To what degree is religion philosophy?
I assume philosophy is open to all possible ideas but after talking to a Catholic priest who made it seem like he considered religion and philosophy to be synonymous. However the idea of reincarnation certainly wasn't up for debate at all. The conversation seemed entirely dogmatic. How are these topics related?
Comments (114)
When I was reading some philosophy as a Catholic teenager I was not aware of the complexity of the relationship it had with religion. The first niggle was when a member of staff at my school said to me that he was worried that if I followed philosophy as a subject that I would end up questioning religious belief. That seemed strange and it was several years after that comment that I realised how the philosophy issues lead to deep questions about religious truth.
For many religious thinkers religion and philosophy were united, but as people have become aware that the assuumptioni of religion, especially Christianity cannot be accepted as evident truths it seems that the two have parted to a large extent, with the philosophy of religion being a branch of philosophy. Of course, there is theology, which is philosophy based, but from it's own reference point of certain 'truths' rather than from a wider angle.
Can Buddhists do this with karma and rebirth or Christians do it with the existence of God and the divinity of Jesus? I don't think most can, because to admit that such things are not absolute would be to undermine any faith for most people.
From an open-minded (and perhaps naive) perspective, the use of philosophy in religion can be seen as a method of acquainting someone with religious concepts who might otherwise not be inclined to believe them. If I remember correctly, Aquinas thought that philosophy can help a person get started on their path in the faith; reason is used to demonstrate that the beliefs of a religion are worthy of consideration. For instance, once a person understands the conclusions of a philosophical demonstration that purportedly demonstrates the necessity of a prime mover, they can take the next steps in their relationship with this prime mover.
From a cynical (and perhaps paranoid) perspective, the use of philosophy in religion can be seen as nothing more than propaganda, used to swindle people into believing nonsense under the guise of impressive, intimidating and esoteric arguments. Religions commonly manifest as hierarchical power structures, and philosophy helps justify the structure by convincing people that it is legitimate.
My own opinion is a mix of both of these perspectives, but fundamentally I believe that regardless of whatever merits a religious philosophy may have, in actual practice this intellectual apparatus functions as a propaganda device for the powers that endorse it.
At seminaries, Kierkegaard is only grudgingly taught. Thinking about religion both delivers one from the yoke of dogma, and puts the "reality" of religion in full view.
I think it's the same for any philosophy; it's just a matter of different scales.
Yes, any serious thought about it dispels the illusion that it can be anything more than faith. Which is not to say that belittles it, since faith is not to be sneezed at.
Yeah, that is the despicable nature of popular religion. Philosophy, one like myself would argue, is the true religion. In the East they call in jnana yoga.
Heh, heh....this certainly can't be true. It would assume authentic inquiry is no better than myth.
You sound like Foucault. Is there nothing substantive beneath the propaganda?
Of course. But they also lead to other ideas, and perhaps there are meanings in play that are not invented, but there to be witnessed, discovered. True inquiry can take one there. Dogma does not.
To ask the question, e.g., why are we born to suffer and die can be authentically encountered, and can actually bring one to the threshold of deeper meaning, I would argue. Religious dogma keeps this kind of encounter at bay. (Having said this, I do see the value of a ready to hand dogma for those in crisis, and would not for a moment deny the the relief religion can give them. But this is another story.)
Much philosophy is dogma and antithetical to philosophy. There are plenty of examples here on the forum. And no, I'm not talking about you.
R.G. Collingwood wrote that one absolute presumption of all science is that God exists. That may seem absurd at first take, but I interpret him as meaning that all science is dependent on the existence of a universe that operates in accordance with lawful principles that we are capable of understanding. I'm not any kind of historian of science or philosophy, but it seems reasonable to me to ask if that presupposition depends on, or at least once depended on, religious understanding.
Sure. There's too much dogma everywhere. It's worth identifying when we see it, whether it be religious or secular.
a principle or set of principles laid down by an authority as incontrovertibly true. (Oxford Dictionary)
So when we say that religions claim things to be 'incontrovertibly true,' what does that mean? If I say, "Jesus died for our sins," am I claiming that there was a person named Jesus who really died and it was because of a group of people around him, or is the 'truth' of this statement something beyond the pure material representation? In my observation many Christians seem to have the view that accepting the statement as true without having individuals making this distinction is not considered a problem; this generalization characterizes it to us as dogmatic. But in reality, it's just not feasible to have such a massive number of people truly making this distinction. That's a product of its form, not just its content. Is there any reason to believe the apparatus of traditional philosophical inquiry you call 'true inquiry' would not take the same form if it were widely studied?
Don't we see the same scene in philosophy when we allow freshmen to study Plato and give them a pat on the back even when they're totally off base? We see a light at the end of the tunnel, just as the religious people we snuff our noses at do.
I had another thought, or maybe it's the same idea as my previous post. I have often thought, and more than once written on the forum, that a belief in objective reality requires an objective observer. Someone who can stand outside the reality we experience and see it as it really is. The only entity I can think of that could fill that role is God.
It's not my intention to argue for the existence of God here. Rather, I'm arguing for the philosophical relevance of religion.
Not sure exactly what your point is, but it sounds a little like Alvin Plantinga's Reformed Epistemology wherein God is seen as a properly basic belief, the necessary foundation for objective reality and coherence. This is worked up from Kant's transcendentals.
If they're off base, they will fail the exam.
