Should religion and philosophy be in the same category?

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   JakeFrostposted 11 years ago

   Should religion and philosophy be in the same category?

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   LetitiaFTposted 11 years ago

   No. The first is based on faith, the second on reason. Both faith and reason have their value, but they are not the same thing.

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      JakeFrostposted 11 years agoin reply to this

      I completely agree, I think we are trying to get them separated in the forums at the moment, you should join the discussion.

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   Dallas Matierposted 11 years ago

   Well, philosophy of religion was an area of study back at university. But, philosophy of religion is a very different thing to theology.
   
   I suppose it would make sense to separate them... but, at the same time, It doesn't bother me nearly enough for me to try to make an issue out of it. Honestly, I didn't even know they were lumped together here until now.

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   Garifaliaposted 11 years ago

   Isn't religion a philosophy? Religion was originally based on reason since people needed some sort of guidence and understanding.
   e.g. In the Western ancient world people needed to know how the sun came up in the sky. They reasoned that it came and went since it descended in the afternoon to disappear. Since science had not been brought forth, they philosophised that powers beyond their control placed the sun in the sky and they named those powers God.

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   Ericdierkerposted 11 years ago

   When we use the word "religion" we are not necessarily speaking of faith. Many people "practice" a religion and have no faith. Many people have faith and no religion. Religion seems to be the corporal man made organizations that revolves around a faith. Spiritualism is not the same as religion or philosophy. That should clearly be seperate. But clearly a religion is the philosophy of a certain people. It is erroneous to think of religion as having no reason, or philosophy as having no faith. People have faith religions do not have faith. We all have faith in a tommorrow and we come by that faith by reason.
   Probably if we seperate religion from philosophy we do it to seperate Christians from the discussions in philosophy.

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      Garifaliaposted 11 years agoin reply to this

      Superbly thought out. You sound like a philosophical person. By the way for anyone who may not know, philosophy means 'friend of wisdom' (philos = friend, sophia = wisdom).

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   WritingPromptsposted 11 years ago

   Seems like religion and politics could both be sub-categories of philosophy.  There is some relationship - but they aren't the same thing.

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   jomineposted 11 years ago

   No religion is fraud while philosophy is a quest.

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      Ericdierkerposted 11 years agoin reply to this

      I think maybe you missed a punctuation after "No".  A fraud generally has to be done by an individual. And whether or not it is a fraud is up to the person responding. But I get your point. Like the ads to buy drugs on TV.

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      jomineposted 11 years agoin reply to this

      Thanks, I missed the 'comma'.

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   tom hellertposted 11 years ago

   Sure why not- cake n pie are different but they are both desserts... so are cookies all of them are slightly different yet similarly the same. Philosophy, religion and quantum mechanics all take a bit of faith.

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   ReneeDC1979posted 11 years ago

   Great question -The definition of philosophy is :the study of the fundamental nature of knowledge, reality, and existence, esp. when considered as an academic discipline.  I would say religion is a sub-category of philosophy because philosophy studies existence.  How many times have you seen the question "Does God exist?"  I took Philosophy of Religion also in college and it was interesting to learn about other religions, their practices, what god they believe in, and how some of our practices, beliefts, etc are similar.  So I think when talking about philosophy, religion is one aspect of it.  But, in general conversation, the two are very different categories.

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