The use of religion in philosophy.
 

In one of my highschool philosophy courses, we quickly learned to never support our arguments with religious claims. We were taught that though theology could be a useful tool to guide one in one's daily activities, we should not defend our moral choices, metaphysical arguments, and other choices solely upon theology.

Instead, we must defend our views in a philosophical manner, attempting to define morality and metaphysics beyond simply quoting from texts or leaders.

This in no way implied to us that we were to give up our religious beliefs for the purposes of philosophy. In fact, we were urged to strenthen ourselves and our spirituality by questioning what we have come to believe.

I think that one of the better (or at least better known) examples of a philosopher who has done this is Aquinas. He was an avid believer in Christianity, but he also wished for a Reasonable (note the capital R!) proof of God. He would not settle for only the Bible to help him define his God, but also used ontological proofs. He's now known as one of the greatest Christian philosophers in history (even though his proofs had nothing to do with the Christian God, but I'll let that slip for this thread.)

Unfortunately, I've noticed that devoutly religious people don't seem to do this as often anymore. Even in these forums, I occasionally find people supporting their philosophical beliefs with no more than quotations from their religious texts or prophets. In my opinion, this is poor philosophy, and I wish for these people to strive for more.

I believe that if people were to consider their beliefs beyond their books and were able to provide explainations beyond quotations and references, then perhaps we would get along a bit better.

To me, this is a healthy approach to religion. One must always poke and prod at your beliefs regardless of what they are... to move blindly through life without reflection is just asking for trouble.

The problem with poking and prodding is that sometime you damage what you are poking... It is no longer usuable to you. But you realize that you must move onto something else... something different. Many people are afraid of what comes after this... and the answer is never an easy one if you are truly searching.

On the other hand, sometimes poking and prodding can make the thing you are prodding better... more beautiful (like the bits of stone Michalangelo removed from the hunk of rock that became David).

In my mind, both conclusions are worthwhile and as with all things... the journey is the most imprortant part of the process...

It is important to incorporate as much information into belief as possible, in my opinion. There is great value in much of the texts out there....the key is to form your own path from the Data....and strive to become more.
But I have to agree that I am turned off quickly by those that adhere strictly to these texts, as I feel they are guides....not fact.

I think that was very well written cellophanediety.

In my experiences, most people are afraid to do a little poking and prodding. I think they fear their faith may perhaps be damaged like Charlatan says. To me, this is very telling as to where these people stand. I'm sure everyone's heard religion called a "crutch". I can see how it would make sense for these individuals to not poke their cruch. It is supporting them after all.

I think it is interesting to note that religion often serves not as a guide, but as a justification. Many of the most devout do not mold themselves to conform to the apparent ideology of their chosen savior. Rather they mold their chosen savior to conform to their own ideology. This is the crux of the problem of arguing from a religious perspective; all you're really doing attempting to use the source of your faith to justify your own perspective. This is convenient, however, in that 1) The infallibility of a divine being is impossible for a mere mortal to effectively question; and 2) One who argues from this perspective doesn't have to claim any kind of responsibility for their own perspective. If you ever want to save yourself the trouble of having to question your own assumptions, just pawn them off on a divine being. Though i suppose this summary only applies to the majority of christians who believe that god hasn't had anything important to say for two thousand years.

A very good point filtherton... very nicely argued.

This isn't quite quite true. Basicly a Saint would be doing gods work and spreading his will directly, otherwise the Saint would not be able to perform miracles. These micracles are what sets a saint appart from a good priest or any other 'holy' person in the church.

So a counter argument would be that god is constantly talking to us, but its up to us to listen, hes not going to beat us over the head with it.

I personally see most religions as a way to avoid philosophy.

Religion makes it easy, you don't question it, it just is. While there have been some get philosophers which were also religious, the majority of people have no use for philosophy and religion helps them from needing to ask themselves difficult questions.

Why shouldn't we do this?
What happens when you die?
What is our future?

Its all laid out, right there in black and white, so don't worry your head, get back to making the donunts.

I don't disagree with this at all.

The average person doesn't have the time or inclination to ask the difficult questions... they are busy getting on with life. I've said it before, religions of all stripe have one major thing in common they answer the existential questions that we all ask: Where did we come from and what happens when we die?

It is very comforting to have a plan laid out for you. The fear of death and the uncertainty of life are easier to bear if you have an instruction manual.

That said, I think this unquestioning adherence to scripture (or those who interpret it for us) is a large part of the reason there is conflict between different religions.

