ABSTRACT
In all human communities the religious beliefs and practices of the society are passed on to children by various kinds of instruction. The same applies to many other aspects of the culture; all are aspects of the shared way of life. Children brought up in Israel, Italy or Kyoto are likely to have religious views which are similar to those of most other people in these places. There is evidently a strong effect of the surrounding culture on religious beliefs and behaviour. This is brought about by social learning in the family, and by religious education in churches, Sunday schools and religious schools. The effects of these influences are powerful but not always successful as we shall see. We shall see in this book that in many ways religion is a social phenomenon, so it is no surprise that individuals have to learn about it from society. But is religion only something that has been learnt from society? Is this a complete explanation of why there is religion?
