Religion works by not taking truth seriously.

Hence, philosophy is superior to religion.

Why is a religion so good at commanding people to behave a certain way

In the news recently,300 Catholic priests molested 1000 children in one state alone.

Philosophers are folks who might at worst cheat on their wives, or drink or smoke a little sumpin' sumpin'. They don't usually commit acts of violence or molestation.

Religion and philosophy are really versions of the same thing. Trying to understand our world, people..The ethics in the bible are philosophical.

Religion works by not taking truth seriously. — Banno

Debateable. I tend to think religion takes truth or self-acclaimed truth too seriously. Perhaps philosophers don't take it seriously enough to motivate to action.

But religions just make shit up, while philosophers...

Hm. Give me a minute.

But, eitherway, what the OP describes is not what seems to be going on. — Πετροκότσυφας

What do you mean? What about the countless charities and other entities that have sprung out of the sake of religion? They seem to satisfy that goal.

In many ways, religion is everything philosophy could hope to be. It's stance on ethics commands that one ought to behave in a certain way and people oblige to this commandment and follow with the commands of any said religion. — Posty McPostface

It strikes me that the singular greatness of philosophy is that it resists this religious temptation at all costs; that nothing could be more detrimental and destructive of philosophy than the doxastic proffering of a set of commands. Philosophy is at its most powerful when it occupies the terrain of the negative and the critical, holding open the breach that religion - and its intellectual derivatives - aim to fill-in, and close once and for all. Religion is everything philosophy ought to avoid, least it surrender the one thing that makes philosophy worth engaging.

Religion can't study philosophy but philosophy can study religion.

Religion is how to live one's life. What to do. Philosophy examines one's life, so that it precisely examines these things. Religion is aesthetic, about grand transformations, rebirths, revelations, and a personal union with the universe in some sense. I don't think that philosophy is necessarily opposed to it. I don't think that most philosophers were atheistic until recently. It is like a progression of distrust, and looking to the objective, materialistic, and externally verifiable, and a discarding of testimonial first person accounts.

The problem is though, and the root cause of the issue, is that you can't see how to live from there. The dead universe is silent on that, and the living aren't to be trusted. So there is no proper way to live, it's all arbitrary, or whatever, everyone only asserts anything in this manner for dubious or flawed reasons.

We don't listen because personal experience is unreliable, and unaccountable to third person analysis, and if it can be said that meaning, comprehension has something to do with practice, living the same things, then not coming together to ritualistically engage in identical practices makes other more opque than they otherwise could be.

I dunno if you've demonstrated how you see religion as superior to philosophy in the OP? I'm trying to find it.

Philosophy only speaks to the rational part of man, and since man is not only rational it will not be convincing to a lot of people.

Religion, historically, also had art, myth, ritual, power and even philosophy on its side.

Religion can't study philosophy but philosophy can study religion. — TheMadFool

St. Augustine, Thomas Aquinas, Maimonides, Ibn Arabi, Je Tsongkhapa, Nagarjuna, Laozi and several hundred other notable religious thinkers from many religious traditions all over the world would like to have a word with you :)

Why is a religion so good at commanding people to behave a certain way — Posty McPostface

It's not that it's good at commanding people to behave a certain way, rather it commands people to behave in a way that's genetically successful (relative to time and place) which leads to group survival and therefore individual reproductive fitness and the selection of people to whom the religion is naturally congenial. IOW, the tail wags the dog: religion in its exoteric forms (the esoteric forms, mysticisms, etc., are something different) is an externalization of genetic imperatives and group survival strategies. The group that has a religion as "social glue" will survive better, and perpetuate itself through time better, than the group that doesn't. This is why subversive elements in any society attack its religion first - disintegrate the religion, and you start the process of the disintegration of the group.

Why is a religion so good at commanding people to behave a certain way and philosophy, which relishes in how people ought to behave. — Posty McPostface

This seems a good question. I don't have a perfect answer other than to suggest that religion works on the level of emotion to a significant degree, and that's where the real action is.

We might compare humans to an M&M candy. There's a thin hard shell of reason on the outside, obscuring a much larger soft and squishy center. Generally speaking, religion addresses the reality of the larger soft and squishy center, whereas philosophy typically confines itself to the surface.

On the other hand, the Catholic clergy sex scandal suggests that religion isn't always as good at "commanding people to behave in a certain way" as it may appear.