Except with most religions it is not laid out in black and white. Most churches don't address these questions becauase they quite simply don't have an answer.

Well being brought up Catholic I can tell you they most definately have a plan, and it is indeed black and white.

I, again, agree with Ustwo... The whole point of religions is that they *do* lay it out in black and white -- especially the Catholics...

That said, there are some religions that are open to interpretation... Protestantism has allowed any number of branches of Christianity to develop. The think is, the rules within those sects *are* laid out (Presbyterians believe one thing and Baptists another but they remain true to their own interpretations of Christianity).

When I have asked priests and/or elders of many religions these kind of questions the answer ends up being something along the lines of "That is one of God's mysteries that we don't have the ability to understand"

While I believe that a finite mind and understanding can't perfectly grasp the inifinite, I don't for a second believe that God couldn't provide us with answers to questions like, Why are we here? Why were we created? Who/what is God? What is our destiny? and so on.

Understanding the why's and how's only help firm up a person's resolve to have faith. I think at times people equate philosophy with questioning faith with the intent to destroy. However it is quite obvious that those whose writings we find in books of scripture did just that, they asked questions, then lived by the answers they got.

And let's not forget how leaders use political dogma to explain why they do what they do. And there's our current commander-in-chief, who appears to use conservative religious dogma when looking for political guidance. It unsettles me that the man has claimed on more than one occasion that God has spoken to him and told him to do things--but I'm getting off-topic.

What I'm trying to say is that religious motivation is often merely a guise used to gain political power.

I can't remember if this has been posted here before or not, but I do think it's pertinent to the points raised in this discussion:

From Man On The Moon--A Colossal Hoax that Cost Billions of Dollars
While this is an extreme example, it does show an example of this thing about blackness and whiteness in sharp relief. While the writer is asking valid questions about the authority of the 'presumed' moon landings (i.e. few of us have ever been there, yet we all accept that they happened. I'm not saying that they didn't, just that it's not unreasonable to question whether they happened or not), he is at the same time placing his faith blindly in the authority of his religion. When I see people arguing against one authority, showing that x argument is false, and then turning around and using the same argument to validate their own chosen authority, it makes me blush - but it happens all the time.

It is this authority that stops people asking questions - If philosophy is the love of, or the search for truth, then we must be wary of being seduced by any authorities until we have worn ourselves out by our own relentless searching.

Thats brilliant - we are to accept the possibility that the sun is closer, but that we can't travel faster than one million miles an hour - both are just as plausible if we are going to completely disregard our scientific beliefs for the vedic scriptures.
Science and religion simply don't mix, one cannot be used to verify the other

Hear, hear! I admire Aquinas, but I think the approach is always full of assumptions, ultimately fundamentally flawed, and doomed to fail.

Well yes, I wasn't going to argue for Aquinas, I just think that it's wonderful that he wanted to find a Rational way to define his faith.

I appreciate that. I've felt the same desire. I don't believe that rationality and faith speak the same language, or share the same goals. I think the approach of finding a rational way to define faith is asking two artforms to share a common language that doesn't exist.

I am currious about this. While I can't debate that certainly in this day in age this is the way things are, I wonder what would happen if we had a generation of people encouraged to think about the more challenging questions of human existance without using dogma as a crutch. I'd like to hope that it would lead more people to spend time thinking, writing, and reading and most importantly, discussing. I can't help but wonder if the "average person" is simply a social construct that is easy to fall into when one is not challenged.

~Liz

Cello - I think that you and others on this thread are missing a great opportunity to try and understand what faith means to people and the true nature of religion.. You are asking the ideals of something very personal, and then pull away the tools for them to effectively talk about it. Similar maybe to asking you what love means to you, but then saying, "I don't want to hear about your family or relationships though. Everybody always brings up family and relationships and I don't like my family."

You can have some great conversations with really intelligent people and instead of a debate to be won (I am the worst at this) try to imagine what they feel and why. Even if you can't agree on how to debate the issue with them, appreciating the rules they play the game by is a good exercise to discipline your own philosophical inqueries. The respect we give others always describes our nature more than we could ever describe someone else... :)

The above to me....pretty much defines the way to gain information. Having spent a good part of my life relying on faith to get by, I see great value in trying to understand the base reasons we lean on it. Philosophy requires faith as well.