If you are studying the history of philosophy, then your exam will be dogmatic, you could say. The point would be to get you to understand something. More so if the course is about particle physics or genetics. The ground has to be laid. But with all of the paradigms you might be exposed to, there comes a point in your career at which you can actually put yourself at the cutting edge and see how those paradigms stand up to criticism. Human knowledge is, all of it, open.
Philosophy is different in that its foundations are less stable than science, more arguable. Popular religion is far worse. It doesn't require justification, only faith (and exegeses that are intra-justificatory, you might say) . What makes philosophy so important is that, like religion, it subsumes the whole of human knowledge claims (you know, God the creator rules over all, and so forth), all categories and disciplines, but it insists on objective justification. A tall order, you can say, obviously. The tallest, really. But note how philosophy and religion compete. Philosophy takes up thematically all that religion takes up, principally ethics! Science cannot touch ethics. Religion has ethics as its core concern. Only philosophy subsumes all.
Of course, you can say philosophy goes nowhere, or has no where to go since everything has been said. True and not true. Not much more to be said, but what has been said is hardly understood.
All hail the mighty examination, the true judger of all...
Doesn't this super-materialism just look like Christianity with the crust cut off?
Okay Foucault. And grades are the punitive consequences, the threat, that keeps you line. The classroom is a microcosm of Christendom.
I guess we are misunderstanding (from academician point of view) the concepts of theology and philosophy. They seem to be similar but in long-term are pretty different. This is why there are PhD in both matters.
Some years ago, at least in my country, when you picked up philosophy, you were included as student in liberal arts. While, if you decided to dedicate to religion, it was called traditional. In nowadays, it is different...
If you study a philosophy degree you would see a brief content of religion. Like it or not it is literally a way of reasoning or believing for a lot of people.
Quoting kudos
It could be but the main difference is that we can easily change of dogma because we are not rendered to a "God"
Literally the opposite. This is what philosophy stands for. To question everything or at least all what is connected to our awareness or concerns.
That is why we can see different theories and thinkers through the history of philosophy: Ancient Greece, rationalists, empiricism, British/German schools, etc... They all tend to refute the previous thesis or essays of whatever they are debating.
But inside religion, I do not know anyone who is not rendered to God because it could cause the opposite.
Sure maybe, but don't you find this impulse to question everything stems from a desire to know truth in your individuality? Is that so different from what God-lovers do? Looking at some parts of the Bible, it seems to come from a place of sound reason in the sense that excessive forms like greed, gluttony, lust, deception, and pride do tend to be self-destructive. That isn't a long road from Aristotle's golden mean. What we do in philosophy will inevitably involve religion since both have the intended effect of directing followers to more reasonable and rational ways of thinking. In ideality both aim to produce a love of wisdom that enriches the self and leads to a higher mental state.
[quote=Benedictus de Spinoza]I do not know how to teach philosophy without becoming a disturber of established religion.[/quote]
Religion : philosophy- :: mythos : logos :: pathos : ethikos.
I am agree with you in the point that both sides tend to find a meaningful life. But I still think that the main difference between these two is that how free we are of questioning everything.
Inside theology, God is unquestioned, while inside philosophy we as humans are pretty questionable. We try to find different thoughts to put a meaning about what is going on so since the moment where we do not even believe in ourselves, we do not have that necessity to surrender to something or someone as God.
What you may mean by ‘questioning’ is a sense of liberality to doubt, dissolution, and/or dissent that is avoided in many religions. This appears to me a rational structure to the pursuit of truth. In knowledge too, we seek to avoid excess egotism and arrogance in favour of diplomacy and clear vision (albeit at risk of inversion) as a path toward objectivity.
This type of structure of unquestionability can be found everywhere. It’s essentially the structure of keeping something from dissolving away. It amounts to the particular form of religion and differs in its defining character. Is there a universal issue here, or is it just a problem that religion hands itself down in non-conscious form that bothers you? Or maybe the particulars of individual interpretation...
That's a type or trend in philosophy, if you will.
But my response to the OP's question is (basically the same as Tom Storm's) that people of philosophy like reason, logic, and debating; whereas people of religions don't.
I will sound as a naysayer, but what you claim is precisely what religion denies of its followers.
"3-1 is Zero!" say the Christians. What is a reasonable person who uses the scientific method and his head, in formal terms, rationally answer to that? I say he'd say, "This is stupid." Then he gets threatened by getting burned at the stakes, if he does not withdraw and reverse his "opinion".
So, all the arguments for God's existence are rational[s]ity[/s]ization at its best, perhaps worst.
Sorry, English language is not my native language so probably (sometimes) I make grammar mistakes. This is what I wanted to share with you:
One of the principles of philosophy is questioning the individual and all the aspect around it. So, we start in the base that at least we do not believe in ourselves or at least in what are we looking to. Then, we try to go further in analysis or theorizing about different aspects which involves us. For example: death, time, beginning, uncertainty, dreams, etc... We can even create a loop where we debate from the same issue again and again.
But, inside religion, I do not see (according to theologians) God as questioned. It literally exists. Then, they start to develop some theories about their existence or how could the world be without God's blessing.
Most Christians today are not aware that the early founders of Christianity were Platonists and there is evidence reincarnation was taught for the first few centuries.
Religion is a form of philosophy for sure. But philosophy isn't a form of religion.
Though even using myths, religion still deals with basic existential questions that every human face in his life. Others turn into philosophy for some existential comfort.
