It’s clear that man cannot know this on his own. The human mind does not acquire any idea except by experience. Experience can teach us neither what was before our existence, nor what happens after, nor what animates our present existence. How were we given life? How is it maintained? How does the brain hold ideas and memory? How do our limbs instantly obey our will? We don’t know. Is this the only world with life? Was it made after other worlds or in the same moment? Does each species of plant originate from a first plant? Is every species of animal descended from an original two of its kind? The greatest philosophers don’t know more on these matters than the most ignorant. We must return to the popular proverb: “Which came first, the chicken or the egg?” The proverb is unsophisticated, but it confounds the wisest who know nothing about first principles without supernatural assistance. "

[Francois-Marie Arouet(Voltaire) : (French Philosopher , Writer) : From " Poem on Lisbon Disaster"]

“Either human intelligence ultimately owes its origin to mindless matter; or there is a Creator. It is strange that some people claim that it is their intelligence that leads them to prefer the first to the second.”

[(John Lennox) : Professor of Mathematics]

David you believe in God and argue for God's existence part of that is attacking those who would deny God's existence atheist so when you hear a theistic arguments what are your reactions to them?
David Bentley Hart: it depends on how good they are in recent years we've we've seen a little cottage industry spring up in in marketing very bad arguments for atheism so then my reaction is ill-concealed scorn let's differentiate let's start with the the bad arguments what are some of those I mean the sort of arguments you you you say you would find in Richard Dawkins in which you know he clearly misunderstands claims about ontological contingency and thinks you can conjure them away by having a sufficiently comprehensive cosmology you know or that he when he says something like evolution answers the question of existence is it that that's actually something he says I mean you realized there that you're dealing with category errors so so profound that they verge on the infinite so those are bad arguments and in general I my list of fine atheist philosophers in the twentieth century is a small one Macke would probably be it really was so Bowl that would be they in the english-speaking world I think there was a greater age of atheism in the 19th century profounder arguments simply because they were based on a deeper knowledge of what what was what they were attacking Nietzsche Nietzsche understood Christianity not every aspect of it I mean he had a distinctly Protestant view of it generally but his attacks were an attack directly on the ethos and the self understanding of Christianity on the whole though I think the only really solvent atheist argument isn't one from modal logic or or from any of the sort of questions what the the are typically classified in philosophy of religion as being about the existence of God I think it's the argument from evil you know that's the one that I don't think can be shown to be internally incoherent that you know we we exist in a world of monstrous evil and monstrous suffering and the theists traditions as one tell us that behind all this is a God of infinite justice mercy love and intellect and there seems to be such an implausible contrast between experience and that claim that that if nothing else even if logically that doesn't do away with the notion of an absolute it certainly seems to do away or could do away potentially with vast regions of the typical theistic picture of God.


and in that the argument from evil which is the atheistic argument it would be both naturalistic Evo which is is non sin if you will who is earthquakes but when a child dies with cancer right right or or if you go back further animal suffering during hundreds of billions of years of evolution it was a continuous pain and suffering for for animals and so you have to deal with both of those and so what's how do you deal with that?
David Bentley Hart: generally try to avoid it.but...

shows it's a good argument if you try to avoid it?


David Bentley Hart: well you see as I say it succeeds not at the level of the logic of ontology say but it definitely succeeds at the level of devotion and moral theology all traditions all of them start from the assumption that there's something broken something has gone wrong in creation and its relation to God that has are there a moral or a spiritual root I mean I'm no patience for fundamentalists so obviously I don't believe that 6000 years ago there was a specific transgression involving a snake but I do believe that that and the other legends of the fall which is sort of a universal human type of story do touch upon a sense that that leaks the reality we experience and all of its dimensions even in those that in terms of cosmic history preceded the human have to do with an original alienation from God the nature of which is impossible to understand except in light of its negation which would be reconciliation with God but it's not an argument I ever tried to slight or pass all is this the one argument I never pretend can be swept away or defeated and it's the one I for which I

hold the greatest respect and the one that I find intermittently convincing my self..

“Most people learn nothing from experience, except confirmation of their prejudices.“

— Bertrand Russell, The Lessons of Experience, 23 September 1931

When you find human society disagreeable and feel yourself justified in flying to solitude, you can be so constituted as to be unable to bear the depression of it for any length of time, which will probably be the case if you are young. Let me advise you, then, to form the habit of taking some of your solitude with you into society, to learn to be to some extent alone even though you are in company; not to say at once what you think, and, on the other hand, not to attach too precise a meaning to what others say; rather, not to expect much of them, either morally or intellectually, and to strengthen yourself in the feeling of indifference to their opinion, which is the surest way of always practicing a praiseworthy toleration. If you do that, you will not live so much with other people, though you may appear to move amongst them: your relation to them will be of a purely objective character. This precaution will keep you from too close contact with society, and therefore secure you against being contaminated or even outraged by it. Society is in this respect like a fire-the wise man warming himself at a proper distance from it; not coming too close, like the fool, who, on getting scorched, runs away and shivers in solitude, loud in his complaint that the fire burns. ~Arthur Schopenhauer

(Book: Essays and Aphorisms https://amzn.to/3KUHaI1)

(Art: Photograph by Kees Scherer)

" The aim of Philosophy is to Clarify and The aim of Literature is to mystify. The novelist is trying to creat an illusion while the Philosopher is trying to destroy an illusion. Literature tries to involve the writer and the reader ; while Philosophy is a narrowly intellectual activity. Literature is emotion inclusive while Philosophy is emotion - exclusive. "

[Bryan Mage : British Philosopher , Politician and Author : Interview with Iris Murdoch , Philosophy Vs Literature.]