Two things to consider. Aquinas, or any rationalized system, carries the risk of intellectual coherance at the cost of livability. For instance, to deal with the problem of evil, Aquinas introduced the anti-humanist concept of Original Sin. We've had fun with it ever since...and a whole host of anti-body, anti-sex, anti-person theologies have stemmed from it. I know you're not on the Aquinas bandwagon, but i want to suggest the problem with philosophical reasoning. It may be intellectually satisfying, but leave problems in other areas.

why i think this to be true is that all reasoning carries with it assumptions. philosophy claims to state those it employs. i beg to differ.

i think therefore i am.

Descartes assumes a being, observes thought, and draws a conclusion. Where's the confession of belief behind this all? That "I am" is better than to not be. It's funny that way, but the conclusions and reasonings of philosophy reveal a great deal of confessional theology (statements of value or belief that are authorized by the adherants statement that they believe). When i do theology, i'd prefer to get that over with, and confess my beleifs, draw conclusions from those starting points, and then take the conversation from there.

so i don't want to leave alone the idea that it's not a good idea for people to be citing the leaders or texts of their group....as confession, that citation indicates an assumed starting point. hopefully, that person will be willing to discuss and elaborate from there....but i can't think of a better starting point than to review assumptions.

Chickentribs, I am not trying to say that I have no interest in hearing about religious views and dogmas and beliefs. I think that it is a wonderful thing for people to be religious and have faith. I envy them.

In fact, I find that many of my most stimulating conversations deal with religious values, when someone teaches me about their faith from the side of their faith. 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.

I would find it to be much better if the person I am talking with could be willing, even if not quite able, to defend their view beyond the dogma, such as "This is wrong because my prophet says so, and I agree because..."

It seems to me that philosophy is not simply about having beliefs, but having reasons to believe what one does. If you were talking to someone and they said "I'm an idealist" and when you asked them what the support for this idea was they said "Because I'm an idealist," you'd quickly tire of their "philosophy." I don't think that religion is drastically different, though I do understand that it can be more personal.

Oh, and martinguerre, I'm not ever going to say that philosophy provides complete answers. It never will... but that's another thread. ;)

Cello - It is easy to see by your posts I have read, that empathy is probably second nature to you. I just thought after reading through quite a few posts in the thread that were focused on "winning" the debate that I would bring up something I have been working on myself. Competition seems more natural than empathy for me many times and this was as much a post to me as to anyone else. (I'm funny that way) Thanks... :)

The inherent problem with your suggestion to integrate philosophy and one's religious views, cello, is that the two are incompatible. By definition, religion involves "the service and worship of God or the supernatural" while philosphy broadly deals with "all learning exclusive of technical precepts and practical arts" (per Merrriam-Webster). The obvious and humbling (for me at least) truth of this came when I played the "god" games at TPM Online:

http://www.philosophersnet.com/games/whatisgod.htm

http://www.philosophersnet.com/games/god.htm

It would be nice if there were some philosophical substantiation for one's religious beliefs, but it ain't gonna happen. You can't have religion without a leap of faith, i.e, the acceptance, as true, of facts central to the religion, notwithstanding the absence of objective supporting evidence or logical proof.

There can be a convergence of certain principles, but that still doesn't get you there. At the end of the day, there simply is no philosophical proof to validate one's belief in the diety or dieties of his or her choice.

Perhaps there isn't proof to validate the existence of a supreme being, but I'm not calling on that. I understand that religion is based upon leaps of faith. Hell, it's even refered to as Faith. But I'm generally okay with people saying there is a God, then saying "This world is too beautiful for there to not be one" or something lofty like that.

It's when people use their faith to defend their moral choices and metaphysical beliefs when I get more annoyed. As I said in the second paragraph of my first post,

hmm...

well, as groundbreaking as Aquinas was in establishing some of the logical/reasoning underpinnings of Christian doctrine... he never really started from scratch.
that is to say, Aquinas assumed God and worked backwards to find a rationale.

for those who say that religion and philosophy are incompatible (who, i think, are most certainly mistaken), Aquinas cannot be considered a true philosopher. certainly a Scholar (with a capital "S" :) ) and logician, but not a philosopher.

it's is ex nihilo or nothing these days.

^
|
read that back to yourself and try not to get dizzy ;)

You're preaching to the choir. It would be great if the legitimacy of a claim to the moral high ground required the concurrence of religious beliefs and sound philosophy, and I personally characterize those people as spiritual, in the most complementary sense. If everyone shared your view, I have no doubt that we'd all get along much better. Unfortunately, "religious" people (i.e, those who on faith accept their religious texts as the literal and irrerant word of their deity), could care less about the soundness of their reasoning, simply because it's irrelevant to them...for those folks, scripture will always trump philosophy. Because of this, and with all due respect to irateplatypus, religion and philosophy ultimately mix about as well as oil and water.

loganmule,

i have difficulty understanding your meaning. you say religion cannot encompass legitimate philosophy because it relies on underlying assumptions about God.

yet, nearly all philosophies assume things we cannot empirically prove that are built from the mind's perception of truth.

i'm doubting you would disqualify every philosophical tradition built on an assumption of from the corpus of philosophy though they exhibit the characteristics you fault philosophy-from-religion for.

