Greatest philosopher? Me. Haha…
The roman empire saw religion as a simple and efficient tool to be used against the masses. Yes it was responsable aswell.
Then for hundreds of years the newly created institution, the church, kept the masses uneducated, illiterate and “in fear”. They were careful not to allow anyone to read any books, not even the bible, thus the common man was subjugated by religious authority.
Funny enough, i just saw a documentary made by Vatican explaining how the catholic church was “responsable” for creating western civilisation. Preposterous!!!
It is guilty of exploitation of human beings and crimes against humanity.
Dont know whom to blame, but it would have been so “real” and aesthetically pleasing to see Europeans following that culture that the Romans and Greeks created. I think the European man in the post Greeko-Roman era was only reduced into a slave to the “Semetic” Christendom! And the middle eastern fanatism keeps spreading…makes up the most followed religions in the world. Hypocratic hah!
It would have been better if Buddhism or Zoroastrianism had spread to Europe, but history took a different course. The contributions and aesthetic valour of the Greeko-Roman paganism could never be revived now…Alas! all is lost, and keeps loosing further as the European man entangles himself more into the web of Semetic stiffness!
Renaissance203.
No phylosopher is the greatest because a great phylosopher would never want to be catagorised in a superlative sense, so there is no phylosophically fruitfull point in this thread. A great phylosopher would definitely be free of any superiority complex, and he/she would never want others to categorise him/her. The greatest and purest people often like remaining anonymous!
Renaissance203.
To begin, I would like to announce my first post on the ilovephilosophy discussion board 
. I have always wished to discuss philosophy with others, yet in my rural community, there are few to none who has any interest in the subject whatsoever.
Renaissance203, I agree that anonymity is an element that the purest philosophers would prefer, I think that if such a philosopher as Kant were asked, he would concur that in order for great philosophy to be spread and survive, one must become well known and respect for the massses to listen. Though Fred at the stop-n-shop couldn’t tell Plato from Pluto, the greatest philosophers on record have all survived the tribulations of history. My point is, few to no anonymous works have filtered down through the centuries, or become well known for that matter. In all fairness, a few eastern works have survived, such as the I Ching (a personal favorite) but those were in a time period in which scribing one’s name to one’s work was unheard of. Simply stated, a philosopher shouldn’t be disregarded because they chose to let their authorship be known. Having a face to represent a philosophy helps humans to solidify the concepts in the mind.
The greatest philosopher of all time, eh? Do I really have to choose one? Well, given the parameters, I would have to say Jung. Yes, yes, I know…he was a psychiatrist as a profession, but as a being he was quasi-philosophic sage, an analytical scientist, and mainly a purely creative, inuitive thinker. To him I owe the inspiration for my passion for life, or rather my will to power as Nietzsche would say. Though a swiss, Jung adapted much of his philosophy from the East, while incorperating it with that of Schopeanhauer, Nietzsche, et cetera and topping it off with amazingly brilliant and orignial insight. Collective Unconscious, archetypes, innane symbology, mythopoeic imagination, the list exceeds to an outrageous girth. I just could not at first fathom his genius when I read his works, and of all the thinkers known to me, none has represent my thoughts as much as this wonderful sage.
hmmmm…
Same with Nietzsche. What’s particularly amusing is the cult-Nietzschean, the one who claims to know Nietzsche inside out and who thinks of all philosophy primarily in Nietzschean terms (or their interpretation thereof, which usually involves the sort of petty self-aggrandisement Nietzsche loathed) and all other philosophy as essentially being irrelevant, whether or not they’ve read it. Every major internet philosophy board has at least one of these, though usually only one, because they tend not to like each other very much.
Care to explain how European philosophers are ‘materially concentrated’?
This reeks of the exact same bias you are accusing Europeans of, but with the positions reversed. You don’t know European philosophy anywhere near as well as Asian philosophy yet are perfectly willing to speak up the Asian to the degradation of the European, all the time accusing the Europeans of doing exactly that. It’s not a very impressive argument.
Sure, but most major ideas that I’ve come across in Asian philosophy are also explored in European philosophy, which leads me to the conclusion that there’s naught but a subjective, qualitative difference between the two.
Popularly believed but not true.
Of course there is. But don’t make some rebellious ‘I’m a downtrodden citizen of a postcolonial country’ speech out of it. You’d do much better to cite something of particular value from Asian philosophy (or theology) and explain how or why European philosophy lacks such ideas. That would give your argument some weight. Presently it just looks like you come from Asian, and so know Asian philosophy more than European philosophy and are using this experience as the basis for slating European philosophy (as ‘materially concentrated’) without giving any reasoning for why.
I’d like to see you elaborate on this philosophically, without making broad generalisations about the cultures of those countries that have recently been imperialist.
