It’s a fact that history is full of arguments for the existence of God and all that, but this is still consistent with the OP.

Religious philosophers exist in a philosophical milieu in which questions about religion have come up, a context in which the inquiry into religious concepts has become normal. So I’m inclined to look at the big picture rather than the orientations of individuals: that there are religious philosophers shows that religion is being questioned.

How does that demonstrate independent thought or action from within that tradition? — praxis

I don't think it does. It shows that this statement:

religion is hellbent on making human beings as dependent as possible, — praxis

is not always true. Dorothy Day represented the Catholic Church. She worked to liberate minorities. Minorities are human beings. So she wasn't trying to make human beings as dependent as possible. She was trying to help them become independent.

Planet Earth. Why is that significant? — praxis

I was just curious. If it's Top Secret, that's fine. I don't have that clearance.

Dorothy Day represented the Catholic Church. She worked to liberate minorities. Minorities are human beings. So she wasn't trying to make human beings as dependent as possible. She was trying to help them become independent. — frank

I see your misunderstanding and how I wasn't clear enough. I meant dependent on the tradition and that would mean within the tradition. I don't know how anyone could be considered dependent on something that they may have never even heard of.

I was just curious. — frank

You thought it was important enough to ask. Just trolling?

that there are religious philosophers shows that religion is being questioned. — Jamal

I accept that, but are you not taking another significantly controversial step, in that you imply that philosophy is unable to offer any succour to the religious person.
MY question then becomes why do some highly qualified academic theologists, choose to add philosopher or philosophy to their 'title.' They must think it adds to the credibility of the output of their field of study. Are you proposing that the title 'philosophy' or 'philosopher' does not, because it cannot, add credibility to a theological title or field of study?

Read any religious philosopher's (auto)biography and note how subtly, even ingeniously, the juxtapositioning inconsistency of reflective reason with devout faith is rationalized (e.g. Augustine, Maimonides, Aquinas, Leibniz, Kant, Buber, Marcel, Tillich, Levinas, Simone Weil, Abraham Heschel, Jean Luc Marion, Cornel West).

:chin:

So your point was that religions make people dependent on religious traditions.

A religion is a set of traditions.

Religions endure because people love their traditions. Not sure which part of the earth you're from that you didn't know this. :grin:

I don’t really understand your questions, but I have a feeling they boil down to this: are religious philosophers philosophers at all? On one level Of course they are, yes. Some of those philosophers who questioned religion the most have been religious. All philosophers have their prior commitments, and sometimes that’s religious faith.

Is this somehow against the spirit of philosophy? Maybe sometimes, probably often, but not always. In any case, philosophers can be great philosophers in some ways and still have blind spots.

I am all for being able to further disarm theism by explaining to theists why their efforts to employ philosophy in their arguments are pointless and futile.
I am just musing over what philosophical counter-points they might employ to try to defeat such a claim.

"Theism" is a philosophical position (just as theology – along with ontology & cosmology – constitutes classical metaphysics).

are religious philosophers philosophers at all? — Jamal

That's a fair reduction to a concentrate, yes.

Is this somehow against the spirit of philosophy? Maybe sometimes, probably often, but not always. In any case, philosophers can be great philosophers in some ways and still have blind spots. — Jamal

I am always interested in new arguments to combat what I consider the more pernicious aspects of religion so as I commented to @180 Proof, I am musing on what philosophical counter points they might come up with against your 'maybe sometimes, probably often, but not always.'

I am always interested in new arguments to combat what I consider the more pernicious aspects of religion so as I commented to 180 Proof, I am musing on what philosophical counter points they might come up with against your 'maybe sometimes, probably often, but not always.' — universeness

Ah, ok. I’m not interested in that.

Religions endure because people love their traditions. Not sure which part of the earth you're from that you didn't know this. :grin: — frank

I didn't say anything about people loving their traditions, troll.

I didn't say anything about people loving their traditions, troll. — praxis

Goodness. Somehow I managed to get your goat. :razz:

Somehow I managed to get your goat. — frank

You certainly didn't manage to get an example.

I think we've trashed up the topic enough, btw.

Enough bickering chaps.

