Truth is random! (Part 1)

The more I read religious philosophy the more I find it its interpretation fuzzy and self contradictory. But why is it so?

Because any sincere attempt at philosophy has to be comprehensive and has to integrate and interpret all reality and facts of life. The comprehensiveness of such an interpretation has to reflect the nature of reality itself. But reality is self-contradictory or random. We live in a world where a soldier who loves his neighbor to death is ready to kill his country's enemy (who he doesn't even know) without a second thought. The way religious philosophy deals with this randomness is to inject abstraction. For example: God is Great - is as an abstraction. But abstraction needs interpretation to make it useful in practical life. And the interpretation is almost always context driven. So as the context of the reality changes, the interpretation of the abstraction changes to fit the reality. Over time these multiple interpretations bring in the contradictions in religious philosophy.

So in peaceful times say how do you interpret the above abstraction to explain the reality that the soldier really loves your neighbor. It could go something like this: God is Great => so you should love God => Everyone is God's creation => You should love His creation => You should love your neighbor because he is His creation.
But in times of war, how do you explain the fact that soldier is ready to kill people. Here is one attempt: God is Great => Everyone should love Him => So everyone should obey His will => Those who don't obey God's will bring upon themselves the wrath of God => God wants to punish those who disobey His will through His creation => You are God's creation => Your enemy does not obey God's will => You should kill your enemy.

Similar contradictions can be found in Gita (go here).

Go to Part 2 for more...

Truth is Random! (Part 2)

Having said this, I still prefer religious philosophy over other specific schools of modern philosophy such as socialism, capitalism, secularism etc. These modern schools of philosophy are only a narrow interpretation of the truth or reality. Such narrow focus , makes these schools of thought more palatable and less fuzzy to a rational mind but makes them effectively useless too. Each of these philosophies fail when one tries to extend that school of thought to broader practical situations. Thus the more comprehensive a philosophy is, the more self-contradictory it becomes. I believe that such self-contradiction is important for the survival of a philosophy. The modern school of philosophies are based on rational reasoning and logic and as a result these schools find it hard to accept contradictions. But this also limits their usefulness. However, most of the religious philosophy dates back to pre-rational period in human thought. As a result religious philosophy accepts contradictions without any problems. And this ensures its survival.

This contradiction between religious philosophy and modern school of philosophy in quite well documented. It was Marx who said - Religion is opium of the people. If he was alive today he would find it amusing that his own socialist philosophy has become the new opium of his followers. They have just replaced religion with Marx's philosophy. The results are as bad or worse. Religion survived so many years, Socialism did not - because it was neither as abstract in its core or self-contradictory in its interpretation as religion is! Think about it!

In short, it is said that religious philosophy is the search of Truth. Reality is Truth. But Reality is random, so Truth is random. Which is same as saying - The only rule is that there are no rules - and that is the absolute Truth. So don't take any of this philosophy talk seriously - it is all bullshit, including this one!