It's the way of approaching these questions which is different in religion and philosophy but for sure they have common corners where they meet.
Jesus(if he actually was a historical person) was for sure the most influential philosopher throughout history.
For the sake of discussion, I think it's reasonable to claim 'to the degree a philosophy is fundamentally disembodied (immaterial) and/or transcendent (essentialist), it functions as a religion'. Spinoza has it right (reread his quote in my first post above) that philosophy is first and foremost an internal critique of its own religiousity (re: the disembodied, the transcendent), which, as a consequence, undermines any rational pretenses for "justifying" religious ideas and practices (e.g. theology, theodicy, theocracy).
This means that whatever a particular community draws out of this heritage reflects that community rather than some sort of monolithic Religion.
Quoting dimosthenis9
Sophistry in pictures and folktales rather than reasoning with coherent concepts and valid arguments.
Yeah, at best philosophy reflects (2nd/3rd order questions) for its own sake without dogmatic beliefs (1st order answers).
:up: :fire:
:clap: Self-criticism. Feeling blue lately, o philosopher true?
Warning: Philosophizing is injurious to health.
I'm not familiar with Plantinga, but from what you've written that sounds like just what I'm talking about.
Sounds like philosophy to me. Not all of it, but definitely some of it.
Faith - if by that you mean belief without evidence - no. Faith - if by that you mean belief based on the evidence of personal experience - ok.
To quote the great man:
[quote=Buddy Guy, b. 1936 ...]Damn right, I"ve got the blues![/quote]
Imagine ol' Sisyphus happy, Smith. :smirk:
Yes, I’d say that’s a fair (if simplistic) way of framing the distinction. Religions typically insist on the acceptance of a set of dogmas among its adherents. Persistent failure to accept and enact such dogma is often grounds for excommunication. It’s important to note, however, that some religions such as Hinduism and Buddhism allow for a much greater degree of autonomy in this regard. For instance, some of the canonical holy books of Hinduism acknowledge that ultimate truth can be reached via many paths and expressed through many diverse images, stories and doctrines. Whether or not this tolerance is always achieved in practice is another story.
This was precisely why, after an initial period of tolerance, Islam opted to suppress philosophy. :smile:
The problem with philosophy is that when taken to extremes it starts questioning not only other systems but even itself. This can lead to nihilism which can be as bad as blind faith or religious fanaticism. The antidote recommended by Classical philosophy is wisdom (or common sense) and moderation ....
Even sophistry is nothing more than a bad form of executing philosophy.
Quoting 180 Proof
What that means?
Sisyphus reminds me of how poor I'm at reading. I start at the beginning of a sentence, then word by word I work my way to the end. Then I realize I didn't understand the sentence. Back to square one I go. This is called rereading, a bad habit according to reading experts and indicates poor concentration.
May be Sisyphus has severe ADHD and so has to, well, "read" life again and again, ad infinitum to finally comprehend what life is all about. :grin:
The distinction there is between inter-subjectively evident and subjectively evident. It seems to me that whatever cannot be evident in any way more than to oneself, cannot be a good reason for anyone else's beliefs except one's own.
First you should define philosophy. As way to live and make sense of the world I think think religion, in particular Christianity, is the ultimate philosophy.
https://christianscholars.com/jesus-the-great-philosopher/
I guess that's as good as anything else I've ever heard. Of course religion is philosophy, it's just bad philosophy (philofolly).
Religion is essentially a social coping mechanism for our success as a species raising our population density far above tribal survival norms.
In a small group or tribe the elders are socially close enough to new members to play a significant role in their develoment. They can therefore pass on their wisdom and worldview directly to new members even if their parents are less involved than they should be or even from a different tribe.
Once population starts getting past the tribal and nomadic level, however (such as Phonetician, Canaanite, Babylonian, etc...) then the ability to have common memes between disperate segments of the population exceeds the capacity of any elder framework. Elders aren't known for being mobile and before regular postal service they couldn't exactly communicate with each other even if the majority had been literate.
Over time, the more subjective value systems such as politics, economics, patriarchal and/or matriarchal biases and their social resolution through custom, etc... would deviate too far for cooperation. Things some members of a big tribe considered normal others considered a violation of the natural order.
Naturally in an effor to prevent disagreements and bloodshed humanity did what it always does: it made things easier to remember and pass on through narrative. By explaining conceptual morality through stories it was possible to present both the pros and the cons of various solutions to hypothetical dilemmas into the reach of the common members of social systems.
But this naturally evolved mechanism wasn't perfect. When a child is told an incomplete story or when the parent doesn't understand the explanation they can pollute the lesson. In many cases this would have been born out as morality or imposed behavioral expectations (as opposed to choice through ethics and/or wisdom). Over time there were enough moral impositions to require non-violent (or less-violent) ways of determining who was more correct.
Law and religion spawned from the same places and for the same reasons.
It was the Athenian equivalent of law, after all, that convinced Socrates to drink the hemlock as he mocked the Greek subjective application of piety. The lack of formal and unified expectations was, even then, creating a great deal of suffering for humanity.
Modern religion is nothing but the minds of children being filled with the stories of their parents for why things are right and wrong (or exist at all). They're the weight of culture imposed by ignorance instead of the light of philosophy imposed by love.
What is truly more terrifying then religion, however, is the absence of both religion and philosophy. Without being armed with at least one, individuals cannot exercise self discipline and must therefore have discipline imposed upon them. It guarantees that only a tyranny (and a very strict tyranny) can hold humanity together.
