Philosophy

"Tell a lie, speak it loudly, repeat it often, and the majority of people will believe it." ~ Adolf Hitler Sinister as this quote appears, deliberate lying is part of propaganda and advertisement all around. And, while people recognize much of it as false (for instance, an ad that shows women swarming on a man using a particular body spray), it is held that somehow the elevated picture one paints will have a psychologically deterministic noetic effect. But, are truth and determinism compatible? That is a vital question the answer to which will decide two things: 1. Whether humans have epistemic freedom; that is the choice to know. 2. Whether knowledge entails moral responsibility. While some sort of psychological determinism exists, as evident from experiments in group conformity, Milgram's authority experiments, and Piaget's experiments on cognitive ability with children, the determinism of psychology argues in support of uniformity of experience and not diversities ...

Contrary to popular assumptions that yoga is just about exercises, the Hindu scriptural text, Yoga Sutras declares yoga as the path to self-realization or union with God. The doctrines of karma, reincarnation, and spiritual powers are integral to the philosophy. If this aspect of philosophy is removed from yoga, then it becomes just a set of exercises and is no longer worthy of being called yoga. It would do injustice to call a set of exercises as "yoga" after subtracting from them the ground on which they are based. Therefore, the government of India website has tried to make it clear to the world to not misunderstand yoga as just a mere set of exercises (especially as the recently adopted International Day of Yoga on June 21 draws closer). The following are some statements quoted from the site. "Yoga is an invaluable gift of ancient Indian tradition. It embodies unity of mind and body; thought and action; restraint and fulfillment; harmony between man and nature and ...

Satapatha Brahmana Part II (SBE26) , Julius Eggeling tr. [1885], at sacred-texts.com There is no indication of temples in the Vedic period. Also, there is no record of idol worship in the Vedas. However, there is mention of altars. The altar ( vedi ) was considered to be earth’s extremest limit; and sacrifice, the navel of the world (RV.1.164.35). One of the altars was made to sit on the earth, was considered to be eye-shaped, and the sacrifice was directed sun-ward. Trimmed ladle was used to pour oil into the altar’s fire (RV.6.11.5). However, there were altars of various other shapes as well. B.G. Sidharth suggests a possible “connection between the fire altars in Turkmenistan (Togolok) and Afghanistan (Dashly) and the Harappan civilization, particularly Kalibangan, where there are seven fire altars, and also with the Harappan seal showing worship at a fire altar with seven accompanying deities.”[1] He tries to reconcile these archaeological discoveries with the concept of the seven ...

Max Mueller (1823-1900) There have been various interpretations of Vedic theology throughout history. But, one of the most original was suggested by Max Muller (1823-1900), an authority on the Sanskrit language and translator of several ancient scriptures, which helped him compare religions not only theologically but also linguistically. In his Lectures on the Origin and Growth of Religion as Illustrated by the Religions of India (1878), Max Muller considered Vedic religion to preliminarily involve mainly the worship of the Sky God or the Heavenly Father. He writes: Five thousand years ago, or, it may be earlier, the Aryans, speaking as yet neither Sanskrit, Greek, nor Latin, called him Dyu patar, Heaven-father. Four thousand years ago, or, it may be earlier, the Aryans who had travelled southward to the rivers of Penjab, called him Dyaush-pita, Heaven-father. Three thousand years ago, or, it may be earlier, the Aryans on the shores of the Hellespont, called him Ζευς πατηρ [Zeus pate...

Hubert Lederer Dreyfus (b. Oct 1929) is an American philosopher and professor of philosophy at the University of California, Berkeley. He has contributed much to the interpretation and analysis of Heidegger's philosophy. In recent times, his choice of an experience-based epistemic methodology has tended more towards a very pluralistic, anti-nihilist view; in fact, a reveling in Homeric polytheism as an inspiration for modern, revisited, or neo-polytheism. https://youtube.googleapis.com/v/1Q2Fsnj49GI&source=uds In Epistemics of Divine Reality , the conflict between reason and experience in the history of  the philosophy of religion has been identified. The conflict usually results in reason's tending to expel the empirical categories and choose a very metaphysical and, usually, monist or via negativa view of God. On the other hand, it also results in experience's tending to expel the rational categories and choose a very concrete, plural, this-wordly view of self and th...

Systematic theologies usually begin either with Theology Proper (the Doctrine of God) or Bibliology (the Doctrine of Revelation). The Classical method (chiefly of the rationalists) was to begin with the doctrine of God, first by establishing the existence of God through some rational argumentation. On the other hand, the Fideist method held that theology didn’t need to begin with reason at all; theology began from the Bible, God’s self-revelation to humanity. So, they usually began with establishing first the doctrine of divine revelation, i.e. with Bibliology. But, the inescapable problem again emerges: to try to establish the inspiration and infallibility of the Bible based on its own self-testimony would mean engaging in the informal question-begging fallacy: “I believe that the Bible is true because it is God’s Word, and what it says about itself as being God’s Word is true.” A question-begging fallacy doesn’t establish anything; it is like a man who tries to get higher by climbin...

THE ONTOLOGICAL ARGUMENT basically argues that to have the concept of "God" (even to use the term "God") and to assert the existence of God is the same thing. For Anselm, therefore, who first formulated the argument, the person who denies the existence of God is a fool; for using the very term "God" implies asserting God's existence; so, the denial is self-contradictory. Anselm, Descartes, and in recent times Plantinga have employed various versions of the ontological argument. Whatever be the version, the general progress of an ontological argument is from the rational to the real. The two main versions, namely the analytical (that predicates existence to the concept of God) and the modal (that conceives of divine possibility as actuality) attempt to prove that the denial of divine existence is logically self-contradictory; for if the concept of God is possible, then His existence must of necessity be actual, they hold. An important critique was made...