by Stroll

Created on: February 23, 2007   Last Updated: May 08, 2007

The importance of religion is cultural and sociological, but not really philosophical. Religion is often confused with philosophy, and while they both attempt to answer similar questions (why are we here? what is right and wrong? is what we perceive real?), they go about it in vastly different ways.

The Western philosophical tradition is based on analysis, deduction and induction, and as the "queen of the sciences" it requires reason before any conclusions can be suggested. Religion, on the other hand, is based on texts that are considered holy, and faith, which is the opposite of reason with a capital "R".

Philosophy and religion address each other (philosophers address religious questions like the conflicting nature of the characteristics of God while religion treats philosophical questions with religious answers-and St. Paul warned against philosophy) but they are not the same thing.

A widespread misunderstanding is that one must be religious to have morals, and that there must be a God (an almighty judge) for there to be right and wrong. This is simply not the case. Given that there exists a God, right and wrong would exist outside of that God, lest his judgements on what constitutes sin be arbitrary. Non-believers can certainly live moral, decent lives as they believe that ethics can be determined by a reasoning that considers the best life one that is harmonious with that of our fellow social beings.

Surely there is joy and comfort that can be found in religious practice, but that is not to say that the non-religious are leading lesser lives. Indeed, for the non-religious people of the world, the eternal questions are just as real, mysterious, and worthy of inquiry, though the approach is different.

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