"Religion and the secular in Japan"

[TalnSG]

Originally Posted by Ronin4hire

Also I dont understand. Is the existence of a "spiritual realm" the line that seperates philosophy and religious teaching? How can you define and seperate the spiritual from the non-spiritual in order to define philosophy and religion? After all when dealing with matters of human consciousness then where do you put that? For me the line is blurry and I would argue that it is not NEEDED as a concept EXCEPT to legitimise the seperation of religious teaching and philosophy. (I would go as far to say that it doesnt exist... but we can save that for another thread as it isnt relevant yet)

I mean I dont understand what you mean by "cold" philosophy isolated from the "spiritual realm".

I would say that any such delineation would be artificial and likely to be quite aribtrary. Having slept, the example I had in mind has slipped away for the moment, being some obscure and esoteric instance. But generally I would expect those philosophers classically derided for expounding on life from the isolation of pure academia with little or no real life experience, and probably professing atheism as being those who would be most likely to make this artificial distinction. I know I only encountered it in limited studies where no practical application was ever explored or encouraged. Sort of thinking for the sake of thought, rather than pursuit of a result.

[Ronin4hire]

Originally Posted by TalnSG

I would say that any such delineation would be artificial and likely to be quite aribtrary. Having slept, the example I had in mind has slipped away for the moment, being some obscure and esoteric instance. But generally I would expect those philosophers classically derided for expounding on life from the isolation of pure academia with little or no real life experience, and probably professing atheism as being those who would be most likely to make this artificial distinction. I know I only encountered it in limited studies where no practical application was ever explored or encouraged. Sort of thinking for the sake of thought, rather than pursuit of a result.

I dont completely understand your post (the part about philosophers being isolated in academia.. or the implied relationship with atheism)

But I can agree with you. My opinion is the spiritual realm simply doesnt exist as an objective concept. I can understand the language of "spirituality" as an expression of sentiment

For example it is much easier to say

"He/She has a good heart/a kind spirit etc.."

as opposed to

"That persons environmental conditioning has caused him/her to be prone to certain nueral and chemical firings in the brain which predisposes him to empathy"

If I were to ask WHY the he/she had a good hear/kind spirit then the latter would be the better answer (or if youre not as geeky as me then simply environmental conditioning could be reasoned without having to make any extra assumptions about the universe)

but as soon as you start answering logical questions with "spiritual" answers (like the question of the existence of something for example) then that is flawed.