Haplotype, a poster on the one forum I sometimes visit, mixedasians.com, posted a factual observation. Before I go on about it, I'll just copy-and-paste the topic so other people can read it.

Have people noticed that belonging to a particular religion means very different things, depending on where it is practiced?

For example, being "Catholic" in most of the USA has strong ethnic affiliations, whether it is Mexican, Irish, or Italian. In some places, it is almost as exclusive as Judaism, and nobody is expected to convert into Catholicism. I live in Alabama, where there are no such ethnic communities, and becoming a Catholic is viewed as a personal choice that has nothing to do with ethnicity.

In the South, "baptists" have a primarily white following, while in the North, "baptists" are primarily Korean.

Buddhism as practiced in the USA consist mostly of white vegetarian types who insist that vegetarianism is "required", and that no idol worship exists whatsoever in Buddhism. It stands in contrast to Buddhism as practiced in Asia, where people readily worship statues, and people readily eat meat; only monks are expected to be vegetarians, and only during certain phases of their training. Buddhists in Asia are no more vegetarian than Catholics.

Atheism as practiced in the Western world involves worship of environmentalism, evolutionary theory, individualism, or Ayn Rand; their assumptions are just as dogmatic as the Christians they oppose. In Asia, atheism means a more apathetic point of view, not caring about anything.

While there are more than a few generalities here, the above is suitable to describe a few characteristics of belief in society, particularly western and asian societies. Atheism in particular isn't as interesting in Asia, because it's not characterized by a series of logical disproofs of religion. Instead, the topic of religion doesn't come up at all. In fact, whether It, or god or whatever, exists or doesn't, because of apathy itself, isn't really introduced into discussion or serious debate. Over here in Korea most everyone is Christian, so I'm excepting Korea from my observation.
My personal belief may be odd, however.
Religion as it were came into existence as a form of 'mental play' that grew and grew, and in its growth it introduced to humanity a slew of ideas to contemplate and become in other general ways, smarter. (For that matter, Plato was taken by the world of the spheres) It was, in other words, the natural consequence of becoming able to think. You could say that religion, if not the celestial orbs, was intelligently designed by its creators. WE ARE GOD - now to continue...
In my consideration of the topic, religion was the first or one of the first ways in which humanity started to conceive of and juggle a great variety of issues which were quite mysterious back in the day, and it would be unsympathetic to call religion barbarous or the like, just because it was born from our initial eons.
As far as creation stories go, let's look at em' like this:
And God accomplished this deed, and it was good. (end)
Ok sure.
So one day, a big old giant gets mad on the planet cthultu. To extinguish his anger, like others of his race, he rolls up a ball of dirt. Keep in mind this giant is huge, really big: much larger than our tiny blue dot. When there's a nice ball of mud and rock comfortably rolled up in his hand, he flings it into the cosmos and laughs wickedly. The ball of rock meanders aimlessly in the universe until it reaches the milky way. After traveling for some time like a lost child without a brain, it starts rotating gently and constantly at a set speed, and it also starts circling a much larger fiery orb. Having started this cycle, it can't stop (Gravity's a bitch!). It's stuck in the process of creation therewith, and life starts to spring out of the dirt. The water has stopped sloshing around so randomly on the surface of the giant's ball of mud, and has settled around an elevated piece of land dubbed Pangaea.
Creation in a nutshell. In all honestly, it was all probably much simpler. The idea of a giant 'laughing wickedly' screams of lore and it adds an unnecessary human element to the charade of being. But would we listen to the truth inherent in boundless chaos? Naturally, if there's laughter, wickedness, goodness, or other loftier associations like purity to accompany the story, the result would be that the listeners would be more greatly engaged, and thus they might start believing what they hear. Now ain't that the truth? Or am I going to hell for my evil machination?  

Now, what does all the above imply.
Nothing, it doesn't imply anything. Now that's the beauty of life!

PC Park  (several days ago; 数日前による経験である)

            In the middle of an expanse of office buildings, rows and rows of endless apartment communities, each shallowly attuned to nature with a planned lining of trees, you’ve got Central Park. Not the Central Park, but one of many, centered between rising statements of humanity: electricity shamelessly limning itself through animated programs. Blue lights on then off, then white lights on, off, repeat. There goes a sign, it’s bright and it symbolizes a human service. A borderline of brown and yellow leaves separate a space meant for reflection from the incessant whirring of traffic, and people walk hand in hand or alone at a strict pace for exercise, or meditation, or according to one of many other drives. Whatever, they walk, I observe, I report to my computer via word-processor and the English language, so that others can read and understand, but probably not really understand: what my eyes see, what my nose breathes in, and the taste of the air on my tongue; the chill my ass is experiencing as I sit on cold concrete, and my muscles as they ache… And the damn mosquito as it threatens me. Fucking shit get the hell away BUG.

            There’s a guy sitting cross legged on a strip of concrete at night typing away (me). The delicate odor of grass and dead leaves enter his(my) nostrils, and it doesn’t necessarily inspire him much, so he looks up to those massive structures around him, some mostly lit up, and others with speckles of light illuminating through tiny squares without any recognizable pattern, and he wonders, because that’s as high as he can perceive of there being anything at all. The stars are blanketed out of view by rolling clouds of smoke and dust. The sky is a gradient of a chemically red hue in the farthest distance, reaching upwards to become this pale admixture of black, blue, and purple. Existence seems to vanish beyond the apex of the tallest visible building. The air is cool, and the concrete is cold. The music he’s listening to through his earphones is supposed to add some quality of spiritual transcendence to the whole tapestry of his environment.
Deadleg, shit, he gets up and curses, annoyed like a humbug, and tries to cure that shit by flailing his legs wildly like a maniac because no one is really looking in his direction anyway. It starts to feel okay again, so he sits back down and begins to reflect. 

While walking towards my cave (the messy interior of my apartment), I thought it would be grand to haul my stuff to Central Park and do a short illustration of the impression I receive there. 
 

physical description: 環境記述 (10-30-09) 下

The park is nothing too special. It's called Central Park because it's located in the center of Anyang, which is the city I live in. On each side of the far ends of the park are busy freeways, and lining the edges of the park are stretches of dirt and trees which for a width of about 50 or 60 feet resemble wilderness, afterwhich you enter a manicured area of small fields, a stage area, and a expansive circular jogging ground, marked by concrete rings, which also function as steps that become lower as the center of the circular expanse is approached. I found myself sitting part of one of the concrete rings typing away.