Sorry for the confusion. Clearly, religion can encompass legitimate philosophy, if the practitioners take a liberal view, openly conceding their assumption of the accuracy of the sacred texts they rely upon in practising their faith, and considering that the texts may properly be read as metaphor or variously interpreted.

Here in the Bible Belt, however, we are populated extensively with Christian fundamentalists. To them, or to fundamentalists of other faiths, there are only facts, not assumptions, and anyone taking a contrary view would be branded a heathen. As they are certain they have empirical proof, they have no need for philosophy, and would reject it anyway, to the extent it is inconsistent with the "facts" as enunciated in the Bible or other sacred texts.

As my earlier post suggested, my remarks were based upon a narrow view of religion to refer to fundamentalists. Thanks for calling to my attention the need for some clarity on that.

irateplatypus -- I'm a bit confused. You say that "it's ex nihilo or nothing these days" (ala Descartes, I assume), but in your next post, you say, "nearly all philosophies assume things". Maybe it's just early and I'm not quite thinking straight yet, but this seems like a contradiction?

In any case, we all have assumptions that we tailor our philosophies around. Our epistemic state is never that of someone building a system up from a foundation. Rather, its more like someone in a boat on the open seas, replacing one board at a time. We use some of our beliefs to critique other beliefs. So I don't know why belief in the inerrancy of scripture would be in a different category than the belief that only empirically verifiable claims are true or false (other than that the second has been proven incoherent).

Further, I don't know why we're not allowed to use scripture to defend our moral and/or metaphysical beliefs and/or choices. If you ask me why I chose to give money to charity, and I answer "Because the Bible says that's a good thing", why isn't that a good answer? Similarly, if you ask why I believe in angels, and I say, "Because the Bible says that there are angels", why is that a bad answer? Surely it's, at the worst, no worse than believing in the existence of Australia because your Uncle Joe says it's there.

Good points to bring up.

I think that solely using scripture to defends one's beliefs and choices is a poor method of philosophy because there are stronger and more valuable means of discussion.

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."

I am not saying that it is necissarily inappropriate for people to believe things solely upon scripture. I would not advocate it, but I'm not particularly against it. What I am against, is people passing scripture for philosophy. If it is not open to questioning it is not philosophy. If one believes that their view is infallible and does not ever need to adapt,change, or evolve, then they will not make a good philosopher.

For the same reason, people who scream "THERE IS NO GOD!!" and do not listen to any other opinion is just as poor a philosopher.

(And as far as the Australia thing goes, Australia can be easily verified. Angels can't really be. It's sort of like me saying "I believe in jabberwocks because Lewis Carrol says so, and Lewis Carrol is infallible." It's not bad, but why bother trying to figure out philosophically if jabberwocks and angels exist? That is neither moral nor metaphycial.)

i was just playing around by implying that "ex nihilo" grounded philosophy was in fashion at this particular time, not that all philosophy was such.

"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?"

sage...i won't contest that that view of the bible and truth is not true, for some Christians. but i guess i'd like to throw out there that this is not always the case. there are quite a few theologically liberal Christians out there, and we're well represented on this board.

all i had to say. :)

Both good points, and points I would completely agree with. Just for the sake of clarity, I assume that in the first paragraph quoted above, you mean something like my saying that charity is good because, were I in need, I would want people to be charitable towards me. For your second point, I agree with it as long as you don't think that everyone needs to be a philosopher. I think that to some extent, we should all lead thoughtful lives. But it's simply not the case that the people I work with at the factory could or should lead a life as thoughtful as that of a monk or a philosopher professor. Exactly how this works out, I don't know.

Oh! I thought I had clarified, or that other people had clarified for me.

I don't think that everyone should be a philiosopher. If we all were philosophers, nothing would ever get done! I think it would be beneficial if each person took a bit of time each week to consider themselves and their place in the world philosophically, but I don't even desire to have everyone philosophize all the time.