I dunno if you've demonstrated how you see religion as superior to philosophy in the OP? I'm trying to find it. — Noble Dust

I meant to imply it through the active stance religion takes on issues regarding applied ethics, just as an example.

Philosophy leaves room for speculation where religion does not.

Truths are conditional in philosophy, whereas in religion they are not.

Philosophy's only arrogance lies in its assumption that its sphere encompasses all forms of method, whereas religion generally eschews method in favour of rote memory, prescription, exegesis, and dogma.

Religion and philosophy enjoy a mutual proximity only in their treatment of morality. In logic, they are not so close due to the insistence upon blind faith in the former. Their greatest interrelationship is that both disciplines are practiced by humans.

Why is a religion so good at commanding people to behave a certain way — Posty McPostface

Because it uses the boogeymen man to scare the bejeezus out of people so that the toe the line.

Why compare religion and philosophy at all? Is it sensible to compare religion and politics or religion and economics?

Religion is based on prophecy, ritual, magic, authority, and belief. These are not properties of philosophy. Religion has the wheels of institutions to maintain it from generation to generation. Philosophy has no system of institutional maintenance (since the early schools of philosophy, at least). What philosophy has is verbal and written discourse. Religion begins with truth, philosophy seeks truth.

A priest or prophet can command because he has authority. He might also have power (the ability to enforce commands). Philosophers may be highly respected, but are there any philosophers who have commanding authority and power?

A priest or prophet can command because he has authority. — Bitter Crank

Because it uses the boogeymen man to scare the bejeezus out of people so that the toe the line. — Sir2u

Same thing, essentially.

The prophet comes to deliver the truth: "This is what God wants; woe unto you if you don't do it." A philosophical justification for obeying the gods or demonstrating the benefits of obedience to the gods can be developed (by a philosopher/believer) but his book won't be a sacred text.

If Jesus Christ is the Truth, doesn't that mean philosophers seek Him?

Religion is based on prophecy, ritual, magic, authority, and belief. — Bitter Crank

Ok, given that this is a philosophy forum, I'll do my job as a wannabe philosopher and play the devil's advocate. Also, I'll confine my comments to Christianity, not because I am Christian, but because this is what most of are most familiar with and Christianity is usually what we are referring to when we Westerners reference religion.

First, Christianity is not exclusively about ideology, a fact almost always ignored on philosophy and atheism forums, a consistent social reality which tends to reveal that many of Christianity's critics are not qualified to be critics because they don't really care to understand what they are attempting to debunk, distracted as they are by the joy of challenging.

Second, if Christianity was based exclusively on ideology, it would have never lasted 2,000 years and still be going strong in many places all over the planet.

What keeps Christianity going is:

1) The experience of love works, a fact which can be confirmed by anyone of any belief in their own personal experience without reference to any outside authority.

2) Christianity has been the most persistent and consistent spokesman for this fact in Western culture.

Let's try to be objective for a bit. Imagine that Christianity (or any major religion) was a creature in the forest. Nature is continually creating new life forms and those that survive over the long run are those species best adapted to the environment, right?

Christianity has survived so long because it is well adapted to the human environment. This is not a theory, the reality of 2,000 years of Christian experience proves it.

Christianity has survived so long because it is realistic about the human condition.

1) Christianity gets that human beings seek relief from psychological suffering, and the experience of love provides such a relief.

2) Christianity gets that human beings have an incurable need to know everything and everything, including the obviously unknowable, and so Christianity serves that need by presenting a compelling story reinforced by tradition and authority.

Before we look down our noses at the story Christians have created, please note that atheists (especially the adamant ones) have done exactly the same thing. They have created a fantasy knowing out of nothing, and then at least some atheists cling passionately and evangelically to this fantasy knowing as if their lives depended on it. All the same absurd excesses which have arisen in Christianity are also present in atheist culture.

Point being, Christianity is realistic in it's understanding that human beings require some kind of story to explain this place we find ourselves in, and the story they have created has proven to have long legs, ie. is well adapted to the environment.

What complicates any analysis is that Christianity is HUGE, including billions of human beings, and so it contains within itself everything good and bad that human beings are capable of. Thus it's impossible to label this major religion, or any major religion, with any simple minded analysis. Anyone who says "Christianity is good" or "Christianity is bad" obviously has little idea what they are talking about because the situation is far more complicated than that.

