Thursday, April 30, 2015

Hope everyone's ready!

i will be presenting my final paper in progress today in class. I am writing about religion in the 16th century and now. I've noticed my paper has kind of veered off into self expression but what I wanted to look at from the beginning was 'have we lost religion or is it changing?' I'll need some input from you philosophy students in regards to some of the information I have picked out for the paper so speak up!!!! 😊

3 comments:

  1. I found your question about religion being lost or changing to be a very interesting one. It is definitely one that Taylor is interested in. He would say that religion is definitely not being lost. That is straying too far into the subtraction thesis, and yet the loss of religion is most certainly an option available in the Nova Effect. Religion has definitely changed from the sixteenth century. The Nova Effect has made religion a choice for an individual rather than a way of life that one is born into. This has dramatic effects on all religions. On one hand this results in a dramatic shift in the size of particular religions. Compare how much of the Western world was decidedly Christian in the sixteenth century to today. On the other hand this results in more people following a religion because they want to rather than they have to. This surely results in more individuals who are more devout and knowledgeable in their faith even if the overall numbers are not what they once were. This question really brings out Taylor's style of not straying too far to either extreme, and that is very beneficial when answering a question such as this one. It is too easy to pick one side to support and completely tear down the other as horrible.

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  2. I think an important question to explore while writing your paper would be "what similarities among different organized religions have caused them to stay influential for centuries?" While religion is now more of a choice nowadays than it was in the 16th century, I think it would also be interesting and beneficial to understand why some major religions (Christianity, Buddhism, Islam, Judaism, Hinduism, etc.) have still maintained their strong influence despite how cross pressured the world has become, because if you understand how religions has stayed the same, you will understand how it has changed as well in my opinion.

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  3. I am writing my paper on the idea of spirituality vs religion because of the section I presented on earlier in the class. I would recommend checking out Chapter 14 Religion Today in A Secular Age. Taylor discusses the idea of religion and how he thinks it is changing as opposed to how it used to be. The idea of spirituality ties into your question a lot. Taylor says that spirituality is more the way of the youth of today. A lot of younger people would define themselves as being spiritual as opposed to being religious or having religious ties because of the bounds they think that puts on them. If they say they're religious, they have to act a certain way and believe in certain things. But Taylor also states in the chapter that he thinks a spiritual quest often leads to a religious commitment.

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