Other people, in turn, have been strongly influenced by the religious institutions that have grown out of the teachings of those who have had special religious insights. From the earliest times, religious institutions have formalized ideas of how people ought to act toward God and toward each other.

Religions, Marietta Moskin says, were an early civilizing influence on people. The great moral codes of early nations gave people standards of conduct to live up to, standards that we have not reached yet. In early times, too, the institutions of religion and government were closely tied together, and sometimes, were exactly the same. One reinforced the expectations of hte other. Religious isntitutions consequently, and religious ideas, have shaped governments, societies and cultures, art, music, literature, attitudes toward sex and toward women, scientific progress and even war and peace.

Gradually, church and state drew apart until with the founding of the United States, they became entirely separate. Still, the church and religious ideas continue to influence us in manyh ways, whether we accept them or not.

This book explores the ways religion has affected people everywhere and has in turn been affected and changed by a constantly changing world. Some of this is very good, some is not. But all is a part of religion as we find it now, and as people of the past have found it, in everyday life.