Colin McGinn - Does Philosophy Illuminate Religion?

When philosophy focuses on religion its targets cover the field: proofs of God's existence, traits and attributes of God, human essence and purpose, religious experiences, faith and belief, diverse and conflicting religions, science and religion, miracles and revelation, and the like. What can #religion learn from philosophy? Can #philosophy approach God?


Colin McGinn is a British philosopher, currently Professor of Philosophy and Cooper Fellow at the University of Miami.


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[joshuamowdy]

Hello.

God is the state of mind. Your fathers mind and so fourth and so on. In this we are xreated in his image. From one to another. Everlsting life. Within each kne i three. Three states of being. The son of which you are reared and taught. The father whom you ascribe to become. Your warrior husband protecter self as you grow in wisdom and age. The holy ghost is your elder. Who reflects the light back on your life so that hou may know him. ONLY through the son may you reach the father. This is only the glimpse. Just a begginnk g.



Good luck.

[FaxanaduJohn]

And in next week’s regurgitated Closer to series we ask, “why can’t religion just be as god damn respected as it used to be?!!”

[totalfreedom]

Philosophy illuminates religion but not science, which wields the scientific method, whose pillars are math, measurement, observation, and experiment.
We have *_only_* four sure things to shield ourselves from this marvel of evolution, the novel coronavirus disease (COVID-19): *_love, _* science, sense of humor, and music, especially Beethoven’s. 💕 ☮ 🌎 🌌

[ablebaker]

There are missing processes here.
1) is a tradition of ancient myth building folklore a viable basis for explanations of nature?
Example: Deities tend to adopt an identity based upon the stories told about them. In Hopi/Zuni tradition, The Corn Maiden taught humans how to hunt buffalo.
Eventually the human population grew while the buffalo population decreased until there was scarcity.
The Corn Maiden saw the suffering she had brought and had herself dragged through the fields.
As her body was eroded, corn grew where her blood touched the earth. With her death she brought humans a renewable source of food that prevented the people from starving.

Prior to this, there was no such thing as corn... hence, The Corn Maiden myth cycle explains the origin of corn in a tautological explanation of the origin of The Corn Maiden. This pattern is ubiquitous throughout religious folklore. We invent our gods according to our needs.

2) Is projection of our own expectations of what constitutes intellect a reliable model for understanding what is involved in intelligence?
Example: We don't actually understand causality well enough to say whether reality is deterministic IN THE CLASSICAL SENSE. While we clearly feel that we have some form of self determination, that self determination exists in a reality which excludes explanation for how any choice we make isn't a strictly deterministic consequence of previous events.
We are also aware that reality has a basis in probability rather than classical determinism BUT we don't yet have a viable theory that allows both to be true simultaneously.

3) philosophy is a nice tool in a context of reproducible predictive utility... Step outside the rigor of truth having to be reproducibly demonstrable and it no longer has any correlation with reality.
At that point, it becomes an argument over which set of ancient pagan folktales is 'true' based upon the expectation bias of the apologist... which means virtually anything can be true while being mutually contradictory of virtually anything else also being completely true.

If we limit the label, 'true' only to things that are demonstrable, there is no religious sense in which anything can be true since religion is based entirely on folktales and parables which were intended to teach values rather than be 'true' stories.

[beyondenigma-esotericsecre]

👍👍👍WAKE UP. IN school they taught YOU watered down philosophy. TRUE *philosophy = Occultism.* (Esoteric teachings of Plato, AstroTheology, Magick, Shamanism, Shadow-work, Kabbalah Ceremonial Magick) and the list goes on📜 !

[stevesedio]

One thing can not be 3 things?!?

As a young child, my dad was all powerful (God the Father), in middle age, he was a sage friend (Jesus), and now that he is gone, his spirit gives me council (the Holy Spirit). Not 3, just 1 seen from different vantage points....

[xspotbox]

God might not care for humans and world, but looks like he is interested in philosophy, perhaps this weirdness might help us understand his nature. It's nice to know and understand things, maybe even more important than life itself.
Some philosophers would sell their own mother into slavery if they could see what happens after forces of light will defeat Satan and get rid of his evil influence from this universe. How will people get organized in that new Heaven, can economy still function, who will take care for people with various problems, it seems philosophy will became crucial in world when none of those things will matter nevermore.

[billnorris]

Great interview. This is ONE of the very few philosophers I instantly liked.. Every religious person could benefit from Collin's philosophical DEEP DIVE into the nature of God.. Hopefully SOME can take away the insight that religions are like theories, not everyone agrees on their accuracy, and NONE should lay claim to being ordained and unassailable.!

[ut]

NO. Now, how about a question that is answerable?

[theophilus]

I entirely agree with McGinn that one can only make sense of God-Talk (ie: theology) with the aid of philosophy but it is painfully obvious that he is ignorant of the more traditional teachings of Christian theology. One wonders whether he has read works by Augustine and Aquinas at all. This means that he spends far too much time worrying about straw men.