Religion&Philosophy

Abstract: Religion and philosophy are both pearls in western civilization, which are interwoven with each other. This paper is mainly talked about the origin of philosophy and religion, philosophy times in ancient Greece, the integration of philosophy and religion, as well as the relationship between them.

Keywords: Philosophy, religion, belief, knowledge

Introduction

1.1 The origin of religion and philosophy

Aristotle once said，“everyone desires for the knowledge in nature”. Because the meaning of life is perpetually to explore the unknowns of the world, and human embrace the world with their curiosity. Due to the low production level and slowly social development, we are always limited into a small circle( i.e. Cannot jump out of the limitation) . So what we can do is to resort to the religious myths and legends, so as to satisfy our curiosity. Therefore, we can see that the earliest civilization starts from the religious myths. However, as the social development deepen, people are increasingly craving for knowledge, even to conquer the world. And the philosophy as an embryo sprouts in its matrix, the religion.

1.2 The ancient Greece

Ancient Greece is located in the hinterland of the Mediterranean, where the people here are bound to these small islands. For most of the part, these islands are full of precipitous rock faces and sheer cliffs with less farming land. Thus, people have to give more attention on the outside world---the ocean. And the ancient Greek begin to focus on the trade and colonization. Unfortunately, when they face to the ocean, they would know how infinitely small they are. Then here comes the fear and worship. But they still hold the vision for bright future, with horror and adore to the nature, which produce the religion. With the colonial expansion, the world open a new window to human, in order to rich our knowledge and increase our rational thinking. At that time, some people realize our wellbeing depends on our own self rather than the god. People should recognize the world for the purpose of themselves, following independent philosophical thinking.

The beginning of Philosophy----- the ancient Greece times

The Greek philosophy is the first times that philosophy born out of myths and legend contains the religious color. And the first ancestor of western philosophy, Thales claims that the earth floats on the water, and the water is the root of all things. The root as the first notion of western philosophy bring the rational thoughts into human’s life. But this historical figure also admit that soul is a thing to act. For instance, the magnet can move the iron because the magnet has soul. Above all, rational philosophy starts to cut a figure but divine understanding also matters. And the exceedingly sentimental relationship between philosophy and religion sparks.

The integration of religion and philosophy

Religion and philosophy have so close relationship, because philosophy becomes the tool to demonstrate the rationality of religious dogma. In reality, neither all the human have access to the understanding of the world by religion because of the difference between people’s rationality, nor satisfy the pursuit of the truth, the good and the beauty by sensing the philosophy. Furthermore, in this war era, people oppressed by the body and spirit, and believe in god can mitigate their pain. Therefore, in this chaos, religion are more obviously attractive than the philosophy. Besides, religion, philosophy and the politics are all rolled into one. Utilizing the religion to strengthen their own domino, to seek the protection of regime, so as to deepen the influence to the public. Hence, the philosophy are damaged by the collusion of religion and regime. Marx once said,“religion involve this question without the research while the philosophy does. Religion resort to the emotion while philosophy to the rationality. Religion is like a curse while philosophy is like a guider. Religion promise heaven to the human while philosophy show the truth. Religion require the belief to human while philosophy give the conclusion to human, allowing them to air their doubts. Religion are like a threat while philosophy come to relieve people’s heart. It can be said that Marx criticize the religion for its oppression and destroy, contrary to the support for the philosophy.

Conclusion

Therefore, just because the religion’s ridiculous, I believe with no hesitate, however, it is because the human’s rationality, and I keep the criticism and inspection to the religion under the philosophy.