Philosophy different than religion yet sharing a common interest
Finally, while philosophy and religion share many concerns, especially about moral matters, the study of religion and religious experience compasses a diversity of disciplines — archaeology, Bible studies, comparative religions, sociological and psychological aspects of religious experience — and does not have a common and distinctive systematic methodology for examining principles and values. In addition, religious experience often has revelation as a starting point. Philosophy’s starting point, however, is reason, and reason’s own study, logic, grounds philosophical reflection, argumentation, and deliberation. Concerns for developing a person’s faculty of critical thinking and capacity for extended argumentation are addressed by logical investigations as part of philosophical inquiry. In this connection, then, philosophers and religious thinkers might sometimes disagree about the truths that underlie moral principles and about establishing knowledge about meaning and purpose, but they are equally committed to seeking truth and understanding and to the promotion of human well-being.