Philosophy

Anatomy of   Religious Violence The history of religion has been a seriously blood-bathed one. It reveals the intense power, weight, and depth of religion within the human heart. No wonder, the word “religion” itself comes from the Latin religare meaning “to bind”. Religion binds the adherent to its belief, authority, and community. It holds an intense power over the individual. Of course, there are several instances of religious faith opening itself to philosophical dialogues and investigations in the past. However, it is a fact undeniable that much of religious faith is a matter of faith alone and not rational discussion. Therefore, they have the potential to invite physical opposition by not submitting to any force of logic. That is why in some cases words are silenced by blows – with the sanction of some religious authority. Religious violence may be defined as violence committed in the name of religion. It is both intra-religious violence and inter-religious violence; i.e. vi...

Rational Analysis Truth is absolute, unchangeable, final. Future truth must also be absolute, unchangeable, and final. Therefore, future truth is necessary truth, not contingent. Empirical Analysis In those things which are not continuously actual, potentiality is multi-directional. Therefore, events don’t occur of necessity. Solution: Truth value in future statements exists as potentiality and not as necessity, since it is quantified by the now. This means that, future statements are contingent upon time. Past statements, however, are necessarily true or false, since they belong to an actualized time. Truth value is inseparable from phenomenon; phenomenon is inseparable from time.

Man's attempt to understand himself and his world around him can be divided into three ways: 1. The way of authority. Much of what we know is based on this secondary source of information. Newspapers, books, teachers, TV shows, social consensus, religious authority, Scriptures, etc are few examples of this. We have epistemic value tags for any given source claiming authority of knowledge. For instance, one might rate a popular newspaper as more credible than a not-so-popular newspaper. Some Indian schools of philosophy do not consider it right for Scriptural revelation to be treated at par with these other secondary sources (some even consider authority as subject to the way of reason for including interpretation, which is a way of reasoning). 2. The way of experience. This refers to sense-experience and also includes the mystic experience in the Indian philosophical classification (the word pratyaksha refers to direct or immediate perception). 3. The way of reason. Arithmetic a...

In his On Interpretations , chapter 9, Aristotle raises an important issue that relates to the application of the rules of bivalence and contradiction to statements about future. If the statement “there will be a sea fight tomorrow” is true now, then it implies that a sea fight is bound to happen tomorrow – though one may say that the statement is not the cause of the event, but only an assertion. Its contradictory statement “there will not be a sea fight tomorrow” would, therefore, be necessarily false.  Thus, necessity is predicated of both the statements: one is necessarily true while the other is necessarily false. This would mean that all events (past and future) are necessary and not fortuitous, meaning there were no unactualized possibilities. This went against Aristotle’s theory of potentiality and actuality; so, he considered propositions related to future as excepted from the rule of contradiction. If so, Jesus’ statement, “You will deny me thrice,” would not be subject to th...

But I say to you that whoever is angry with his brother without a cause shall be in danger of the judgment. And whoever says to his brother, “Raca!” shall be in danger of the council. But whoever says, “You fool!” shall be in danger of hell fire. (Matthew 5:22) Jesus points at three ways in which false faith in relation to our fellowmen can bring us in danger of God’s judgment. Matthew 5:22 illustrates these. 1. Irrational Infuriation.   Jesus said that anyone who was angry at his brother without reason [1] was in danger of judgment. There are two forms of anger in the Bible. One is rational while the other is irrational. The irrational form of anger comes from carnal-mindedness and a faulty perception. Rational anger, on the other hand, is just and expected. The difference between the two is simple. The former is purely a passion while the latter is primarily a judgment (i.e. moral reaction against sin). The former being carnal possesses wicked attributes like intemperance, irritabil...

‘The sense of the world must lie outside the world,’ said Ludwig Wittgenstein (1889-1951). The human problem is seeking sense of the world within the world or within one’s own self. But can man go beyond himself by himself? Can someone lift himself up by pulling up his bootstraps? The epistemic predicament of man has been just that in several cases: when he started from himself or nature he returned to himself or nature, to the extent that ‘man is the measure of all things’ was reflected in all his cogitations on man, God, and the world. A glance at monism, polytheism, materialism, and pantheism will demonstrate all that man can do to limit ultimate meaning to this-worldly-reality. This has also been true of Christian theology several times. The rational entanglements of scholastic theology in attempts to rationalize revelation, and the empirical obsessions of liberal, process, existential, and charismatic theologies reflect the segregated pursuits of two different epistemic streams ...

Thanatology (the study or science of death) is a vast subject; its literature incorporating a motley of massive corpus with a time span of above five thousand years. In Christian theology, it is treated under the division of Eschatology (the study or science of Last Things). Though, evidently, a significant subject, thanatology is, ironically, one of the least non-debatable subjects of the world. This is understandable, seeing that it also is one of the least verifiable disciplines of all disciplines. Yet, it is a significant one. It is significant because of the psychological problems it addresses like the shock of bereavement, the instinct of survival, fear of future, anxiety, etc. It is also significant because of the philosophical and theological problems it addresses, viz., “Why is there the phenomena of death,” “Why is there the fear of death,” and “Is there life after death: If yes, of what nature?” Its significance is also evidenced by its resurgence in drama, movie, literat...