"Theism" is a philosophical position. — 180 Proof

Ah! ok, but its religion based manifestations, consist mainly of divine directives and the establishment of divine authority via a 'church' style hierarchy. These connect to socioeconomic, political and even community/tribal hierarchies, that are invasive on the everyday lives of a majority of people on the planet, at the moment.
Does theism as a philosophical position, act as a valid support for religious doctrine?

Ah, ok. I’m not interested in that. — Jamal

Ok, I appreciate that, as you say, nuff said.

Enough bickering chaps. — Jamal

Gladly. It's not always easy to tell when someone is genuinely interested or just trolling.

I was watching Rick Roderick the other day and he pointed out that the best books, whether in philosophy or not, are those that produce the most, and the most diverse, interpretations. I agree with him. The idea that philosophers, by means of clarity and brevity, can pin down the meaning of their works, has not stood up to scrutiny.

That’s not to say all interpretations are equally good though. — Jamal

Fair point. It was more personal taste - and what I should have said is that I am not sufficiently immersed in philosophy to obtain useful readings from complex works.

Does theism as a philosophical position, act as a valid support for religious doctrine? — universeness

Sure, at best, but not sound.

Ok, any new argument against the more pernicious aspects of theism I was musing on, based on 'how stupid their best academic theologians are, when they try to add credibility to their position using titles such as 'Religious philosopher,' is total BS because ....... @Jamal said and @180 Proof confirmed, with ........, is not going to bear fruit. :sad:

Note that the word is questioning, not combating. You can question X without being anti-X, just as, for example, Adorno and Horkheimer questioned enlightenment without being anti-enlightenment.

That’s not to say it’s necessarily bad or unphilosophical to be anti-X. Nietzsche and Marx went further than polite questioning, and I regard their thought as extremely philosophically interesting. So there’s a spectrum of intensity and motivatedness in criticism, but it’s just criticism as such that I was emphasizing in the OP.

By the way, “criticism” in my usage is just a synonym for “questioning”.

Note that the word is questioning, not combating. You can question X without being anti-X, just as, for example, Adorno and Horkheimer questioned enlightenment without being anti-enlightenment.

That’s not to say it’s necessarily bad or unphilosophical to be anti-X. Nietzsche and Marx went further than polite questioning, and I regard their thought as extremely philosophically interesting. So there’s a spectrum of intensity and motivatedness in criticism, but it’s just criticism as such that I was emphasizing in the OP. — Jamal

Speaking of Nietzsche, I think he'd say your approach shows that you're from a Christian culture where a premium is placed on revealing truths. Christianity was originally about questioning Pharisaic Judaism, especially the emphasis it placed on ritual over the well-being of real people. Protestantism was a re-enactment of Christianity's beginnings, where the prevailing wisdom was called into question.

That is quite interesting.

I wonder about the sense in which the specifically Enlightenment criticism of religion amounts to the demand for the replacement of the idea of religious revelation with empirical science.

The difficulty with that endeavour is to arrive at any kind of understanding of what the significance and content of such revealed truths might be, especially if they're understood to be beyond the scope of empirical observation and discovery. It might amount to a rejection of the content of such doctrines as a matter of principle, without being ever being able to know exactly what is being rejected.

You could say that Kant attempted to tackle such an analysis in such works as 'Religion within the Limits of Reason', but then even Kant was bound, to some extent, by his particular religious background, which was Lutheran pietism (although the influence of that is contested.)

I notice a recurrent theme in many debates about religious questions is the regular appeal to the purportedly self-evident facts of existence, facts which everyone is said to know and which nobody of sound mind is able to dispute. Implicitly or otherwise, such an appeal is then taken to be an endorsement of scientific method, which is above all seen as a means to elaborate and extend the range and scope of our knowledge of such facts which is surely preferable to the oft-criticized 'belief without evidence', which religious ideas are said to comprise.

But an issue here is the contest between religious lore, containing many symbolic and allegorical depictions of the human condition, on the one hand, with an attitude from which the human subject is altogether removed, or treated exclusively as phenomenon, on par with any other object of analysis (the 'view from nowhere'). And much of that debate is conditioned by the implicit boundary lines required by the rejection of the content of revealed religion, which usually manifests as the commitment to naturalism, defined in terms of its rejection of whatever is held to be supernatural. And by accident of history, that includes a great deal of pre-modern and ancient philosophy as well, insofar as that had become incorporated into the corpus of theology, and rejected along with it - a dialectical process that has unfolded over centuries.