I think that when people are discussing politics or philosophy and things like that, they should act philosophically. When people are going about their daily business, I don't care what their thought process and defences are, as long as they're not being harmful.

cellophanedeity, I'm interested in your comment that "I am not saying that it is necissarily inappropriate for people to believe things solely upon scripture. I would not advocate it, but I'm not particularly against it." This seems to be inconsistent with the point which you made at the outset, that we might all get along better, if, as you put it, "people were to consider their beliefs beyond their books and were able to provide explainations beyond quotations and references".

I agree with tecoyah, and bet that you actually do as well. In essence, you have raised the delemma faced by all open minded souls, who can allow for the validity of the views of fundamentalists of all stripes, and in turn are rejected by them.

I personally would rather have your world, but unfortunately it's not the one I find myself in.

I did say "things" not "everything."

What I meant was that when people have a bit of extra change to throw into the donation box, I don't expect them to go through the philosophy to decide. If they want to give their money because God says that it's a nice thing to do, let them. If they want to believe in angels, go ahead. None of this affects anyone other than themselves in any sort of negative way.

On the otherhand, I think it's ridiculous to hate gays, and not allow homosexual unions for no more than the bible saying it's wrong. That people are against abortion because the bible says its wrong. That the president of the United States claims that god is on his side.

Any time one enters into philosophic or political discourse, one must have more defence than "cawz the gewd lawrd sayid sao."

I tend to stay out of debate because I am uneducated and unread i.e. I have not the intellectual tools for defining a consistant viewpoint. But I do feel that philosophy as a structured approach to thought and ethical behaviour, and religeon as a structured approach to social interaction and views of our place in the scheme of things are interwoven and actually different viewings of that wonderful evolved reality - human thought.

It will take time to develop a Universal approach that realigns the contrary interactions of people. We will always disagree and shed enormous amounts of energy and anguish in the process. But a religeous person who uses the developed construct of their belief system to allow them a satisfactory awareness of life, and a philosopher who uses a different and no less rigorous system to do the same thing are not incompatable. They just act as if they were sometimes.

And also, a person who uses the "technology" if I may use the phrase, of their spiritual guides and writings to interact and interpret life - that person is being philosophical - they just are using different tools and a different focus.

To the OP, indeed. I had a great prof when I took world religions. He said something along the lines of theologins while their knowledge has gone up over the decades the mainstream religious mass has stayed the same.

In general, the thing that always surprises me of people that are so intent on the bible is that a human hand wrote and edited it and yet they act like there can be no mistake or interpretation of the word.

Moving momentarily from philosophy to psychology, this is a perfect example of cognitive dissonance. We inherently don't want to hear anyhting that disagrees wtih out beliefs. Through selective exposure, we keep ourselves away from anything that challenges what we think, and become hostile to that which we cannot avoid.

One of the things I have learned in life is that seeking out dissonant thoughts is the only way to truly learn. When I was religious, I never wanted to hear anything that challenged my faith. When I was a communist, I didn't want to hear any sort of conservative economic ideas that contradicted my idealistic views. When I was anti-gun, I didn't want to hear anyone telling me that good people could use them responsibly.

When I realized that the only way to improve myself was to critically analyze what I thought and what the other sides said, I prodded my beliefs and found that I didn't damage what was there, but rather that my instrument of prodding hit empty space. Off the top of my head, those are three extreme things that I used to think, and now find absurd. I couldn't justify belief in religious teachings to myself, I couldn't continue to advocate the replacement of our economic system with one so obviously doomed to failure, and I realized that if good people like myself were armed, then someone could fight back against the bad guys.
I have been offered countless pieces of evidnce that suggests the definite existance of Australia (and if it's all wrong, my dad's Uncle Jim has been fuckking with our heads for the past 35 years,) and Carrol made no attempt to classify his work as non-fiction. The Bible is a great piece of work by a lot of talented people, but its validity is up in the air as far as I'm concerned due to a significant lack of concurring evidence and proof of significant meaning-altering mistranslations and creative interpretation during transcription (who can tell me about the original story of Lucifer from ancient pre-translation texts?)

In my mind, only recency keeps Judeo-Christian scriptures above the level of classic mythology in terms of popular acceptance. Sure, billions of people believe in the writing and its messages, but I'm willing to bet that a similar percentage of populations exposed to classic mythology before it became regarded as fantastic tales of fiction believed in one or another of its deities. I expect that in thousands of years, the only difference between our current views of Greek and Roman mythology and future generations' views of our modern religions is that they'll have a lot less names of deities to memorize in elementary school.

