

Medieval tradition

There is a very strange relation between individual's belief and culture. Belief is the psychological component of spirituality, often in spite of Mind asserts. Religion can be taken as the choice of an individual and it is all about certain beliefs and practices. The middle Ages, religion did not appear as a separate element in society, while at the time the study of medieval philosophy is constituted as a discipline; religion was largely considered incompatible with the philosophy. The modern study of medieval philosophy and was set up in a controversy vis-à-vis Christianity including the work of Ernest Renan in the late nineteenth century and the more apologetic, of Stephen Gilson in the early twentieth century . The latter identified medieval philosophy to a Christian philosophy in The Spirit of Medieval Philosophy.

In this context, the question was whether philosophy can be religious, if a qualified religious thought can be regarded as philosophical, or, if the thought of medieval brought anything interesting with that of humanity. For his part, Bertrand Russell took up the idea that, in essence, philosophy and religion cannot be compared, let alone try to "merge" their thoughts, because it recalls the famous axiom: "The philosophy is content ask questions, and invites everyone to think for himself through the reasoning , while religion claims to provide answers, requiring each to adhere within the faith . The two concepts are intrinsically incompatible (Radke, Pp. 56-77).

Greek tradition

According to Greek tradition the relationship between individual's beliefs and choices with the cultural values is discussed further. The Greek tradition explains whole ethos of the mental characteristics of each individual. Manners said the perceptions of a people for the ethical and social behavior. They are the general principles of law, the legitimate modes of behavior of social man, which vary with time and vary from place to place and reflect the current culture. Definite moral practices define values, relationships, and behaviors. It is feelings and attitudes that characterizes a time which is the consumer trend of the modern bourgeois, the preference for practical solutions, such as standard food, the conception of marriage, etc (Papaioannou, Pp. 33-42).

All these are a kind of rules and laws, a form of law, unwritten, we could call it custom. But the written law is not arbitrary creation of the legislature, but a product of the spirit of the people. There is an agreement with the ethics requirements of the law. For example, people trade laws as the law define what society considers being moral: Do not speculation, considered null and void any act which exploits the other's needs. In general, the beliefs of the ancient Greeks developed a very peculiar way. For ancient Greece is characterized by progressive humanization of the divine, the growth of anthropomorphic religion. And that is why of all the ancient religions - Greek to the greatest extent was the phenomenon of culture, the expression cultivation of life, ...