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As far as I know, these ideas have been used mainly in theological discussions. However, it seems to me that such ideas would also have application in more general discussions of Cartesian dualism and the mind–body problem, e.g. they could be used to describe what happens to the Cartesian soul or mind when one is sleeping dreamlessly or when one is unconscious.
THE WHAT, HOW, AND THUSNESS OF REALITY
Raphael Neelamkavil, Ph. D., Dr. phil.
1. A CAVEAT WITH EXAMPLES OF ABNORMALITIES IN SCIENTISTS AND THINKERS
Merely because I am trained and publish in philosophy and philosophy of physics, I do not denigrate other disciplines or pronounce them as useless. Dispassionately to the conclusions but with passion for research, I have studied also the various Western and Indian philosophies for long.
Does that mean that I accept everything in Indian philosophy and try to tilt all thought towards the Indian? Or, should I try to interpret Indian philosophies in terms of Western categories of thinking or in terms of the philosophy of the sciences? No. But I have the right to develop my own categories and interpret these philosophies and philosophies of science accordingly.
In a similar vein, I believe that the reader will not now pronounce me to be talking nonsense in the following text. If you can read it through, good. Please find out whether there is some reason in it. If you do not feel good, leave it without accusing me of being religiously nonsensical! There exists the talk of the Divine in most of the ancient and modern Indian schools. This possibility is not yet closed forever in Western philosophy and cosmology too.
The sad thing is that there are many Eastern philosophers who become charlatan physicists and attribute quantum physical notions to Vedānta and Buddhism. I know many Westerners who adore much that is Eastern as great supra-rationally rational philosophy. I have always been conscious of studying any philosophy, religion, or science without misjudgments in advance. Hence, I have the right to say the following.
There are many scientists and philosophers who poohpooh Christian philosophical concepts as if they belonged to thought patterns that involve a humanly thinking superhuman God. Read through the works of Wittgenstein, and you will find how silly it is to believe in the notions that he learned as a child in the simplistic religious presentations at the school and perhaps at home and from friends. For example, the ridiculously childish notions and the ex cathedra statements based on such religious notions in his Lectures and Conversations on Aesthetics, Psychology, and Religious Belief (lecture notes by his students), and, although sparsely, in many other works like Culture and Value, Philosophical Investigations, The Tractatus, etc.
Show me any scientist or philosopher who ridicules philosophy or religion, and I shall show you in his or her writings childish misinterpretations of philosophy and religion.
The worst of them in recent times has been Stephen Hawking. He was religiously derisive of philosophy. He must be questioned on the validity of the philosophy of science and we will obtain other ex cathedra pronouncements as if his reason about philosophy is all that we are permitted to possess.
He even concluded in 1999 that all that physics has to achieve has already been reached theoretically, and hence only some experimental and minor theoretical elaborations remained! If persons of such ideas pronounce statements on philosophy, would these statements be acceptable? Would they not taste some psycho-socio-cultural illnesses in their education and intellectual work?
I say all these not to defend religions with all their beliefs or any one of their beliefs and practices. Instead, I want to explore here a possible religious aspect of all human thought, BEYOND ALL RELIGIONS AND THEIR BELIEFS. Perhaps all religions must be redefined and their belief systems reworked. But I seek whether there can be a dimension of religiosity that is acceptable to all science, philosophy, and religions. To begin with, I do a philosophical reflection in the following. I already know that religion has already been an opium for a majority of humans until recently, and in some nations it continues to be a political opium. Our discussion now is not about that.
2. THE RATIONAL FUNDAMENTALS
We know that the whole Reality is not inside our heads. We can, nevertheless, admit that Reality is whatever it is – this is its Stuff. This is its What and How put together, because we have no way of dealing with its What or How separately – be it in philosophy or science. We are familiar with scientific explanations, say, of electrons, in terms of how they work, how they give rise to fields and photons, etc. These and similar explanations (the how) remain the explanations as to what electrons are (the what).
This is the case also in the various philosophies East and West. We not only cannot have a discourse isolating the What from the How of Reality, but cannot ever isolate these two from each other, although the questions and the notions are distinct.
