nroberts

Maybe this forum needs a philosophy channel. Religion is but one subset of the many answers available to important questions about life, the universe, and everything. It's also a fairly uninteresting domain of human thought since discussions invariably end up resolving to appeals to authority and/or "faith". No serious headway can be made, no consensus that isn't preexisting can be established, since there's little, if any, weight put on evidence and much, if not all, on "personal revelation". Thus it all end up being variants of, "It's true because I said so," or, "It's true because [such and such scripture or authority] says so."

This is of course why almost all discussions on religion are nothing but breeding grounds for fights. When half, if not more, of the participants believe they have a back-channel communication with the creator of everything and that anyone else is "blaspheming the Holy Spirit" or "worshiping themselves", there's really nothing else that can come of such discussions.

Philosophy, on the other hand, is a much more civilized arena of discourse. It's an arena where questions are more welcome than answers and claims to authority get the scorn they deserve. A battle ground where you're actually required to back up what you claim. Yet even though it's incredibly different from religion, it seeks many of the same questions.

In a philosophy channel we could discuss the pros/cons of materialism vs. dualism...or discuss the introduction of some third alternative. We could discuss the moral implications of a creator God, discuss the features that would be necessary for such a God, or even attempt to define what exactly is "moral" anyway. And *discuss* is the key word here because I don't see a lot of that going on here.

In all honesty, I've yet to see a single religion channel or religion forum that didn't end up devolving into just piles and piles of name calling and shit flinging. I've already expressed why I think this is inevitable (because the rules of civil discourse just don't apply). That's pretty much all we have here, with minor pieces of interesting possibilities that get squashed almost immediately, and I'd really be more interested in discussing the wide variety of questions and answers we all have to these ultimate questions. Such simply can't take place in a religious arena, which is always overcrowded with know-it-all Godheads and the hubris with which they approach every single conversation that might take place.

If there's enough interest, maybe we can talk the forum deities into intervening and Intelligent Designing us a forum to discuss philosophy and meanings outside the contrivances and orthodoxy of religion; without the baggage and stumbling blocks thrown in our way by history's intellectual cripples and lunatics. Religion is certainly not off-topic in the philosophy arena, but that doesn't seem to apply visa-versa. In my opinion, it's much more interesting and productive to discuss the alternative viewpoints to religion than to just keep "discussing" religion all the damn time--a system of thinking that I just wish would die and go back to the hell it came from anyway (so why keep feeding it?).

mentor

I don't really think we are feeding religion here. In fact, religion is it's own worst enemy whenever anyone tries to "prove" that it is the truth. I believe people are basically reasonable. When you put rational ideas out there, then people will eventually come to rational conclusions.

A philosophy section would be good. But I think a better idea would be to rename this forum Philosophy, Religion, and Science, and discuss all three together. Philosophy by itself I'm afraid will be to esoteric for most. I can hear the complaints of "why do we have to argue over whether this table exists or not?"

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Brainpolice

I agree that a philosophy section would be nice. Most of the threads that I have thought of starting and have started do not really belong in "current events" or regular political discourse. I started a thread about deontology, utilitarianism and virtue ethics a while ago and I didn't know where to put it. Where does one go to debate about determinism, free will, ethical objectivism, moral relativity, rationalism, empiricism, egoism, altruism, holism, collectivism, individualism, logical positivism, existentialism, deontology, utilitarianism, virtue ethics, deconstructionism, post-modernism, philosophy of language, philosophy of science, and so on? It certainly doesn't belong in political issues (although it has implications for politics), yet neither does it belong in religion.

I despise the attitude that philosophy is useless. Philosophy is arguably the most important and relevant topic for your life, and is a pretext to even science (I.E. science requires a "philosophy of science" in order to function).

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GurnBlanston

People are so busy demanding respect for their beliefs, they forget about doing the same and respecting others' beliefs.

Brainpolice

Haha. That wouldn't have to be argued if there were not people who hold metaphysical and epistemological views that deny the existance of an objective reality. Unfortunately, there are plenty of people who do seem to think that "life is an illusion" or that reality is a product of our thoughts, so epistemological objectivists such as myself have to waste our time addressing them.

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Environment Man

Another futile attempt to obfuscate the importance of religion and God in the public square. You are the Borg and resistance is futile.

Brainpolice

What are you talking about? Is philosophy not important in itself?

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Environment Man

It is. But it sounded like he wants to REPLACE the Religion thread with a philosophy. Another attempt to 'go secular.' Even Bill O'Reilly says that Jesus was just a philosopher. And the Factor is usually on the money.

Brainpolice

I think he was proposing a separate forum/section. I certainly would make pains to separate religion from philosophy, despite their subtle connections.

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disfigured

People get majors in Philosophy and/or Theology so they are two separate disciplines. Although they cross each other's paths frequently. I don't see the problem with an additional forum that would not only be secular, but would also put the onus on people posting about religion exclusively, to do so in the religion thread.

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