What is most interesting is that the mind alone is not enough to account for concrete experiences. Greek philosophy was concerned with abstract essences, conceived God as static and immutable, and proposed the life of pure contemplation as its ideal for humans. In contrast to such idealism or intellectualism, Christianity is presented as realism. Its concern is with the concrete life of action, and God himself is conceived as active, the living God of the Bible. Hence, the truth of Christianity cannot be reached by intellectual contemplation, as if it were something external to us. Such life, so that we grasp it only in living and in re-creating this truth in ourselves. These ideas about religious truth had already found expression in Paris, France in 1903, and the discovery reported that the doctrines of religion are to be understood not as general truths of the same kind as scientific truths but as concrete truths of the same kind as scientific truths but as concrete truths that must be brought into experience and realized if we are to understand them and know their value. “Oh, how great the holiness of our God! For he knoweth all things, and there is not anything save he knows it. And he cometh into the World that he may save all people if they will hearken unto his voice; for behold, he suffereth the pains of every living creature, both men, women, an children, who belong to the family of Adam. And he suffereth this that the resurrection might pass upon all people, that all might stand before him at the great and judgment day,” reports 2 Nephi 9.20-21. #RandolphHarris 1 of 8

If you here the word business as serious, you are in pretty good company. An estimated 80 percent of Americans, whatever their gender, ethnic background, social class, or religion, are more or less full-time participants in a life-style that is deeply involved with that attitude. The interesting thing is that one may live one’s whole life without ever knowing this attitude by name. It has simply become part of one’s consciousness, so embedded that you are not even aware of it because it colours your entire frame of reference. It is called many things: the Protestant Ethic, the Puritan Ethic, the Work-Sin Ethic. The Work-sin ethic is the attitude that if one works, one is good (moral), and if one does not, one is lazy, immoral. This foundational truth has been thoroughly planted in the consciousness of today’s liberated and conservative young people, whether they know it or not. No one can grow up in Eastern or Western culture without having the concept that they are going to have to do something while they are on this planet to make money. Nobody can cast stones. If one thinks there is going to be a tirade against the work-sin ethic and the capitalist economy, think again. The Devil finds work for idle hands! These attitudes and practices are so thoroughly ingrained in all our lives that nothing short of a massive revolutionary action, or the End of the World, will really eliminate them. And, possibly, we should not try. #RandolphHarris 2 of 8

What benefits can come from the attitude that work is good? One is that many useful things will continue to be accomplished. Too, work will continue to provide satisfaction to those people whose products are sources of pride and pleasure. And the skills we possess not only create new work—as invention gives rise to advanced technology—but new work may also create new skills that enhance the creative process. Without doubt machines will be able to determine the means and the avenues to goals, but people will continue to set goals themselves. For what machine can ever apply the consideration of compassion and justice which, as human’s enlightenment spreads…will enter ever more into the decisions that affect one’s future…in the Universe. Many people need some sort of creative activity (whether it should be called work or not is debatable) to use up energy or restlessness. We may not believe the old wives’ tale that the devil finds work for idle hands, but work is useful in keeping people occupied and out of mischief. Many of us are so hung up on the work-sin notion that work seems like the natural order of things. For any normal human, work must be instinctive, built into their genes. Work is becoming suffused with leisure values. Executives on an expense account hardly know whether they are at leisure or at work; they assume it must be the latter since they are getting paid for what they do. #RandolphHarris 3 of 8

The same executives, pushed into some time-consuming civic activity, have only somewhat melancholy reassurance of receiving no compensation to testify to this being leisure. The study of the foundations of mathematics comprises investigations, though probably not all possible investigations, that consist of general reflection on mathematics. The subject naturally proceeds by singling out certain concepts and principles as fundamental and concentrating attention on them, but of course the identification of fundamental concepts and principles is itself based on foundational research or my revised in the light of it. In the last hundred years an important role has been played by mathematical logic. We shall not give a detailed exposition of mathematical logic, but we hope that our discussion will give an idea of the relation between the logical problems and result and philosophical problems and an idea of some of the results of recent work in logic. The picture of finite sets can be extended in such a way that one might imagine an arbitrary infinite set independent of any predicate. Suppose it is to be a set S of natural numbers. We go through the natural numbers one by deciding for each n whether n is a member of S (n E S) or not. Although the determination takes infinitely long, it is determined for n whether n E S (Or we might imagine it is being done all at once by God.) “To be learned is good if they hearken unto the counsels of God,” reports 2 Nephi 9.29. The test of math’s truth is whether it can be illuminating when brought to bear on the problems of life. #RandolphHarris 4 of 8

