Kharmine

If someone else has mentioned this, I apologise: "Liturgical dance" is quite popular in some churches and temples. It's pretty well covered up, of course, and has its own styles, but like everything else it all depends on local culture and interpretation.

Someone mentioned that the Amish don't dance or listen to music -- well, close but not quite. They shun "secular" dance and music.

They regard some forms of square dancing not as 'dance" but as 'games" and games are alright, apparently. Although what they call it rather than "square dancing," I don't remember. And they do sing hymns at "singings," which is also quite a social occasion.

From the view of a journalist who has made cultural anthropology something of a hobby, I've come to the conclusion that two things have a tremendous impact on how religion is taught and practiced:

(1) interpretation -- which, considering most of the masses who were around when theologies were being formed were illiterate, means that a handful controlled what got (and still does) taught to the greater population, even unto succeeding generations.

Which is why it's important to know the original writings, if not in the original language, than as translated and interpreted by reliable and reputable scholars who are not obviously working from a determined personal agenda.

(2) context -- much of what is written in sacred texts is timeless. And some of it isn't. It is of THAT time.

For instance, the New Testament: When Paul the apostle wrote directions to far-flung churches, a lot of his advice went to congregations who had been Jews and now worshipped Jesus as the Messiah. So they wanted to know if they should keep to the old ways. Sometimes he said yes, other times he seemed perfectly happy with new adaptations -- as when he saluted women as "deacons" on the same level as their brothers (something unheard of in traditional Judaism.)

In some cases, what he was advocating was practices designed to not make new Christians stand out in a hostile environment, whether it was a Jewish community or Rome. If only whores ran around with their heads uncovered in some places, well, then, Christian women would be a lot better off with their heads covered.

Believers who don't understand or accept "context" today are usually called "fundamentalists."

You can say these two things about any religion I can think of. Which is why there is no one sect for any belief system that I know of. But then, I've never known any two atheists who agreed on everything either.