have you noticed that all the greatest philosophers beleived in god??

Question

not a religeous god but a god and creator nonetheless. for example, socrates, Plato, aristotle, wittgenstein, and Kant

the only philosophers that actualy made a difference that didnt beleive in god were Sartre and Nietzsche. but other than that no one signifant.

Answer 1

Your premise is erroneous for the following reasons:
1. You are selecting from your own list. You are assigning "insignificant" based on whether you heard of them. Not every philosopher is known to you, most were not published or quoted beyond their lifetime or physical location, but their philosophies were as profound and significant as any you have heard of. You ignored entire civilizations and their philosophies by failing to classify them as great. For example: I don't see Confuscious, Ghandi, or Crazy Horse on your list.
2. You are ignoring the "worst" philosophers that believed in God, so the inference that inner-wisdom and belief in God are somehow related is moot.
3. You ignore philosophers that were known as authors, artists, teachers, or statesmen.
4. You ignore that while some verbalized a belief in a creator (probably for social/political reasons), their own philosophies contradicted this statement, actually defining them as persons who did not in truth believe that a creator existed, or affected our lives.

Answer 2

I could ask:
have you noticed that all the greatest composers believed in god??
Bach, Beethoven, Brahms
have you noticed that all the greatest scientists believed in god??
Newton, Einstein,


EITHER:
This a matter of the more intelligent you are, the more likely you are to realize that coincidence, and chance can only go so far; that, at the end of the day, some greater power had to have done something to make this happen.

OR
The 'greatest' in any field all from a time when more people believed in God.

Can we honestly talk about John Williams as being one of the greatest composers ever and then examine his religion? We can talk about Steven Hawking's beliefs but can we call him one of the greatest during our lifetimes? Does anyone know a 'great' philosopher who is alive today?

Answer 3

Until Darwin, it was hard for an educated, thinking person to get around the Argument from Design, and suggest any other mechanism that explained how the world was filled with creatures and plants that appeared to have been specifically designed to be in perfect harmony with their environment.

No matter how loopy religion itself appeared to smart people, these issues were show-stoppers as far as the existence of a deity was concerned.

After Darwin, anyone able to add a row of digits can see that evolution provides a perfect - observable, repeatable, falsifiable - explanation for all of these matters. A far better explanation, furthermore, than the hopelessly anthropomorphic notion that it was all manufactured to order by a Big Man - of whom no other sign exists.

The religiosity of past philosophers is a red herring with no causal link. The best modern philosophers are usually free of such head-wool.

CD

PS: Point of order - EINSTEIN WAS NOT RELIGIOUS. He was a deist at best, but specifically and angrily denounced attempts to shoe-horn him into being seen as a Believer.

Answer 4

Not always. It may be generally true, but one must also remember that most authors of anything wrote decades or centuries ago, before a real denial of God became fashionable.

There are several philosophers and cultures that did not believe in God. Bertrand Russel is a classic example of a very well noted philosopher who did not believe in God. Also, China as a culture never had a belief in any sort of dominant divinity. When Christian missionaries first went into China they were shocked that there was no word for God that they could adapt into their own concept.

So yes, and no.

Answer 5

1) most philosophers have historically believed in God. Hence, it is likely, just by sheer numbers, that there will be more 'good' philosophers that believe in god than 'good' philosophers that do not believe in god

2) if you learned anything by studying philosophy, you should know that the popularity of a belief is not evidence of its being true.

3) even if you manage to make a correlation between good philosophers and philosophers that beleive in god, that does not prove that they are good philosophers BECAUSE they believe in God

the upshot of 1-3 is that even if all your premises were true, no conclusion whatever follows from them. you have not proven anything, even assuming everything you claim is true

but it's not even obvious that what you claim is true:

4) your definition of what a 'good' philosopher is is hardly intuitively appealing. this seems to be a list of famous philosophers, nothing more. on what logical grounds are these 'good' philosophers?

5) I noticed in discussing athiestic and agnostic philosophers you switched from 'good' to significant. on what logical basis do you decide which philosophers are significant. why are there are only TWO significant philosophers. What about Heidegger, Foucault, Bertrand Russel, Quine, Chomsky, Searle, Marcuse, donald davidson, daniel dennet, david hume, marx, peter singer, almost all analytic philosophers, and a great many other highly influental current philosophers.

Answer 6

I notice that Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, Wittgenstein, and Kant did not all believe in the same God.

So are some of them smarter than the others or dumber?

Answer 7

It is a all subjective. Who determines greatness? Would anyone have listened to any of them if they did not profess a belief in a First Cause of some sort? In these modern times most thinkers reject the concept as ludicrous. No careful thinker believes in an anthropomorphic godhead. It is a true measure of the past intellects that they do. They had not the courage of their convictions.

Answer 8

Wonderful observation! You will be amazed if you pursue your question a little further. In our world of modern famous people the percentage of believers to non-believers is so extra ordinarily disproportionate as to provide hard evidence that belief in God equates to success. It's beautifully true!

Answer 9

Did you notice most philosophers are also gay? That is against your god's wishes. Philosophy and religion are not what gets things done in life.

Answer 10

Yes, I have, and I feel that it happens because they have inspiration.