For Hegel ...

" Human beings cannot have an identity without Social or Cultural background. Human beings are social creatures that depend on others to be who they are. The only way we could see ourselves is through our reflection in others. ....

The sense that we want acknowledgement, status , appreciation , ... shows that our human nature has social core. "

[G. W. F. Hegel on Human Nature : German Philosopher]

The world that scientists, who stand on the position of physicalist objectivism, speak about turns out to be not an objective world at all, i.e., a world independent of human consciousness, but an intersubjective world, i.e., the world of intersubjectively experienced objects. The objects of scientific research are intersubjective objects, and scientists do not know and cannot in principle know any other objects, just as the whole of humanity cannot know any other objects.

— Yaroslav Slinin on Husserl’s transcendental idealism/phenomenology

Socratic Method ....

A method used by the Great Philosopher Socrates. " Socratic Method " is used by Socrates to enable a person to reflect his ideas. Socrates asks sharp questions to help him dig out the deepest belief of a given person on a certain subject and most of the time the person might find his deepest ideas conflicting with his initial ones.

(From Philosophy Overdose)

" Schopenhauer argues that what is ultimate in this world of phenomenon (living experience) is energy. He says that the underlying metaphysics is whatever manifests itself as this energy and through out the cosmos (stars , solar system , In animals , In trees , In falling stones , In ourselves , In everything ...) ; It is the Unconscious energy that forms rooms , makes our organs work while we are asleep and so on. I understand him saying that the nearest we come to getting any glimering to what that is in experience is the experience we have inside ourselves of the energy that goes forth the will to exist , the will to survive ... That is ultimate, irreducible push or drive and underlying to everythingelse. "

[Bryan Magee (British Philosopher) Reflection on Arthur Schopenhauer's Metaphysics : Philosophy Overdose]

" Principle of sufficient reason says that For every Truth there must be a reason why it is so and not otherwise. In other words Everything has a cause. This principle rules out that the possibility that certain things might just happen or be for no reason whatsoever. Now we may not know what that reason or cause is but nonetheless we could be assured that there must be one. Principle of sufficient reason is very controversial principle that has and still continued to divided philosophers. "

[Principle of Sufficient Reason : G. W. Leibniz (German Philosopher) : From Philosophy Overdose]

" Kant's Epistemology is the product of the Enlightenment. Philosophers of the enlightenment rejected the idea that we should depend on religious or secular authorities. Rather they believed that each of us could find the Truth by his/her own by using Reason. ... Kant said that ' Humans reached maturity because they aren't obedient to a higher authority like God or the Monarch but they were their own highest authority. "

[Immanuel Kant on Enlightenment : From Philosophy Overdose]

“Every powerful emotion has its own myth-making tendency. When the emotion is peculiar to an individual, he is considered more or less mad if he gives credence to such myths as he has invented. But when an emotion is collective, as in war or disease, there are few to correct the myths that naturally arise. Consequently in all times of great collective excitement unfounded rumors obtain wide credence. This myth-making faculty is often allied with cruelty. Such myths give an excuse for the infliction of torture, and the unfounded belief in them is evidence of the unconscious desire to find some victim to persecute.“

— Bertrand Russell, Unpopular Essays (1950), Ch. XII: An Outline of Intellectual Rubbish, p. 81

━━
Unpopular Essays is a collection of Bertrand Russell’s more controversial works, reaffirming his liberal values. Written to “combat the growth in dogmatism“ on first publication in 1950 it met with critical acclaim and a wide readership.

“Is it surprising that prisons resemble factories, schools, barracks, hospitals, which all resemble prisons?”

— Michel Foucault, Discipline and Punish (1977)

~ Chapter 1: Theocracy, Sobornost’, and Democracy

~ Chapter 2: The Russian Postsecular

~ Chapter 3: Orthodoxy and Phenomenology

~ Chapter 4: Orthodox Theology and the Inevitability of Metaphysics

~ Chapter 5: Orthodox Theology and Philosophy of Self

~ Chapter 6: Orthodoxy and Logic

~ Chapter 7: Orthodoxy, Philosophy, and Ethics

~ Chapter 8: Orthodoxy and Philosophy of Language

Christian Epistemology is Relational Ontology !