Consciousness can appear to itself as “elemental”, as fundamental as matter and energy, perhaps even more so.
But is it really?
And if consciousness is not elemental, what are the implications for the place of logic and reason in our experience? and what are the implications for religion?

One charm among many in Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, the seventh and concluding book in the wonderful series by J.K. Rowling, is an exchange between Harry’s friend Hermione Granger and one Xenophilius Lovegood, a believer in the legend of the Deathly Hallows. The Deathly Hallows are magical objects, and Hermione, ever the […]

Suppose I am in possession of an 1848 US penny, and no one is aware I posses this coin. Further suppose, I (without being observed) place this coin on the deck of my house (my house was built in 1981) for some nominal period of time – say five minutes - and then remove it, […]

An agnostic (a - without, and gnosis - knowledge) says that the existence of God - neither provable nor disprovable - is beyond our knowledge, and just leaves it at that. He faults the atheist for believing that God does not exist, just as much as he faults the theist, for believing that He […]

For a significant fraction of the population, the words “God” and “Christian” signify several specific and related beliefs: that God exists, and is the Supreme Being who Created the Universe (SBwCU); that God is all knowing, all loving, and all powerful; that Jesus Christ is the divine Son of God, sent to Earth to redeem […]

The universe is everything that is. Nothing inside the universe explains itself, so the universe as a whole can’t explain itself. Therefore God is necessary, to explain the universe.
But if God explains the universe, what explains God? If you say that God is completely self-sufficient, and doesn’t need an explanation, why can’t […]

Why is there something, rather than nothing? Why does the universe go to all the trouble of actually existing? Wouldn’t it be easier, and somehow more elegant, for there just to be nothing at all? Sort of an existential “principle of least action”…
Questions like these make it seem as if the universe […]

My neighbor has something that I want. But he won’t let me have it. If I kill my neighbor, I can have what I want. I can see that killing my neighbor is bad, but still, why shouldn’t I, if it gets me what I want?
The atheist, according to Michael Gerson, has […]

No more God, please. I’ve had enough. From now on, it’s the Supreme Being who Created the Universe (SBwCU). God just comes with too much baggage. SBwCU is a much leaner concept: SBwCU refers to the super-being who brought the Universe into existence. Nothing more, nothing less. SBwCU may or […]

If “the world is everything that is the case“, as Wittgenstein said, then the truth consists of an accurate representation of the world. But it’s a big, complex world out there, and we’re just puny humans, after all. Often, the truth can only be approximated. That is the point of view of […]