Philosophies that are almost like religions?

[Antonio the Sixth]

I think she would loathe Trump

Proof that loathing trump doesn't require being a good person.

Jeb taught us that already.

*Clinton

[pbrower2a]

Evolution and climate change

Scientific doctrines founded in rational experiment and discussion are not religion.

[pbrower2a]

Theosophy
White/Aryan supremacy
$cientology
Afrocentrism
Ayn Rand's objectivism
Marxism-Leninism

[Georg Ebner]

Connections are pretty easy to see. Yet you laugh it off. Nice.

Kant:
Wikipedia

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From wikipedia for Frankfurt School:

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Post modernism:

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Kant's struggle to the end goal which largely goes on outside the individual's direct experience results in equality for all which is in line with the socialists goal of communism.

Postmodernists of the French New Left and the Frankfurt school did not identify with the old-guard Marxist ways and they revamped their action on the campuses toward a similar struggle replacing the old class warfare with cultural warfare.

Kant also heavily wrote on the idea of duty to the other. Taken logically with the dialectical struggle it fits well with both Marxism and the New Left and the concerted efforts of the left behind so many of the social justice movements of the current era for their end goal - equality and the destruction of the traditional (patriarchal, white, male, cisgendered, heteronormative dominated) order.

It makes perfect sense that Kant's tomb in Kaliningrad was preserved by the Soviets.

The "Alleszermalmer (AllDestroyer) from Königsberg" would have destroyed also all attempts of materialisms and all CosmoSophies, which put Sein (entity) before BewusstSein (ConSciousness).

[catographer]

Might be beneficial to differentiate the two before getting too deep into a conversation.

The most defining aspects of religion seem to be that it features a well-developed cosmology, soteriology and eschatology.   

Not always. And really, finding the distinction between them still isn't agreed after centuries/millennia. I'll just list what I considered to be the main religions of the world, and some subcategories that are sometimes lumped in (the last one being the nonreligious philosophies this thread is about).


The main religions in the world are
1. Hinduism (from India) - bhakt/jnana/karma yoga, moksha/liberation from mental & spiritual obstacles to the ultimate truth, you are the universe, you already have what you really want
2. Buddhism (from India) there is no you, no universe, all temporary, let go
3. Sikhism (from India) just one path to God, be loving
4. Jainism (from India) just one path to God, be nonviolent and renounce possessions
5. Christianity (from Israel) - One God, but God is in us, God is love, God is self-knowledge, Jesus says love each other
6. Judaism (from Iraq/Egypt/Israel) - love God, love each other, good habits
7. Taoism (from China) - attune with nature, live in "the flow"
8. Confucianism (from China) - focus on relationships, focus on teaching/learning good habits and treating each other well
9. Islam (from Arabia) - One God, submit to God, treat others well, good habits
10. Zoroastrianism (from Persia/Iran) One God, good versus evil, good triumphs, all will be saved
11. Baha'i (from Persia/Iran) Unity of Religions/Humanity

- plus "Folk Religions" (Shinto in Japan, Shenism in China, Native American folk religion, African folk religion, Aboriginal folk religion, some remnants in the Middle East, the ancient Norse/Greek/Egyptian/Celtic/Finnish/Slavic/Baltic religions)... they all have a lot in common... nature being "alive" and having spirits, the spirits of ancestors... many godlike beings, connected to nature, but who are usually said to just be closer to more advanced/powerful race with a distant but good All-Father/Earth-Mother/Great-One-Good/etc. behind it all

- new religious movements, like Wicca, Satanism(NOT the same as Wicca), Tenrikyo in Japan, Falun Gong in China, Church of Scientology, Caodoism in Vietnam founded in 1926, and the religion that worships the Kim family in North Korea.... and a few others... but not really major status yet (and not really much in common... Tenrikyo and Caodoism and Falun Gong are, from what I know, similar to existing major religions... while Wicca is something else, more like an old nature-based Folk Religion... and Scientology and Satanism are completely something else, like for-profit Jungian psychology for Scientology and objectivist self-worship for Church of Satan)

- nonreligious philosophies (mostly from the Greeks, though some would include Taoism and Confucianism in this) like Stoicism, Epicureanism, Pythagoreanism, Cynicism, Cyrenaicism, Platonism, Neoplatonism, Peripateticism, Pyrrhonism (mostly about whether to accept life and find happiness in all things no matter what, or find tranquility through moderation and self-discipline and simple-living in tune with nature/reason/compassion, or to chase pleasure as the highest value, etc.)

Worth pointing out that Daoism involves literal magical spells and immortality.

No, only for some branches of Taoism, not all. Philosophical Taoism, like the ideas found in Taoism's main books including the Tao Te Ching, could even be said to be opposed to those kinds of beliefs.

I like your quick run-down of the philosophies of world religions. Obviously it's incomplete and simplistic, but I'd like to say how I think your summary basically epitomizes why I like religion and why there aren't actually religions of "peace" or "violence." All religions preach their own versions of the same things: do good, be good, love, peace, compassion, etc. There isn't any religion (at least any popular religion) that preaches hating others, being violent, being evil, etc. It doesn't make sense anthropologically (in terms of how human belief systems evolved) to have a religion that isn't conducive to pro-social behavior and the growth of human civilization.

[Blue3]

Does anyone have any other philosophies to add, especially pre-1800 ones?

[°Leprechaun]

Does anyone have any other philosophies to add, especially pre-1800 ones?

Do you think that Buddhism is a philosophy?

It doesn't require a belief in a deity.
Many who call themselves Buddhists also believe in a deity and some forms of Buddhism are similar in some ways to Chrisitianity. Other Buddhists see Buddhism as merely a way of life and compatible with science.

[CatoMinor]

North Korea's Juche and Kim Cult should make the cut.

[Blue3]

Any other philosophies that are almost like religions?

[World politics is up Schmitt creek]

I'm sorry to have somehow missed the big-brained galaxy warrior on the first page of this thread arguing for Kant as a proto-postmodernist and forerunner of muh (((Frankfurt School))). And implicitly for Marxism as a postmodern philosophy!! Woof.

Anyway, I stand by what I said in this thread in a few years ago--Confucianism is the canonical example of a religion-like philosophy, and some forms of mostly Western Buddhism arguably count, although the idea that Buddhism qua Buddhism is "a philosophy, not a religion!!!" just because it doesn't feature a creator God is literally a joke to most actual scholars of religion.

[afleitch]

Any other philosophies that are almost like religions?

In terms of religion-as-ritual/communal, then Humanism. Not too obvious to an American but evident in post-Christian Europe where it has legal status to perform weddings/funerals etc.

[Cassius]

Marxism:

1. Many (not all obviously, but many) of its self-proclaimed adherents are actually very poorly informed as to what Marxism actually is/what Marx said and wrote, as is the case with many religions.
2. Splintered into dozens of sects on the basis of (often granular) literary and historical disagreements.
3. In relation to the above to parts, has a canon of sorts that Marxist intellectuals are always at pains to delineate and exegese upon.
4. Unlike plenty of other philosophies, Marxism has had and continues to have a very large number of self-proclaimed adherents, often organised in parties with a clear leadership (‘episcopacy’).
5. Most of the basic prepositions of Marxism are essentially unfalsifiable and basically faith based (as with religion).

Not a criticism of Marxism, but these points, and the fervour and emotional attachment that a lot of people have towards it, incline me to view it as a kind of modern religion.

[Kingpoleon]

Any other philosophies that are almost like religions?

The Inayati Order straddles an interesting line between the two, IMO.