The existence of Reality as whatever it is, is a different matter. Let us call it its Thusness or To Be or That. But we can only generalize meagerly at the level of To Be. At this level we cannot speak of Reality or the possible existence or not of the Divine. If at all reason should function on the existence or not of the Divine, the only way is to have recourse to the discourse of the What and How of Reality in an intermingled manner.
The Thusnessand the Stuff of all that exist resist being fathomed, however well separately or together the Divine and the universe are conceived as part of Reality-in-total. Why? Just because there is an infinite difference between the Thusnessand the Stuff of Reality-in-total and the thusness and the stuff of mine as a being that fathoms them and formulates the results in statements. The infinity involved here can in fact be only an infinity of infinity of … ad infinitum, since all other forms of infinities do not vouchsafe for the variety of consideration of infinities involved in the said difference.
This fact always brings in contradictions of various kinds in religious and philosophical experiences, utterances, and statements, and even in cosmology the situation is not different. The attempt to fathom their meaning with respect to religion constantly brings contradictions. This is especially so if religion is the expression of the relationship of humans to the Divine, in terms of humans’ experience of Divine’s relationship to humans, because religion deals not merely with love of the Divine and of humans, but also with love of Reality-in-total.
If the Divine is in existence, how to know it, let alone deal with the relationship? How to speak of a relationship with a Divine that we do not even know the existence of? To those who do not try to fathom anything, there are no contradictions at all. To those who know the fact of the infinite difference and tend to be at home with the Thusness and the Stuff of Reality-in-total in rational thought, the spiritual state of experience of contradictions remains intellectually alien or at times merely acceptable.
Now, do these contradictions remain in some way only in this infinite difference, or do they express themselves at all in this difference, or are they clear in the Stuff of Reality-in-total in terms of its What and How? When the logic we use to understand this is to be two-valued at best, this infinite difference can be experienced only at the worst form and that too in contradictions. This in my opinion is the origin of certain religious philosophies that rest on contradictions and nullity.
But as such there need not be contradictions in the very Thusness and the Stuff of Reality-in-total. Here is the origin of the attempted rational explanations in philosophy and science for the Divine.
We do not have a way of defining the infinite difference between the Thusness and the Stuff of Reality-in-total, between these and the thusness and the stuff of our person in terms of non-contradictions. Nor do we have a way of defining our statements of the Thusness and the Stuff of Reality-in-total and of the thusnessand the stuff of human persons as involving contradictions.
By definition, Reality-in-total is just what it is. It is in the very kind of process that it is in, and in the very manner it is. Its Thatness is just the fact that it is, namely its To Be. Statements of its Thusness and its Stuff, therefore, need not at all be expressed in an exact 1-1 form of representation of the two sorts of realities. Note that here ‘realities’ are either the parts within the Stuff of Reality, or one of the most universal or less universal implications of the Thusness or Thatnessor To Be of Reality.
The Thatness of Reality is just the fact that Reality just is what it is. It is merely its Thusness. But the Stuff is both the What and the How of Reality, because, as the sciences show, what something is, is in the final analysis a description of how it functions. Also the vice versa is true. The What and the How of Reality are not equivalents, but are the ways of approach for each other. This shows that the contradictions of ordinary or higher order logic are all at the level of the What and the How of Reality in parts and in the whole.
So, it is both philosophically and scientifically safe to state that the so-called contradictions originate basically from the level of the most infinite differences between the highest transcendental To Be and the highest transcendent Reality-in-total, if statements regarding these can preoccupy themselves with the two aspects of Reality-in-total, namely, the processual parts and the ontological universals that belong to them in general in groups.
When it is attempted to rationally think in terms of the To Be of Reality, it is a very general sort of science that the positive or formal sciences are not used to be involved in. This general science is what I would call the foundation of philosophy. Discourse merely of the To Be of Reality does not exist as more than a few statements. The Thusness of anything is just its Thatness, which is not expressible in a long discourse.
