Religion vs. Philosophy

Discuss philosophical questions regarding theism (and atheism), and discuss religion as it relates to philosophy. This includes any philosophical discussions that happen to be about god, gods, or a 'higher power' or the belief of them. This also generally includes philosophical topics about organized or ritualistic mysticism or about organized, common or ritualistic beliefs in the existence of supernatural phenomenon.
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Marcus Clayman
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Joined: January 3rd, 2008, 4:58 pm

Post by Marcus Clayman »

if done correctly religion would be the ideal and strengthen direction, philosophy would be the argument, science would be the proof and strengthen faith... hmmm, for some reason this all seems right to me... the only thing that seems as though it gets in the way is that I could CHOOSE which ones if any to be interested in... seeing as i am interested in living a good life, wondering about every last inch of it and learning from it all, i see that it is all perfect, people just need to stop thinking about systems of thought and systems of philosophy and systems of religion and systems of science, if done correctly what is true is what is true, even if done wrong, what is true is what is true, you are the one that ends up being wrong. Pythagoreas said that religion and science and philosophy should be part of one thing strengthening eachother.

Since philosophers will ultimately come to conclusions where they have found the "better" way of doing various things, a religion emerges, a way of living that is "better." Science inevitably reflects the reason philosophers use, because reason is based on nature, and nature is measured with science.
sbadr
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Post by sbadr »

I like what you have to say except the part about system of thoughts. We need a system of thought or theory based upon which we can do our study and judge things. When we build something we think of the qualitites, requirements and the overall architecture for the project.

Religion teaches us through trust and humility that we do not know everything and that all our logic is useful but limited. That things can be true even if all our logic cannot comprehend it because of our lack of experience and our inherent ability to be fallacious.

Philosophy and science teaches critical thinking, can strengthen religion and teaches us the limit of trust and following authority.

The right religion recognizes the limits of trust and the right philosophy recognizes the limit of reasoning and mankind has got to know it's limitations.
Marcus Clayman
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Post by Marcus Clayman »

i once read somewhere refering to man as the center of his own universe, its one of those common sense things that isn't realy true at all, it's not just egotistical its completely wrong.

man is the limit of his own universe

so to know our limits, all we must do is know ourselves, and that is what "know thyself" implies, know what you do-not know, as well as do not try to understand other people and things, since all you will end up understanding is what it all SEEMS to be... everything you learn should be applied to yourself, and then communicated, but to communicate something that is not applied is like lieing, more like the deffinition of opinion and ignorance.
sbadr
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Post by sbadr »

I agree with you as the Taoist saying goes, "Know thyself and hence you will know others"
Cause deep inside we are not all that different, it is just that man psychologically pays attention more to differences than similarities, and hence he assumes that he is an individual. But how can we know ourselves when all we do is perceive: whether ourselves or others, perceptions which can all be an illusion and fallacious?
Rasheed Babatunde
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Post by Rasheed Babatunde »

To me Religion and Philosophy are the same. Religion instruct while philosophy is the science of it.
Religion can say "Phisician heal thyself", and philosophy will put it as " You must discover yourself, know yourself and accept what you are to refine yourself." Or, Religion will say "forgive others, so that you will be forgiven." Philosophy will put it as - " Hatred corrodes the soul, makes you unhappy, but if you forgive others their wrongs, you will live a free and more healthy life."
However, both religion and philosophy can be practiced together by an individual or separately, depending on the development of the mind of the person. As religion professes through faith and belief while philosophy does so with reasoning and facts, both can be used to corroborate one another or be useful individually.
athena
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Re: Religion vs. Philosophy

Post by athena »

cynicallyinsane wrote:What's the difference between religion and philosophy? Aren't they both the search for fundemental truths?
The difference is what you study in a search for truth. Religions are locked into books, and those who know the most about what is written in the book are leaders to those who also believe truth is the book, and was revealed to those who wrote the book in some kind of supernatural event.

Philosophy is a study of nature. When Thomas Jefferson, and others, spoke of truth being self evident, they were speaking of something we can experience and observe for ourselves. It follows, since we do not experience a God, or angels, walking with us through gardens, we should not base our understanding of reality on such stories. These stories are not self evident truths.
ape
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Re: Religion vs. Philosophy

Post by ape »

cynicallyinsane wrote:What's the difference between religion and philosophy? Aren't they both the search for fundemental truths?
ape: Re-ligion is binding what's already bound, and is referring to the ontological fact that all words and their opposites are interdefinable in terms of each other or bound to each other. In other words, all opposites are also composites.
Then when the word Love is used to love all of these already bound or bonded words, Love re-binds or religaments them all.
This is why The Truth of Love is the true religion and makes all other religions true.
"Every religion emphasizes human improvement, Love, Respect for others, sharing other people's suffering. On these lines every religion had more or less the same viewpoint and the same goal."
The Dalai Lam

Philosophy is simply the same Love of wisdom, which wisdom also has an opposite, fooldom, in whose terms each is definable!
So really, Philosophy is about the Love of the Wisdom of Love for both wisdom and its ontological inter-bonded counterpart, fooldom.
So this is why the Wisdom of Love is the true philosophy and makes all other philosophies true.

