If you and I were having a chat at a bar, I'd undeniably be a pedant if I denied that it is fact that George Washington was the first president of the United States. There is no quibble. — Ennui Elucidator
On a philosophy forum in the context of making broad statements about "religion" with a selective recounting of "facts", I am not sure that my highlighting that we can only look to things that exist now to support our claims about what happened in the past is being a pedant. — Ennui Elucidator
Have listened to Dawkins debate some Muslim guy and came to a few conclusions... — stoicHoneyBadger
Why close our eyes to the obvious? Why not consider the possibility that religion is the way it is precisely because it is intended to be that way? — baker
So our core nature is to kill, rape, and pillage? — baker
If this is our core nature, then why take issue with killing, raping, and pillaging, whether it be done in the name of religion or not? — baker
No, it requires more than that. Belief in the historicity of Jesus is essential to Christianity. One has to believe that Jesus literally rose from the dead, or else the whole project of salvation becomes moot. — baker
Now you're just making things up. It is not a universal tenant of religion that intent matters regardless of impact, and it is not universally considered sinful to do the right thing for the wrong reason.The point in religion is that particular moral tenets have to be believed for the right reasons. Ie., e.g. you have to believe that stealing is bad not because your mommy told you so or because you don't like being stolen from, but because God said that stealing was wrong. — baker
The type of problem you point to comes from reading literature primarily in a didactic, ideological sense, from reducing literature to a didactic, ideological message. It's a moralistic approach typical for American literary theory, but it is far from universal. It's not how we would read literature in continental Europe, for example. — baker
But this didn't do away with interreligious competition. On the contrary, it made it worse, far worse. — baker
Perhaps I misunderstood what you were saying earlier. — Ciceronianus
By religious people.Why close our eyes to the obvious? Why not consider the possibility that religion is the way it is precisely because it is intended to be that way?
— baker
Intended by whom? — Hanover
I am sure that I wrote a meaningful English sentence.I also don't know what you mean by "religion is the way it is." How is religion?
Why should we think that this isn't what religion is supposed to be like? Why assume some kumbaya?I suppose you mean the caricature religion where they yell at you about going to hell and then take all your money?
Huh?If you don't like the church you're going to, go to a different one. If you don't want to go to church at all, that's fine too, but I don't see where you have this great insight and knowledge into where I go and can make comments on it. All this talk about facts, yet here you're just factually incorrect.
With a screen name like yours, I expected better. — baker
Read the whole sentence.No, it requires more than that. Belief in the historicity of Jesus is essential to Christianity. One has to believe that Jesus literally rose from the dead, or else the whole project of salvation becomes moot.
— baker
Are you citing to some particular Protestant dogma that prescribes the particularities of the faith required for salvation, or are you just telling me your basic understanding or what you think ought be the case? — Hanover
And you're on board with that, epistemically and ethically?The point in religion is that particular moral tenets have to be believed for the right reasons. Ie., e.g. you have to believe that stealing is bad not because your mommy told you so or because you don't like being stolen from, but because God said that stealing was wrong.
— baker
Now you're just making things up. It is not a universal tenant of religion that intent matters regardless of impact, and it is not universally considered sinful to do the right thing for the wrong reason.
FYI, I didn't go to Sunday school.It sounds like I'm just hearing a recitation of your recollections from Sunday school at this point and you're presenting it as if they are universal axioms.
We read it as didactic literature, not as art.The story was originally in Greek I suppose, but do enlighten me how they read the fox and grapes story in continental Europe?
Except that religion bolsters those conflicts with metaphysical underpinnings, thus giving the conflicts a dimension that is hard to master.Religions don't compete. People do, so it's hard to blame the idea over the person. But in any event, ideological differences lead to conflict, whether that be religious, political, or just general worldviews.
Because our core nature, the equivalent of Freud's "Id", our emotionally driven instinctive selves, is not the sum total of our nature. There is also the "Superego", the rational and idealistic aspect of our minds, with which the Id does constant battle, to varying degrees of success among differing people, to form the Ego, the objective personality. This Superego is the result of the continued evolution of our brains. Lions do not possess a Superego, and so they cannot view as immoral that a new pride Alpha will immediately engage in an orgy of infanticide to eliminate the previous Alpha's Gene's from the group, and more quickly bring the lionesses to estrus. Humans, though, do have the car to see immorality in this.
