RandFan said:
I would guess that you have never had a course in philosophy. And perhaps you have never read the definition. Let's do that now. .....
Religion is absolutely, by definition, philosophy. It's funny because I just had this argument with my Bishop who argued that Mormonism isn't a philosophy.
You really shouldn't argue from dictionary definitions in cases like this - it's too easy to go wrong. In particular, it's easy to go wrong because the bit you bolded is defining the use of the word "philosophy" that goes something like....
"My philosophy on the matter is..."
And that is a
different (and terribly pernicious) usage from the one that is to my knowledge being discussed here - namely the subject Philosophy. So yes, Mormonism would be
a philosophy - but would not be
Philosophy.
In fact, the non-bolded sections of what you quoted are precisely what we're discussing here. So what you've done is usefully highlight the way in which people use the word "philosophy" which isn't relevant at all to this discussion.
The opposite of science? Both seek to find the truth.
Nonsense. Both are
concerned with truth, but in far from the same way. Religions are typically taken to have it, and science is typically taken to be investigating the world in an attempt to come up with true generalizations about natural phenomenon. To say that both seek to find the truth is, to the extent that it is true, trivial and to the extent that it is non-trivial, false.
Many of our greatest scientists and philosophers Believed in god and many were also religious.
See, Emanuel Kant, Saint Thomas Aquinas, Francis Bacon, Rene Descartes, Baruch de Spinoza, John Locke, Voltaire, etc. are a few of the many religious philosophers.
And this is odd at best - first off because a Philosopher who is religious is a different sort of thing from a religious philosopher. Kant, for example, posed an entirely secular system despite any religious beliefs he might have had.
Furthermore that link you provided is... iffy. Notice that it doesn't even claim that those philosophers still believed the religions involved, merely that they were "raised in that context". Most people on this board were raised in a religious context, but I don't know that I'd go so far as to suggest that most people here are religious. Furthermore a lot of the ones you named were known for having at most unique and bizarre religious beliefs, and not at all ones that are generally understood as pertaining to the affiliations listed.
Finally I'll point out just how impressively sparse that listing is. There are many, many philosophers who are atheists (and, in my experience, philosophers tend towards atheism).
Also, see Boole, Newton, Pascal and others for scientists. Many of these individuals were in religious pursuits when the formulated their philosophies, especially see Kant.
Um, see what about Kant? Like I pointed out above, he doesn't count as a religious philosopher by any means. In fact he explicitly argues that one can't really make sense of the notion of "god" at all (admitting that it might be useful nonetheless in convincing stupid people to be moral).
What secular questions does metaphysics cover?
Er... The nature of mereological sums? The status of mathematical truths? The nature of personal identity, or more generally identity of objects over time? The constitution of objects? The nature of causality?
Metaphysics really has very little to do with the secular/sacred distinction. I know that some people like to use it as a catchall for "spooky stuff I just made up", or "the study of the spooky stuff I just made up", but that's not really metaphysics in the slightest - that's just the stuff one finds in the metaphysics section of the bookstore.
And I'd like to add I think many of the reactions to the comment about Religion not being creative are missing the point. Yes, it can be inspirational or pretty(but that's a different matter entirely). What particular religions don't do of course is get involved in making up new things and testing them. And that is exactly what Philosophy is involved with (and science as well). So I think the point is a perfectly valid one.
Finally, Randfan, you're just plain wrong.
You simply cannot bifurcate religion and philosophy.
This is, in fact, very very easy to do. And the Philosophy of religion is a darn good thing to point to, actually, because it's remarkably different from Religion proper. You can't bifurcate religion and "belief system" neatly, no, but like I pointed out above that's not really a relevant definition here.
