Plans are afoot! Itineraries are set, tickets are bought, rooms at the Langham in London are booked, and I am ready to step on that boat. The question is, are you? You may have struggles in an area, your healthy, your finances, with a relationship, for a long time and you keep wondering, will this ever change? God is saying: Yes. A shift is coming. What shift are you believing God will do in your life? This was of conceiving of the human will has provided what is virtually a standard solution to the problem of moral evil—this is, to the problem of reconciling the occasional turpitude of humans with the presumed goodness of their creator—but beyond that hardly any philosophers have agreed with it. Probably no other indeterminists, for instance, has described the freedom of the human will as unlimited. The perception of truth is one and the same thing with the knowledge of it, and one cannot therefore have a true idea without at the same time knowing that one has a true idea. #RyanPhillippe 1 of 9

The idea of a free will is conceived of as a will that is not determined by anything else. It appears to apply that people’s choices are completely random and capricious, utterly mysterious and inexplicable. If people really have spontaneous swerves of atoms, uncaused assents, dissents, and choices that are free in the sense of being casually undetermined and if human behavior is to be explained itself would have to be random, capricious, and utterly inexplicable so it does not do violence to human’s conception of liberty. Voluntary action is caused by such an inner event as volition, motive, desire, choice, or the like; conceiving of an involuntary action as one that is caused by some state or event external to the agent; and then defining a free action not as a causally undetermined one but as one that is not involuntary or constrained. One acts voluntarily and freely, then in doing what one wills, prefers, or chooses. #RyanPhillippe 2 of 9

God’s foreknowledge constitutes no threat whatsoever to human’s free will. God foresees all events because they are going to occur; they do not occur just because just because he has foreseen them. Thus, God’s prescience is like man’s memory. The fact that someone remembers an event does not render that event necessary or involuntary, and the same is true with respect to God’s foreknowing an event. There is difficulty in the notion of God’s foreknowing that someone will be happy, from which one can hardly conclude that such a person must be happy against one’s own will. Many of the other events God foreknows are things which, as God knows, depend upon the wills for their happening, from which it follows that they are both foreknown and willed—that is, voluntary. Most of the apparent difficulties in reconciling divine prescience with human freedom seem to evaporate in any case as soon as one comprehends the nature of God’s eternity. #RyanPhillippe 3 or 9

The distinctions of before and after, which are essential to determinism, have no application to God. His eternity is not an everlastingness but, rather, an existence that is altogether independent of time. God therefore sees the whole of history in a manner similar to that in which we view the present, and from this point of view one is not easily tempted to suppose that God’s knowledge imposes any determination on things to come. Father, thank you that you can control the whole Universe and nothing is too hard for you. I believe that you have given me gifts and talents that I have not tapped into and there are new levels of my destiny to which you are taking me. Thank you that you are breathing in my direction, shifting the wind of my life, and taking me where I could not have gone on my own. I expect to see your hands of unprecedented favor working in ways exceedingly, abundantly, above and beyond my greatest dreams. Suddenly, a dream comes to pass. Suddenly, a promise is fulfilled. Suddenly, things turn around and become good. One has to get ready for the surpassing greatness of God’s favor! #RyanPhillippe 4 of 9

All laws are based on rewards and punishments and thus rest upon the assumption that people’s motives can be relied upon to have a regular influence on their behavior. There would be no point in appealing to such motives as fear and hope if nothing could be predicted from their operation. Justice, moreover, requires such an operation of motives, for no person could be a fit object of punishment if one’s actions were in no way traceable to one’s motives. Indeed, if one could not rely upon the constant and predictable operation of motives, all intercourse with one’s fellows would be hazardous or impossible. One could not even invite a guest to his dinner table with any confidence of not being robbed by him, for the knowledge of his honesty and friendliness would in that case provide no assurance. Sometimes, to be sure, people are robbed or murdered when they had every reason to expect otherwise; however, people are also sometimes destroyed by Earthquakes like the one in 18 April 1906 in San Francisco, California USA, that struck at 5.13am, and left a 400 miles long path of destruction and the like when they had no reason to expect it. #RyanPhillippe 5 of 9

