1. The bold canvas on which they worked was, as I have suggested already, a deliberate affront to traditional religion. 2. They have cut the nerve of traditional religion, which is often tied to specific geographical locations and cultural patterns. 3. Yet it is easier to sense the swing of history against traditional religion than to measure it. 4. Traditional African religion has no written legal documents showing what is legal or illegal, but traditional Africans have a code of conduct, which they all know. 5. All prohibited acts are crimes in traditional African religion, and any person committing any of them is regarded as a criminal and incurs punishment. 6. It is forbidden in the traditional religion, and any incidence of it is a crime not only against human beings but also against the gods. 7. Traditional society in its original form was solid, because it was built on a strong moral base provided by the traditional religion. 8. The two phenomena were linked, for traditional religion had always been a bond of social unity through the ritual assertion of community. 9. And thousands of Russians, bored or disenchanted with traditional religions, do. 10. Asahara enticed many with freedom and financing to pursue science, along with a promise of supernatural and spiritual exaltation they could not find in traditional religions. |