For me personally, I have only an archaeological interest in popular (of the common people) world religions --- including that of my own culture --- which are specific to a place & time that no longer exists. But I find a lot of commonality in the more elite philosophies of the deep thinkers in each culture. The religions retain their cultural flavor, for sampling in small doses, but even the obsolete worldviews still contain some nutritious meat for thought about perennial questions. :smile:From a historical point of view, these questions have predated any "religions" we think of today, ancient/modern philosophy and certainly modern science. — Xtrix
So in the end, from a certain point of view both religion and philosophy are operating in the same dimension. — Xtrix
Taking the 200,000 number as an exact date for behaviorally modern humans' emergence (for the sake of simplicity), and then reminding ourselves that writing wasn't invented until roughly 5,000 years ago (3,200 BC), it leads to a question: what was happening during those 195 thousand years of our existence? What were we thinking? — Xtrix
Taking the 200,000 number as an exact date for behaviorally modern humans' emergence (for the sake of simplicity), and then reminding ourselves that writing wasn't invented until roughly 5,000 years ago (3,200 BC), it leads to a question: what was happening during those 195 thousand years of our existence? What were we thinking? — Xtrix
It's all surmise. But we know these people buried their dead, created cave art, and had complex tools. — Xtrix
My answer to this will be much the same as for several other questions around the fora at present: philosophy concerns itself primary with conceptual clarification. — Banno
Taking the 200,000 number as an exact date for behaviorally modern humans' emergence (for the sake of simplicity), and then reminding ourselves that writing wasn't invented until roughly 5,000 years ago (3,200 BC), it leads to a question: what was happening during those 195 thousand years of our existence? What were we thinking?
— Xtrix
I would extend that even further. Chalmers leans towards defining consciousness as a fundamental property of reality. He says "It would be odd for a fundamental property to be instantiated for the first time only relatively late in the history of the universe." I agree. If consciousness "is" at all, it has been around for a very long time.... — Pantagruel
More like 70,000 years. From the hard evidence we currently have. Maybe 200,000 but we don't know for sure if they were 'the same'. — I like sushi
The commonality is the requirement for a sense of world (weltanschauung), axis mundi or, simply put, an anchor by which we can feel grounded. No anchor, no reality and no sense of life. — I like sushi
The common feature of all of these is that they necessarily operate within a community of humans and therefore seem to express something about what humans are/do. — I like sushi
The heart of the religious questioning (in my mind) is that of ontology. — I like sushi
Religion is more about reinforcing the foundations of our cosmological view, science is more about exploring it and philosophy is about questioning it. All approaches are void without the others. — I like sushi
And religion is not particularly adept at conceptual clarification — Banno
The heart of the religious questioning (in my mind) is that of ontology — I like sushi
You guys use the term "religion" as if describes this single monolithic entity, as if Talmudic analysis is at all like Taoism. The same can be said of "philosophy," as if all it seeks the same thing. — Hanover
Trust me I don’t. — I like sushi
In such a sense we’re all religious. — I like sushi
I.e. free inquiry (iconoclasty) =/= ritual worship (idolatry).This is a distinction of aporetics (i.e. thinking unanswerable questions) and dogmatics (i.e. believing unquestionable answers), respectively, where the latter is the object – target – of the former and which the former strives to overcome. — 180 Proof
Religion is about 'faith', whereas philosophy is about 'wisdom', — Varde
His use of 'Heirophant' is something I carry around with me every day now — I like sushi
Man becomes aware of the sacred because it manifests itself, shows itself, as something wholly different from the profane. To designate the act of manifestation of the sacred, we use the heirophany. It is a fitting term, because it does not imply anything further; it expresses no more than is implicit in its etymological context, i.e., that something sacred shows itself to us.
- Introduction to The Sacred and The Profane, by Mirea Eliade
Psychology and Science - I believe these are opposite.
Philosophy and Art - I believe these are opposite, and an evolution of the former. — Varde
But this is all pointless talk about history, etymology, abstraction, and soaring speculation, which should be as relevant to us and our personal, everyday concerns as a mathematical theorem is -- that is, until we grasp the following fact: along with answers to the question "What is existence/what is being?" there comes an answer to the question "What is a human being?"
"What is a human being?" What can be more relevant to us? It's often the basis for what's considered a "good" life (i.e., the question "What should I do with my life?"), and so ethics and morality; for proposals about how to organize society -- and so the basis for politics; and for claims about human nature -- and so the basis for humanity's goals and about the future of the species ("Where are we going?") — Xtrix
What is a heirophant? — Xtrix
:100: :up:We've always known what we are, I think. We merely find that to be unsatisfying, or in any case insufficient in some way. So, we contrive a definition of "human being" that's more agreeable to our conceit, and from that definition we "build haunted heaven" to use the words of Wallace Stevens. We ask ourselves: Why does that "human being" exist? What should that "human being" do? — Ciceronianus
Have we? And what’s that? — Xtrix
Essentially and in short, a living organism in an environment, trying to survive as well as as possible — Ciceronianus
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