Not necessarily. I see your point that we could have a big problem if we lack of both religion and philosophy (well, if I am honest with you I would not care if we are lack of religion at all...).
The big issue here are the masses and how easily they can be misunderstood. Religion has always played a good role here, manipulative. Sometimes it even looks like that philosophy and reasoning is only made to "loneliness" citizens or weirds. I mean, all of those who do not accept the imposed rules. Furthermore wisdom, I think philosophy is key to help us to get rid of all of it.
Sounds like a riff off Jordan B Peterson to me. What's the evidence for this idea?
By "system of control", Aaron, I mean the (socio-political) 'extrinsic constraints on populations which constitute – regulate – participation in a dominance hierrarchy'. I'm not referring to the (biological) 'intrinsic involuntary processes (e.g. cognitive biases / defects) of individuals or their endeavors' to which you seem to be referring.
Take China as the biggest and most successful atheist nation ever in history. The Party has run into this problem on a massive scale time and again. They have repeatedly had to revamp their failed balance between engineered ignorance and forced indoctrination as religion has re-grown in large population centers without a massive level of heavily indoctrinated citizens in place. The entire Ughar problem is a current case-in-point. They're bussing in hundreds of thousands of Chinese nationals deemed acceptably "Chinese" by the state in order to break up the naturally evolving narratives.
Even with that tremendous expense (both direct and indirect as they try to whitewash what they're doing in the UN) they're still not really able to call it successful. The real problem is that in order for an individual to impose self-discipline they must rationalize it and without the cognitive tools to construct a rational narrative that is compatible with the requirements of the state fragmentation is inevitable.
It seems we have some similarities in personal history and areas of study.
Having really only glanced as his podcast bio and skimmed his wikipedia entry I will say, however, that it seems at first glance that he's far less of an agnostic/atheist than I am and that his track of polymath studies is a lot less broad than mine.
Add computational neuroscience (neuronal network modeling), computer science (neural networks and data science specifically), medical imaging focused on nuclear physics and linguistics into the mix and we'd a LOT closer in background. Also he's a PhD working in theory while I'm an MS working in practice as an engineer and I find that hands-on experience just can't be replicated by any amount of abstract study.
As to your question about what proof is there well you're going to have to get a LOT more specific because as you framed the question the answer is all of history (but in a very broad collection of study). It's not just reading popular vetted texts about history or various famous academics' perspectives but rather taking a broad-spectrum and very deep dive into each science relevant to building a matrix of understanding.
Even a summary at that level would fill multiple pages in order to supply just the biblio links.
With that said, please feel free to dig a bit deeper and ask for evidence or clarification of any specific conclusion.
Keep in mind, however, that at this point merely asking me for "proof" in the way that you did raised red flags that scream beligerent trolling. I'm here for serious discussion (not fighting or even debate). I have no interest in engaging in hostilities with non-believers. I have a very real interest in open-minded discussion with curious people, however, so I guess we'll see which one you prefer to present yourself as?
When you talk about "the Real" you're talking about something you've personally built up in your own mind into a framework of understanding but since the rest of us aren't mind readers we have no choice but to construct our own definition for that in our own minds that will almost certainly differ from your ideas extensively.
Philosophy is just packaged human wisdom. If I've learned anything in life, it isn't understanding how to say that wherein lies a lifetime of trial but in understanding it.
What are understanding, wisdom, foolishness, intelligence, sapience, etc...
Words travel no further in your brain than what is known as the Broca's region (serialization of thought or output such as painting/drawing/writing and speaking) combined with the Wernicke's region/area (de-serialization of thought or input such as sight and sound translated).
Without extennsive applied study around these subjects any deep discussion will quickly become circular word salad as you find that contradictions (and even cognitive visualization) will result in dissonance and confusion.
Our society and culture blend them continuously which makes them particularly subject to the vagaries of cultural ambiguity. Is it "stupid is as stupid does" or is it "a foolish man despises wisdom and instruction"? Etc... etc....
I sincerely hope I've helped here but I'm honestly not sure that I have. It seems at first (and when I was a younger man I was so certain it was) like it should be simple to tackle this but it's a very very deep and complex subject.
Take China as the biggest and most successful atheist nation ever in history. The Party has run into this problem on a massive scale time and again. They have repeatedly had to revamp their failed balance between engineered ignorance and forced indoctrination as religion has re-grown in large population centers without a massive level of heavily indoctrinated citizens in place. The entire Ughar problem is a current case-in-point. They're bussing in hundreds of thousands of Chinese nationals deemed acceptably "Chinese" by the state in order to break up the naturally evolving narratives.
Even with that tremendous expense (both direct and indirect as they try to whitewash what they're doing in the UN) they're still not really able to call it successful. The real problem is that in order for an individual to impose self-discipline they must rationalize it and without the cognitive tools to construct a rational narrative that is compatible with the requirements of the state fragmentation is inevitable.
When modeling social dynamics (the branch of sociology and mathematics that relies on chaos theory) there are multiple deterministic patterns that have to be modeled. People need food, water and basic resources as well as a sufficiently diverse gene pool. Moving past those as population increases one starts to require additional repetitive series and one of those is most easily described as memetics (memetic theory) (the shared common ideas in a clearly defined cultural group). Chomsky made it popular but it's developed quite a bit since he first popularized it. As wikipedia says in the first paragraph: it's essentially information flow.