Religion can be conisdered to be a form of philosophy. Philosophy suggest a way to live and a reason for doing so. Religion does the same thing, but often goes further into areas where philosophy cannot.

[thread hijack]
Wrong. Science often proves religion. Science and religion DO mix. One must understand that religion says "what" and hints at the "how" but doesn't specifically say "how." Science says "how" and this "how" often coexists with and/or proves the religion. Science and Religion do agree, especially with Christianity and Catholicism. When someone says otherwise, it is often due to not having a full understanding of both. Rather the one that says they don't mix often has only a partial understanding of each, or a partial understanding of one with a full understanding of the other, or a full understanding of one with no understanding of the other, or no understanding of either. This does not mean that one must have a full understanding of both to see that science proves religion. A partial understanding of each, or a partial understanding of one and a full understanding of the other, both can allow one to come to a conclusion that science proves religion. But those with a full understanding of both are much more likely to state that science proves relgion, and not the other way around. That is partially why so many scientists and scholors who have tried to prove religion, specifically Christianity, and the bible wrong end up converting to Christianity. I am not saying that this is always the case, but is often the case.

As USWTO mentioned, God speaks through the Saints. For the Catholic Church, God speaks through the Pope. God speaks to us all the time. The comment shouldn't be that God hasn't had anything important to say for two thousand years, but that most men haven't listened to what God has had to say this past two thousand years.
[/thread hijack]

Sorry to pull the discussion away from the main topic. You may resume with the discussion.

Why is Christianity the only one mentioned in this thread? I can see that people wouldn't question or mention Judism as ever since WWII nobody can openly question Judism without being classified a Nazi. Also, questioning the founding beliefs of Judism is the same as questioning many of the founding beliefs in the Old Testiment of Christianity. Thus it's easier (as in one gets to question both Judism and Christianity, and avoid being called a Nazi) for those questioning Judism to just question the Old Testiment of Christianity. But what about Islam or any other religion without trinity, or the religions and cults overrun by the devil? Why are those religions never brought into question? Could it be because they are so easily disproved when confronted with philosophy? Is Christianity the only one ever mentioned due to being so large, or is it the only one mentioned because it is the hardest to disprove with good philosophy?

In part because Christianity is one of very few religions that actually bothers with Philosophy. Islam hasn't produced a first-rate philosopher since the Middle Ages, and I can only think of a handful of Jewish philosophers.

Religion is not a form of philosophy no matter how you try to dress it up,
Philosophy never suggests a way to live

The fact that science so dismally failed to prove the foundations of christianity and in fact challenged many of it's beleifs led to the creation of theology. Religion is not based on the same tenants as sceince it's faith v fact.

That statement is one of cultural arrogance, not fact. Philosophy as a category is western and Christian by definition....so of course, there are only going to be western "philosophers" and a few others we then throw in to that category because they seem to fit more than they don't. Vedic texts consider the nature of being versus non being, the Gita questions of free will and responsibility...Mahayana texts discuss universality and particularity and questions of cosmic unity....Bhuddism in general contains elements that we westerners would probably categorize as philophy in our own cultural frameworks. Dao and Confucianism in their own ways deal with questions of how the individual relates to the cosmos...what the nature of the human being is, and how that being can know truth. Again...content that if packaged in western terminology, we would divide between religion, philopshy, and proverbial wisdom.

And as for Judiasm...i didn't know that you expected more than Buber, Spinoza and Derrida. I'm sure there's more...but they only happen to be three of the giants of the field. i don't mean to be harsh here, but assuming that only Christianity seriously engages in this kind of thought is just not right.

I said that most christians believe that god doesn't hasn't had anything important to say for 2000 years. I understand that from the catholic church's perspective, god talks to saints and the pope. I'm not sure about the whole "sainting" process, but from what i gather it is strictly a matter of interpretation on the part of the catholic authorities. I also find it questionable that the pope is the only person god speaks directly to. I wonder what the pope would say if i told him that god told me that god could care less if gays got married? Would he make me a saint? The realist in me believes he wouldn't.
Many denominations of christianity are strict interpretationalists. They take the bible to be the literal word of god. They seem to act as if god dropped that little nugget millenia ago and hasn't had anything to say since.

So, among the majority of christianity you have either 1)God still speaks, but only through this one guy, or 2)God said everything that god needed to say about humanity in the bible.

I'm speaking about christianity because that is what i am familiar with. Though before you completely pull the "christian bashing" card completely out of the deck, you should know that i don't think any belief system that pawns things off on a higher power or any kind of text belongs in a secular philosophical discussion.

