Is it possible, in the final analysis, for one human being to achieve perfect understanding of another?
We can invest enormous time and energy in serious efforts to know another person, but in the end, how close can we come to that person’s essence? We convince ourselves that we know the other person well, but do we really know anything important about anyone?”
― Haruki Murakami, The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle
Two years ago, I wrote this post where I argued that those goddites who resort to philosophy to justify their delusions beliefs are not doing philosophy. I am not changing my mind on the above thesis. I still believe that I was right then. You may want to ask what I think of philosophy of religion? It’s a waste of intellect. It is no different from studying theology. You waste both your time and money to learn nothing except what the priest says god says.
The end of philosophy is to arrive at truth, that is, to arrive at what is true/ real. The aim of religion is to have faith, more faith. It is not concerned with what is true, rather with what is believed.
The goddite is not interested in what is true. Religion is based on revelation. If the evidence, or lack of, cannot be found in revelation, it can’t be found anywhere else. The goddite like Platinga, WLC and all those sophisticates who have a modeled a career around apologetics, are not doing philosophy justice. Instead of spending time attempting to answer the big questions of life, they keep us occupied with telling them their arguments in defense of ghosts do not further the cause of ghosts an inch. They remain just where they began, as creations of the mind.
You can skip the whole of this post and watch Carl Sagan. I hope this message hasn’t come too late for most of you.
You are an aperture through which the universe is looking at and exploring itself.”
― Alan W. Watts
Superb post, my friend and great video. Ya gotta love Sagan.
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Thanks bro.
Sagan is great
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The greater problem here is religion takes “faith,” which is unjustified belief, and promotes it to the level of virtue. It is a celebration of stupidity, and that can never be good.
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Even more, “faith” is transformed into a virtuous, impenetrable shield that is used to deflect the vilest of actions.
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Ain’t that the truth. A wonderful mechanism to inspire brutality.
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Yep.
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Oh yes, faith, faith. It has no time for truth. In fact, it finds truth to be an inconvenience
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Indeed
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Yes, religion makes a virtue out of stupidity
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Where’s the like button?
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Philosophy, theology, both constructs that deny the answering of questions, and rather keeps digging around hoping for an angle to just keep the argument going. In their favor of course. You will never pin them down and get a straight answer, a straight answer is their death knell.
A philosopher who actually answers questions, has little future in philosophy. Same for theologians.
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“A philosopher who actually answers questions, has little future in philosophy. Same for theologians.” It’s like being a dancer who stops moving his feet. WTF kinda dancing would that be? 🙂
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The philosopher is always asking himself, is this right and how do I know it is right. Maybe that explains why it is a boring job
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Indeed.
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Do you really want an answer? My sister was a modern dancer and back when we were young I saw plenty of experimental dance.
Now that I think about it, Fosse had a number like that in Dancin’.
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Right. He did. That guy was absolutely amazing. Speaking of him, I just watched “All That Jazz” again the other day for the first time in decades. Great flick. So introspectively revealing. I love the dance numbers in it too.
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I’ve always been a huge Fosse fan. Went to see Dancin’ with my family when it was on Broadway and I was probably about thirteen. Thanks to sis, I got dragged to lots of dance performances over the years.
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Cool.
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Actually my shelldigger friend, I think you are being unfair to philosophy. As a pursuit of truth, it may not give you answers but it may lead to clarification of ideas. Take the example of morality; the Euthyphro is a philosophical dialogue that put paid the argument that morals come from gods. Anyone who argues deities are the source of morals is not well read.
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I agree that some good can come from a pursuit of logic. For instance if I built a bridge of matchsticks, asking the question “what will happen if I actually drive a car over it?” is a good pursuit of logic.
Using philosophy to hide among the ifs, ands, and buts, say to keep ones god an unknowable, untouchable, entity that forever hides within the cracks of knowledge is beyond where philosophy has reached its usefulness. At that point it has become a playground for those forever locked into the playground of make believe. When it gets there, I find philosophy quite a disgusting endeavor. Perhaps I am an old curmudgeonly curmudgeon tainted by years of seeing so called philosophers spouting a great deal of word salad, without saying much of anything usefull. They have become professional squirmers, you can’t pin them down to reality with a 2 ton lead weight. Of what use is that to one with an ability to reason?
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I can understand your frustration. The problem is that most of the philosophy work most of us come into contact with is dedicated to explaining why a donkey talked to Balaam. In short, philosophy, the pursuit and love of knowledge, was hijacked by the church for its purposes. It has been trying to free itself ever since.