No one concludes from this that Earthquakes are without any causes. Determinism, then, does not imply that all human behavior is predictable in the most straightforward sense of the term, for many unpredictable things are nevertheless causally determined. A person might not know why his watch stopped and might not have been able to predict that it was going to stop, but this is only because the cause is hidden from him. He does not suppose that there was no cause at all. Similarly, a normally genial man might on occasion be peevish, but this is only due to some cause—some intestinal disorder, for instance—that is hidden from other and perhaps even from himself. Therefore, one’s action may be caused and also be free. You may have difficulties that look extremely large, obstacles that look impassible, or dreams that look unattainable. However, know this: When God releases a flood of His power, nothing will be able to stop you. That aliment may look big, but when God releases a flood of healing, it does not stand a chance. Your opposition may be stronger, better financed, better equipped, but when God opens up the floodgates, they will be no match for you. #RyanPhillippe 6 of 9

You may not have the connection to accomplish your dreams. You do not know the right people. You do not have the funding. However, when God releases a flood of favor, people will come out of the woodwork (appear suddenly and unexpectedly) to help you out. You will not have to look for them. Good breaks, opportunity, and the right people will all search you out. You are not required to get ready, not for a trickle, not a stream, not a river, but for a flood of God’s favor, a tidal wave of God’s goodness, a tsunami of His increase. God is going to take you to a level that you have never been before. It will be unprecedented. You will go father and quicker than you ever dreamed. God will heal you. God will promote you. God will protect you. God will visit your house. What are you expecting? What are you believing for? Would you ever release faith in something that big? Dare to believe. I pray that your hearts will be flooded with light so that you can understand the confident hope he has given to those he called—his holy people who are his rich and glorious inheritance. However many blessings we expect from God, His infinite liberty will always exceed all our wishes and our thoughts. God is always trying to give good things to us, make sure your hands are free to receive them. I want to know God’s thoughts. The rest are details. #RyanPhillippe 7 of 9

The omniscience of God has likewise seemed to many thinkers to imply the inevitability of everything that happens. The World emanates from God as the consequence of his self-knowledge, which awareness necessitates the existence of another intellect, soul, and the first Heaven. Father, this word is for me today. I am raising my expectations. I am shaking off doubt, negativity, disappointments, self-pity, little dreams, and little goals. I thank you that you want to do something new, something amazing in my life. You are God, this God of the breakthrough who has first place in my life. I believe that you are about to flood my life with your goodness. I am believing you will open to the windows to your Heavens and pour out tidal waves of increase and joy and healing and mercy and blessings that cannot be stopped. In the prescience of the equinoxes, there is another Heavenly sphere beyond the fixed stars, and the number of intellects of ten. The number of intellects is equal to the number of Heavens. These are the celestial intellects to God, they derive their existence from God and are arranged in an ontological and normative hierarch corresponding to their proximity to God. #RyanPhillippe 8 of 9

God is not only the prime mover but also the cause of existence. The celestial intellects, in turn, although deriving their existence from God, cause other existents and act as teleological causes. Thus, in each of the triads the Heavenly body is moved by its soul through the soul’s desires for the intellect. The souls differ from the intellects in that they have a material aspect enabling them to have direct influence over particulars in the sublunary World and to know them in their particularity. Neither God nor the celestial intellects have this direct influence and know these particulars only in a Universal way. The body is the soul’s instrument, which the soul must use for perfecting itself through the attainment of theoretical knowledge. Theoretical knowledge can control the body and souls that live pure lives adhering to the commands of the revealed law. With the body’s corruption (death), the soul separates to exist eternally as an individual. Souls that have led pure lives and have actualized their potentialities continue in eternal bliss, contemplating the celestial principles. The imperfect souls, tarnished by the body, continue in eternal torment, vainly seeking their bodies, which were once the instruments of perfect. #RyanPhillippe 9 of 9

