With all of the philosophies/religions/ideologies throughout history, why not come up with something that's relevant for the modern, scientific age?
When I titled this thread I didn't want to use the word religion, but I think the religious forum is the proper place for it. Basically I've been thinking about what kind of guiding frameworks would replace world-views of old, given the context of our now solid scientific understanding of life, the world, and universe.
At first glance you would think that atheism and humanism would sort of fit the bill, but the problem with the former is that it's a negative worldview only defined by what it's not, and the latter I think is really just a more polite way of saying 'I'm moral, but secular'. I don't know that humanism has any real definition besides 'hey look at me, I'm not religious, but also not an asshole'.
So what would a philosophy of the modern age look like?
My first thought about it is that if science is the instigator of a new way of looking at things, why shouldn't a guiding framework be grounded in science itself? The central difference between people in the second millennium, and people before the age of reason, is that we're now aware that we're animals subject to the laws of biology, chemistry and physics. So maybe a new framework going forward would embrace our scientific understanding, and use it to better ourselves and our lives. Kind of like an inversion of theistic religions where we move back to a naturalistic square one, but with actual awareness of it, and the ability to concertedly learn more about it.
At that point I'd think you'd need to move into ethics, where any person aware of the way things work would realize that they're free to do anything they like, but not free from the consequences of doing what they like. So in a sense you'd actually move backward to original ideas of karma.
Anywho, this post is getting a little rambly, so I'll leave this all here. Curious what others think?
When I titled this thread I didn't want to use the word religion, but I think the religious forum is the proper place for it. Basically I've been thinking about what kind of guiding frameworks would replace world-views of old, given the context of our now solid scientific understanding of life, the world, and universe.
At first glance you would think that atheism and humanism would sort of fit the bill, but the problem with the former is that it's a negative worldview only defined by what it's not, and the latter I think is really just a more polite way of saying 'I'm moral, but secular'. I don't know that humanism has any real definition besides 'hey look at me, I'm not religious, but also not an asshole'.
So what would a philosophy of the modern age look like?
My first thought about it is that if science is the instigator of a new way of looking at things, why shouldn't a guiding framework be grounded in science itself? The central difference between people in the second millennium, and people before the age of reason, is that we're now aware that we're animals subject to the laws of biology, chemistry and physics. So maybe a new framework going forward would embrace our scientific understanding, and use it to better ourselves and our lives. Kind of like an inversion of theistic religions where we move back to a naturalistic square one, but with actual awareness of it, and the ability to concertedly learn more about it.
At that point I'd think you'd need to move into ethics, where any person aware of the way things work would realize that they're free to do anything they like, but not free from the consequences of doing what they like. So in a sense you'd actually move backward to original ideas of karma.
Anywho, this post is getting a little rambly, so I'll leave this all here. Curious what others think?