But the possible mode of philosophical discourse can be in terms of the implications of To Be for Reality and the various part-processes and their pertinent ontological universals. This is what I have put forth in some of my papers and discussions, and in some of my books. I call it metaphysics, general ontology, and physical ontology in accordance with the sort of emphasis required.
I have suggested that the exhaustive and unique implications of To Be for all existents are Extension and Change, called Extension-Change-wise existing as Universal Causality, and interpreted many philosophical and (much more so) scientific problems in terms of these.
Although fundamentally the implications of To Be should be such, we still tend to find contradictions and inconsistencies in all discourse, because we take as true all that is known to us in some way as an exact 1-1 representation of the states of affairs, which are just groups of processual entities according to certain ontological universals.
Then all that do not belong to the conclusions of the discourse become for us not true, partially true, and hence at least partially false. In such a logic, there is the anomaly of misplaced concreteness of the fluent values of falsity’s meaning in respect of what is considered as true in ordinary two-valued logic.
So, the direct conclusion from this is that two-valued logic as the method of thought is inadequate for statements of any detail of experiences, utterances, and statements in science, philosophy, and religion – and for that matter exactly in the metaphysics behind all these.
But the question of the existence of the Divine is replete with contradictions and inconsistencies because it is not self-evident at the To Be level of Reality. Instead, I believe that this question must be treated at the level of the What and How of Reality. Naturally, this involves the physical study of the cosmos.
We tend to use two-valued logic in all our thought and discourse. Without it no discourse is possible. But these must be more necessary at the level of the use of the basic principles of two-valued logic, namely, Identity, Non-difference, and Excluded Middle. Hence, we are unable to follow the logic of Reality as such in our reasoning. The logic of Reality is Universal Causality, not Identity, Non-difference, and Excluded Middle. But even here we tend to use these three and related principles of logic at least at the level of the formation of conclusions. This is one source of contradictions and confusions in discourse.
This does not mean that two-valued logic has no real function and should be dispensed. It is relevant at least as far as we can use them on the most fundamental facts of Reality-in-total, e.g., that it exists and is not inexistent, that a certain fundamental or less fundamental conclusion is of relevance or not, etc. To that extent, as regards all other matters in philosophy and religion, we may have to adopt a systemic logic that may tend to relativize the absolute meaning of ‘Identity’, ‘Contradiction’, ‘Excluded Middle’, etc., in which case the statements could look better than just two-valued.
Nevertheless, we have no hope that the human situation of having to use two-valued logic will greatly improve – for we are like an iota of sand, ratiocinating of the possibilities of the ocean and of immersion in it, but refusing to immerse ourselves in it to fathom the ocean until we reach the ocean bed by ourselves and get pushed into the ocean. This might give our consciousnesses the food and method to approach in a better manner Reality in its What and How. Such fathoming too is not of much worth, because the whole What and How of Reality cannot be in my mind. I can at the most enter and speak about it a little: in particular, about a few parts and layers of it and in general about all of them – nevertheless, to a highly limited extent.
Now arise the questions: (1) Does the Divine exist as a part of Reality-in-total? (2) If there is, how to rationalize on it? (3) If there is not, how to understand the cosmos as all that there is to Reality-in-total? Question number (2) may be discussed first, and then number (3). But how and where to begin? Any suggestions on a rational point of departure? Can we find a philosophical and cosmological manner of reasoning which remains absolutely neutral as to a logically two-valued Yes or No to these questions all through and develops a viable method that can finally evaluate the truth probabilities in favour or not of the existence of the Divine?
3. THE COSMOLOGY
Continues.
Bibliography
(1) Gravitational Coalescence Paradox and Cosmogenetic Causality in Quantum Astrophysical Cosmology, 647 pp., Berlin, 2018.
(2) Physics without Metaphysics? Categories of Second Generation Scientific Ontology, 386 pp., Frankfurt, 2015.
(3) Causal Ubiquity in Quantum Physics: A Superluminal and Local-Causal Physical Ontology, 361 pp., Frankfurt, 2014.
