Can philosophy replace religion?
Barbara Stegemann is the author of The 7 Virtues of a Philosopher Queen – A Woman’s Guide to Living & Leading in an Illogical World. While the self-help category is a road often travelled, Stegemann’s contribution to it is refreshing for its’ clear attributions and enthusiasm.
In the early Nineties, The Celestine Prophesies was all the rage. But it was old wine in a new bottle which owed much of its life ruminations to the
New England transcendentalists of the Nineteenth century, namely Thoreau and Emerson. The school of thought saw that the human spirit had the capacity to soar beyond its earthly shackles to define itself — unadulterated by stratified, ossified, thinking.
The self-help category of books has some familiar company: from Stephen Covey’s The Seven Habits of Highly Successful People, to Anthony Robbins litany of books and tapes, to relationship speculator John Gray’s Men are From Mars, Women from Venus, to the Granddaddy’s: Think and Grow Rich by Napoleon Hill and The Power of Positive Thinking by Norman Vincent Peale; not to leave out Dale Carnegie’s “
How To Win Friends and Influence People, and Scott Peck’s The Road Less Traveled — which is now 25 years old.
Barbara Stegemann goes back further, a lot further, to the ancient Greeks for her wisdom. She also does it without being selfish.
Most of the books I have listed above are about overcoming some self-perceived flaw in order to “have an advantage” over others — to control, dazzle, overwhelm for personal gain.
For Stagemann however, personal gain does not come at a cost to others, nor is it really a personal gain despite the personal and private persual of virtue over flaw, over insecurity, over weakness, over self-betrayal; personal gain in Barbara Stegemann’s world is always a shared thing by the philosopher. Her book is not about getting ahead, it is about how to love and how stop making the world a shit storm.
Stegemann’s greatest strength in her 7 Virtues of a Philosopher Queen lies in her clear attributions and direct references to Plato and Socrates, knowing that many of her readers will be experiencing these great philosophers for the first time. Unlike her self-help peers, there is no derivative thinking. Why pretend when you can go to the source? With Stegemann, it is less pedantic teaching and more compassionate sharing – a woman who is excited about her education and has learned to love life.
Having compassion for oneself and gaining a foothold on the goodness you have to give are cornerstones in self-development; self-development is at the core of all of Judeo-Christian notions of perfectibility. In Islam, the concept of “Jihad” actually refers to the soul’s struggle within, the war within one’s self.
When you hear the truth, you usually know it. The Ancient Greeks always believed that the successful soul is living to the fullness of one’s capacities in the pursuit of excellence.
Barbara Stegemanns’ great accomplishment here lies in her proud, conscious, and direct attributions to Plato and Socrates as she enumerates the nature of Aristotelian virtue and applies it to the workaday world of the modern woman. Stegemann’s post-feminist impulses and approach to feminism as a branch of humanism also is liberating, making it accessible and un-alienating to men.
To live a full life Stegemann says you must also surround yourself with people who believe in you and will not be jealous or threatened by your success. It reminded me of when President Ronald Reagan left office. His simple note to his successor was, “don’t let the turkeys get you down.”
In The 7 Virtues of a Philosopher Queen, Barbara Stegemann says it better.
March 7th, 2008 at 6:53 pm
The world holds two classes of men—intelligent men without religion, and religious men without intelligence.
― Abu’l‐Ala al Ma’arri
March 8th, 2008 at 8:14 am
Philosophy couldn’t replace religion because it comes from man or in this case a woman. Religion isn’t from either. It’s from God and it’s that simple. Lots of people are experts at making simple complicated. Not to say this is 100% simple, it’s a good question.
If someone learns something from philosophy that’s fine. If someone improves their quality of life from it, that’s fine too. If someone wanted to replace religion with it they’d be replacing God with man and that just wouldn’t work.
Philosophy is mankind’s attempt to replace religion. It couldn’t because truth isn’t a subjective thing. If it was it would be different for each person which isn’t what truth is. “Truth” by definition is something that’s true for everyone. It’s more than a fact, which is what philosophy wants to answer.
Truth is an objective thing. It exists outside people. If someone asked what’s truth? No possible answer is going to come from man, or woman, as if he or she could tell you from their own thoughts.
