Philosophy and Religion

1. Philosophy and Religion-ii

2. • Religion is a set of variously organized beliefs
about the relationship between natural and
supernatural aspects of reality, and the role of
humans in this relationship.

3. • Many religions have narratives (erzaehlen),
symbols, and sacred histories that are
intended to explain the meaning of life and/or
to explain the origin of life or the Universe.

4. • From their beliefs about the cosmos and
human nature, people derive morality, ethics,
religious laws or a preferred (bevorzugt)
lifestyle. According to some estimates, there
are roughly 4,200 religions in the world.

5. • The word religion is sometimes used
interchangeably with faith, belief system or
sometimes set of duties; however, in the
words of Émile Durkheim, religion differs from
private belief in that it is "something
eminently (in hohem Masse) social".

6. • A global 2012 poll reports that 59% of the
world's population is religious, and 36% are
not religious, including 13% who are atheists,
with a 9 percent decrease in religious belief
from 2005. On average, women are more
religious than men.

7. • Religion (from O.Fr. religion "religious
community," from L. religionem (nom. religio)
"respect for what is sacred, reverence
(Verehrung) for the gods," "obligation
(pflicht), the bond between man and the
gods") is derived from the Latin religiō, the
ultimate origins of which are obscure
(undeutlich).

8. • According to the philologist Max Müller, the root
of the English word "religion", the Latin religio,
was originally used to mean only "reverence for
God or the gods, careful pondering (sich
ueberlegen) of divine things, piety
(Frommigkeit)". Max Müller characterized many
other cultures around the world, including Egypt,
Persia, and India, as having a similar power
structure at this point in history. What is called
ancient religion today, they would have only
called "law".

9. • Many languages have words that can be
translated as "religion", but they may use
them in a very different way, and some have
no word for religion at all. For example, the
Sanskrit word dharma, sometimes translated
as "religion", also means law.

10. • There is no precise equivalent of "religion" in
Hebrew, and Judaism does not distinguish
clearly between religious, national, racial, or
ethnic identities. One of its central concepts is
"halakha", sometimes translated as "law"",
which guides religious practice and belief and
many aspects of daily life.

11. • The sociologist Durkheim, in his seminal book
The Elementary Forms of the Religious Life,
defined religion as a "unified system of beliefs
and practices relative to sacred things".

12. • Sacred things are not, however, limited to
gods or spirits. On the contrary, a sacred thing
can be "a rock, a tree, a spring, a pebble, a
piece of wood, a house, in a word, anything
can be sacred".

13. • Friedrich Schleiermacher in the late 18th
century defined religion as das
schlechthinnige Abhängigkeitsgefühl,
commonly translated as "a feeling of absolute
dependence". His contemporary Hegel
disagreed thoroughly, defining religion as "the
Divine Spirit becoming conscious of Himself
through the finite spirit."

14. • Philosophy and religion influence the
formation of a person's world. However, such an
effect takes place at different levels. Philosophy
and religion seek to answer the question of
man's place in the world, about the relationship
between man and the world. But such a
response is given to the different conceptual
approaches.

15. • The questions discussed in both religion and
philosophy tend to be very much alike. Both
religion and philosophy wrestle (kaempfen)
with problems like: What is good? What does
it mean to live a good life? What is the nature
of reality? Why are we here and what should
we be doing? How should we treat each
other? What is really most important in life?

16. • To begin with, of the two only religions have
rituals. In religions, there are ceremonies for
important life events (birth, death, marriage,
etc.) and for important times of the year.
Philosophies, however, do not have their
adherents engage in ritualistic actions.
Students do not have to ritually wash their
hands before studying Hegel.

17. • Another difference is the fact that philosophy
tends to emphasize (hervorheben) just the use
of reason and critical thinking whereas
religions may make use of reason, but at the
very least they also rely on faith, or even use
faith to the exclusion (Ausschluss) of reason.

18. • You won’t find Hegel, Kant or Russell saying
that their philosophies are revelations from a
god or that their work should be taken on
faith. Instead, they base their philosophies on
rational arguments.

19. • The fact that religion and philosophy are
distinct does not mean that they are entirely
separate. Because they both address many of
the same issues, it isn’t uncommon for a
person to be engaged (verpflichten) in both
religion and philosophy simultaneously
(gleichzeitig).