What Is the Philosophy of Religion?

[@sharpiepenfinepoint]

Looking forward!

[@dailyphilosophy]

Thank you! The next one is already on the way!

[@jackiecatterwell8719]

Another great site from Dr Matthias. He is a great communicator. I will follow these programmes and also recommend the Daily Philosophy one.

[@dailyphilosophy]

Thank you so much for your kind words!

[@wiseone1013]

I am a big of this gentleman, looking forward to learn about religion through a philosophical lens as opposed to the more common theological approach.

[@dailyphilosophy]

Thank you so much for your kind words! I hope that you'll enjoy the future videos in this series!

[@DOMinatorxXx42]

It seems to me that this video is implying that the philosophy of religion aims to answer concepts and mysteries about unseen forces in a way that is understandable. This is wrong as explained. The etymology of the word religion comes from the latin word religare, which means to bind or thwart from forward progress. Now, there is an alternative definition to the word, which means to reunite. However, no one is reuniting with their higher self through any cultural religions. So I would say the philosophy of religion is to keep peoples minds in a box so they see nomother alternatives, which could lead to real truth discovery. Furthermore, religions are not limited to established spirtual practices. People worship money, authority, actors, and athletes religiously. These are all things that put peoples minds in a box and limit their worldviews as most people are incapable of imagining life without at least the first two things. Therefore, I think the correct thing is to question and ponder is spirituality, not religion. Spirt, or spiritual, means the breath, the breath of god, or the breath of life in latin. Through spirtual practices and thought with the intention of bettering ourselves, I think we can find a way to ebb and flow with this sacred breath

[@dailyphilosophy]

Thank you so much for your detailed and thoughtful comment! To your first point, I did not intend to propose that I would give explanations for any unseen forces or mysteries. Perhaps I did not make this as clear as I should have. What I want to do is to talk in general about religions as social phenomena, and then more specifically about particular philosophical arguments that religious adherents make or have made over the centuries. We will analyse these arguments and see what merit there is to them. So I'm not trying to bring science into the discussion about religions, but philosophy: the analysis of arguments. Your etymology of "religion" is sound, but you give it a bit of an edge that is not in the original meaning when you say "forward progress." To "bind," yes, but in the sense of "to bind a community of believers together" or "to bind the human being to God." The Latin people who originally coined the word "religion" surely didn't have a Marxist concept of the forward progress of history in mind, and they also likely didn't intend "religion" to be a word with negative connotations. I agree with you that every system of thought, including religions, tends to keep people's minds restricted to particular ways of thinking -- but this is true also of "science" and, for instance, "analytic philosophy," "democratic state" and many other such concepts. I wouldn't derive that necessarily from the etymology of "religion". In fact, one of the more interesting questions we will be talking about later is whether science itself can be seen as a kind of religion. And, as you say yourself, money, fame, pop culture etc all tend to limit our world-views and imaginations in ways similar to religions, so this limited imagination seems to be a more general problem of the human condition and not specific to religions. I also agree with you that spirituality would be a better term for some of the phenomena that we are discussing -- but not necessarily for others. For example, when we will talk about Thomas Aquinas' proofs for the existence of God, these are not really "spiritual" in a wider sense. These are very closely linked to the Catholic understanding of the properties of the Christian God, and as such they are "religious" in a more narrow sense. So perhaps we should call what we're doing here the "philosophy of spirituality and religion", but that would be a bit long for a title :) But I understand your point and I agree with you that we often don't have the most precise words to talk about such phenomena as religion or spirituality. Thanks again!

[@thedude5740]

Firstly, beautifully articulated from the both of you, oh how I crave this style of conversing minds. DOM, you seem to be heading in a great direction to really begin to break past the illusions perpetuated by society. The only things in history that truly change are the languages used and the tools used to enforce the languages. Magic is real and it's about creating illusions that can prop up make believe realms. Symbolism is its driving force. Language is Symbolism. Language is the foundation to all magical practices. The legal world is the realm of the dead, ruled by (corp)orations. It is the upgraded version of the underworld...

[@DOMinatorxXx42]

​​@@dailyphilosophyI think I got to focused on that chart showing the questions of the metaphysical and religious posed and how religions try to answer them rather than how these questions impact society. My mistake. Thank you for correcting my understanding of the etymology of religion. I learned that from a guy named Mark Passio and he would always include that part in and say its because the thoughts these people have mentally binded themselves to a false belief that cannot bring about any real progress. I guess you could say it was religious of me to think that even after reading the etymology myself more than once since learning. And while the Romans had no concept of forward progress, which is something that hadn't occurred to me until now, they were a very brutal and controling society though they seem to be victims of circumstance being bullied by their neighbors. I do think, however, that the people who framed the English language had ill intentions. I would also agree with you, even though you didn't directly say it is that science is, as most people take it these days, is certainly a religion. People think science has no limit except our knowledge and understanding, and with enough time, there isn't anything science can't master. As if it's the end all be all to achieving maximum freedom and peace. There are also those who think that all of human progress can be measures in the last 400 years because of sciemce. This is a very strange mythology to me.

[@dailyphilosophy]

@@DOMinatorxXx42 Thank you for clarifying your thoughts! A video on whether science is a kind of religion is actually something I had planned, so we will be able to pick up this discussion again later!