The Debt to the Wise and the Foolish

  The line between good and evil cuts through the heart of man, and the line between true and false cuts through his mind. There are many good forms of neutrality; neutrality in listening to another person's views i.e. bracketing one's own beliefs for the moment so as to better attend to what they say, this is good since it allows the truth of another person's view to arise more clearly in one's mind. Neutrality is also an essential step in phenomenology, it is the 'epoche' of the reduction, likewise a bracketing of one's views so that as unbiased a description of phenomena as possible can arise. Once again, neutrality in forming one's arguments, that is, by appealing to premises which one knows (or at least, has good reason to believe) are common ground between one's interlocutor and one's self, rather than appealing to premises which one knows (or again, has good reason to believe) one's interlocutor shall dispute; this too is a good form o...

A prayer I wrote to God I contemplation of the Holy Wounds.  Praise: Lord you are the beauty ever ancient and beauty ever new, the Trinity in unity and unity in Trinity, the one God above all, simple, yet infinite in all perfections; in truth, goodness, and beauty, in justice, mercy, and peace, in wisdom, power, and love, you are thrice holy, infallible and impeccable, pure and source of moral purity, you are that than which none greater can be conceived, and that greater than all that can be conceived, incomprehensible Lord, you are beyond the grasp of human reason to know in full, and so beyond the human capacity to praise fully, so that all our praise is but an understatement of the great glory that is you. God, you are he who is, and your name is sacred above all, and worthy to be praised, blessed, loved, adored and glorified, now, and forever and ever. thanksgiving:  Lord I thank you for this life, and for my family, and for all the good you do for me and for us all, I t...

Premise 1: All that is mental is directed to something. Premise 2: Mental things exists. Premise 3: Mental things can be directed to mental things. Theorem 1: Chains of mental things directed to mental things can exist. (P3, UI, MI) Theorem 2: If all that exists is mental, all that exists is a chain of mental direction. (1, 3, UI, ACP) Premise 4: An endless chain of mental direction (be it endless due to looping in on itself or going on infinitely) is meaningless. Theorem 3: if all that exists is a chain of mental direction, nothing meaningful exists. (P4, UI, ACP) Theorem 4: If all that exists is mental, nothing meaningful exists. (T2, T3, CP) Premise 4: Something meaningful exists. Conclusion: Not everything is mental. (T4, P4, MT) Defense of premises and theorems: Defense of premise 1: To be conscious is always to be conscious 'of' something, so awareness is awareness of something, experience experience of something; thought is always thought about something, conception or...

 Jesus said that he did not come to abolish the law but to fulfill it, and the law itself says: "honor your Father and Mother" and as such, Mary had Jesus ear.  Thus though Jesus is King, the tradition of the ancient kingdom of Israel was that the queen of Israel was not the wife of the King (for the king could have many wives) but rather the mother of the King (the גְּבִירָה‎ i.e. 'Gebirah', translating roughly to 'great lady' and often translatd as: "queen mother") hence Solomon had a throne set up at his right hand for his mother, whose requests he was willing to hear out (1 Kings 2:19-20) and this makes sense in light of how the King of Israel was still subject to the covenant of God with Israel, and so would himself be subject to the commandment of honoring father and mother.  In light of this, if the Kingdom of God is in any way reflected by the Kingdom of Israel (which seems to be, for the new covenant in the blood of Jesus (Luke 22:20) which ...

 Christ was wounded by the nails which pierced his hands and feet, and the spear that pierced his side, the thorns which pierced his holy head, the scourges at the pillar, and perhaps in his heart at gesthemane in the loneliness in seeing his coming death.  Christ is the way, the truth, and the life. Christ is the light of the world. Christ is the Word, the Logos, the Son of the Father and who sends the Spirit.  The Way The hands and feet and side of The Way are pierced. The Way wears a crown of thorns.  The Way was scourged at the pillar.  The heart of The Way suffered at Gesthemane. The Truth The hands and feet and side of The Truth are pierced. The Truth wears a crown of thorns.  The Truth was scourged at the pillar.  The heart of The Truth suffered at Gesthemane. The Life The hands and feet and side of The Life are pierced. The Life wears a crown of thorns.  The Life was scourged at the pillar.  The heart of The Life suffered at Gestheman...

 G.K. Chesterton once said this: "Truth, of course, must of necessity be stranger than fiction, for we have made fiction to suit ourselves." (Heretics, Chapter IV. Mr. Bernard Shaw) which is of course to say, that we have not made reality to suit ourselves, and must rather learn to suit ourselves to reality; and there is some danger in this, but to the extent that we succeed, then what the Joker said surely becomes true: "What doesn't kill you makes you stranger." I suppose then the strangest of fictions are the fictions written by the realist of men.

Here are some quotes from some works of G.K. Chesterton giving some insight on his understanding of the notion of bigotry:  "Bigotry does not consist in a man being convinced he is right; that is not bigotry, but sanity. Bigotry consists in a man being convinced that another man must be wrong in everything, because he is wrong in a particular belief; that he must be wrong, even in thinking that he honestly believes he is right." - G.K. Chesterton, The Common Man, The New Bigotry "In real life the people who are most bigoted are the people who have no convictions at all [ . . . ] Bigotry may be roughly defined as the anger of men who have no opinions. It is the resistance offered to definite ideas by that vague bulk of people whose ideas are indefinite to excess. Bigotry may be called the appalling frenzy of the indifferent. This frenzy of the indifferent is in truth a terrible thing; it has made all monstrous and widely pervading persecutions. In this degree it was not t...