God knows which of the mutually inconsistent propositions is true since he is omniscient. Even though they are attending college, many women seem to limit themselves to traditional courses of study, like modern languages, literature, and home economics.  Not many geologist, engineers, or mechanics. It is a Universal truth—albeit a questionable one. However, we are now entering an age where women work in professions previously prohibited. There are now many women who have proven themselves competent as doctors, scientists, and business women. Now that the doors are open, women are rushing to gain entrance. They want to win the Nobel Prize like Marie Curie. They are no longer satisfied learning how to dress a roast chicken. Of course, everyone is welcome to their interests, and perhaps there are women who truly desire to learn nothing more than chicken-dressing and home economics, and that is fine. Some men find women who have studied chemistry or geology less fit as a helpmeet than a woman who has studied literature. Although we are moving into more-enlightened times, some men are still very traditional and like a homemaker to make himself safe and loved. #RyanPhillippe 1 of 9

Nevertheless, with more co-educational universities, a woman can go to college and study what she pleases. She can even go ahead and find a “radical” new job, working as a scientist, meteorologist, or an academic. However, when she becomes a mother, some women may give up all that, but there are cases where women go back to work and become homemakers after a child is born. Sometimes Pedagogy and Equality are trumped by Maternity because some men are shamed for not supporting their wives, and children care can be really expensive, even for women with professional degrees, so it is often times more cost effect for a woman to stay at the house and take care of the kids. Now, I will give you that women seem to be much netter at raising children than men ar. Lord knows, my father would have made a mess-up of the thing if he had been in charge. However, children grow up, move away. Why should not a woman be able to pursue a career in life? We live in some called a “World Class City,” and everyone here seems to be rich. They can afford $13 for a single beer, $6,000.00 for a skybox at a basketball game, and spending $3,650.00 on a three-bedroom apartment is no problem. #RyanPhillippe 2 of 9

Nevertheless, I hope for a wife who has more-interesting things to talk about than roasting chickens. Someone who reads the same things that I do and wonders about the same questions. Someone who is drug and alcohol free. And maybe even someone who thinks the exact opposite of how I think, but does not mind a lively debate and loves me just the same. My mother say that men can do a find job at raising children because my niece and daughter enjoy adore me, so I must be doing something right with the child, and my son seems so proud and happy. I have confidence in my ability to raise children, to care for them longer than it takes to tell a fairy story, but I also want the freedom to not be responsible for a baby. It is nice to visit with them, but my focus in life is my career. Women has something innate, something that allows them to be mothers. I am not quite sure what it is. Women are much more selfless than men. They have patience and a generous spirit. A woman could get all of the degrees in home economics she wishes, but even without having been to college, she can still run a household and become a mothers. #RyanPhillippe 3 of 9

I know some people may find the things I say merely rankling or downright infuriating. However, it really does seem that the Great Almighty had the foresight to know what would be required of the housewife of the twenty-first century and reserved part of the brain for pie-making, good at cooking, and darning socks. Perhaps men are born with only half a brain, with something vital missing because we are not necessarily good at these things and cannot always be selfless. God did sacrifice his son to save the World, right? And I guess because the Ultimate man gave so much to save the World is why men feel they are not expected to be homemakers, and that no one should begrudge a man his pint after a day’s work or the chance to put his feet up in front of the fire or even the opportunity just to sit with the newspaper in the mornings. However, if a mother wants to take an hour off or a walk, a quiet mug of tea, or (Heaven for-bid!) a visit to a friend’s, there will be an outcry. Mothers are not supposed to be away from their children or houses. They are supposed to be completely selfless. A good mother would never eat the last slice of cake. #RyanPhillippe 4 of 9

Times are changing and I am happy with what I have. I cannot give anymore of myself. If I had a bairn clinging to my legs, I would not be able to go on my jaunts through the mountains. Work as I pleased. Dash to Japan, then back to Beverly Hills. I would not be able to sit for hours staring at the waves, writing poetry. I would not be able to get by with cooking only salads and Christmas pudding. I could not stay up late, watching the stars move across the sky, or wake up early to walk the hills until the Sun explodes over the horizon. You cannot tell me that I could still have all of that with babies in tow. My kids are autonomous; they are almost grown. And I could never give up that last slice of cake. Independence makes a man greedy. God knows what will come to pass, but his knowing does not cause anything to happen. Again, a man might at one and the same time see another man walking and the Sun changing angles in the sky; yet the man’s walking can be voluntary, whereas the Sun’s rising is not. This is the manner in which God views all things from the perspective of eternity as the simultaneous and complete possession of infinite life. In such a conception there is no suggestion of time, and God must thus see all things in a manner similar to that in which we view things spread out in a given moment. #RyanPhillippe 5 of 9

