Sage

"But, I find that the worst philosophy is when someone says something along the lines of "We are here to appease God" or "This is wrong because my prophet says so," and then they leave the discussion at that."

"Lets use your example of giving money to charity. If the reasoning behind your giving "is because the Bible says it is a good thing", this is less philosophically valuable than questioning it. I think that it would be more valuable to question one's reasoning, perhaps even after the fact. Such as, "The Bible says that charity is a good thing, and this [insert other reason here] is why this is true.""

Any Christian I've ever met would answer that last question as [because the Bible is the Word of God]. The Bible, to Christians, is the be all end all Word of God. Period, no discussion allowed. Now, where the "fun" begins is when mankind gets ahold of it and starts arguing about exactaly what was meant by this or that or the other. For example, my mother's interpretation of what it means to be a Christian and my father-in-law's interpretation are two really, really different things, and yet they're both Southern Baptists. The Bible says a lot of things. Personally, I think that the Bible basically boils down to "Base your life off of Jesus, who was God, therefore be more like God."

I think it's interesting that in this discussion Christianity comes up, and stays up, and pretty much every other religion isn't looked at. I'd really love to hear how Islam handles this discussion, or Hinduism, or Shinto, or things like that.

A lot of religious talkings happen because you get two people together and they're both saying "I really know what's going on and you don't." I find that Christianity in particular doesn't open itself up to philosophical discussion (in the general population, Thomas Merton aside) because it's only got one set of guidelines to go by. So, you can nitpick the Bible to death, but if you start adding your own philosophy to the Bible, then you're getting out of the realm of possibility because the Bible is all there is. But, some people (like Thomas Merton) interpreted the Bible in new and different ways, and brought about a lot of fresh air into Christanity. Personally, I think God just wants us to be happy and Enjoy ourselves, but the debate comes when you then ask "How am I supposed to be happy? What, exactaly, can I do and not do when it comes to enjoying myself?"

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