Hizah! Well said someoneisatthedoor =D> . By claming such falsities against western philosophy as well as western culture in general, you are doing that which you preach against (as someoneisatthedoor stated). Again, it is not the aim of european/western society to filter out asian/eastern philosophers, in fact I have never personally met a philosopher that discouraged a bias outlook toward philosophical study. I for one find the work of Lao-Tzu, Buddah and Confusius (as well as other less knowns) crucial for the philosophy of the mind. The I Ching is a personal favorite of mine because of interests in parapsychology. Some philosophers who resided in europe adapted traditionally eastern philosophies, namely Jung.
I think it unfair to slander Jesus as a philosopher, simply because he of the oppression imposed by the church. Much of what the masses know about Jesus is a fabrication orienting in the time of the Roman Empire. Constantine decided that the people of Rome must become united under one religion, and so the ruling council voted for Jesus as the prophet of Christianity, and thus he was glorified as the son of God and the texts were rewritten to accommodate for the decision. In order to fully appreciate Jesus’ philosophy, one must cast aside all the divine overshadowing and look purely at his teachings. Surely his thoughts on morality, pacificism, et cetera cannot be regarded as moot, and let us not forget the most admirable philosophy of Jesus that most philosophers, ancient to modern have failed to grasp: gender equality. Do I think Jesus should be worshipped? No. Do I think his work should be respected as a significant contribution to morality and general philosophy? Yes.
care to post a quote from jesus on gender equality ?
i’ve had a very similar conversation with a friend; he says he admires what jesus said and that i’m missing the point behind his words; when asked the only thing he could think of that jesus had said and was “philosophically interesting” was that: “Do not judge others”.
Keep in mind that my friend is pretty much a “pussy” as i see his reasoning; he’s too careful not to insult anyone even if their beliefs are horridly wrong.
As soon as he said those words a thought occured in my mind; cultural and scientifical progress is not possible unless people who can logically and scientifically proove the validity of their arguments overcome those that cant.
Another thing i said was that Jesus isnt even a good philosopher because everything he said is derived from common sense; there is no logical power to his arguments.
At best he is an ethicist, but not even a good one because he fails to escape the constraints of the society he was living in.
John 8: 1-11, quoted from the New International Version Bible
" 1But Jesus went to the Mount of Olives. 2At dawn he appeared again in the temple courts, where all the people gathered around him, and he sat down to teach them. 3The teachers of the law and the Pharisees brought in a woman caught in adultery. They made her stand before the group 4and said to Jesus, “Teacher, this woman was caught in the act of adultery. 5In the Law Moses commanded us to stone such women. Now what do you say?” 6They were using this question as a trap, in order to have a basis for accusing him.
But Jesus bent down and started to write on the ground with his finger. 7When they kept on questioning him, he straightened up and said to them, “If any one of you is without sin, let him be the first to throw a stone at her.” 8Again he stooped down and wrote on the ground.
9At this, those who heard began to go away one at a time, the older ones first, until only Jesus was left, with the woman still standing there. 10Jesus straightened up and asked her, “Woman, where are they? Has no one condemned you?”
11"No one, sir," she said.
“Then neither do I condemn you,” Jesus declared. “Go now and leave your life of sin.”"
That is probably the best known quote of Jesus that represents his feministic views. Also, I would like to state for the record that I’m not in fact Christian, but I do think that some of the teachings of Jesus do have value as I mentioned before. If you wish, I could embellish on various other examples of his gender equality if needed, but I find this passage an adequate example.
that has nothing to do with gender equality; it was just something any “kind” person would say.
somehow i find that stoning anyone to death would be immoral without ever having considered jesus to be the source of that morality…
That has alot to do with a question i always ask religious people.
“Are the ten commandments the only thing stopping you from killing people ?”
Well, in your utopian secular society there would be nothing but the law stopping people from killing one another…
mind you that religion is also just a set of “laws” the only difference is that these laws we are told are “divine”.
And basicly yes; the law and common sense would stop people from killing eachother.
You speak as if atheists cannot tell right from wrong… on what do you base that assumption ?
Carpathian, I realize that any kind person would prevent such a travesy from being commited, but I think you miss the significance what the passage stated. During this era, males were dealt with differently in regards to laws such as adultery, yet Jesus had an unbias view towards gender morality. Considering that it wasn’t the strongest of examples, but I suggest this webpage as a sufficient source of such information.
http://www.fnsa.org/fall98/terwilliger1.html
Jesus taught woman, healed woman, and cared for them equally. In the gospel of Mary Magdalene, Jesus is said to have cared for her more than any of his other apostles. While you may say that this is commonplace in modern times, it was not during this time period, and thus he was a forerunner in feminism.
nevertheless any kind man in his era would have done the same.