So hath this Devil burped.....

So, ethics are applied, in religion, through commands, etc? Versus philosophy in which no definite ethical command is necessarily made? I.E. the perpetual discussion of any possible ethical imperative, etc?

I don't think that Christianity has ever been about persuasion, or reasoning to belief, or just believing things, but revelation. Paul says that there are three kinds of people, the natural man, the carnal man, and the spiritual man, and each have different capacities for and attitudes towards revealed truth. So that, there are certain truths received through the eyes, others through the ears, others through our capacity for reason, but the truths of god are received through the spirit, and only the spiritual man is privy to them.

Paul asserts then, both a capacity, and mechanism, you could say, that is a prerequisite to comprehension, and by implication, attempting to persuade a non-spiritual man of spiritual matters is like attempting to describe to a blind from birth man what you see.

Quite interesting too, is that the natural man is "unregenerate, or unchanged spiritually", whereas the "carnal man", the sensuous man, is considered to belong to the same category as the spiritual man, as one that is saved, the difference is that the carnal are "babes in christ", fed on milk, and not meat, but they are still too young and weak to bear the meat.

I don't think that Christianity has ever been based on authority, persuasion, or blind belief. Paul says that there are three kinds of people, the natural man, the carnel man, and the spiritual man. All with different aptitudes and attitudes towards revealed truth. He says that there are truths received through the eyes, truths received through the ears, truths received through our capacity to reason, and truths received through the spirit. So that, he posits a faculty, and mechanism which is a prerequisite to comprehension, suggesting that it is fully possible to understand, and not take their word for it.

I also find it interesting that the natural man is "unregenerate, or unchanged spiritually", and so unsaved, and unable to comprehend anything spiritual, whereas the "carnal man" the sensuous man, is in the same category as the "spiritual man", saved, but being a "babe in christ" they are fed all on milk, and no meat, as they are too weak to handle the meat.

Second writing of this post, first one got lost somehow, even after I'd edited it once, and I feel was superior to this one...

I think, instead of 'superior', we should say, "religion is more popular than philosophy."

I think it's because religion seeks to accommodate people using the least degree of qualification and then allows them to progress from there. Meanwhile, philosophy demands a great deal more qualification before it awards its acceptance.
Religion asks that we follow a path already worked out while philosophy dictates that we must understand and make our own path even if it corresponds to that of others.
Religion also absolves people of personal responsibility, to some extent, and allows them the excuse that "I'm doing this or that for my religion or for God, etc. However, philosophy holds everyone accountable for their own deeds in every circumstance.
Philosophy is a 'tougher customer' than religion hence it will have fewer numbers since the mass of people are either not willing or not ready to put in the work that philosophy demands.

I think, instead of 'superior', we should say, "religion is more popular than philosophy." I think it's because religion seeks to accommodate people using the least degree of qualification and then allows them to progress from there. — BrianW

Yes, religion typically seeks to serve all human beings, and not just that tiny class of self deluded folks who have somehow come to the self flattering conclusion that they are superior to the religious. :smile:

You are of course right that religion is more popular than philosophy. That's because religion, on average generally speaking, is doing a better job of serving people than philosophy is. And that's because religion is realistically aimed at where human beings really live, in their emotions, whereas philosophy is more based upon the illusion that human beings are logic machines.

We aspire to reason, and should aspire to reason, but we basically suck at it, as proven by the thousands of hydrogen bombs we've aimed down our own throats, a reality we rarely find interesting enough to discuss.

Religion sees us as we actually are.

Philosophy sees us as we wish we were.

"1) The experience of love works, a fact which can be confirmed by anyone of any belief in their own personal experience without reference to any outside authority."

I don't know if you're just playing devil's advocate, but I think that you're right, both here most prominently, but also in the notion that Christianity speaks directly to the reality of the human condition, and it is through this basis that the divisions I mentioned arise.

The natural man, being unregenerate, and not spiritually changed finds no basis in any of it, so even if they do believe it, they'll not know what is significant, and what isn't. Whereas those that have in fact experienced a redemption, death and rebirth will. That understand what it means to receive a new spirit, will on that basis understand the foundation of the doctrine, and precisely what it is speaking to.

