Uncertain World There is scarcely any certainty in the world. The best that can be expected is the mental impressions upon things an events. When we infer that Saddam is Saddam [S=S] there is certainty since the subject and predicate are the same. When we state S=M, the predicate adds to the subject, even though the subject itself is not changed: Saddam is a Murderer. However, the statement is an assertion and not true unless followed with contingent predicates or sufficient reasons, such ...

  Nietzsche’s inquiry into the nature of God as omnipotent and omniscient, concluded that He could not be goodness but rather cruel if “being himself in possession of the truth, he could calmly contemplate mankind , in a state of miserable torment, worrying its mind as to what was the truth?” Believers would immediately counter that humankind is not privy to truth except when God wishes to reveal it, and in the meantime faith is tentative knowledge. However, it is not as simple as eithe...

Agnostics and those of faith are not far apart. Generally agnosticism means that one cannot be sure that a deity exists; on the other hand a worshiper may claim the existence of God or gods, but the implication is in virtue of faith which by its very definition cannot be certain, though denying lingering doubt. Agnosticism is in reality skepticism — not able to hold a tangential divinity in the palm of a hand and therefore in all probability does not exist or at least unprovable. Yet many agno...

Can something as gross as a Picasso produce an aesthetic feeling wherein one is arrested in beauty? Obviously there is no beauty in asymmetrical concoctions so that the aesthetic experience must be modified to an arrestment of a myriad of internalized experiences or nightmares of the viewer. This may seem presumptuous in light of the esteem of this artist as arguably proclaimed the finest artist of the 20 th century. Still,  traditionally art was deemed beautiful when it imitated and exc...

What does it mean to be conscious of? Conscious of the outside world or conscious of oneself? To Heidegger it is the latter. One must first be awed by the, presence, nay, the power and dread of being in the world. Animals of the wild sense the dread, animals domesticated feel comforting presence of being cared for by a structure not their own. Humans feel the power of being in the world by the sheer strength of intentionality, that is the ability to project their being onto a world they have ...

Apparently, blogger Anathema needs some explanation for my blog on individualism. It is not necessarily opposed to holism, which is a theory predicated on collective action springing from a priori ideas similar to Plato’s realm of ideas, except that they tend to omit the required active intellection of an individual to sort out these forms of consciousness. This not simply the chicken or the egg dilemma; it rather presupposes that the collection of forms are already out there whether or not ...

The philosophy of individualism implies that the universe is made up of individuated material down to the infinitesimal particle, ruling out a holistic responsibility for reality. Even in the big bang theory which ostensibly calls for that mysterious infinitesimal “thing” — the mother of individualism in which all things are at rest in potentiality — to exhale its becomingness but not as some grand scheme of seamless wholeness but rather as helter-skelter free spirit of things finding individu...

I don’t have a problem with atheists — each to his own comfort level — nonetheless, it is ridiculous for one of that inclination to get rattled to the extent that others of belief are denied their comfort. Atheism by definition is free from religion. Theists are free to believe as they see fit; atheists should look upon these  " misguided" as pathetic but have the right to the "wrong" path. If, however, atheist take on the passion of "religion" in their b...

That there exists a universal belief in God does not in itself make the existence of God a reality. The first primitive man who felt a soft breeze caressing his bristled face and inferred there must be a loving goddess blowing kisses does not a spirit make, anymore than a biting, frosty wind through his beard embodies an angry god. Nor does the existence of a spiritual marketplace in which the world’s religions vie for desperate consumers in search of solace suggest the existence of a caring,...

In the history of Western philosophy there has perhaps never really been a question about God’s existence, but there has been puzzlement as to what he/she/it is. The consensus appears to be that there is unquestionably some sort of extraordinary essence or a priori rationality underlying the universe even in face of obvious accidents and chances in the evolvement. The many observations from Aristotle, Copernicus, Kepler and Newton to quantum theories culminating in strings as basic stuff a...

It is perplexing as to why there is this dichotomy between evolution and intelligent design when in reality it is a simple matter of splitting hairs of what is actually observed and what is transcendent. For Darwin deduced from the complexity of evolving life forms an inherent natural selection of intentionality. That is, from a cell there may be underlying it intentionality of inexistent or nebulous other forms which may indeed transcend itself into another material object and become existent...

Taking Control Alienation is a teleological principle of materialism: the presupposition that there is a world out there necessitates alienation of human endeavor — I intuit within I am a living, laboring thing with a minimal sense of purpose, therefore, I think about other things. Without a sense of perspective of matter in motion, even though our species may concede that it too is a part, though apart from, humanity loses its innate commanding position over the environment...

Except for the a posteriori contingencies of facts and fantasies, attributed to the works of God, it is ludicrous for one to announce his atheism and even then its posture has no meaning. The so-called atheist himself is subject to the same existential litter that all of us are exposed to. He may rightfully denounce them but he cannot logically renounce the underpinnings of what we experience; for, they did not — contrary to the Bible’s postulate that in the beginning there was nothing — dev...

Awakened by Aristotle’s classification and metaphysics, Augustine conceded the possibility that essence of man or rational being pre-existed, or rather planted by God, in the evolvement of animals just as all material and efficient causation existed passively or potentially in the stars or basic stuff of reality. The domain of human experience is what makes for the concept of God or First Cause in the face of feeling inadequacy in contemplating the mysteries of our world. Just as DNA presuppo...

What is it that is so upsetting about evolution to many of faith? The faithful are given much leeway in measuring the 6,000 year old universe or earth in terms of eons as after all simply a poetic expression to account for geological time. Surely, if the papists can accept the poetry, why not the Christian fundamentalists? Though there is archeological evidence that homo-sapiens existed some 100, 000 years ago and more primitive forms even longer, one is free to posit Adam and Eve came later ...