I don't think its a matter of proving or disproving. There is no proof of the existence of god, there is only faith. You can't disprove the existence of something when no proof of its existence exists. You can't disprove something that doesn't have any evidence to refute. You can't even prove that i don't shit golden goose eggs. Furthermore, to believe in christianity you have to rid yourself of the notion that you require any kind of proof, at least "proof" in the scientific sense.

Any kind of system requires axioms. 1+1=2. Belief in a higher power requires an axiom that declares belief in this higher power. 1+1=2, God exists. How can you have a meaningful discussion about reality if you aren't working with the same set of fundamental assumptions?

very good point. almost everyone I know uses the bible or their prefered religious belief as a defense in this manner without ever thinking for themselves as to WHY they think that way.

the whole topic kind of reminds me of the book 1984 in how people are limited in their thoughts and emotions by what they are told is the truth and anything outside that is instantly wrong and false. Because everything is spelt out for them they never question why something is this way, or if they do it is in a very limited box set up by their beliefs. by trying to discuss their beliefs without using scripture to back them up it forces them to actually think of why they think/feel that way about a topic rather then just believing in it because they are told to.

the interwining of western philosophy and religion is a very old, very complicated historical problem. western philosophy in general starts up with a theologization of plato and aristotle, once they "reappeared" thanks to the muslim conservation/transcription of the key texts.
whence aquinas.

"modern" philosophy usually traces its history to descartes.
this move requires isolating the cogito as the central element in what amounts to an ontological proof (rather, the substitution of an epitemological claim for an ontological claim). but the steps that follow (judgement, which opens onto an infinite regress, the argument concerning imperfection/perfection which resolves onto a claim for god, from which follows everything else) shows that descartes is nowhere near being out from under the religious assumptions that shape the tradition he worked in.

"modern" philosophy emerges via folk like spinoza--within the xtian tradition, it emerges from within nominalism--god is maybe operational, maybe exists, but human understanding cannot know so the structure of the world and knowledge about the world can be seen as an independent zone of being that no longer requires recourse to god as ground. like pascal. but even then god persists--in kant, in hegel (particularly obvious in hegel's case)

i dont think you get explicitly secular philo in the west until the middle nineteenth century. the mathematization of the world, the mathematization of knowledge about the world, etc...a kind of grounding of captialist rationality dressed in philosophical garb--its inversion in folk like marx, nietzsche, etc.

i think that the main residuum of this metaphysical tradition in the present is the affection for transcendent claims. i think that the main reasons for this are institutional--defnese of the genre of philosophy from history, for example, is about the preservation of spaces of professional competence, not about matters of principle: transcendent propositions are the lingua franca of a particualr professional cadre--they exist and function because the cadre exists and functions. nothing about philosophy gets resolved once and for all. it is not a history of isolated heroic individuals. but to develop this would take way way too much space.

in general, whether religious claims are admissable or not within a given argument is a social question, a genre question. at the level of the type of questions/responses philo tends to pose, the flirtation with religious matters is constant. and religion never really goes away--in recent "continental" philo, you see it coming in via particular readings of heidegger (who i take to be a theologian in the main)-- derrida, levinas, marion--the theologizing of phenomenology.
these could be understood in sociological terms (see above on the cadres) or in historical terms (a function of the collapsing back onto old transcendental discourses as a way of coping with the radical uncertainty being introduced in any nmber of dimensions by globalizing capitalism, say). within the history of philosophy, these folk could be seen as a demonstration of the nonlinear nature of that history, fodder for a rejection of the entire ideology of progress--but this claim would be a genre function, whether i could make the argument a function of the community i was part of. not a question of principle.

my apologies for rattling on like this.

Martin -- I completely agree with you that Philosophy is a Western category, though not that's it's Christian. Philosophy is just that discipline that people practice when they're acting within the historical tradition started by Aristotle and Plato. Not that non-Western persons can't do philosophy, or that the 'philosophies' of their tradition aren't just as valuable, just that the tradition of philosophy is a western one. So it's been practiced almost entirely by pagans, Christians, Jews, Muslims, Agnostics, and Atheists. Within the tradition, since the demise of paganism, it has been largely Christians who have dealt with the relation between philosophy and religion. I did indeed forget a few Jewish philosophers (I'm pretty embarassed that I'd forgotten Levinas -- the ones I was thinking of were Maimonides, Spinoza, and Maimon). I don't know how much Islamic philosophy has been going on since the Middle Ages, but there we have Al-Ghazali, Al-Farabi, Ibn Sina, and Averroes. But among the Christians we have Augustine, Aquinas, Scotus, Descartes, Locke, Berkely, Kant, and half of Hegel, and many more of the stature of at least Maimon. So I don't think that it is an exaggeration to say that, from the rise of Christianity probably until today, the problematic of the interaction of religion and philosophy has largely been a Christian problematic. To the extent that Atheists and Agnostics do philosophy of religion, it tends more to be either arguments against the existence of God, or disprooving arguments for his existence.