During development the minds of children face such a massive influx of complex interpersonal and social dynamics that they have no choice but to rely almost complete on guidance to arrange them into a cognitive framework. At first this is, in most cases, entirely one parent. As the child grows in complexity, however, they will begin to delegate some areas to the other parent or anyone else in their life they deem as more authoritative a source about one or another subject.
One can keep going down this rabit hole until one has mapped out a common series of memetic themes that are common across all individuals in one more more large geographically diverse regions (say... western cultural norms).
Thematic supercells: economics, religion, liberty, human rights, sexuality, etc...
Hopefully this is enough to begin with to start to see the big picture of how these models are constructed. Then one simply has to lay out some common sources of those thematic elements (religion, pop culture audio and video, public education, etc...) and then one can target and model each one and run the models.
Personally I'm rather proud of how my models actually pull in their variables for pop culture and regional religious themes from social media. I believe it makes them more accurate but enough bragging.
So, it's also simple to put in a condition where a major one is destroyed without significant changes to another and play the model forward to see what happens.
In every single one when religion is destroyed without replacing it with a state-sponsored religious replacement the social model fractures (breaks down into civil conflict) over 1-3 generations.
Thus: the Chinese are bussing in nationals to replace the Ugar. They have experts with models too.
The Morals you think to find in your hopelessly normatively tangled, darkly purposed, sinisterly profitable Religious Propaganda are all subordinate to the only essential thing Religion ever requires of its (thankfully monied) Sheep, which is (delightfully unquestioning, from the priest's perspective) Faith.
As you said, China is a good example that you can run a country without religion in your culture. Even more, they are completely a different culture country. They are not worried or concerned about religion or priests, they only want be the runners of the World both economically and politically.
Quoting SkyLeach
I am disagree here. I do not se them as a "broke" social civilization. They do not need replace anything because they do not have religion in their culture as much as others. It is known that kids in China are taught by Conficius and Lao-Tse (Tao Te Ching) readings. I want be honest with you...
I think is better for kids being taught with readings from Taoism rather than Bible...
They are a super economic state with so much power in many areas and I do not see them as fail nation just for being atheists.
I wasn't asking for a thesis, just one or two points towards evidence of your observation. :wink:
You might even cite or quote someone else who has done the work. But if you are unable to back up the claim, that's fine.
No, I meant it literally. You're proposing a dichotomy where none exists.
Quoting 180 Proof
Yeah, I know. You really think philosophy and politics are completely orthogonal?
The first step on the road to wisdom is to admit you know nothing from which point you can begin to construct a less corrupted view of the world.
Your belief is so filled with logical flaws and misinformation about human nature and history that it's not philosophy at all. It's just an excuse for holding on to emotional baggage.
Please try to understand I'm not trying to provoke you it's just that your initial sentence had no bearing on anything I said and your next sentence blamed me for your difficulty comprehending it and then you proceeded to speak for "everyone else".
I'm not here to fix psychological problems. I am here to enjoy talking with people who are interested in philosophy. I'm not above clarifying anything if there is a problem but I flatly refuse to be blamed for anyone else's failures in education.
Whatever. :roll:
It's amazing that someone who writes all the cryptic claptrap you write can't understand a couple relatively straightforward comments.
Oh well. Have a nice life.
I mean... would it help if I pointed to Hagger's Trait Self Control and Self Discipline?
I'm not quoting some article on BuzzFeed here I'm summarizing decades of research and what I said isn't controversial it's just accepted understanding of how human beings develop psychologically to regulate their actions in a social dynamic.
As such there just isn't any such single thing (or couple of things) as what you're asking for (except, of course, for lists of citations by link depth).
Link depth would be shown on Hagger's Google scholar (approaching 5k/year) but that's just an appeal to popularity. You really would have to read a few studies in order to get a feel for how most psychologists describe self discipline/self control.
At any time if there is something you don't understand you're free to ask questions. I'm pretty new here but is that frowned on? Is everyone expected to have all the answers?
It just seems that my first few posts/comments were immediately assaulted by everyone as if they were an affront.
I didn't come here to build a cult. I don't care to sway anyone's opinions. I'm not here to debate anyone.
I'm here for philosophy which is really a very personal thing. It helps a tremendous amount if one can share ideas and have others point out logical flaws and inconsistencies or misinformation because it's very easy to fall into a rut or lie to oneself.
So... that's why I'm here. To talk to other people about philosophy.
Why are you here?
Whoa there, Partner! You don't need to come on so strong. :wink: If you are having trouble expressing yourself succinctly, you can just ask questions of clarification rather than have an information dump. We're all freinds.
You said:
Quoting SkyLeach
Now let's just tease this out. It might help if you slowed down. What makes you think this statement - which is jammed packed with choice ideas - is true? What evidence do you have?
I don't know what the words I underlined mean. As for my statement, the first half is the summary of the findings of many research papers. What makes me think it's true is the findings of the research, the methodology of the research, and where it has been replicated the reproducibility of the research.
The second statement is a logical extrapolation. If a person cannot justify restraining their own actions based on an ethical consideration of the impact of those actions, then the soceity which is well aware of the cost of those actions is forced to impose external discipline in order to maintain order.
I never thought of that as controversial. It's not like one can have people looting stores and raping strangers and still function as a cohesive state.
