CADRE Comments

[Note: for Part 4 of this auxiliary series, click here. ] Hey!--where did all that 'true love' stuff go?? It's still around. I believe God exists, because I believe in myself. And because I believe in her , whom I truly love. Whether or not she believes God exists, I still believe in her. Admittedly, I knew this principle long before I met her. But still--you might manage to browbeat me somehow into believing I do not exist. You will never succeed in convincing me that she does not exist!--that she is not a real person; that she does not make her own choices; that I should not treasure those choices, treasure her , for being her and being real. I believe in God, because I refuse to disbelieve in her. Ever. Even if she does not believe in God. The same goes for you, my reader. I am writing this book for you to judge --not for you to knee-jerk react to. I believe in God, because I refuse to disbelieve in you. Even if you do not believe in God. Wait! Am I saying atheists d...

[Note: for Part 3 of this auxiliary series, click here. ] Okay, admittedly, if I go up to an atheist-on-the-street and I ask what her core belief is, as an atheist, she will probably say: "I don't believe God exists". She will probably not say: "I believe the Final Fact is only reactive." Nor is she likely to say this, if I press her on what it means for God to not-exist. What she will probably come down to, sooner or later, is: "I don't believe a Person exists Who made the world or does anything else." If I ask her whether she is a person, however, she will probably say: "Yes." In fact, she is likely to say: "Of course!" If she is being especially reflective, she might say: "I don't know." She will probably not say: "I am not a person"--unless she is devotedly following a metaphysic that teaches her she is not a person. But even philosophers who consider themselves to be nothing in the zero sum, or who...

[Note: for Part 2 of this auxiliary series, click here. ] There are two mutually exclusive branches to all possible metaphysics: atheism, and not-atheism. Assuming, of course, I refuse to accept the reality of contradictions. (And assuming I have already been dealing with proposals of multiple Independent Facts, such as I do in this main SttH chapter .) But I refuse to accept contradictions as being real; because otherwise my own thinking would be totally unreliable on any subject--including the subject of real contradictions. (If contradictions are possibly real, then 'are' may also mean 'are not', and so the statement becomes meaningless, either as a proposal or as a conclusion.) So: atheism, or not-atheism. There are numerous types of not-atheism; and there are numerous types of atheism. Philosophical discussions today tend to focus on one or another type of atheism. But I think it makes more sense to start with the basic category first. Is atheism possible? If ...

[Note: for Part 1 of this auxiliary series, click here. ] There are certainly some scholars, past and present, who would say that true love is basically drivel. There are no scholars, past or present, who can consistently say that their own thinking is basically drivel. There are some scholars (past, and especially present), who do propose that 'human thinking' per se is essentially drivel. Yet they don't propose their own theories, as thinking humans, concerning 'human thinking', are essentially drivel. On the contrary, they would prefer that we judge their own theories as coming from responsible humans who are actively discerning truth. Furthermore, they usually (and quite charitably, although inconsistently) presume we judgers are capable of more than essential drivel, to be able to do this--for their theories. Go back and read the first part of the Kodachi again. Or (if you can wade through it!) anything I’ve already written in SttH . I am not doing anythin...

There is a drawback to writing a book with 700 pages worth of comprehensive discussion: It may not be very comprehensible! It still might not be very comprehensible even if we’re only talking about 125 of those pages--which is about how far I’ve gotten in Section Two of Sword to the Heart so far. So before I continue posting up chapters from that Section (and onward through the book), from now until Thanksgiving I thought I would try presenting the precepts I’ve been talking about once again, in a somewhat briefer and more colorful way--and maybe (hopefully!) in a way our readers will find more meaningful. Or at least easier to read. These auxiliary chapters are taken from just such a shorter book I wrote years ago, after finishing SttH. Which is why I called it “The Kodachi”: a shorter quicker sword. (A hundred pages quicker in this case!) Where should I begin, in summarizing a massive argument? Not only in summarizing, but in making it more accessible to people less concerned with ...