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Lumifer comments on Rationality Quotes Thread October 2015 - Less Wrong
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Well, I think people "naturally" tend to cover their genitals for a variety of reasons which we need not concern ourselves with. But beyond that, what do you need to cover is mostly cultural and I think that in this respect culture is mostly driven by religion.
For example, most pre-religious people do not care about women going topless. But Christianity is pretty sure women should cover their breasts. Traditional Judaism goes further and says that married women should also keep their head covered at all times, that's why married Jewish Orthodox women wear wigs. Islam agrees that hair should be covered but in many places goes further and says most of the face should be hidden as well.
In, say, contemporary Christianity-based American culture women can't normally go topless -- that would be offensive to many people. But a hundred years ago a woman in bikini would also have been offensive. And a woman with uncovered head and open face would be offensive to some Muslims.
I think religion is more sophisticated than that :-)
What do you mean with "pre-religious people"? Most hunter gather tribes we know of have their gods.
Pre- organized religion.
I am personally uncomfortable with men going topless. I do not have, and have never had, any religious opinions saying that it is wrong or even inappropriate for men to go topless. Obviously not everyone shares my personal feelings, but a good number of other people do. So your explanation still seems inadequate: the limitation to genitals is simply a common denominator. The feelings themselves vary between people in ways that do not necessarily correspond with religion.
Your feelings in this regard may be shaped by religion in a subtler way. Suppose, for instance, the following things are true:
Once this effect is in play, it can continue even if Religion X becomes much less influential or loses its misgivings about exposing bodies: it's traditional to keep most of your body covered up, so most people do, so doing otherwise makes people uncomfortable, so the tradition persists.
In such situations it's difficult to tell how far Religion X really is the cause, though. It could just be a free-floating tradition. It could be a tradition with some other origin that Religion X has (at least within your culture) assimilated.
All of this is plausible but also consistent with the idea that Religion X took the tradition in the first place from culture, rather than inventing the tradition, as Lumifer at least seemed to be proposing at first.
Let me quote myself: "Religion is usually tightly intertwined with culture and disentangling them is not always possible".
Yes, that was the point of my last paragraph.
When it comes to dresscode, there are a lot of cultural influences that have little to do with religion. In some cases not wearing a tie will be offensive.
If you wear sandals some people might disapprove of you if you also wear socks at the same time.
Of course. I'm talking about averages and broad trends. There is certainly a LOT of individual variation here.
Beyond individual variation, you are, to a certain degree, a product of your culture. And your culture, I would expect, has been majorly influenced by religion.