https://www.blogit.com/Blogs/Blog.aspx/mryan_author1126/This will be a blog devoted mostly to philosophical, religious, and other miscellaneous topics. There are no real limits as to what I will post here. Originally, it was going to be devoted to sci-fi and fantasy short stories, but I am no longer writing such. I am, however, writing short articles on philosophy and religion, and these I intend to post here. hourly12000-01-01T12:00+00:00https://www.blogit.com/Blogs/Blog.aspx/mryan_author1126/526227This is going to be my last entry on this blog for a while. Just a reminder that today is officially... okay, so maybe it's not official... it is the day I have decreed as "All Faiths' Day", February 29th. Light a candle to celebrate. We celebrate religious unity in a world divided.https://www.blogit.com/Blogs/Blog.aspx/mryan_author1126/525240******************************************************************* Greetings Readers, First, I want to apologize for not informing you sooner. I've been so burnt out recently, I lacked the desire and energy to post anything new on this blog. So, I will take an extended vacation until some...https://www.blogit.com/Blogs/Blog.aspx/mryan_author1126/521731When discussing suicide we should first discuss the possible reasons for committing suicide. These fall into two general groups. First, there are those people who suffer from some psychological disorder and wish to end their life because of extreme psychological depression. These are physically...https://www.blogit.com/Blogs/Blog.aspx/mryan_author1126/520546Throughout history a number of individuals have tried to prove the existence of God. Such attempts include the Ontological Argument, the Cosmological Argument, and the Argument from Design. I will not review each of these arguments here; I will only say that many modern philosophers consider each...https://www.blogit.com/Blogs/Blog.aspx/mryan_author1126/520309According to most religious people, God is omnipotent and omniscient. However, a careful application of certain logical principles to these claims leads to a number of paradoxes, which I will simply call Divine Paradoxes. For example, can God create a boulder He cannot lift? If He can, then He is...https://www.blogit.com/Blogs/Blog.aspx/mryan_author1126/520048Epistemology. The word brings shudders to one and all alike. Okay, maybe it doesn’t. But perhaps it should. Epistemology is the study of knowledge. In other words, it tries to answer the question of how do you know that you know. Perhaps one of the first serious attempts to answer this question...https://www.blogit.com/Blogs/Blog.aspx/mryan_author1126/518842The disciplines of philosophy and the disciplines of science are both rational pursuits. Each, however, goes about pursuing knowledge in totally different ways. Philosophy relies primarily on strict logic and analytical thinking… it is somewhat like mathematics, except that it uses words. Science...https://www.blogit.com/Blogs/Blog.aspx/mryan_author1126/518841When I was in high school, I believed in the certitude of Science. When I went to college, I studied philosophy and found rational grounds to question this certitude (for those who don’t believe me regarding this, I refer you to the philosophical “Problem of Perception”). This, more or less,...https://www.blogit.com/Blogs/Blog.aspx/mryan_author1126/518579When I was in college, my suitemates and I had many great debates regarding whether or not moral truth existed or not. I had a friend who was a die-hard relativist, and that was a position I was dead-set against. We argued constantly. I believed, and still do, that moral relativism is a dangerous...https://www.blogit.com/Blogs/Blog.aspx/mryan_author1126/518578A common phenomenon in religion is the miracle. Miracles appear in a variety of faiths; from Buddhism to Christianity to the Hindu mystics of India. Often they are reported to encourage the faithful to remain steadfast in their belief. Generally, when an individual performs a miracle great...