Once again, for your reading pleasure, the illustrious Kalam Ontological, oops, I mean Cosmological Argument!

If you are wondering why I am expending my precious time on this rehashed argument, thank Kristor of the Orthosphere, who insists that my assumptions pass the “scythe” of this argument—an ...

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i'm incautiously pessimistic. life's too short. take some risks.

a God we can fully understand is not the true God. just like every other person.

your heart is broken. you fix it. now it doesn't move.

i get it because i also give it.

the woman is meant to harden the man. and man to soften the woman. not the ...

Just a reminder, eight years on - referencing the current environment of optimism among the self-styled "based" online - that we live in a totalitarian civilization; and that to desire for its revitalization by the results of an election is the kind of sin implied by the Antichrist phenomenon - to place one's hope in ...

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Cool threads Bish!...

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Separated at birth? The Archbishop of Canterbury (top) and Walter the Softy from the Beano (below)

I see that the egregious Justin Welby - surely the most completely-mediocre and corrupt individual ever to hold the position so far - ...

When I had to choose a cover for By No Means Equal I followed my usual course of looking at pictures of places where I had lived. My first book showed Beachy Head lighthouse on the Sussex coast. I didn't actually live in the lighthouse, though I did once climb up the ladder that is attached to the outside which was a ...

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From what I can gather (and assuming other people are telling the truth!) what elicits numinous experiences varies between persons - and in this sense the numinous is subjective.

Yet for each person there seems to be an "objectivity" - in that particular places and people can sometimes be (more ...

I have for decades had a strong interest in those moments of experienced "numinous significance"; those times and places where - either at the time, or in retrospect - we have a conviction that something-has-happened which is of relevance to our life, generally.

It seems that many people have these "peak ...

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Carl Gustav Carus - Nebelwolken in der Sächsischen Schweiz -ca.1828

If you consider the nature of the kind of totalitarian society we inhabit in The West, it can be seen that it is inevitable that churches - including Christian churches - will be parts of The System.

This to the same extent that these churches exist in the public realm as legal/ economic/ financial/ employing/ ...

In our discussions, I’ve shown why the perpetuity that you and Bruce advocate is problematic, not because it disagrees with classical theism, but because it fails the test of the Principle of Sufficient Reason. I have not mentioned that it fails also the test of the Kalam Cosmological Argument, though it ...

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A blast from the past (11 years ago) - I remembered this today and enjoyed it as much as ever.

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Last night, I ran across this very odd post on /x/:

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The post asks, in verse, whether God has teeth, and the accompanying image is a photo of a child's skull with two rows of teeth.

In my October 7 post "The Book of Tooth," I discussed Dr. Seuss's The Tooth Book, which is also written in rhyming ...

What is life "for" - it it to be happy - which implies a continual "timeless" state of bliss.

If happiness is rooted-in the elimination of all suffering (which is the emphasis in some major religions); then there can be no needs, no desire, no "wanting"*.

All Just Is, and what is, is good.

Or else is life ...

Behold the first two premises and conclusion of William Lane Craig’s Kalam Cosmological Argument!

1. Everything that begins to exist has a cause

2. The universe began to exist.

3. Therefore, the universe has a cause.

And the further premise and conclusion Craig appended later:

4. If the ...

I've been reading Jonah Barnes's new book The Key to the Keystone: How Apocryphal Texts Unlock the Book of Mormon's Brass Plates. Barnes's basic thesis is that the content of the Brass Plates differs significantly from that of the Old Testament as we have it, and that various apocryphal and pseudepigraphal texts ...

If oneness is primary, why did oneness allow that oneness be fractured; only to permit or demand the restoration of primal oneness?

Contra-oneness: life is linear and the future is open. Therefore; what we need above all is a way forward; and the inner motivation to pursue it.

Most important in faith is that there ...

A couple of days ago I wrote that we should think of Jesus primarily as The Good Shepherd (leading those who will follow to resurrected life everlasting beyond biological death); and not as a King.