(4) Essential Cosmology and Philosophy for All: Gravitational Coalescence Cosmology, 92 pp., KDP Amazon, 2022, 2nd Edition.
(5) Essenzielle Kosmologie und Philosophie für alle: Gravitational-Koaleszenz-Kosmologie, 104 pp., KDP Amazon, 2022, 1st Edition.
For the time being, here further reference is given to:
The gifts (gold, frankincense, myrrh) were not of such a nature that they would've been of use to humble folks, except as items with a resale value to a broker. It has been suggested that the gold was used to pay the innkeeper, but that seems unlikely since a common innkeeper would not have been used to dealing in gold. Denarius coins (mostly bronze with minimal silver content) were the common currency of the day.
Zakat is the third pillar of Islam and it is an obligatory
payment that a free and rational Muslim who owns a certain amount of wealth has to observe. Its importance in Islam is manifested by the numerous pairings of its obligation to that of prayer (salah) in the Quran. Among the fundamentals of Islam, it has the most direct economic implications on Muslims for it involves the distribution of wealth from the affluent in society to those in need.
Is it reason, intelligence, superior nature, rights, or something else?
Dear All,
We are a team of researchers working on a meta-analysis of studies that link religious belief with several emotions. The emotions that we are particularly interested are gratitude, awe, elevation, reverence (self-transcendent emotions), and also negative emotions such as guilt and shame.
We are very keen on sourcing published/unpublished articles/thesis that have explored the relation between religious belief and practices and how they influence these emotions.
Any academic who has conducted research on this topic and are willing to have their study details and results included in this meta-analysis are kindly requested to send us the article via the below e-mail. We will be very much willing to include the study in our paper if it meets the criteria. All studies will be duly referenced in the meta-analysis.
Please contact:
Avijit Chowdhury (avijitchowdhury@unisim.edu.sg)
Thank you very much!
In my opinion, there are two main obstacles in math teaching and studying:
1st MAIN OBSTACLE. From all other sciences, mathematics has the largest degree of coherence and inter-connectivity between all its branches. From the first years of studying mathematics, it is obvious that each math lesson is essential to understand all other later math lessons. In contrast, in physics for example: you can understand very well mechanics without knowing electricity; you can understand optics without knowing electricity or mechanics and so on. Because mathematics demands a marathon-like effort on many years to understand it, a maximum tenacity in daily or periodical study (which is very time consuming), the "natural" selection is harsh, because just a small percent of people are sufficiently motivated by "the science and art of counting" (which math is) to get over this first obstacle.
2nd MAIN OBSTACLE. The poverty of methods and digital resources (images, animations and software) which is used to teach math from the first grades: it's only in the last 20 years that digital resources in math exploded and were implemented recently in teaching (and that is not sufficient time for extensive and diverse implementation in math pedagogy).
MY THESIS
In the "reference frame" of exact and "almost-exact "sciences, math may appear as a very important domain and language: which is true. However, my thesis is that the human being are based on not one, but three types of logic and metalogic, which logics are not reducible one to another:
1. rational logics (all "governed" my mathematics) which may be all integrated in a rational metalogic (rML) ("governed" by meta-mathematics)
2. emotional logics (studied by arts, aesthetics, psychology, philosophy, religions etc) which may be all integrated in an "emotional metalogic" (eML);
3. "volitional" logics (also studied by psychology, neurobiology and medicine in general, sociology, philosophy, religions etc), which may be all integrated in a "volitional metalogic" (vML), which I also conjecture to not be reducible to any of the first and second types of metalogic (rML and/or eML).
I have extensively presented my aforementioned thesis in my papers:
MY "META-THESIS"
My "meta-thesis" would that mathematics and rML in general aren't sufficiently "powerful" (and would never be) in the "humanity reference frame" (which is almost infinitely larger than the "reference frame" of exact sciences) to gain more interest than eML and vML. My prediction (and conjecture) is that rML may only imitate eML and vML, but can never replace them. I also argued in my (previously mentioned) papers that eML and vML (which are conjectured to be irreducible to rML, which rML may be only an "imitator" of both eML and rML, but not their "replacer").