The premise is that if a body of people impose discipline on themselves because of their beliefs, no matter the source of those beliefs, then the state can save resources by reducing a policing force. If the body of people is unrestrained the opposite holds true.
(Developmental Psych) - The problem here is that because parents are passing on declarative philosophy (also known as imposed morality) the developing mind of the child must struggle to construct a framework of justification on which to hang the imperative. "I must obey or I will be punished." Like water finding the easiest path, the overwhelming majority will comply with expectations that are consistent and relatively easy to conform to.
What researchers have found, however, is that the overwhelming majority wind up developing some kind of moral economics system where the weight of the majority rules and that even just the perceived majority. (Lots of cool experiments here if you ever want to look them up).
The most succinct way to make the point here without a long post is to say: consider rape in the military. When the moral majority within the perceptual limits of an individual with a weak ethical foundation change, so do they. They didn't have ethics or even morality, they merely had circumstance.
There is actually a massive body of research here since it's bisected by multiple schools (criminal psych, developmental, evolutionary, etc...).
The principle takeaway is this: the reason that shows like The Walking Dead show total collapse of ethics is because the research is very clear (and kinda scary). The overwhelming majority are capable of any crime, no matter how bestial. This is because their entire restraint system is circumstantial.
That is particularly accentuated by Protestantism with its emphasis on salvation by faith (which is close to, or actually amounts to, fideism, which was not accepted in the Catholic Church). However some forms of religious culture are grounded more in attainment of insight, which is where the philosophical and religious tend to converge somewhat. For example in classical neoplatonism with its emphasis on theurgy, Advaita Vedanta and Buddhism with their meditational practices. In those domains of discourse, the aspirant is supposed to reach a kind of understanding or insight which is emphatically not the same merely taking something on faith (even if faith in some sense is assumed, at least sufficiently for the purpose of reaching those states of realisation.) And such schools have traditionally been highly philosophically elaborated i.e. the Enneads of Plotinus, the commentaries of Sankara and the voluminous and highly technical philosophical commentaries of the various schools of Buddhism.
Quoting SkyLeach
That paragraph of yours doesn't really jibe with what precedes it. On the one hand, you're dismissive of religion as 'philosofolly' but then you say that its absence is terrifying. That's a rather paternalistic take on it, is it not?
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I've been reading an MA thesis on Schopenhauer's philosophy of religion. I find Schopenhauer's attitude particularly interesting, because he's usually counted amongst the most ferocious critics of religion. Yet strangely enough his ultimate ends dovetail rather well with religion insofar as it has a metaphysical basis (as distinct from a basis in society, culture or evolutionary biology, which is where most modern analyses will stop.)
[quote=Nicholas Linares, Schopenhauer's Philosophy of Religion and his Critique of German Idealism]Schopenhauer argues that philosophy and religion have the same fundamental aim: to satisfy “man’s need for metaphysics,” which is a “strong and ineradicable” instinct to seek explanations for existence that arises from “the knowledge of death, and therewith the consideration of the suffering and misery of life” (WWR I 161). Every system of metaphysics is a response to this realization of one’s finitude, and the function of those systems is to respond to that realization by letting individuals know their place in the universe, the purpose of their existence, and how they ought to act. All other philosophical principles (most importantly, ethics) follow from one’s metaphysical system.
Both philosophers and theologians claim the authority to evaluate metaphysical principles, but the standards by which they conduct those evaluations are very different. Schopenhauer concludes that philosophers are ultimately in the position to critique principles that are advanced by theologians, not vice versa. He nonetheless recognizes that the metaphysical need of most people is satisfied by their religion. This is unsurprising because, he contends, the vast majority of people find existence “less puzzling and mysterious” than philosophers do, so they merely require a plausible explanation of their role in the universe that can be adopted “as a matter of course” (WWR II 162). In other words, most people require a metaphysical framework around which to orient their lives that is merely apparently true. Therefore, the theologian has no functional reason to determine what is actually true. By contrast, the philosopher is someone whose metaphysical need is not satisfied by merely apparent truths – he is intrinsically driven to seek out actual truths about the nature of the world.[/quote]
I understand that - it wasn't clear what your perspective was.
How can you be that sure to say that? Do you really think China is in a big issue of misunderstanding? I think you are mixing Taiwang and Hong Kong political crisis with their culture.
Check this article out:THE "SIX SCHOOLS" OF CHINESE PHILOSOPHY
Do you really think that a country with such philosophical background is making "wrong steps?"
Religion seeks adherents of Faith who accept their Revelations as Gospel without critical analysis. All Revelations purporting to reveal the existence of any God are nonsense, while Morality rests on the terrible choice of values and purposes every Man must choose from himself in an Objectively Real, Godless, Material Universe. Philosophy, like Physics, needs to describe and logically justify the moral dictates it believes to be Universal to Humanity vis a vis the real world as described by the Standard Model of Cosmology.
Philosophy is a science, it depends on logic and difficult lucubrations; Religion depends on Revelation, and the terror of death to demand your Faith in those Revelations; and while there have been (metaphorically) an infinitude of decent people who have lived their lives in religious service, and another infinitude (still metaphorically) who have been comforted in their despair by their notions of a Divine, there have been still more horrors and death created by the divisions and vicious competitions between those competing for Humanity's Faith.
The only Universal Philosophy possible to all of Humanity needs must be free of all of their Divines; and fortunately, we know from the Standard Model of Cosmology, they never really existed anyway.
