RE: The Original Messages of Religion
September 20, 2014 at 1:12 am
(This post was last modified: September 20, 2014 at 1:14 am by Celestine.)
(September 20, 2014 at 12:29 am)genkaus Wrote: If you are looking for development of ethics, then look to philosophy not religion. Philosophy provides a rational and comprehensive process for developing ethical systems rather than relying on authoritative dictates.
If you are looking for a group to help people become more moral, then look to educational institutes. Morality shouldn't be regulated or enforced but it should be taught and taught correctly.
Looking at it objectively tells me that religion is useless when it comes to being moral.
You act as though religion has had no bearing on philosophy, or that philosophy has had no bearing on religion. Were archaeologists to just look for weapons they would throw out all the important pieces of archeology. Asking me to only look at secular philosophy is like asking an archaeologist to pick only one item from an excavation that produced hundreds of times and only research that one item.
In the history of philosophy religion has played a very important role whether you like it or not and whether you think you can distinguish these as philosophies despite your own bias does not effect the fact that religion is a part of the history of philosophy.
Epicurus' philosophy had a major effect on me becoming an atheist and that's over 2,000 years old! Why then should I discount these philosophies because of their age or their entanglement with religion? You can't seem to look past the fact that I'm not interested in these religions so much as the philosophy that resides in them. Were I Christian and ignored Epicurus' philosophy just because it had to do with atheism I would have come to the conclusion of atheism at a much later date. Yet I was unbiased about it, and then afterwards for years I was like you and held a strong prejudice against religion because it was what all the cool kids were doing. Now I am over myself, and I seek to observe again that which I once did but this time with a secular opinion, is that so much of a grievance to you that you think I should abandon this expedition and that all future expeditions by others should be abandoned?