As I walked around Holyrood Park three time, I stopped in Saint Mary’s Cathedral, thinking about the realm of possibilities in the Universe and how it has been discovered that the motions of the Heavenly bodies are not only regular but also “obeyed” certain laws which could be expressed with mathematical exactness. The idea has taken that all things in nature, men included, behave according to inviolable and unchanging laws of nature, and this is not only plausible, but reasonable, and almost inevitable. I do wish I had a bit of adventure myself. I am still grounded until my wrist is all mended. So, instead of being off flying, I am back lurking around the Cathedral. Can I be your Watson? (Dr. Watson is a typical Victorian-era gentleman, unlike the more eccentric Sherlock Holmes. He is as thin as a lath and as brown as a mixed latte. He is strongly built, of a stature either above average or slightly above average, and very intelligent). Not long ago, we were dealing with an extraordinarily delicate matter that was most difficult to discuss. This gentleman married some five years ago a Peruvian lady, the daughter of a Peruvian merchant, who he had met in connection with the importation of nitrates. The lady was very beautiful, but the fact of her foreign birth and of her alien religion always caused a separation of interest between husband and wife, so at the time his love may have cooled towards her and he may have come to regard their union as a mistake. He felt there were sides of her character which he could never explore or understand. This was the more painful as she was as loving a wife as a man could have—to all appearances absolutely devoted. #RyanPhillippe 6 of 9

When I met her, the lady began to show some curious traits quite alien to her ordinarily sweet and gentle disposition. The gentleman had been married twice and he had one son by the first wife. The boy was now fifteen, a very charming and affectionate youth, though unhappily injured through an accident in childhood. Twice the wife was caught in the act of assaulting this poor lad in the must unprovoked way. Once she struck him with a stick ad left a great weak in his arm. This was a small matter, however, compared with her conduct to her own child, a dear boy just under one year of age. On one occasion, about a month ago this child had been left by its nurse for a few minutes. A loud cry came from the baby, as of pain, called the nurse back. As she ran into the room she saw her employer, the lady, leaning over the baby and apparently biting his neck. There was a small wound in the neck from which a stream of blood escaped. The nurse was so horrified that she wished to call the husband, but the lady implored her not to do so and actually gave her five pounds as a price for her silence. No explanation was every given, and for the moment the matter was passed over. #RyanPhillippe 7 of 9

It left, however, a terrible impression upon the nurse’s mind, and from that time she began to watch her mistress closely and to keep a closet guard upon the baby, whom she tenderly loved. It seemed to her that even as she watched the mother, so the mother watched her, and that every time she was compelled to leave the baby alone the mother was waiting to get it. Day and night the nurse covered the child, and day and night the silent, watchful mother seemed to be lying in wait as a wolf waits for a lamb. It must read most incredible to you, and yet I beg you to take it seriously, for a child’s life and a man’s sanity may depend upon it. At last there came one dreadful day when the facts could no longer be concealed from the husband. The nurse’s nerve had given way; she could stand the strain no longer, and she made a clean breast of it all to the man. To him it seemed as wild a take as it may now seem to you. He knew his wife to be a loving wife, and, save for the assaults upon her stepson, a loving mother. Why, then, should she wound her own dear little baby? He told the nurse she was dreaming, that her suspicious were those of a lunatic, and that such libels upon her mistress were not to be tolerated. #RyanPhillippe 8 of 9