Quoting 180 Proof
Thus, my immanentism (or Epicurean-Spinozist (i.e. void-atoms ~ substance-modes) affinities).
Philosophy and religion -- though neither are well defined -- care about (i.e., ask questions about) similar things, like what human beings are, what the ultimate reality is, what truth is, what is good, how to live a good life, what happens when we die, etc. Where "religion" seems to separate from philosophy (and science) is in its openness to change. It gives answers, and from then on stops questioning. It bases the rest of its system on these indisputable axioms.
In Christianity, there's a certain set of beliefs one must have to be entitled to label oneself a Christian. Likewise in Buddhism and other religions.
Similar things can be said about schools of thought in philosophy. Platonism, Aristotelianism, etc. In this case, these too can be considered quasi-religious.
Others will say the defining feature of religion is that it is faith-based. But philosophy itself takes many things for granted before it gets off the ground. Most of our actions in life are also faith-based in many ways.
I think it's more useful to look at the questions being asked, and in the end giving up words like philosophy, science, and religion. They've mostly been a nuisance. Instead, we should focus more on questions like "What do you want to do with your life?", "How can one contribute to the world?", "What am I?", etc. Whether one is "doing" philosophy or religion or science or whatever makes no real difference, in my view.
That is true, although I think it's important to recognize that the Catholic church still very explicitly insists that its dogmas be accepted on the basis of faith. The act of such faith, they argue, is a rational act insofar as (they believe) reason can demonstrate both the existence of God and the legitimacy of the Church as God's vessel of revelation to mankind. But it's still faith nonetheless.
Quoting Wayfarer
Yes, agreed. "Insight" is an excellent choice of words here. I think that this is precisely what gets lost when people come to view philosophy as a purely critical or negative enterprise. In my opinion, the world's great philosophers and mystics have, first-and-foremost, been the world's great visionaries. When insight ossifies into dogma, you get "religion" (in the pejorative sense of the word).
The way you use hasty generalization to blanket an incredibly broad subject that touches every culture in the world and through history is indicative of a narrow focus on a personal bias rather than an academic topic.
Moving on: no philosophy is definitely not a science. Science is, however, a branch of philosophy. See the philosophy of science. I consider it to be the only useful branch of philosophy but what I think doesn't make reality.
Finally, cosmology isn't science either. At best it's broad theory with circumstantial disciplines used to prop it up. I like cosmology, but it's really more religion than anything else as evidenced by the fact that every time the big bang gets challenged they take it back to the drawing board instead of asking new questions. There is only one ambiguous experiment thus far in all of cosmological "science" and that's the cosmic background radiation which, unfortunately, has only a single datum at a single measurement point which means it's useless as evidence for confirmation.
If you want to openly discuss philosophy then you should probably start where all the philosophers through history have repeatedly told every student to start: with your preconceptions about yourself.
I am an engineer by trade and a hard-line student of determinism... very much antithetical to the Chinese .... method...
They are mutually exclusive. Philosophy is the source of all good things, and religion is the source of all applications of the use of force. Go check out what the Church did to the Epicureans, I just found out today myself. There is no force in human history that rivals the anti-philosophical magnitude of religion. States and religion; the two most evil, murderous, stupid, and useless institutions ever generated.
Have you seen Alan Coley and George Ellis' Theoretical Cosmology? The Standard Model of Cosmology is a joint project and the accepted standard for Physicists globally; and Ellis is Hawkings' partner in the writing of the Theory of Everything. Cosmology is the science that examines and verifies the accuracy of the classical EFE [Einstein Field Equations], and is exacting, complex and always replicable.
And if Philosophy is not a Science, it is worthless. Fortunately, it is in fact the Science of Sciences, and without Aristotle you don't get, oh, everyone from, you know, Newton to Curie and onward. Subjectivist Philosophies are definitely not Science, but try telling Academia that.
And how, pray tell, does that which is not Science have science for its branches? Does it pick those branched sciences by whimsy?
Lastly, characterizing my arguments gets you nowhere; and, having taken forty years to become evident to me, my generalizations are hardly hasty; but even if they were, you would still need to refute them specifically.
And nice cheap shot, pretending to find (amidst all those blanketing generalizations that touch every culture) my argument "indicative of a narrow focus on a personal bias."
I was raised and ritually brought to manhood a Jew at the age of thirteen, and I gave up all religion as superstition by the time I was fifteen. But, as a wannabe novelist and English major, I have always found, in fact, the ethical basis of Christianity one that well meets the needs of human psychology,; and would further argue that it's central injunction is in fact a Universal Good.
But Faith is the Enemy of Rational Choice, or why else do all Religions start indoctrination laced with the fear of God and Death as soon as a child can communicate? In what Reality is it fair or decent to indoctrinate a metaphysical belief in those far too young to understand the fraught choice?
Remember, old Scratch only comes for your Soul after you already sold it to your God, trading Reason for Faith and Immortality; and trading science and open minded investigation for Doctrine and obedient Worship. Old Scratch never bothers with Atheists.
I'm not here to teach people.
I'm not here to convince people.
I'm not here to debate people.
I'm here to talk about philosophy with people.
At this point I realize it's time to change that list with an insertion right at the top:
From this point on, "people" is defined as any sapient being with sufficient mental discipline to apply rational critical thought and mostly unbiased opinion to their discussion with the goal of enjoying and benefiting from the conversation.