Such is a natural consequence of the decision I made to base my Christian belief on the Fourth Gospel (called John) - ...

Readers of this blog are likely aware of the ongoing discussion involving Kristor of the Orthosphere, Dr. Charlton, and me—a discussion Kristor initiated via comments on a post I wrote about the nature of uncreated freedom.

Kristor continuously accuses Dr. Charlton and me of refusing to answer his questions, ...

there’s nothing here about the election, but it made you click, didn’t it

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the world was stopped. then i looked at her and it all started to move.

people find it odd (or don't even know) that there were greek buddhists before there were chinese buddhists. but it isn't all that strange, if we consider ...

​The Philosophy of God—classical theism— is proudly grounded in logic.

Logic is respected if it is valid. Most of the arguments for God posited by classical theism are logically valid.

But here’s the thing – a logically valid argument need not be true. An argument is considered valid ...

As The West continues its path of (in Dungeons and Dragons terms) Chaotic Evil - or what I would term spite-driven Sorathic self-and-other destruction; it seems to me that Lawful Evil (i.e. the Ahrimanic - control-motivated, hence totalitarian and bureaucratic type of evil) is making an attempt at comeback via the ...

I recall reading once that the Emperor Akbar, the great Mughal ruler of India who should figure on any top ten list of monarchs, said that saints cannot be kings nor kings saints. You can see what he meant. The demands of the job are quite different as are the skill sets required. Donald Trump is clearly no saint and ...

I haven't been invested in this election cycle at all, certainly nothing at all like 2020. This time around, I've maintained a curmudgeonly detachment, and so, for the most part, have the sync fairies. Still, I've got to admit, despite everything . . .

Feels good, man.

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Maybe part of it is being ...

One of the questions that are answered inadequately (incoherently) by the off-the-peg mainstream religions is: What is the point of this mortal life on earth?

Why don't we go directly to Heaven? Why must we mass-through mortal life, why must so many people endure (and, sometimes, enjoy) decades of earthly existence ...

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From timeanddate.com/sun/uk/newcastle-upon-tyne

"The darkest hour is just before the dawn" may be psychologically true as a proverb - but is astronomically false.

If dawn is defined as the sunrise; the night goes through three evolving phases of increasing light (defined by the sun's angle below ...

Since I understand reality ultimately to consist of Beings (i.e. Beings are the only final and objective categories of reality); and creation to consist of their interactions and relationships* (so that the laws, processes, forces, fields etc) -- naturally, the question of what influences the relationship between ...

This is a retelling of a story I came across.

God creates a bird with a broken wing out of nothing. God tells the bird that it is his child and that he could not have created it in any other way. God calls this good. He then tells the bird that he can fix the broken wing to some degree if the bird obeys and worships ...

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"It shouldn't be allowed", but it has already happened, that two of my favourite foods have been eliminated and replaced with fake, garbage, vegan substitutes.

As a kid, Fry's Turkish Delight (milk chocolate coated TD) was my absolute favourite sweet; and when I later discovered actual Turkish ...

In a major breakthrough (only parts of which I can take credit for), my Book of Mormon blog lays out the case that many of the seemingly anachronistic quotations in the Book of Mormon actually come from Zenos, who was also quoted by various biblical writers. I went into this thinking that was a lame ad hoc ...

"One of the grand fundamental principles of Mormonism," said Joseph Smith, "is to receive the truth, let it come from whence it may." Even Reddit, you may ask? Yes, apparently, even Reddit.

As laid out in my previous post, "A closer look at Malachi material in the Small Plates," there are three places in the Book of ...

Regarding yesterday’s post, I must clarify a few things concerning my scribblings about metaphysics and the nature of God and my discussions with Kristor of the Orthosphere.

I am not motivated to debunk any conceptualization of God, including the God of classical theism. I merely wish to share my views on how ...