Some seek TRUTH, no matter how uncomfortable the answer. Others seek COMFORT, ignoring truth at all costs?

Question

Is this the difference between scientists, philosophers etc (truth-seekers) and the religious (comfort-seekers)?

Answer 1

pretty much.

scientists seem to be the ones who are honest. regardless of the findings..

the religious seek to define their world and how it should be run in their opinion. what makes them comftorable is the truth to them.

so its conclusions (wether good or bad) brough on by logic and reasoning....or preconcieved conclusions brought on by desire for those conclusions to be fact.

Answer 2

Hello,

Science is the use of the scientific method to discover facts about nature. The philosopher Descartes is often credited with inventing the scientific method, which is made of four parts:

1) Observe some aspect of the world
2)Formulate a theory based on the observations
3)Predict some behavior that was not observed, but which should hold true based on the theory.
4)Perform an experiment intended to show the predicted behavior.

Philosophy

But there is a strict limitation to the scientific method – it can only tell us how the world is, not how the world should be. We cannot use it to answer such questions and “why are so many people in the world hungry?” It can only tell us that many people are. It cannot answer “How should I act in a given difficult situation?” It is ill equipped to even discuss this question.
Philosophy uses methods that are broader but less powerful than science. The methods of philosophy may encompass the methods of science, but philosophy is free to use broader methods to answer broader questions. It could be argued that a philosopher that studies a question using strictly scientific means becomes a scientist. Thus science is a subset of philosophy.
Other methods available to the philosopher include logical proof and history. Working philosophers often publish pure speculation. Logical proof can be very solid, and is in fact a method used by scientists.
History is weaker. If a set of circumstances has occurred a number of times in the past, and every time it led to certain consequences, we might predict that those circumstances always predict those consequences. But why is that? And is the past always constrained to repeat itself? Without knowing more about the cause and effect this is a risky proposition.
Pure speculation is very weak.

Religion
Religion is more difficult to define. Historically religion is a set of teachings bound up with a culture. These teachings include the history of the people, the nature of a God or gods, and a morality or a way of behaving that is deemed acceptable within the culture.



Philosophers often ask questions such as “What is the nature of God? What is the proper way to behave? Why?” Thus there is an overlap between religion and philosophy. But there is a major difference, also. The philosopher is bound to search for the truth. If he does not, he is not, by definition, a philosopher (and the definition is given above). Religion is under no such bounds.



In most religions the established teachings were begun in prehistoric times. This is true even for such “new” religions as Confucianism and Islam. Even though these religions were invented at a time when the written word was prevalent, they each make use of a base of far older teachings. (Falun Gong is also based on older religions, such as Taoism.) Religion is bound to these ancient teachings rather than to a concept of provable truth.

Michael

Answer 3

Ah yes TRUTH... some say this is going to happen as sure as the sun shines....You are in your car driving home. Thoughts wander to the game you want to see or meal you want to eat, when suddenly a sound unlike any you've ever heard fills the air.
The sound is high above you.
A trumpet?
A choir?
A choir of trumpets?
You don't know, but you want to know.

So you pull over, get out of your car, and look up. As
you do, you see you aren't the only curious one. The
roadside has become a parking lot. Car doors are open,
and people are staring at the sky. Shoppers are racing
out of the grocery store.

The Little League baseball game across the street has
come to a halt. Players and parents are searching the
clouds. And what they see, and what you see, has never
before been seen.

As if the sky were a curtain, the drapes of the
atmosphere part. A brilliant light spills onto the earth.
There are no shadows. None. From whence came
the light begins to tumble a river of color spiking
crystals of every hue ever seen and a million more never
seen. Riding on the flow is an endless fleet of angels.
They pass through the curtains one myriad at a time,
until they occupy every square inch of the sky.

North.
South.
East.
West.

Thousands of silvery wings rise and fall in unison, and
over the sound of the trumpets, you can hear the cherubim
and seraphim chanting, Holy, holy, holy.
The final flank of angels is followed by twenty-four
silver- bearded elders and a multitude of souls who join
the angels in worship.

Presently the movement stops and the trumpets are silent,
leaving only the triumphant triplet: Holy, holy, holy
Between each word is a pause. With each
word, a profound reverence. You hear your voice join in
the chorus. You don't know why you say the words, but you
know you must.
Suddenly, the heavens are quiet. All is quiet.
The angels turn, you turn, the entire world turns and
there He is.
Jesus.
Through waves of light you see the silhouetted figure of
Christ the King
He is atop a great stallion, and the stallion is atop a
billowing cloud.
He opens his mouth, and you are surrounded by his
declaration:
I am the Alpha and the Omega.

The angels bow their heads.
The elders remove their crowns.
And before you is a Figure so consuming that you know,
instantly you know:
Nothing else matters.
Forget stock markets and school reports.
Sales meetings and football games.
Nothing is newsworthy..
All that mattered, matters no more...
for Christ has come.