I beg to differ on philosopy never suggesting a way to live. Many philosophies suggest a way to live life. Some examples include The Enchiridon by Epictetus, Aristotle's The Nicomachean Ethics, and some of Socrates' philosophies.

If religion is not a philosophy, then why is there so much discussion of religion and religious ideals in philosophy? And as far as the TFP setup goes, if religion is not a philosophy, then why is do we have so many threads on religion in the philosophy section?

If we look at it in terms of academic departments, what we're doing here most of the time is clearly not theology. It's much more similar to philosophy of religion.

Filtherton -- you are my hero. There is no need for me to post here because you take the argument right out of my mouth, making it more articulate and concise in the process.

Thank you for your insight, it's been a pleasure reading your posts.

Ummm, maybe contemporary philosophy has shied away from this recently, but ethics - a branch of philosophy - certain suggests a way to live, even more so than the ancient philosophers cited above. Bringing the discussion back to its roots, Aquinas suggested a way to live, as did Kant, Descartes and others.

There is some pretty interesting discussion going on here. I did not get to read every single post so please forgive me if I repeat some things that may have already been said.

I think one of the difficulties we seem to be having here is understanding the true definitions of philosophy and religion. I would agree that philosophy does try to indicate how people should live, though perhaps in its purest form it should not. When it comes to religion the problem is that for most people, religion is not merely a chosen belief system; It is an expression of the relationship that they have with God. Therefore, it would be almost impossible for their religion to not affect their philosophy (even Aquinas...if u study the bible *closely* and compare his studies you can see that).

NONETHELESS ;) .....I do believe that Christians and people of most other belief systems (including atheism..the belief in no God..lol) tend to approach the idea of existentialism with a presupposed bias instead of being open to ...dare I say ...truth. Truth has now become one of the most feared words in the english language and so we have conveniently declared that it does not exist or that is relative...but thats a whole other thread!..lol.

Either way I do firmly agree with what Mr. Self Destruct said about the biases we have..etc. What I notice is that many people do not truly know or understand what they belive and that is why when their beliefs are questioned they flee in ignorance...their entire life philosophy hangs on a thread UNLESS they truly know what and why they believe it.

This gets tricky in a conservative view of "faith" but what Christians (and I will only talk about christianity in this sense...and um....and that INCLUDES Catholics Forgottenknight) believe in terms of faith is that God is literally dwelling inside of them...hard to argue with if you have never experienced it. Still, just because you have been brought up in a church or etc....it does not mean that you have this personal relationship, it is all determined by a choice you make and that choice is initially spurred by faith. This is where the faith in God comes (as there are different forms of faith) and this is primarily a problem and issue for the nonbeliever, not the believer.

STILL....if Christians believe that they have the truth (as do all religions...yes ALL...some may say they dont believe this but when you talk with them more and read their doctrines and such you see that thats not true at all) then they should think they can "prove" their religion. Perhaps this has not been done because people are too indoctrinated to truly question their *DOCTRINES* in search of truth and the sad part is that these people only then hinder God.

I guess ultimately my point is that Christians and all religions should become much more philosophical about their belief systems. I am a Christian myself who has an inherent need to question everything..lol. I am a definite skeptic and yet in becoming more philosophical about my beliefs I have found the statement to be true that this does indeed only strengthen my "faith".

I hope this makes SOME kind of sense :lol:

knowledge2 - Well put. You have some good points. (And yes, all Catholics, or true Catholics at least, are Christians, so when talking about Christians in general, most catholics are normally included.:)) I as a Catholic, questioned everything as well, even to the point of attending studies with many different churches, and it is this questioning that had continued to strengthen my faith more and more. I agree that all religions should be more philosophical in that they need to teach and study much more on the philosophies of the religion, so that those attending the church know what they believe, why, and how to act upon it and/or apply it in every day life.

I think this is in the spirit of the original post. Aquinas started off every question with the main objections and tried to handle those objections using reason and logical argumentation. That in hindsight some of those reasons were not right (even disapproved by the Church), does not reflect badly on his method.