I don't know if you're just playing devil's advocate, but I think that you're right, both here most prominently, but also in the motion that Christianity speaks directly to the reality of the human condition, — All sight

For what it's worth, I do sincerely believe that 1) love works, and that 2) Christianity speaks directly to the reality of the human condition, and that 3) this is largely why Christianity is still with us after 2,000 years.

However, there's of course more to Christianity's survival. Christianity has benefited from the relentless marketing of a compelling story. The life of Jesus, with it's rags to riches to rags to riches (born in a manger, become a prominent prophet, get killed, go to heaven) story line has all the elements of a compelling story.

Marketing matters, a lot. Consider Apple computers, which are really not that different than Windows computers. But, Steve Jobs the marketer created this wonderful story about the Mac which was brilliantly self flattering to his customers. To this day there are armies of passionate little apple fan boys across the net who are defending this story with a passion little different than the evangelical Christian.

...and it is through this basis that the divisions I mentioned arise. — All sight

I'll admit I don't really understand where you're going with this. I'm not arguing, just admitting I don't really get it. Any chance you can translate what you're trying to say out of 2,000 year old Paul parable language in to some description that's a bit more accessible? Thanks.

I was interested in calling out this discrepancy between philosophizing and the practice of religion? Why is a religion so good at commanding people to behave a certain way and philosophy, which relishes in how people ought to behave. Is this simply an is-ought problem, and why so? — Posty McPostface

One thing that differs dramatically between religion and philosophy is in its education. A religious education will teach someone a particular way of life -- whether that be in the form of precepts, beliefs, arguments, faith, community, whatever. There is a sort of answer which the teacher is bringing their students to.

In a modern philosophical education, while the teacher will of course harbor beliefs of their own that will influence the class, the attempt is made to expose students to many ideas that are often contradictory. The end-goal is to get students to think about ideas, arguments, and be able to articulate the ideas and arguments well but to think on their own in choosing said beliefs.

There are more free-thinking religions out there that want students to question. But they still offer a way of life. A philosophical education does not, outside of the use of reason.

The training aims at different ends. So you get different results.

Why is a religion so good at commanding people to behave a certain way and philosophy, which relishes in how people ought to behave. Is this simply an is-ought problem, and why so? — Posty McPostface

Because it adheres to simple solutions for complex questions, while philosophy use complex solutions to simple questions, not by will, but by necessity of the complexity of life and the universe. Questions never have simple answers, but simple minds can only function with simple answers. Humans always see the most simple solution first, they are pattern seeking and they often find truth were there are none.

Religion makes use of this simplicity to govern what we ought to do. It's easier to follow an authority that says "this is how you should act" than figuring out the complex answer that is rational and closer to truth by yourself. It demands that we value knowledge and most people value other aspects of life than knowledge. They rather have people with knowledge rule them as authority, as parent figures, but this solution has opened up the door for the power hungry, the one's who value power over knowledge. This has been the essence of religious power for thousands of years. Most people want to be governed by a higher power, they feel panic in face of the reality to have responsibility over their own life. People want comfort, religion is comfort, philosophy is truth. Very few find comfort in truth.

In the news recently,300 Catholic priests molested 1000 children in one state alone.

Philosophers are folks who might at worst cheat on their wives, or drink or smoke a little sumpin' sumpin'. They don't usually commit acts of violence or molestation. — 3rdClassCitizen

This is uncalled-for! It isn't the fault of the Catholic church, or any church, or gym teachers, choir masters or sports coaches - and so on, and on... - that their professions give access to children. It's the paedophiles that cheat and lie their way into these professions for nefarious purposes. These caring professions, all of them, are not responsible for that, and not to blame for it. Their only responsibility in this is the one we all have, to protect our children from abuse. Please do not attack these carers for the sins of paedophiles. Direct your ire at those who deserve it. Thanks. :up:

In a modern philosophical education, while the teacher will of course harbor beliefs of their own that will influence the class, the attempt is made to expose students to many ideas that are often contradictory. The end-goal is to get students to think about ideas, arguments, and be able to articulate the ideas and arguments well but to think on their own in choosing said beliefs. — Moliere

I agree this is the theory of how it's supposed to work. I'm not sure this is how it's actually working in practice. I've been spending a lot of time on a group blog for academic philosophers, and it reads more like the chanting of group consensus dogmas. I don't find much interest in challenging the status quo.