While they were talking a sudden cry of pain was heard. While they were talking a sudden cry of pain was heard. Nurse and master rushed together into the nursery. Imagine his feelings as he saw his wife rise from a kneeling position besides the cot and saw blood upon the child’s exposed neck and upon the sheet. With a cry of horror, he turned his wife’s face to the light and saw blood all round her lips. It was she—she beyond question—who had drunk the poor baby’s blood. O as the matter stands. She is now confined to her room. There has been no explanation. The husband is half demented. He knows, and I know, little of vampirism beyond the name. We had thought it was some wild tale of foreign parts. He more or less ceased thinking of human actions and other events as determined by moral considerations or by an eternal and immutable God and began thinking of them as determined by eternal and immutable laws of nature. To know what is true, attain genuine knowledge, ad choose rightly, one needs only to confine the assent of the will to what is clearly and distinctly perceived by the understanding as true or good. God cannot therefore be blamed for human’s errors. He endowed humans with understanding adequate for the perception of truth and with a will that is absolutely unlimited in its freedom to accept what is true and reject what is doubtful or false. There is some bit of a sandal. Thank goodness for curiosity. #RyanPhillippe 9 of 9

Do not spend the rest of your life looking for ghost.  Treasure the time we have together. How is it possible for a creature to resemble God according to one such attribute and not another? Similarly, if the human soul is really simple, how can it lack all the objective distinction and still be like an angel by virtue of its rational powers and unlike the angel by its sentient nature? All agree that it is possible for the human mind to conceive one of these intelligible aspects of a thing apart from another and that both concepts give a partial insight into what is objectively present to the things known. I know you are angry; please do not be. The talk of duty and patriotism aside, how could you really expect me to pass up on this, the ultimate adventure? My mother has been floating around the house, red-eyed and sniffling. My father still is not speaking to me. And yet, I feel as if I am doing something right. We are accustomed to attach great importance to the Universal belief of mankind. It is accepted by us as a convincing argument. That there are gods we infer from the sentiment engrafted in the human mind; nor has any notion ever been found, so far beyond the pale of law and civilization as to deny their existence. #RyanPhillippe 1 of 5

Sometimes it seems we can navigate discovered whole nations among whom there is to be found no notion of a God. Nobody seemed to want my bravado and impulsivity before. You know this is right for me. I am leaving tomorrow for New York.  When you read this letter, I will be on a ship somewhere in the Atlantic. Even though we get a reduction on our fares if we sail the French Line, Matt and I are bound for England. He has Minna over there waiting for him. And I…I have you. Like knight of the old, neither of us can head off without a token from our love to tuck into our sleeve. I will be landing in Southhampton sometime in the middle of November and will be going up to London. Say that you will meet me this time. I know it is easy for me to ask, far easier than it is for you to leave your sanctuary up on Skye. Do not let me go off to without having touched you for the first time, without having heard your voice say my name. Do not let me go off without a memory of you in my heart. Only in beauty are moderation and harmony essential. The ideally beautiful is an intuitively apparent formal unity which coincides with the natural course of inner activities and likewise with an harmonious co-existence of inner states. #RyanPhillippe 2 of 5

I am sitting in my hotel room, window open, cool autumn breeze puffing out the lace curtains, with nothing more malevolent glaring at me The Japan Times. Just to lean back, sip a nice latte, and write to you—extravagance itself! You will be quite proud of me, I think. I came clean with my father. You may wonder how I worked up the courage to tell him. He nearly choked on his morning coffee. After dropping a condominium key off at the realtor’s, he met with his friends at Roundtable Pizza, where he bought them what was either a late lunch or an early dinner—“Linner,” and with unlimited pitchers of beer to thank them for their help. They all laughed, but underlying the humor was a depressing truth, and a sense of melancholy pervaded the proceedings after that, no matter how hard they tried to ignore it. After that I went back to the house to spend more time getting to know my niece. There is a spot in the sitting room in the back of the house where the morning sunlight falls through the window just so in the afternoon. My niece and I will sit in that circle of Sunlight and watch each other. When she gets tired of staring at me with those great blue eyes of hers, she will crawl onto my lap and tug on my suspenders, and beg, “Unc’ Ry! P’ease, story?” And how can I resist such a plea? #RyanPhillippe 3 of 5