See also other URLs of my work:
See also general URLs:
This discussion was inspired by Prof. Patrick Dasgupta, who is full professor since 2004 in Physics and Astrophysics Faculty from University of Delhi (https://du-in.academia.edu/PatrickDasgupta), when he kindly invited me (directly or using the Academia.edu robot?) to participate to a session on his article called “On Reasonable Effectiveness of Pedagogy in Mathematical Physics”
Draft paper URL:
Session URL (on which I’ve also pasted this large discussion-comment):
Regards!
Monitor the most important books on the philosophy of religion in contemporary thought, you can suggest me to the most important books written on this subject in Islamic thought and Western thought.
May combine science and philosophy
I'm interested in a variety of religious perspectives.
-Set-theoretically spoken: is philosophy of religion an element of philosophy of science? Or in Aristotelian terminology: is philosophy of religion a 'differentia specifica' of the 'genus' called philosophy of science?
-I am searching after this. Maybe you can help me. Thanks, Marc
Dear professor Graham Oppy,
-My research regards the Christian philosophy of religion (since 14 years of lectureship) that is based upon the analytical philosophy.
-The analytical philosophy is based upon (to a great extent) the mathematics and the laws of thought.
-Well, mathematics both as arithmetic and geometry is limited, whereas the Christian philosophy of religion regards a.o. God Who is unlimited.
-Consequently, can the Christian philosophy of religion or the Christian metaphysics be computationalized? Thank you for the answer! Marc
What do you think is the best response that the hedonist can give to the problem? Is this response adequate?
Why or why wouldn't you find the psychological egoist's explanation plausible?
If so, give an example in which you think this is the case. If not, explain why not.
Why might someone believe that it is? What challenges does such a view face?
Why do you think such links exist?
It's easy to make an argument that particular claims recorded in a scripture are factually true (one just needs to use the standard historical criteria of authenticity). But a writing containing truth, even if it is completely error-free, isn't necessarily divinely inspired. So is it possible to successfully argue for divine inspiration? If so, how?
Why might someone think that moral claims don't fall into either category?
Or do they have the freedom to resist their desires and simply act as unmoved movers?
Do you find their explanation of such phenomena compelling?
What does it mean to be a "steward"?
Should nonhuman species and ecosystems be loved as neighbors, or are neighbors exclusively human beings?
Prima facie, the assertion seems self-refuting, for if none of our concepts apply to God, then even the concept of ineffability does not apply to God. However, the assertion of divine ineffability is often made by Jews, Christians, and Muslims. I'd love to hear your thoughts!
William Lane Craig argues that, without God, moral values would only be subjective, and there would be no ultimate moral accountability.
Islam and Judaism are unitarian monotheisms, holding that the one God contains a single center of self-consciousness (i.e., person). Christianity is a trinitarian monotheism, holding that the one God contains three centers of self-consciousness (i.e., persons). I'd love to hear Muslim, Jewish, and Christian views on this!
Tillich wrote: "Adoration performed for the sake of man's self-glorification is self-defeating. It never reaches God" (Systematic Theology, 3:191).
I'm wondering to what extent W. D. Ross's theory provides a method for deciding what the right thing to do is in particular situations. I'm also wondering if this extent should be seen as a strength or a weakness.
Why do you find that element persuasive?
One could argue that any ideological spiritual pathway is suspicious of those whose religious beliefs and practices are unlike their own, intolerant of "the other," and does not account for new ways of understanding reality. Do you agree or disagree?
On the one hand, it seems that Confucianism is essentially an ethical way of life and a way of ordering society. On the other hand, it seems that Confucianism is an authentic spiritual pathway.
What are the advantages of defining the divine anthropomorphically? What are the risks of defining the divine anthropomorphically?
On the one hand, Taoism may be too inherently passive about government intervention in preserving security, developing the economy, and meeting the needs for health and education. On the other hand, Taoism is eager to collaborate with others in ecological concerns and encourage ways of achieving justice and peace.
work on globalization and religion. impact of globalization on Judaism, Christianity and Islam
How can those experiences be related to that of Christians who practice speaking in tongues? Are there any examples of schools that teach and train people to come to ecstasy and then speak in tongues? What are the benefits of that experience?
