Philosophy Through the Ages

Here in the United States, our philosophical sphere is in limbo. Not too long ago churches held a lot of control over what people thought and felt about the world. However, as time moves on people seem to be pulling away from the religious ways of their lineage, and this could lead to some very interesting results. I don’t want to make a statement here about whether or not this was a good or bad thing, but I do want to discuss the interesting notion of widely practiced philosophy. 

Although we like to separate religion and philosophy, at the end of the day, religion is just a branch of philosophy. It provides a way to think about the world, and answer it’s greatest questions based on what we observe. When religion is thought about in this way, it paints an interesting picture of how things were in the past, and how they still are in other parts of the world. With philosophy being taught every Sunday to almost every person there were a few really interesting effects on the mind of the masses; widespread standardized thought, lifelong education, and regular mental stimulation.

As people, I think that we have a drive to be similar to one another. There was no better way to relate to your neighbor in the past, than what religion you both practiced. Now of course there are many slight variations between and even inside religions, however many of the structures are the same. With this said, whenever there was a moral dilemma or a crisis of the soul in the past, you could take a pretty good educated guess at how someone would handle it based on their religion. This comes from the fact that religious thought is standardized, and widely distributed. Downsides to this can be found everywhere, but I think most of them boil down to the fact that when people are all thinking in a similar fashion, progress begins to halt. With that said, there is also a lot of comfort to be had with knowing that many people share the same ideas as you. Another benefit is the fact that people can get up to the same page with how another person thinks, just based off of being part of the same school of thought.

Many things from childhood end as we grow up. We leave school, go to live on our own, and join the working world. If you are part of religion however, that is a school that will never change. Much unlike the workplace or starting a family, your rank and duties don’t change much over time. From the moment you are born to the moment that you die you are a servant to your church, and you present for roll call every week. This is made doubly interesting by the fact that each visit is a teaching. We now live in a time where many graduate out of school, never to step foot in a learning environment again. This is a stark contrast to the way life has been for so long, it will be interesting to see what happens as a result of it.

I’ve spoken already of the fact that the church keeps schooling you all the way into old age, but I would also like to speak of how that affects the brain and psyche. The human brain does very well to be stimulated consistently throughout life. Because religion is a philosophy it is always pushing the limits of the mind and shifting how we view the world. This also leads to a powerful counterpoint to what I said earlier, that standardized thought restricts progress. That is, if we are constantly encouraged to think in new ways, this practice will most likely lead to the generation of new and creative thoughts from ourselves.

I wanted to write this just to play with the thought of how religion used to affect us as a philosophy, and how the newer lack of it will affect us going forward. I can’t say whether or not this is a good thing or not. On one hand people are thinking more individually than ever before, not hindered but crowd effects and lifelong indoctrination. On the other hand, people are no longer being stimulated and forced to learn in later adulthood, which could lead to a decline in creative and refreshing ideas. Finally, with that I would like to leave you with a question; What would happen if any philosophy was taught on a platform as large as religious philosophy, would this be a good thing? I do not think religion may be the best way forward in the progression of mankind. As it loses popularity however, it is very important that we look to other schools of thought to provide answers to life’s biggest questions.