Answer 4

perhaps, maby for some people its hard to deal with death any other way, maby their brains or their upbringing or whatever wont let them see anything else, and excisting without believing in an after life is impossible

I can sort of deal with it and have been, but you know the times we think about death are in our darkest hours, have you noticed? we may get shivers once in a while when contimplating it but its when we are really depressed that those thoughts take on a whole new level, im an Athiest with a catholic upbringing and in the past when things have gone bad i found myself praying to God and feeling better... so this question is dificult, perhaps even science is a religion just one with more truth to it

i mean, i hate the bible but its still interesting, like adam and eve story, if you read it and dont take it literaly, its almost like adam and eve were living in bliss, mindless, without inteligence (like animals) and then something happoned that made them think and contemplate and that was the start of their suffereing, now thats philosophy to me, so there is some TRUTH in religion texst also however it probably need to be updated, but religion is philosophy and vice versa and even science perhaps, its all similar things except some of it has been taken way over to the top by some people

you can see for example how budhism leans more towards atheism, since they dont believe that you, as you know yourself to be go on to live in a happy marry land (although some budhist religions are making it that way) if you die there is no sole, everything that you think you are dies with you and whats left is just your energy, and sceince is discovering more about energy and how we are all linked and are all energy and that energy doesnt disapear in only transfers, and thats the basis for budhism, that we still disapear but our energy remains and gets transfered... thats all i can say for now, good luck man, very hard thing to talk about since you cant generalize such a thing and all the different reasons people will have to believe

Answer 5

I would have too disagree.

I hope you understand that sometimes even in religion there is not much comfort and they are truth seekers as well. Although the truth for them may be different there what you believe is truth, But hey too each his own, correct? Science is going to be much different in 50 yrs...and some "religious" people found God through something unexplainable, and is plain truth in their own lives.

Answer 6

Everyone perceives life from the perspective of their own experiences thus far. For some a comfort zone may be to think about Truth. Others are more comfortable in a religious group environment that encourages faith.

Truth and Comfort are inter-changeable.....each person should be given the opportunity to be who they are in each moment.

Answer 7

Any religion that favors comfort over truth should be recognized as useless. There can be no spiritual advancement if the goal is comfort. The goal is God, and we must be willing to give up our comfort in order to go to God. This means we must be willing to see things as they are. It is not comfortable to discard dogma, tradition, customs, rituals. However, sometimes the truth contradicts those things we are comfortable with, and we must be brave enough to embrace the truth at the expense of what we have been taught.

This is the science of God. Religion is no matter. If you want to know the truth, you must be willing to give up anything for it.

Answer 8

nicely, i do no longer ask questions like that so i will't answer that question. you're conscious that, logically, evolution is ridiculously impossible? What i ask your self is, "Why do no longer any of those evolution followers ever clarify how interior the worldwide a cellular 'makes a decision' to do some thing different than reflect itself properly?" in actuality, that technique is many times called, "maximum cancers" and it KILLS the host organism. heavily, we've all varieties of prevalent "this mutated into this, which in turn mutated into this" junk floating around yet has every person ever stated an organism evolving? no longer genetic decision, now, it particularly isn't what i'm speaking approximately. constructive, if in simple terms tall human beings get married and have babies, populations gets taller. yet clarify to me at what identifiable element cells initiate changing on their very own and species "advance into new species." At what element does the little legless organism's DNA decide for, "i think of we are going to advance some nubs on the instant. waiting adult males? ok. MUTATE!" How approximately, "ask your self twin powers, turn on?? sort of ______ shape of ______" i'm of course no longer a scientist. yet i'm asking a severe question. instruct me how this works on a cellular point and instruct me the duplication consequences. Then i'm going to be prepared to evaluate this "theory" as a probable thought.

Answer 9

coming from an atheist, i believe relgious are truth seekers as much as philosophers are comfort seekers. Truth is a subjective word. What seperates philosophy from religion is that it's annalytical in approach where as religion requires faith and an acid tab to invision. For instance, in religion, i don't think it's real comfortable to know that most of us will end up in hell, but that's their truth. In philosophy, we are affected by the wrongful thoughts we create as it manifests us...(hobbes "i think therefore i am"). in retort, some might say as humans we are liable to these thoughts without having in effect our souls. (descarte "i am, therefore i think).
weather it's religion or philosophy, or both (buddhism), the truth is what we believe ("ignorance is bliss" that guy eating steak from the matrix)
"believe in the fomas (harmless untruths) that makes you brave and kind and healthy and happy" book of bokonon I;5

Answer 10

I believe that our humanity is designed with
differing blind spots within our psyches
and physiological 'centers' where our
tastes and comfort decisions are founded.

Some believe we base our motives on
our own decisions, others that they are
largely fed to us.

Even someone capable of looking at all
sides, facts, considerations, nuances, etc.,
is also in running for missing the one thing
on occasion that is imminent.

Apathy is the solution of the weary
as well as of the dumb.

One man's stubbornness is another's
cause for telling the other he's beating
his head against a wall.

Tell that to people like discoverers of
electricity, and to inventors, say, of the
telephone, etc.

It's all about possibilities, ultimately,
whether one is scientist or saint.

Isn't it?

Answer 11

Yes. I'd say that, at the heart of it, someone unwilling to face the truth about what they believe will cling to that belief in the face of overwhemling evidence to the contrary... because it's all they know and they're afraid of leaving that comfort zone.