‘Common sense’ - given that most people are religious it is by definition common sense to be religious, yet you are an atheist. How bizarre that you’d cite common sense…
As to Christians - no, the ten commandments aren’t what stop them from committing murder. Fear of God and hell is generally what stops them from committing murder. Once again, you are confusing Christianity with religion in general, a classic mistake of the militant atheist (and a totally irrational argument, and a closed-minded one).
Hitler and Stalin are two big reasons. Both secular. Both psychotic. Both committed mass murder. Fascism and communism are the most widely spread historical ‘answers’ to the ‘failures of religion’. And look what happened. Not just a few priests buggering choirboys or a couple of cosmologists being burnt to death, but millions upon millions of dead. Until atheists can prove themselves to be morally superior to religious people then I (a hopeful agnostic) will continue to point out their hypocrisy.
Also - in the absence of a metaphysical creator on what does one base ‘being able to tell the difference between right and wrong’? ‘Common sense’ - may as well be God, given that it’s clearly not in evidence…
How can you not see that “Fear of God and hell” are horrible reasons for doing the right things. Its better to do what is good BECAUSE its good, not because your god will reward you. You utterly failed to see my point yet again.
…i dont see what you’re trying to point out here.
You hopelessly try to show that the vast majority of atheists are immoral by giving me 2 examples ? of 2 people ? please spare me the trouble of arguing on this matter
Hitler did not start anti-semitism; anti-semitism was around for a long time before A. Hitler. It all has to do with politics. After the 1st world war every american penny sent to rebuild germany went directly into the pockets of jewish bankers; which is exactly why Hitler wanted them out.
If you had read K Marx a little better maybe you would have notices that he clearly stated how communism should be brought about in a country; which Stalin completely overlooked; Communist Russia was a very poor attempt to materialize what Marx had envisioned.
I am utterly against communism, because it doesnt lead to progress; only meritocracy can accomplish that. Marx was wrong; and Stalin was even more wrong.
Carpathian,
According to what measure? An atheist one. So we run around in the same circle and you’ve still not proven the superiority of atheism, particularly the militant kind that you preach.
Ah, so you’re a Kantian? He was also religious, of course…
The right thing is the right thing because it is. Not the most persuasive argument that I’ve heard. Particularly coming from someone who advocates the forced removal of children from religious families and thinks that this is ‘the right thing’ to do.
That everyone claims to think with common sense yet everyone still disagrees with one another, as such ‘common sense’ is not a concept nor the basis for an argument - it’s a rhetorical crutch in an argument, and a weak one at that.
I think that you’ll find that there were more people in Stalin and Hitler’s governments than that. Concentration camp guards, professional torturers, that sort of thing.
And I’m demonstrating the danger of the militant atheist philosophy - that there’s literally nothing stopping someone from deciding that the most freethinking, rational and open-minded thing to do is kill everyone they don’t like. What’s stopping them? You standing there saying ‘this is the wrong thing to do because it simply is the wrong thing to do’ won’t stop the bullet.
Hmmm…
guardian.co.uk/usa/story/0,1 … 40,00.html
It’s a little more complex than you take it to be.
Irrelevant - Stalin was an adherent to militant atheist philosophy and tried to destroy religion by killing people. There is nothing in atheist philosophy to say that this is wrong.
Again, irrelevant to the discussion at hand. Your not endorsing communism is neither here nor there, the issue is that you’ve asserted the superiority of atheism over religion and I’ve yet to see a single justification for that, despite numerous attempts.
How about because anyone with more than half a brain is at least agnostic.
Religion offers a view of the world which is UTTERLY FALSE; it stops progress it blocks any critical, objective investigation of the natural world, it restrains rational thought and glorifies blind faith.
Hows that for a change ?
I could elaborate alot more on this matter but i’ve done it so many times it makes me sick.
The fact that i am a “militant” atheist (which i call an antitheist) is due to the fact that ever since i first told people i was an atheist (at about the age of 14) i was pushed around and laught at by other people, including other children at the time, for having a rational view of the world.
And still i’m reluctant to say i’m an atheist when talking to people because of the same treatment.
It also has to do with the savagery and ferocity that religious people criticize all atheists; We need to push the “agnostic” line further to the middle because right now its suffocating people who dont share certain religious beliefs which is quite strange because there are over 1.1 billion secular people in the world.
Perhaps it’s not my place to intervene, but I would just like to suggest that this thread is entitled something along the lines of “the greatest philosopher of all time and why”. I think it nessicary that this argument be resolved with respect to each person’s viewpoint. I’m simply impling that I would like to continue discussing the greatest philosophers of all time, because I’m hopeful that someone may suggest a philosopher whom I’ve never considered, or something of similar qualities.
I’m sorry, me and siatd have been pocking at eachother on all topics on this forum… maybe we should start our own topic… 