[Weltschmerz]

Originally Posted by Ginnungagap

The thing about a lot of western philosophers, especially the idealists is, although they all started with a Christian upbringing, they all were taught the classics. Kant read Plato, Schopenhauer read the Bhagavad Gita, etc. The only appeal Kant really has to Christians is that he leaves room for a God in his philosophy, as the way he sees it, humans are incapable of discovering the true knowledge of things and experiencing the world's existence directly. What Kant was doing was bringing Empiricism and Rationalism together, basically the same religion/science divide people see today. In a larger context it is just about the material and all that is immaterial, the world of ideas or forms. The end result is he came out sounding more like a pessimistic Plato with only a pragmatic belief in God. Many phlosophers at this time, and the ones inspired by the idealists, though.. began to challenge their own faith. You have to remember that during this time and following it there was a lot of Romantic art and literature which was drawing upon what knowledge of the pre-Christian religion was still out there. Western Europeans were also now "discovering" the Indian culture and religions.

I don't see a conflict between different spiritual traditions unless they actually contradict each other. That has to be proven first, and then we could discuss the details in all friendliness.

They drew much inspiration from it, not realizing that the basic model of Hinduism is found in all the European paganism that was condemned by Christianity.

Or they simply didn't care; that's way more plausible in my opinion. Schopenhauer, Nietzsche and - later on - Heidegger most probably intended to provoke. Nietzsche is the most obvious case, and judging by his account, there was actually something wrong with Christianity that warranted a thorough critique of it.

As far as Christianity and Science, neither should be watered down to fit each other, but theologians should be open to less literal interpretations when the science pokes large holes into their case.

That depends a lot, and it depends on many variables, for example your notion of science. I'm not generally on the side of less literal interpretations.

I'd also like to mention that I never fully outright agree with the beliefs and findings of someone else, as pertaining to their entire ethos including their religion. It doesn't matter to me that Kant was Christian or that he valued moralism, what matters is that he truly explored how humans see the world, and realized how everything is just a symbol created for an existence we can't truly perceive.

OK. I'm just saying that from my perspective there is no definite line of conflict between Christianity and philosophy, science included. Nor do I perceive that there is a definite line of conflict between Christianity and older European traditions of spirituality.

I perceive that there is an actual conflict between say Catholicism and paganism, that has been fuelled by the Vatican recently in the current pontificate, for example in the condemnation of creationism as "a kind of paganism", which is rather blunt since paganism and creationism are of completely different origins in history. I believe that brother Consolmagno makes a mistake in positing paganism as the scoundrel in a drama that has nothing to do with paganism, but is a score to settle between creationism and the Catholic church. I guess someone will want to bring up the fact that neo-paganism has won a lot of ground in the protestant sphere, but that is, in my opinion, telling of the state of protestantism rather than of the merits of neo-paganism. And it still doesn't link creationism and paganism together bilaterally by a long shot.