Religion
Bosnians are as multi-religious a society as they are multi-ethnic, but this is not to say that its component religions and ethnicities are homogeneous and independent from each other.
According to Tone Bringa, an author and anthropologist, in respect to Bosnia and Bosnians she states that "Neither Bosniak, nor Croat, nor Serb identities can be fully understood with reference only to Islam or Christianity respectively but have to be considered in a specific Bosnian context that has resulted in a shared history and locality among Bosnians of Islamic as well as Christian backgrounds." According to Bringa, in Bosnia there is a singular, "trans-ethnic culture" that encompassed each ethnicity and makes different faiths, including Christianity and Islam, "synergistically interdependent".
Still, large numbers of Bosnians are secular which is a trend that has more profoundly found root in last 60 years in Bosnia and Herzegovina as they were part of the Communist system that rejected traditional organized religion.
Read more about this topic: Bosnians
Famous quotes containing the word religion:
“We think of religion as the symbolic expression of our highest moral ideals; we think of magic as a crude aggregate of superstitions. Religious belief seems to become mere superstitious credulity if we admit any relationship with magic. On the other hand our anthropological and ethnographical material makes it extremely difficult to separate the two fields.”
—Ernst Cassirer (1874–1945)
“Since belief is measured by action, he who forbids us to believe religion to be true, necessarily also forbids us to act as we should if we did believe it to be true.”
—William James (1842–1910)
“Their religion was sweetness and peace amidst toil and tears.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)