It is well-known that there is great variability in religious practices across the world. Climate, geography, and historical memory shape the outlook of man; and what may be routine and normal for one, may be seen as anathema to another. Yet this variability in practices does not mean that morals, or beliefs, are irrelevant; it only means that man has proven himself infinitely creative in adapting customs to environment.
From birth we are surrounded by the inherited and imposed belief systems of our environment. Such systems exert a silent force on our thinking; they channel our behaviors within defined limits, and demarcate the boundaries of conventional thought. They can become so pervasive that they escape even our own notice. We should not necessarily see this as an evil, for custom and tradition provide, on balance, a certain predictability and stability that makes for civilized leisure and artistic creation; and society must have some immovable foundation upon which to direct its spires skyward.
Quintus Curtius 
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