Ever wonder why political correctness is an ongoing topic? I think it’s because there’s a breakdown of common sense. Why is that? Probably because more people are getting further away from God, in this country anyway.
“Every conversation pre-supposes the idea of truth. Our brains couldn’t function without it.” -Pastor John MacArthur.
How would someone find out about God? Whatever it is it’s summed up in the scriptures:
“Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives; he who seeks finds; and to him who knocks, the door will be opened.” -Matt ch 7 vs. 7-8.
That’s truth but no one has to take my word on it. If anyone wanted to know, they can try it.
Mike
March 9th, 2008 at 9:39 am
There is no doubt that Barb commands each of us to be sincere and fearless-to be engaged in our communities and be active in solution making rather than being part of the problems. We can take things to a better place collectively-it’s about VISION!
Great job!
March 9th, 2008 at 9:40 am
There is no doubt that vision is what it’s all about!
March 12th, 2008 at 6:06 am
The only way that philosophy will replace religion is if a ton of people share the same experience. Say an alien race contacts us or we find out a huge comet is going to collide with us. I think it will take something totally epic to ever get philosophy to replace religion. The philosophy of survival trumps everything.
March 14th, 2008 at 1:33 pm
You say philosophy is from man, you cannot prove that religion is from god. There is no real scientific evidence.
March 21st, 2008 at 5:15 pm
Religion is irrational, illogical, and unreasonable, interesting stories of fiction. One must accept reality, the power of the mind. The listeners of your program should begin research on Objectivism.
March 26th, 2008 at 7:12 pm
Philosophy may replace religion, and in some instances all ready has I think, but it will never replace God. That is totally impossible! Faith would trump philosophy anyday. Besides, how many philosophers have ever read the Bible anyway. Philosophers constantly pose questions and hope to come up with an answer. With faith, you have the answer, you just need to wait until it becomes a reality. I’m not against philosphy, in fact I heard this guest on the show and wouldn’t mind gettting the book. I just think that no other book can replace the Bible. It is a more intrigueing read.
April 1st, 2008 at 8:03 am
This question of ‘replacement’ is entrenched in so many arrogant and ignorant modern presuppositions that it is not even worth discussing. Up until quite recently, humans have not at all understood ‘philosophy’ as being opposed to ‘religion’ per se, but knew them as mutually dependent and complementary. To get a sense of this, you only have to read anything from Plato to St. Thomas Aquinas — or even Islamic thinkers like al-Ghazali or Averroes. Try looking up Empedocles, St Augustine, Hegel, etc… Until we can begin to recover that older attitude and start thinking outside the box, we will just keep the bombs going and destroy ourselves, because we have no other way to communicate.
April 2nd, 2008 at 2:14 pm
In matters of religion and philosophy neither is wrong until you take it to extremes, or try to force your beliefs onto others. Religion is basically philosophy with a backstory, as far fetched as most of them are. Where people go wrong is taking the stories literally, instead of trying to looking into the morals behind them.
April 15th, 2008 at 1:47 pm
Lots of people see a conflict between science and religion. One reason I don’t is because science will never be able to explain how life started. I think of science as the study of how man figures out, to the extent that it’s possible, what God did (physically).
The theories about how old the world is and evolution are just that, theories. According to wikianswers carbon dating is useful back to 70,000 years. Is that completely true? I can’t say. It far more reasonable than scientists saying dinosaurs were walking around 75 or 150 million years ago.
Most scientists proboably wouldn’t want to say the world is 6,000, 20,000 or 100,000 years old. They’d probably be afraid of loosing their credibility. Too bad they can’t admit they can’t prove anything and leave it.
Besides that, if there was scientific evidence for God it would take away the whole point. Christians believe with faith. Jesus did miracles in front of people and they still doubted. Any possible proof would be argued and refuted today like it was then.
Where did scientists come up with 4.5 billion years for the age of the world? It’s ridiculous. They might as well get together and agree that it’s a bajillion years old. What’s the reasoning for 4.5 and not 3 or 9 billion? 4.5 thousand years was an incredibly long time ago.