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Philosophy and Religion  Religion and Philosophy both involve finding ways of understanding the world, so that their spheres often overlap and it isn't easy to make sense of one without some knowledge of the other. The Squashed Philosophers includes neatly summarised versions of the basic texts of the leading religious traditions: The Bhagavad-Gita - The most important text of Hinduism, highly influential on Buddhism and Sikhism. The Torah - The foundation of the Hebrew Bible, and the basic text of the Jewish, Christian and Muslim traditions. The Dhammapada - The sayings of the Buddha The Gospels of Jesus Christ - The four biographies of Jesus, central to Christianity and influential on Islam. The Noble Quran - The essential text of Islam. The religious understandings of East Asia - China, Japan, Korea, Vietnam and the surrounding areas - are not so simply summed-up. Confucianism, though it now carries some of the trappings of a religion, is really a social philosophy. For a nice little Squashed version of the essence of Taoism in the Classic Tao Te Ching, look up Lao-Tzu, and then try Chuang-Tse in The Aphorisms of the Philosophers. For a view of a philosophy of religion, try; James - Varieties of Religious Experience, or Hume - Human Understanding, or Hegel - Philosophy of Religion For an ancient view of God and the afterlife, try Plato - The Republic. For commentaries on Christian principles, Augustine - Confessions and Pascal - Thoughts are considered especially important. There is also Christian commentary in Locke - Human Understanding, Descartes - Meditations and Hobbes - Leviathan, and important anti-Christian views in Nietzsche - Beyond Good and Evil and Marx - The Communist Manifesto. |
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