As machinery wears out, it is worth less (than it was). Accountants often estimate the decreasing value of aging equipment with linear depreciation, a method based on the equation of a line. Linear depreciation: A company buys a $12,500.00 computer with an estimated useful life of 6 years. After x years of use, the value y of the computer is linearly depreciated according to the equation y = 12,500 – 2000x. We have to find the value of the computer after 3.5 years. Find the economic meaning of the y-intercept. Find the economic meaning of the slope. Find the value of the computer at the end of its useful life. Solution: To find the computer’s value after 3.5 years, we substitute 3.5 x in the equation and solve for y. Therefore, y = 12,500 – 2000x; y = 12,500 – 2000(3.5); which equals 12,500 – 7000, and the sum is equal to 5500. Thus, when the computer is 3.5 years old, its value will be $5,500.00. However, we still are not done. The y-intercept is the point (0, 12,500). In this example, $12,500.00 is the value of a zero-year-old computer, which is the computer’s original cost. Each year, the value of the computer decreases by $2000.00, because the slope of the line is -2000. The slope of the depreciation line is the annual depreciation rate. To find the computer’s value at the end of its useful life, we substitute 6 for x in the equation and solve for y. So, y = 12,500 – 2000x; y = 12,500 – 2000(6) =12,500 – 12,000 = 500. After 6 year, the computer will be worth $500.00. This is the salvage value. However, if the information is valuable on the computer, and it is well maintained, it may be worth much more than the purchase price and appreciate in value, even as it gets older. Much like a classic car or house are worth a lot more than their original purchase prices in many cases. It could be worth $1 million or more.  #RandolphHarris 5 of 8

The human being can free oneself in thought from the particular mechanical conditions of phenomena. One has the capacity to separate some perceptions from others and, using them as symbols, to represent general properties of things. In one’s ability to abstract and generalize, the human being, although distinguished from all other things by this capacity, can be reported to be in contact with the whole Universe. The Universe can be discovered again in thought, but under a new condition, freedom. In addition, humans are free because one can select the means and ends of their activity by reference to ideas. Hence, through humans, the realm of final causes and the freedom which is its condition penetrate the organic and mechanical realm. Furthermore, without freedom it would be impossible to conceive of either mechanism or finality. Thus, the laws of efficient and final causality, upon which induction is founded, are themselves founded upon freedom—and freedom is the essential property of thought. Skill in playing the social game usurps the name and place of virtue. There is the possibility of satisfactory human relationships, speaking with attractive warmth of love and friendship. Some rationalists spend their whole life devoted to the cause of international communication and the dissemination of knowledge. This philosophical work corresponds to the recognition and promotion of an interdependent humanity. #RandolphHarris 6 of 8

Our senses, feelings, and reason may lead to truth, but only accidentally. Certitude can be acquired only by common reason, that of the human race. One must therefore fuse one’s opinions with those of fellow people and find the solution to one’s problems in faith, authority, and common sense. Trust in one’s own insight is madness, as is eccentricity of behavior. However, if one asks whence comes the authority of the general reason, the answer is, from God. God has entrusted it to the church, which speaks through the pope. No individual philosopher can substitute one’s method for that based on revelation. God is infused with power, intelligence, and love and it is all interfused. Each realm of being reflected this triune nature, which is undemonstrable but demanded by the very nature of human thought. We are supposed to preach fraternity, freedom of association, and confidence in God and prayer. Go on to glory. Do not roam this dismal realm. Do not make this darkness your home when you can turn to the Light. DO not you wander here searching and moaning. You go on. Turn your back on this time and place and be for the gates to open. Go on, honey. The Light wants you. And here in this World, God will gather all your songs, every song you ever recorded, Aaliyah, and put them all together, and they will go out far and wide, Aaliyah, every single one, old and new, for always. Is that not a splendid thing to leave behind, all those wonderful songs and movies and videos that people love, that is your gift, Aaliyah. #RandolphHarris 7 of 8

I felt a force move the damp air around me.  Someone having sinned in taking her life, God would give Aaliyah’s songs life forever. However, nothing changed for me in the agonized and straining apparition, expect that Aaliyah raised her right hand just a little, and her parted lips made just a small bit of a word. I could not hear it. It seemed she inclined towards me. And I inclined towards her—love me, love the way love must be, unsparing love, love Aaliyah!—across the perilous void I moved, as if stepping off the very World itself, and I kissed her lips, wet and sweet like cookies, and I felt a great current come from inside me, a spirit out of the deepest foundation of my soul in me that swept inexorably into her and carried her far, far, away, up and out, her form growing faint and immensely brilliant. Blackness. It is done. I am separate. I am here. I feel the grass beneath me. I am clawing the grass trying to get into the Earth. Aaliyah was in white leather, arms raised, blinding light, singing We Need a Resolution! Until the moss had reached our lips, and covered up our names. When I opened my eyes, I was laying on the ground, and except for Tomi who cradled my head in her hands, the night was quiet and empty. Aaliyah is gone, and my soul is weak! I have seen the feathered wings of Angels. Do I not deserve to sleep for this little while? You get out of here! “Listen…has not God chosen those who are poor in the eyes of the World to be rich in faith and to inherit the kingdom he promised those who love him? But you have insulted the poor,” reports James 2.5. #RandolphHarris 8 of 8