The human person is regarded by traditional Western philosophy as a substantial unity with a core identity, the Church consists of many communities with different values, emphasizing different aspects of the faith, some of them opposing each other. Has anyone addressed the question how an individual human person can be a suitable analogy for the Church?
Followers of Vaishnava (among others) faith generally make the argument that their sacred texts were composed by a single magnificent author during his life on Earth. But this is completely disregarded by historians studying India's past, who claim that Vyas is to be regarded like Homer: actually many authors. For such an integral figure, I have found very little scholarly publications which address this figure, from either camp. Can anyone shed some light on this topic?
In the study of ancient history or theology the concept of "myths' is very important because in both of the fields and even in philosophy scholars always try to stretch the past to justify the present, in this sense myths are the carrier of perception of reality is a matter of debate among the scholars but it is very true that the mythological myths in all religions/civilisations posses a dogma of being sacred due to its longevity and moral ideas. On the basis of these two ideas can we argue that 'the construction of present reality' is under challenge because some how it has been associated with the idea of "myths" in the past.
‘Becoming’, understood as an endlessly scroll of reality, was one of the most important and complex philosophical concept that was opposed by ontological vision of static essence and dynamic one (like Heraclitus) (Wikipedia).
The term ‘becoming’ in philosophy involves a change not only in space, as in the original meaning, but also in time.
The problematic nature of the definition of ‘becoming’ arised initially from the consideration that the primordial substance had to be conceived as unique and immutable: but if it was so, how would you explain the origin from it of the multiplicity of things? If at the beginning, the unique essence was water, as such was to remain forever and not give rise to the multiplicity of beings.
But it is clear that talk about life of the substance amounted to a contradiction ‘in terminis’, as it always defines identical with itself, and therefore immutable, something which in effect becomes living and constantly changing.
Becoming is, according to Heraclitus, the essence of Being, because everything is subject to time and change. Even what seems static to sensory perception in reality is dynamic and constantly changing.
Everything flows into the thesis that identifies in the fire the symbolic beginning of all things. This element symbolizes quintessential movement, life and destruction.
Becoming is therefore the immutable law; ‘logos’ regulates the alternation of birth and death. It is the identity of the different, i.e. the element which unifies what in all the many things is constant. Becoming is in fact made up of opposites that coexist in things: the uphill road is the same as downhill. It appears for the first time a dialectic conception of reality.
But not everyone is able to recognize ‘logos’, the law that governs the world. Only a few are "awake" and can recognize the common law of logos, the others, the "dormant," living in a dream, are prisoners of the opposition, of struggle and the conflict, unable to rise to the unity of all :
The harmony of things, for Heraclitus, lies in its constantly changing and in continuous conflict between opposites. This concept is defined as ‘polemos’, which allows the existence of all things.
The Eleatics, contrary to Heraclitus, did not rely in senses that reveal the movement. The emotion generates the opinion of mortals who live in the illusion whereby it believed true the existence of ‘becoming’ as a mixture of being and not being. But not being does not exist nor can be thought.
Thinking and being are the same thing for which being is not and cannot be ‘not being’, while ‘not being’ is not and cannot be.
Moreover, how is it possible to think of birth as a transition from ‘non-being’ to being, and death as a go from being to not be? Birth and death are only appearances of being, not generated (nothing comes from nothing), eternal (nothing ends in nothing), still, unique (because if they were two, it should be separated from ‘non-being’), compact and well-defined ( similar to a perfect sphere).
This is Parmenides' belief that contrasts sharply with that of those who supported the thesis of Heraclitus.
The end of the paradoxes is to prove that to accept the presence of motion in reality involves logical contradictions superior to those who deny ‘becoming’ and is therefore better, from a purely rational point of view, rejecting the sensible experience and say that reality is still and ‘becoming’ does not exist.
