The Human Question

If the argument for abortion rights is based upon bodily autonomy and regards violations thereof as a kind of involuntary servitude, then doesn't this sort of argument also support the claim that the draft is unconstitutional?  This comparison would make women who seek abortion like conscientious objectors.  That's an interesting comparison...

It so happens that the sort of argument that I have been sketching for my book already exists in chapter 3 of Martain's Approaches to God .  Knowledge as participation in a supratemporal community.  Perhaps chapter 4 (on practical reasoning and beauty) will complement other themes in my (not yet existent) book.

One way of arguing for a first mover (or, if you will, a first accelerator), is to make an analogy with a lessee who rents from someone else who is not the landlord but who is instead a subletting lessee.  The second lessee could likewise rent from one who is subletting rather than the landlord, etc.  But in order for this series to be coherent, there must be a landlord, a non-leasing lettor.  But that landlord could have come into this position at a determinate point in time.  Hence this analogy, while clarifying the simultaneity of cause/effect by referring us to the lessor/lessee, is not perfectly analogous to the sort of first mover argument that one would use to argue for God's existence. Another (defective) way would be to argue that God is the first pusher in a mechanistic universe.  Problem with this is that momentum needs no cause.  So God is probably filling the gaps in this argument. The third, best way of arguing for a first mover is to argue first for many first mo

They are not ways of making evident, for God's existence never becomes evident in the way the existence of something we see in front of us is evident.  They are not ways of inferring one thing that was not evident at all on the basis of another thing that is evident, for we have a primitive, pre-philosophical intuition of being that can be analyzed in to the relation of our contingent being toward being that is not contingent. They are instead five ways of articulating the primitive intuition of being, of showing how it involves reference to that which is being per se.

I would point out that we most definitely can ask, "Why do I exist rather than not exist?" And that is a contrast between being and not-being.  And if that question can be thought, then why couldn't the same question be thought about the world I share with others?

When pointing out how unbelief can be murderous, it is important not to focus on communism, but also on manifestation of hostility to belief that are more closely linked to the Enlightenment.

Convergent evolution, if I've gotten it right, is the notion that different organisms evolve in more or less the same way, albeit independently.  For example, an octopus and a vertebrate might both develop eyes, but not because this phenotype originates from a common ancestor.  The common cause, of course, is light itself. What if different rational beings evolve quite independently in different parts of the universe/multiverse, yet they all know the principle of non-contradiction, mathematical objects and the like: would we say that there is something analogous to light in the previous example? It's easy to imagine what a Platonist would make of the significance of this thought experiment!

Koenig, H. G. (2012). Religion, spirituality, and health: the research and clinical implications.   International Scholarly Research Network - Psychiatry   278730: 1-33. http://www.pursuit-of-happiness.org/science-of-happiness/spiritual-engagement/key-studies-religiosityspirituality/

Suppose there are two skin-head racists: one was brought up atheist and the other was brought up Catholic. How would you explain to the atheist skinhead that racism is wrong?  (not sure) How would you explain to the theist skinhead that racism is wrong? (we are all made in the image of God) There are many theisms and atheisms, but atheism itself does not suffice to overturn racism.  Ditto with theism.  The sort of humanism that would, however, overturn racism lends support to a humanistic theism and can be seen as deducible therefrom.  Or to be more precise, it would REQUIRE the THEISM in a humanistic theism; whereas that same sort of humanism would NOT require the ATHEISM in a humanistic atheism: rather, it would offer evidence of the incoherence of humanistic atheism.