" The distinction between any closed group and outside peoples, becomes in terms of religion that between the true believers and the heathen. Between these two categories for thousands of years there were no common meeting-points. [...]
[Today] we feel a justified superiority when we read a description such as this of the standard religious attitude. [...] But considering the scope of a similar attitude has had in our civilization in the form of race prejudices, for example, we are justified in a little scepticism as to whether our sophistication in the matter of religion is due to the fact that we have outgrown naive childishness, or simply to the fact that religion is no longer the area of life in which the important modern battles are staged.
In the really live issues of our civilization we seem to be far from having gained the detachment that we have so largely achieved in the field of religion. "
― Ruth Benedict , Patterns of Culture
![Ruth Benedict quote : The distinction between any closed group and outside peoples, becomes in terms of religion that between the true believers and the heathen. Between these two categories for thousands of years there were no common meeting-points. [...]<br /><br />[Today] we feel a justified superiority when we read a description such as this of the standard religious attitude. [...] But considering the scope of a similar attitude has had in our civilization in the form of race prejudices, for example, we are justified in a little scepticism as to whether our sophistication in the matter of religion is due to the fact that we have outgrown naive childishness, or simply to the fact that religion is no longer the area of life in which the important modern battles are staged.<br /><br />In the really live issues of our civilization we seem to be far from having gained the detachment that we have so largely achieved in the field of religion.](/image/1306723.jpg)