Post by benny on Apr 12, 2016 11:35:10 GMT
1. Why is Faqir Chand's experiences important in understanding the projective nature of religious visions and miracles?
Faqir Chand was worshiped by the people as if they were worshiping a guru, because they claimed that Faqir appeared to them and gave them direction escaping from the danger in battle field, while Faqir did not even remember it.
It might give us an insight of what religious visions or miracles actually are. The religious visions and miracles, even though they might help us in some occasions, are merely the illusion in our mind or are produced by our mind. It is unreal. It might not happen. And they are interpret as miracles by the religious authority. In that sense, it is important to know that even if religious vision might help us in our life, it is still only an illusion that is not true and appear for all people. We might keep it in our mind, but not promoting it, let alone forcing people to believe it as the religious authority does.
2. What is meant by the phrase, "philosophy done well is science; philosophy done poorly remains philosophy."
Philosophy is, after all, the exploration of what we are and why we are. In the past, people are not able find out by any scientific way, neither can they explain phenomenon in a rational way. Hence, they would either explain it in an abstract way, or claim that it is done by god.
However, by the invention of new technology, people can somehow discover the principle behind different phenomenon and give a more rational and scientific explain.
Take the Bohr-Einstein debate, if there is no method to proof that randomness takes a main part in deciding the position of electrons, it would remain philosophical discussion that whether things are determined and predicted by certain rules or just a random, arbitrary action. Another example is the string theory. If we cannot prove string theory, it seems that objects in the world are made of different basic elements and following different rules. But if we can prove it, not in mathematical way but observation, objects are fundamentally the same with only different vibration of the string. The debate of whether we are the same thing with different attributes only remains in philosophical discussion
In that way, philosophy done well is science; philosophy done poorly remains philosophy.
Faqir Chand was worshiped by the people as if they were worshiping a guru, because they claimed that Faqir appeared to them and gave them direction escaping from the danger in battle field, while Faqir did not even remember it.
It might give us an insight of what religious visions or miracles actually are. The religious visions and miracles, even though they might help us in some occasions, are merely the illusion in our mind or are produced by our mind. It is unreal. It might not happen. And they are interpret as miracles by the religious authority. In that sense, it is important to know that even if religious vision might help us in our life, it is still only an illusion that is not true and appear for all people. We might keep it in our mind, but not promoting it, let alone forcing people to believe it as the religious authority does.
2. What is meant by the phrase, "philosophy done well is science; philosophy done poorly remains philosophy."
Philosophy is, after all, the exploration of what we are and why we are. In the past, people are not able find out by any scientific way, neither can they explain phenomenon in a rational way. Hence, they would either explain it in an abstract way, or claim that it is done by god.
However, by the invention of new technology, people can somehow discover the principle behind different phenomenon and give a more rational and scientific explain.
Take the Bohr-Einstein debate, if there is no method to proof that randomness takes a main part in deciding the position of electrons, it would remain philosophical discussion that whether things are determined and predicted by certain rules or just a random, arbitrary action. Another example is the string theory. If we cannot prove string theory, it seems that objects in the world are made of different basic elements and following different rules. But if we can prove it, not in mathematical way but observation, objects are fundamentally the same with only different vibration of the string. The debate of whether we are the same thing with different attributes only remains in philosophical discussion
In that way, philosophy done well is science; philosophy done poorly remains philosophy.