Religion is all about subservience and kowtowing to a particular symbol in order to suppress natural human drives because those are deemed chaotic and disruptive.
Culture is about channeling those drives into productive and artful outlets. For example, even the drive towards aggression, when expressed via martial arts, is turned into a beautiful performance.
When religion keeps evolving it eventually hits a certain point where it now becomes a culture. Fundamentalism can be seen as a regression towards a simpler, less evolved mindset that is unable to apprehend or handle culture.
I believe this was the case with Islam, which had its golden age when it contributed tremendous amounts of art and science to the world. Today, Islam (as represented in western media at least), has all the indications of being in its Dark Ages, where its main indulgence is in its attack of people who don't share the same belief and a spreading - not of its associated art and culture - but of its proscriptions (e.g. we see halal food and sukuk finance proliferating today).
Culture is about channeling those drives into productive and artful outlets. For example, even the drive towards aggression, when expressed via martial arts, is turned into a beautiful performance.
When religion keeps evolving it eventually hits a certain point where it now becomes a culture. Fundamentalism can be seen as a regression towards a simpler, less evolved mindset that is unable to apprehend or handle culture.
I believe this was the case with Islam, which had its golden age when it contributed tremendous amounts of art and science to the world. Today, Islam (as represented in western media at least), has all the indications of being in its Dark Ages, where its main indulgence is in its attack of people who don't share the same belief and a spreading - not of its associated art and culture - but of its proscriptions (e.g. we see halal food and sukuk finance proliferating today).