Examining Philosophy's Influence on Religion

The difference of opinions between philosophers and religious people over the years has caused many a heart ache, family divisions and sometimes even wars and death. But the problem with the conflicting opinions is that for the most part they really are opinions. Whether you say that this is your truth or not and if you try to force your version of your truth onto someone who's religious views are quite different than yours or even opposite is what divides nations. When dealing with spiritual concepts, etc. it is very difficult if not impossible to hold any one story out as a real fact. A fact that a prophet or philosopher lived on this earth thousands of years before does not really prove anything; it is the bias that we attach to that fact either from someone's written word about who they were and what they did over the years or from a new finding recently that taints the fact or fiction part of the story.

In philosophy there can be interpretations and innuendo added to the philosophical views; but in religion it is supposedly a real no-no to add or subtract from any traditions or "religious facts". So, you may think that religions information and documentations cannot change over time because of the deity, reverence and sureness to which they repeat their dogma again and again without any input from a philosophical viewpoint. But the opposite is what really drives most of the literature and processes that one goes through in religious tradition. We do it because "we" have always done it that way; because someone of human origin had started these traditions so many thousands of years ago and they also among the great philosophers of that time.

In most religious books, texts and practices you can read between the lines and see that there are man-made biases and human being requests that probably would not have ever even occurred to any of the God's, to angels and or to any supreme beings. We usually figure out some of the biases after generations have followed their religious leaders into traditions that are very self serving or completely dysfunctional to the current populous. Over the years different religions have had to upgrade and bring current some of these practices that have been followed unquestioned for many years; and this of course brings in more human thinking and input; probably from the best philosophers that have ever lived.