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Great point.
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I’d say Balaam might have had his drink spiked.
I think you may be on to something with the church hijacking true philosophy and turning it into a pseudo philosophy to suit their purposes. Much the same with science today. 🙂
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That is why the Kalam is considered philosophy.
At some point men and women with some grey matter reached a point they could no longer believe in talking donkeys. They hijacked philosophy to make their beliefs rational and we had the birth of philosophy of religion
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You make good points here, my friend. I enjoy reading philosophy, but, like you said, it gets to a point where I say, shit or get off the pot. I think philosophy is great for providing good hypotheses about the meaning/nature of things, but after a while, it’s time to put your hands in the dirt and work at learning what’s really going on. I do love reading philosophy, however, so I’m not dissing it. Like you, I think it sometimes is nebulous just for the sake of being nebulous.
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Nebulosity is a wonderful thing through a 12.5″ telescope.
Nebulosity in philosophy is a blatant act of deception. 🙂
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Nebulosity in philosophy often results in hilarity, vulgarity, and, sometimes, a much needed tracheotomy. I tossed in tracheotomy because it rhymes, and, because some folks get so upset over philosophy they swallow their own tongue and need one to breath.
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I’ll take two hilarity, and one vulgarity. Got to pass on the tracheotomy.
Nebulous philosophers have already had a lobotomy.
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Indubitably!
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Are these on the house or we got to pay?
I can take two hilarity and three vulgarity
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I will not say anything here
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Outstanding argument, my Nairobi brother. The philosophy of religion isn’t about truth but rather, belief! Great job! 🙂
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Yes, philosophy of religion is an attempt to rationalize talking donkeys
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Aren’t religious philosophers and talking donkeys the same? LOL!
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Hahaha! Well, talking donkeys are wonder, theologians not so much
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And donkeys smell better.
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And are useful for something
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True,
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If god belief were (based on) truth/self-evident such philosophy would be completely redundant.
It allows Dickheads like Crag, Licona and Habermas to get away with the utter garbage they ”preach”.
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And their followers do not see this point
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I’ve found The Varieties of Religious Experience by William James to be interesting. Certainly, it’s possible to examine what people believe and why without being a religious apologist, and in that regard can be interesting, much like anthropology.
In fact, I think many atheists miss the importance of James’ work. People do have religious experiences and that contributes to the strength of their beliefs. I, for one, suspect that they arise from neurological phenomenon that people then interpret according to the tradition they’ve been taught. Still, people find them profound and moving and that’s something we ought to consider.
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I agree with you on the value of James’ book. His main weakness is he didn’t explore why people have such beliefs. All he did was to document the different varieties of belief.
And you are right, to the believer, his experience is interpreted as evidence for god.
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I read it years ago, but if I recall correctly he saw it as a starting point for a subject that needed to be explored further. You’re right that it’s very incomplete.
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I think there have been attempts to do so. Religion and Sex by Chapman Cohen is one such example. You should look at it when you have some time
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This is the first I’ve heard of him. I’ll have to look into it. It sounds interesting.
It’s often struck me that religions often try to control things that might lead people to ecstatic experiences unmediated by the religious leaders. Sex and dancing both spring to mind. Can’t have too much fun! 🙂
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Never! You can’t be too happy. If you are happy, you will not give a hoot about hell.
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“You may want to ask what I think of philosophy of religion? It’s a waste of intellect.” Hm, I thought what you are doing here on your blog most of the time is philosophy of religion 😉
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Guilty as charged. At least I don’t try to explain talking donkeys 😛
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The end of philosophy is to arrive at truth
Sorry to revisit this old post…it was suggested under your more recent one. lol I just wanted to say that I agree and I love this statement. I had a very similar argument with somebody on Jim’s blog. Philosophy is sort of a word that gets thrown around a lot, but people who just think they are being philosophical by throwing out ideas, aren’t really doing philosophy as you’ve succinctly stated here. We might philosophize about why humans practice religion, but I think religious philosophy itself is flawed because all arguments begin from an unproven premise and have done so ever since there has been the concept of the divine. We might allow philosophy to venture there once upon a time, but that it continues to be thought about is a misspent venture. Religious philosophy has made no ground in history, and yet theists calling themselves philosophical only allows them to use a big word to make their flawed arguments sound weightier.
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Those seems to be days when I was more lucid. As I have grown older, I have even become lazy!
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