I tell her a fairy story and watch her eyes grow large at the frightening parts and turn up in the corners when she is laughing. It is marvelous to see the raw play of emotions on the face of a child. No trying to conceal any feelings or disguise one emotion as something else. We are going to be great friends, my niece and I, I can already tell. Another bit of news: I have a young lady I have started stepping out with. Lara. She is a real nice lady, she is in college and studying German literature. We met at a party, one of those socially tedious events one is expected to attend on occasion. I went to please my mother. Lara and I met and, after talking, realized that she knew my parents. One of those convoluted acquaintances—you know, where her mother play bridge with my mother’s best friend’s aunt, Vivian, or some such nonsense. Whatever the acquaintance, it means my mother approves of her. So, see, life is going wonderfully for me right now. Two ladies in my life, a house all to myself, and NO MORE DRAMA! #RyanPhillippe 4 of 5

Sublimity involves such overpowering might in the object that petty feelings of personal fear vanish from the soul. This self-forgetfulness can occur most easily in the presence of artistic sublimity, for the negative condition necessary for self-forgetfulness is the more or less subconscious feeling of security when confronting superior might. A glimpse of beauty created by man can leave us in a state of long-echoing emotion, mellowing and calming; humor can bring lasting consolation and reconciliation; tragedy can rouse and raise us into a greater life. Wherever the persuasive power of love is allied with the imperative power of the good, a lasting result can appear. However, the supreme and absolute moral function of love is to show that outer and inner, the Earthly and the divine, in their ultimate ground are one. A man’s power is nothing in comparison of that of his maker. There is nothing in life more beautiful than that trancelike quiet dawn which precedes the rising of love in the soul. To be honest, I am not sure what to do next. I suppose there is something very neat and reassuring about having my future planned out by my father. I am gainfully employed. I have myself a job teaching biology and chemistry at a private school. #RyanPhillippe 5 of 5

Think about when you first meet a person. You have to get pass all the superficial nonsense, the appraisals of accents and checked jackets. An interrogation of appearance. After you have deemed each other worthy, then you can actually settle down to get acquainted, to begin those first tentative probes of the mind. Find out what sort of things fuels the other—what makes them scream, what makes them laugh, what makes them tremble on the rug. You and I are lucky. We never had to worry about the first part, the visual sizing up. We got to go directly to the interesting bit. The getting to know the depths and breadths of each other’s soul. I do not know about you, but I find it refreshing. I am sick to death of having to worry whether people think I look old enough or respectable enough or whatnot. When I write to you, I do not have to think about any of that nonsense. I do not have to worry about my big feet. I can peel away the husk (if you will forgive a corn metaphor) and reveal the shiny kernels of my dreams and passions and fears. They are your, yours to gnaw on as you will. Marvelous with a sprinkle of salt. #RyanPhillippe 1 of 9

Christ represents the alpha and omega not only of human society but all of creation. Thinking of God matters little, if he not be loved in contemplation. When the ancients described an event or action as necessary, they simply meant that it was unavoidable, and when they described it as impossible, they meant that it was not within the power of the agent to bring it about. The World is the only possible World, and nothing in it could be different from what it is. It is nevertheless good, and so the aim of a wise individual should simply be to find and accept one’s place in it. Before creatures are produced, they pre-exist in God’s mind as archetypal ideas. Humans seek perfection and happiness in all that one does. With this tendency alone, we love God only because he is our greatest good and man’s perfected self (albeit perfected by union with God in knowledge and love) and that is the supreme object of man’s affection; what is loved for its own sake and for that sake all else is loved is noble and an inclination or affection for justice (affection justitiae). Love inclines one to do justice to the objective goodness, the intrinsic value of a thing regardless of whether it happens to be a good for oneself or not. #RyanPhillippe 2 of 9