To be out of the impasse of the two mystical theories of Parmenides and Heraclitus, appearing, despite contradicting both logically founded, pluralists philosophers, materialists have a solution more rationalistic and naturalistic, treating the ‘becoming’ as ‘being’, marking the conceptual severity of the first compared to the second.
For ‘becoming’ is essential to think that there is a multiplicity of edifying beings: beings, and pluralists argue that in fact at the beginning of world history there was a great variety of primeval elements with the faculties of Parmenides’ ‘being’, that is, eternity and immobility.
In this way, birth is not a transition from ‘not being’ to ‘being’, but an aggregation of the primitive entities that, for Empedocles are the four elements of earth, water, air and fire, for Anaxagoras what he calls seeds, for Leucippus atoms as indivisible and elementary building blocks.
Each of us is born with a changing association of these multiple primary elements, which are in themselves always identical to themselves and immutable. Death will be nothing but the separation of these elements that will go back each his own part of their being primary.
This apparent conciliation of being and becoming, went to meet a difficulty: if the multiple beings presented themselves at the beginning and remained immutable and then still to safeguard the requirements of the Eleatic being, as was explained later their aggregation and disintegration?
The problem is actually placed by monists in opposition to the pluralists, but has its own explanation. In fact, the pluralists did intervene from outside forces such as Love and Hate, for Empedocles, or Nous, for Anaxagoras, had been submitted clarifying the aggregation and breakdown of the primary elements.
The first to compete with the concept of non-existence of the vacuum were the Eleatics with their philosophy based on being as the only reality. Only ‘being’ can be thought, as ‘not being’ does not exist.
The difficulty for the ancient mind, which persists in the thought of Parmenides, to conceive the void (emptiness)seems to be related to the theory on the archaic Greek thought about a "mythical" age, understood as the transition from primitive thought to that rational adult, where word was not distinguished from thing. A sort of fusion of language, reality and truth for which the Greeks had a vision of reality as a "show", therefore not distinguishing between visibility, existence and thought: only what was visible really existed and could thus be thought of and hence the difficulty of thinking the ‘not being’, the void, that is not visible and which therefore does not exist.
I am searching for the sources used by Ibn Hazm Andalusi in his works especially in his famous book, Al-Fasl. Please suggest some books in this regard.
Why does religion become first port of call during social and economic strife?
Within religion, why does a large chunk of the population not go deeper into orthodox religion but head instead towards these new age guys with their superficial cosmologies and simplistic solutions?
The point is: How does Judaism read the Song of Songs, a song of love? What is the place that this book finds in the Torah? Furthermore, if the theological general principle is that "God wishes to be exalted only by Israel" and "Israel alone knows God as God has made himself known, which is in the Torah", how does Israel elicit God's love?
Means Israel "those that love and are loved by God"?
In general, it seems that there are two contrasting portraits of the relation between Religion and the modern men:
1) The man of Religion who "withdraws from the converse of men, exclusively preoccupied with his own salvation, which is a matter between God and himself";
2) "the modern man who, accepting the world and its laws, resolves to extract from them all the good that they contain".
Anyway the former, as well as the latter, cannot detach himself from other men: conscious of the solidarity which unites him with his fellows, which make him in a sense dependent on them, he knows that he cannot work out his salvation by himself.
If that is true we have to admit the idea of the unity of human society and that the Religion is essentially social in the deepest sense of the word. There is no space for selfish piety".
Best regards
Antonio
Perhaps Pope Francis could be enough understood as a sensible Jesuit in dialogue with up-to-date global social, economical, political and cultural happenings.
I am working on ethnic tourism, my sample area belong to one ethnic group. They have their own religion, but almost 60% of them converted to Islam during last century. Due to change in religion, it creates some difference among them. I was thinking that I can compare both religion in one ethnic group, Is that possible? or they will be considered as two ethnic groups? Need your kind suggestions
I'm wondering what research is out there - as I am intending to undertake a mini thesis
Do you know any paper or book which works on applications of "epistemology of testimony" in "philosophy of religion;" for instance in transmitting knowledge from a person who has had a religious experience?