Oh, sorry, the sentences are long, but every one makes perfect sense; and you again contest none of my arguments Real.
Well, talking instead of debating is nice; sort of pointless, but nice. Really. Uh, do you think the weather affects one's philosophic outlook?
:roll:
[quote=Parerga and Paralipomena, 1851]For, as you know, religions are like glow worms; they shine only when it's dark. A certain amount of ignorance is the condition of all religions, the element in which alone they can exist.[/quote]
Quoting Aaron R
Quite. In my youth, I believed that such a piercing insight was obtainable, that it would penetrate the problems of existence and render religions obsolete. Now I’m not so sure.
Yeah, however, some – too few of us – cultivate the courage needed to resist sheltering in the willful ignorance of woo. :pray:
I meant what I said, but your sarcasm tells me you didn't much like it. I think I know why and if I can reach you I guess it's worth trying.
Over 20 years back I approached online discussions about most things much as you do. I contradicted what I disagreed with, threw up my opinions, and dared others to knock them down. It was a fairly effective way of getting into e-fights and that's pretty much exactly what I wanted.
An angry person will put serious effort into fighting back and even if most people are dullards at least an angry one will make an honest attempt.
Since that time (and 20 years is a lot of time) I've wasted a truly obscene number of hours wasting good reason on useless train wrecks. It took too long, but I did eventually learn to stop wasting my time.
The reason I have refused to put effort into discussing your beliefs with you so far is that you've continuously tried to push the idea that less than 30% of the worlds population defines the other 70%. The only religion that met your description was Christianity and there are 234 other major religions that don't even come close to fitting that description.
You can't study philosophy until you find objectivity. The absolute core tenant of philosophy is the pursuit of whatever is closest to objective truth. It's not about finding simply a truth or even divine truth but rather axiomatic truth that withstands critical analysis from every perspective... which is just another way of saying wisdom.
Objective truth can't be observed from a position of skewed bias.
I'm sorry, and I appreciate that you are busy, while I, being old, am much less so -
And honestly, why you keep trying to paint me as an obdurate critic or even much concerned with Christianity is beyond me. If I had any particular animus against a religion it would be that one I was indoctrinated in, the one which I freed myself from as a teen with some difficulty, and whose adherents are now infamous for their oppression of their subject, Palestinian populations.
In fact, as I keep saying, I admire the Christian ethic; and that of many other religions.
Religions often were progressive forces in the world; religion has brought relief and succor to untold billions...
And nothing changes the fact that there aren't any Gods, and anyone who tells you he's Representing the One is either deluded, or cynically using you.....
What? Are you referring to Jewish or Islamic religion?
I likewise doubt that religion will ever become obsolete, at least for the vast majority of us. We'd have to eradicate ignorance, prejudice, poverty, disease and death. In other words, we'd have to cease being human as we currently understand it. Perhaps trans-humanism will be the last religion?
I said this in another thread. You can use all the philosophy in the world to bolster something, but if the core element of it is that it is "revelation" from the supernatural, and therefore "it cannot NOT be true" because of this, it can't really swim with the other philosophies because everything has to fit that supernatural revelation that cannot NOT be true.
I'm sorry that you attribute that as my motive. For whatever it's worth, I wasn't trying to paint you, merely reading your word choice and temperment.
A certain amount of contextual assumption is an unavoidable part of language and it's hardly surprising I would assume that the western religion characterized by your statements would probably be Christianity rather than Judaism as there is a rather massive probability skew by the numbers. In addition to that, the argument quickly becomes specious beyond surface level since in this context only the name of the religion differs, not the presumptive context.
There is no philosophical difference when talking about the anthropological history of Islam, Christianity and Judaism as they are identical before the BC/BCE/AD/CE split.
The point was (and is) that there is a massive difference between Judaic "faith" and religion as a whole, especially on social evolution time scales.
The reason is both simple and blindingly obvious: the entire concept as you characterize it has only existed for less than a century while the religions have been around considerably longer.
Meanwhile, Abrahamic religions should not be understood as philosophical any more than they ought be understood as scientific. Indeed, the Muslim philosopher Al Ghazali highlights this starkly in the Incoherence. Abrahamic religion makes claims on science without the empirical facts to substantiate it just as it makes claims on philosophy without the appropriate philosophical methodology to justify said claims. This is not an accusation against religion, nor me saying that religion is bad: this opinion is one you will find many theologians and theistic philosophers, of the Abrahamic tradition, agree with me on.
I want to reply to another comment here.
Quoting schopenhauer1
This is hardly a good criticism. Tautologies cannot not be true, and I'm sure we wouldn't rule them out, so we definitely need to find another feature to critique aside "not being able to not be true," because we certainly accept things that cannot not be true like facts of logic and mathematics. Certain types of theists view God's existence in a different fashion: it is simply a base of their paradigm. Plantinga develops this in his reformed epistemology where belief in God is justified as properly basic and not the kind of belief that really needs justification. Meanwhile, William James, much prior to Plantinga, grounded belief in God in virtue of his pragmaticism oriented epistemology and truth theory.
Keep in mind I'm not arguing /for/ either Plantinga's position nor William James's. I'm simply expounding what I perceive to be an inadequacy in your criticism and using examples from the theistic side to demonstrate how people may formulate their worldview.
It’s the NOT not true combined with “based on a supernatural revelation” In other words, it cannot not fit that revelation. Everything MUST incorporate that revelation and be apologetics for it.