Philosophy, then, is simply just one part of Religion, which Religion is about ALL inter-bonded words.

But because both P & R are also loved, each contains all the other and the other also contains all of each.

So we have the Philosophy of Religion and the Religion of Philosophy.
Thus, Philosophy and Religion are not only different but also exactly the same.
"All philosophy [The Love of the word wisdom], then, is essentially philology[Love of words].
And philology, with its great and fruitful law of
analogical formations, gives its head to chance, and to the irrational, to the absolutely immeasurable."
Miguel de Unamuno

NB: Dogma - New World Encyclopedia:  
Some philosophical schools stood by their dogmas with a fervor that could be described as religious, which no doubt laid the ... www.newworldencyclopedia.org/../Dogma
Last edited by ape on June 18th, 2009, 11:33 pm, edited 1 time in total.
Belinda
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Post by Belinda »

The difference is what you study in a search for truth. Religions are locked into books, and those who know the most about what is written in the book are leaders to those who also believe truth is the book, and was revealed to those who wrote the book in some kind of supernatural event.
I think that what you describe is bad religion, athena.Religion locked into books is a form of idolatry. In this way, for instance, a Muslim who idolises the words of the Qur'an instead of Allah is under the influence of bad religion.

I mention Muslims in this respect only because the Muslim case is easier to see.But Christianity contains the same movement towards bad religion. This is when fundamentalists take The Bible to be the authority, instead of taking God to be the authority.

Judaism is bad when The law of Torah is more important the moving spirit of God.
ape
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Post by ape »

Belinda wrote: Judaism is bad when The law of Torah is more important the moving spirit of God.
Ape: Xlnt!
Any religion is bad, even the religion of no religion, when the moving spirit of Love is missing or is not the most important thing!

Btw, we make idols out of what we hate, not of what we love, since an idol is what stops us from obeying God.
So those who love words of the Bible but hate or love less the word 'God' are making an idol out of God.
Example: To love my car and always be busy keeping it clean out of Hate for walking and for dirt and for being idle is for me to make an idol, not out of my car that I love, but an idol out of walking and an idol out of dirt and an idol out of idle that I hate.8)

So too, it is only when we hate the words in any book that we make idols out of those words and that book.
Example:
People who hate The Origin of The Species make an idol of CD and the OTS and the words in the OTS.
Last edited by ape on June 18th, 2009, 11:31 pm, edited 1 time in total.
tmv
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Joined: June 3rd, 2009, 10:33 am

Post by tmv »

I'd say the biggest difference between philosophy and religion is this: traditionally you become apart of one religion and you are stuck with it, philosophy on the other hand you can pick and choose between completely different ideologies and see what parts of each make sense, there need not be any dogma.
ape
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Post by ape »

I'd say the biggest similarities between philosophy and religion are these:
Religion tries to explain The First Cause by the word, God. There are so many religions and sects, each with its own philosophy of religion, that one can shop around for one that makes sense to one, and/or be a church-hopper and change religions and drop religions and just go spiritual or atheist or agnostic. And there is no need for any dogma.

So too, Philosophy tries to explain God by the phrase The First Cause.
Plus, there are so many philosophies, each with its own religion of philosophy, that one can browse around for which one makes sense to oneself, and or have the philosophy of no philosophy. And also there's no need for any dogma.
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dparrott
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Post by dparrott »

Philosophy is the love of wisdom, Religion is man trying to reach his god through works.
Nick_A
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Re: Religion vs. Philosophy

Post by Nick_A »

cynicallyinsane wrote:What's the difference between religion and philosophy? Aren't they both the search for fundemental truths?
Philosophy seeks to open the mind to wisdom while the essence of religion seeks to open the heart to the experience of time and space
"Love is space and time measured by the heart." Marcel Proust
Man would like to be an egoist and cannot. This is the most striking characteristic of his wretchedness and the source of his greatness." Simone Weil....Gravity and Grace
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Sir Percival
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Post by Sir Percival »

Philosophy and religion both deal with the basic questions, like: where did we come from, why are we here, where are we going, what's wrong with the world and what can be done about it?
There's not much difference but religion connotates more of respect or reverences for some being or system that helps with answering these questions. Also, philosophy is generally more intellectual in emphasis.
Spectrum
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Favorite Philosopher: Eclectic -Various

Post by Spectrum »

Philosophy and religion by themselves and as a set, are comprised of a wide range of concepts, dimension, subjects and activities.
If we compare the two sets, there are some similarities and the differences are a majority, especially those related to prayers, rituals, religious institutions, doctrines, etc.

At the core and fundamental level where there are similarities, religion is a subset of philosophy, i.e.

1. Philosophy of religion
2. Philosophy (meta) of philosophy

Re similarities, philosophy and religion both deal with basic questions as mentioned by SirPercival.
However their approaches are different, religion rely more on faith and philosophy emphasize on reason and rationality.

IMO,
Philosophy is pro-active, religion is reactive.
Philosophy is for the long run, religion is for the short run (in evolutionary terms).
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