Well, since you did not detail my "logical flaws and misinformation about human nature and history," I have no idea what you are talking about.

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.

Addendum to this

At best, philosophy is the critical check on, and active resistance to, the servile, totalitarian, temptations of "religious beliefs and ideas". — 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 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). — Wayfarer

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.

However some forms of religious culture are grounded more in attainment of insight, which is where the philosophical and religious tend to converge somewhat — 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).

To start with, you use the word religion but mean Christianity and in that only the Christianity you personally grew up familiar with.

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'm no expert on Chinese philosophy. I got about a month into trying to study the culture before I got disillusioned and disgusted with the pretension of wisdom through vapid allegory.

I am an engineer by trade and a hard-line student of determinism... very much antithetical to the Chinese .... method...

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? — TiredThinker

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 don't know what I'm supposed to do with that meandering mess of non sequitur and fragmented generalized nonsense.

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:

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. — Parerga and Paralipomena, 1851

And who amongst us does not dwell in a certain degree of ignorance?

However some forms of religious culture are grounded more in attainment of insight, which is where the philosophical and religious tend to converge somewhat
— 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). — 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.

And who amongst us does not dwell in a certain degree of ignorance? — Wayfarer

Yeah, however, some – too few of us – cultivate the courage needed to resist sheltering in the willful ignorance of woo. :pray:

You wear your prejudices like a red bandana, I'll give you that.

Look I really don't have time during the week to delve into much here. I tend to work over 100 hours a week right now (hopefully it's temporary).

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.

It depends on the religion and philosophy in question. Undoubtedly there are crossovers in some areas more than others.

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.....

I freed myself from as a teen with some difficulty, and whose adherents are now infamous for their oppression of their subject, Palestinian populations. — Michael Sol

What? Are you referring to Jewish or Islamic religion?

Jewish. I made it past the bar-mitzvah before I saw the Light, and Escaped.

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. — Wayfarer

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.

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. — Michael Sol

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.

It depends on the religion. The anattā of Buddhism is philosophy in the most proper sense of the word, and this debate on the self has been going on between Buddhists and Hindus for a considerably long time. Similar concepts can be outlined in certain kinds of religions, like the example earlier, that are philosophical.

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.

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. — 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.