Whatever else can be said of the man, and he had his theoretical faults and inconsistencies, Freud's model of the mind, along with Jung's concept of psychological archetypes, appears to myself absolutely key in understanding why we humans behave as we do. We must encourage people to allow their rational and idealistic selves to hold sway over the primal, emotional aspect of their minds. — Michael Zwingli
2.2 Wittgensteinian Philosophy of Religion
Wittgenstein’s early work was interpreted by some members of the Vienna Circle as friendly to their empiricism, but they were surprised when he visited the Circle and, rather than Wittgenstein discussing his Tractatus, he read them poetry by Rabindranath Tagore (1861–1941), a Bengal mystic (see Taliaferro 2005b: chapter eight). In any case, Wittgenstein’s later work, which was not friendly to their empiricism, was especially influential in post-World War II philosophy and theology and will be the focus here.
In the Philosophical Investigations (published posthumously in 1953) and in many other works (including the publication of notes taken by his students on his lectures), Wittgenstein opposed what he called the picture theory of meaning. On this view, statements are true or false depending upon whether reality matches the picture expressed by the statements. Wittgenstein came to see this view of meaning as deeply problematic. The meaning of language is, rather, to be found not in referential fidelity but in its use in what Wittgenstein referred to as forms of life. As this position was applied to religious matters, D.Z. Phillips (1966, 1976), B.R. Tilghman (1994), and, more recently, Howard Wettstein (2012), sought to displace traditional metaphysical debate and arguments over theism and its alternatives and to focus instead on the way language about God, the soul, prayer, resurrection, the afterlife, and so on, functions in the life of religious practitioners. For example, Phillips contended that the practice of prayer is best not viewed as humans seeking to influence an all powerful, invisible person, but to achieve solidarity with other persons in light of the fragility of life. Phillips thereby sees himself as following Wittgenstein’s lead by focusing, not on which picture of reality seems most faithful, but on the non-theoretical ways in which religion is practiced.
To ask whether God exists is not to ask a theoretical question. If it is to mean anything at all, it is to wonder about praising and praying; it is to wonder whether there is anything in all that. This is why philosophy cannot answer the question “Does God exist?” with either an affirmative or a negative reply … “There is a God”, though it appears to be in the indicative mood, is an expression of faith. (Phillips 1976: 181)
At least two reasons bolstered this philosophy of religion inspired by Wittgenstein. First, it seemed as though this methodology was more faithful to the practice of philosophy of religion being truly about the actual practice of religious persons themselves. Second, while there has been a revival of philosophical arguments for and against theism and alternative concepts of God (as will be noted in section 5), significant numbers of philosophers from the mid-twentieth century onward have concluded that all the traditional arguments and counter-arguments about the metaphysical claims of religion are indecisive. If that is the case, the Wittgenstein-inspired new philosophy of religion had the advantage of shifting ground to what might be a more promising area of agreement.
While this non-realist approach to religion has its defenders today, especially in work by Howard Wettstein, many philosophers have contended that traditional and contemporary religious life rests on making claims about what is truly the case in a realist context. It is hard to imagine why persons would pray to God if they, literally, thought there is no God (of any kind).
Interestingly, perhaps inheriting the Wittgenstein stress on practice, some philosophers working on religion today place greater stress on the meaning of religion in life, rather than seeing religious belief as primarily a matter of assessing an hypothesis (see Cottingham 2014). — SEP on Philosophy of Religion
There is some reason to think that Pinker’s case may be overstated, however, and that it would be more fair to characterize the sciences as methodologically agnostic (simply not taking a view on the matter of whether or not God exists) rather than atheistic (taking a position on the matter). First, Pinker’s examples of what science has shown to be wrong, seem unsubstantial. As Michael Ruse points out:
The arguments that are given for suggesting that science necessitates atheism are not convincing. There is no question that many of the claims of religion are no longer tenable in light of modern science. Adam and Eve, Noah’s Flood, the sun stopping for Joshua, Jonah and the whale, and much more. But more sophisticated Christians know that already. The thing is that these things are not all there is to religions, and many would say that they are far from the central claims of religion—God existing and being creator and having a special place for humans and so forth. (Ruse 2014: 74–75) — SEP on Philosophy of Religion
I think I said what is fine for a conversation in a bar is not necessarily fine for a conversation about philosophy. — Ennui Elucidator
But to them that's like burning a pile of trash. Ie., not a bad thing, not at all, but something useful.Not at all. What is apparent is that they deny what is before us all; the fact of the destruction of classical literature by Christian zealots. — Banno
But there are other animals who adopt the offspring of other animals, including the offspring of other species. Should we say that those animals have a superego? — baker
Where you and the Christians differ is in the qualitative evaluation of some past events. — baker
Yes; you engaged in special pleading. — Banno
Are we really going to argue about ordinary language philosophy here? — Ennui Elucidator
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