Most people generally claim that they have distinct religion and philosophy in their lives, but the intermix of religion and philosophy is the reality of the human "distinction". The degradation of the bridge between the religious ideas and philosophical ideas are what led to the uncertainty between the concept of religion and philosophy.
This uncertainty resulted from some historical features within the implementation of Christianity in the continent of Europe. Christianity is the world’s first religion to incorporate both the human philosophy and the religious text. During the Roman Empire, Christianity was started by the Apostle Paul and with Constantine I implementing Christianity to unify the kingdom into one, making religion as the coinciding cleavage within the kingdom.
With the influence of the of the Greek philosophy of Plato and Aristotle, Christianity altered itself to have an easier access to the people. During the transition from the medieval age to the Renaissance, the implications of fate and humanism further lead to the loss of the distinction between philosophy and religion. People focused more towards individualism, which in turn influenced the individualism of the state and the religion. The separation of the church led to the increase of power within the leaders, but eventually the alteration or manipulation of religion like Bishop Bossuet’s idea of “the divine rights of the king” prevailed. It is this generalization of philosophy and religion that led to us to have a morality based on religion because we do not know what idea is philosophical and what idea is religious.
Eastern religions like Judaism and Islam were able to retain its power by influencing the actual political system and implementing the caliph and the political leaders. Although the mosque in Islamic countries didn’t involve in the politics, they didn’t intervene with their will unlike Christianity, in which secular leaders took the power from the church. Even the humanism was actually implemented in the East as well, where people lost the distinction between the philosophy and religion. Religion became philosophy and philosophy became religion, like in Taoism, Confucianism, and Buddhism.
However, the most important aspect is that people do not recognize the fact that the Middle East became a directly theocratic state and Western countries became indirectly theocratic. Every state in the West contains the sense of theocracy since the distinction between philosophy and religion has become tangible, which allows for the indirect implementation of religion. Our ignorance of the distinction between theocracy and philosophy has eventually led to the conflict over the idea of religion between the East and the West. The intertwining of the philosophy and religion became the fundamental of life, so our states are never fully democratic nor theocratic. Philosophy establishes a variety of governmental forms and religion establishes a theocracy, but since philosophy is religion and religion is philosophy, there is a presence of uncertainty within theocracy and other governmental forms.
Western civilizations were religious for the recent centuries even in the early 20th centuries. So what caused this dramatic shift from people’s belief? Even though western states are religious, the people that lost their sense of the presence of religion within the state lost it due to countless wars. Trauma resulted from the series of wars, creating a set of ideals that blurred religion and philosophy. It was a time when philosophy and humanism overpowered religion and ultimately destroyed the possibility to even rebuild the distinction between religion and philosophy. Since the division of these two concepts has disappeared, every part of life is philosophic and religious, because morality is based on both religion and philosophy. Rather than trying to find the distinction between religion and philosophy, I believe that people must recognize that these two factors have become one through the long periods of struggles, just like the epiphytes on the tree.