So already there is a kind of asymetry visible in this dynamic. You have on the one side, the confidence of science, which has given rise to the astounding technology which characterises today's world and with which we sorrounded (and even defined), but which situates itself in a universe which it has already declared is devoid of meaning. As various philosophers (including Adorno) have observed, this is associated with the upsurge of nihilism, and the view of mankind as the fortuitous product of chance and physical necessity. As to the alternative, Thomas Nagel, no religious apologist, puts it like this:

To better identify the question, we should start with the religious response. There are many religions, and they are very different, but what I have in mind is common to the great monotheisms, perhaps to some polytheistic religions, and even to pantheistic religions which don’t have a god in the usual sense. It is the idea that there is some kind of all-encompassing mind or spiritual principle in addition to the minds of individual human beings and other creatures – and that this mind or spirit is the foundation of the existence of the universe, of the natural order, of value, and of our existence, nature, and purpose. The aspect of religious belief I am talking about is belief in such a conception of the universe, and the incorporation of that belief into one’s conception of oneself and one’s life.

The important thing for the present discussion is that if you have such a belief, you cannot think of yourself as leading a merely human life. Instead, it becomes a life in the sight of God, or an element in the life of the world soul. You must try to bring this conception of the universe and your relation to it into your life, as part of the point of view from which it is led. This is part of the answer to the question of who you are and what you are doing here. It may include a belief in the love of God for his creatures, belief in an afterlife, and other ideas about the connection of earthly existence with the totality of nature or the span of eternity. The details will differ, but in general a divine or universal mind supplies an answer to the question of how a human individual can live in harmony with the universe. — Thomas Nagel, Secular Philosophy and the Religious Temperament

(See also Does Reason Know what it is Missing, NY Times, Stanley Fish.)

As various philosophers (including Adorno) have observed, this is associated with the upsurge of nihilism, and the view of mankind as the fortuitous product of chance and physical necessity. — Wayfarer

Isn't the view of mankind as the fortuitous product of theism and divine necessity just as lopsided and potentially dire?

Don't you think it's a rather easy charge to make? How could we determine the difference between the purported nihilism of secularism and the potential nihilism of religion? If religion had the same cultural prominence today as it did 300 years ago, would our culture be much less nihilistic? How would we be better off?

But an issue here is the contest between religious lore, containing many symbolic and allegorical depictions of the human condition, on the one hand, with an attitude from which the human subject is altogether removed, or treated exclusively as phenomenon, on par with any other object of analysis (the 'view from nowhere'). — Wayfarer

I think it remains to be demonstrated how this matters other than speculative ruminations about what we may have lost (unclear though that seems).

Christianity was originally about questioning Pharisaic Judaism, especially the emphasis it placed on ritual over the well-being of real people. — frank

Religion is not about the well-being of real people. It's about creating and maintaining a strong group bond or 'tribe' through a shared narrative, values, rituals, etc.

Isn't the view of mankind as the fortuitous product of theism ... — Tom Storm

It's not fortuitous, but intentional, as a matter of definition.

In Buddhism, the view of 'fortuitous origins' is also rejected, although not in favour of divine creation, but as a form of nihilism.

It's not fortuitous, but intentional, as a matter of definition. — Wayfarer

It's still our fortune that god did it and we may benefit.

But much of this argument hinges on very specific, expressions or versions of religion.

How could we determine the difference between the purported nihilism of secularism and the potential nihilism of religion? If religion had the same cultural prominence today as it did 300 years ago, would our culture be much less nihilistic? How would we be better off?

:grin:

Being a failed mathematician, I'll get all analytic and point out that the arguments and strategies philosophy provides to us have a more general application than just the critique of religion, and cite the threads on Trump, Covid and the invasion of Ukraine as evidence.

I'd also like to point out that the reason I withdrew from Maths was to satisfy a desire to do more philosophy. Philosophy feels more important than mere maths. Of course, that's an illusion.

Some good general advice would be not to do philosophy if you can avoid it.


(edit: Damn, last post on a page. No one ever reads the last post on a page. The failed mathematician bit will fall flat - but I suspect it's at least partly right. I think I'd be better at philosophy if I had done more maths. Provokative. )