This affection for justice inclines one to lobe a thing primarily for its own sake (its absolute worth) rather than for what it does or can do for one (its relative value). Hence, it leads one to love God in himself as the most perfect and adorable of objects, irrespective of the fact that he happens to love us in return or that such a love for God produces supreme delight or happiness in man as its concomitant effect. The affection for justice enables one to love his neighbor literally as himself (where each individual is of equal objective value). This love is not jealous of the beloved but seeks to make the beloved loved and appreciated by others. Whoever loves perfectly, desires co-lovers for the beloved. Recall the tendency to make others admire the beautiful or the sorrow felt when something perfectly lovely is unloved, desecrated, or destroyed. If the affectio commodi tends to utter selfishness as a limiting case, the first checkrein on its headlong self-seeking is affectio justitiae. This affection for what is just is the first tempering influence on the affection for what is our advantage. I suppose that a sharp mind can be wielded like any sharp weapon, and I am quite disapproving of the snobbery that I find at many of the social function we are forced to. #RyanPhillippe 3 of 9

And inasmuch as our will need not actually seek that towards which the latter affection inclines us, nor need we seek it above all else, this affection for what is just, I say, is that liberty which is native or innate in the will, since it provides the first tempering influence on our affection for what s our own advantage. When it comes to love, I have learned that free will is not simply tan intellective appetite, a motor power or drive guided by intelligence rather than mere sense perception. Freedom of will is not a simple logical consequence of intelligence but is unique among the agencies found in nature. Since what perfects a thing is a form of love, we could say that all activity is parked by love. The peculiarity of such love, however, is that it can never be truly altruistic or even objective. It is radically self-centered in the sense that nature seeks primarily and above all else its own welfare. If at times we find what appears to be altruistic behavior, it is always a case of where the nature or species is favored at the cost of the individual. However, nature either in its individual concretization or as a self-perpetuating species, must of necessity and in all that it does seek its own perfection. This is its supreme value, and the ultimate goal of its loves. #RyanPhillippe 4 of 9

Such a theory presents a dual difficulty for a Christian. How can one maintain that God is love and how can man love God above all things is self-perfection is his supreme value? Well, by making God the perfection of man. In loving God as one’s supreme value, man is really loving himself. Love of friendship becomes possible to the extent that he loves another as an “other self.” Man’s love life is complex. It views everything as something delightful, useful, or a good for oneself and leads to the love of desire (velle concupiscentiae). A free or rational (inn accord with right reason), the will is the seat of the affection for justice that inclines us to love each thing honestly or as a bonum honestum, that is, for what it is in itself and for its own sake. I am someone to desire me and it is not my goal to chase after anyone. If you cannot see that benefit of me, then there is someone else who can. Since only such love recognizes the supreme value and dignity of a person and finds its highest and most characteristic expression when directed toward another, it is usually called the love of friendship (velle amicitiae) or of wishing one well (amor benevolentiae). #RyanPhillippe 5 of 9

I remember one Summer I met someone that seemed so unhappy, depressed and hostile. So I spent the entire Summer writing this individual love letters saying how great this person was, and I really did not expect anything in return. I would even send this traumatized soul beautiful pictures as a way to help heal. Although, I wanted this person to return my affections, I knew that it may not be the case. Nonetheless, the letters were posted on a website, but directed to a particular individual. As the person I was focusing on, in the past, had been trapped in a relationship, I was hoping that may someone would see these kind words I was sending out and seek me and return kind platitudes to me.  Surely, someone was curious to see who was at the other end of that pen-and-paper. I consider myself a scientist and artist, realist and dreamer. Curiosity is my middle name. Remember how in school, when people would have a crush on someone, they would send that person nice letters, candy, and invite them out on dates and it eventually won the person’s heart over? Well, that is what I was trying to do. #RyanPhillippe 6 of 9

Be still my beating heart! Could it be true? Someone would cross the brave ocean for me? I wanted myself a sweetheart, a demure young individual who would also write the most saccharine verse. Very polite, but quite flirtatious. We would spend half of our time discussing the weather and the price of tea in a precise, clipped accent, and the other half trying to get alone in the many corners of my vast house. No matter how much the rest of my anatomy was telling me otherwise, my head cooled long enough for me to decide not to pop the question just yet, asking someone out of a date is a big deal. I was heading back to the States to start medical school and a savings account. In the meantime, I hoped (although not too ardently!) that the object of my affection or someone just as charming would develop at least one other skill or passion aside from trying to maneuver me into the bedroom at every opportunity. I was not holding my breath, but I wanted someone who would be faithful. The cities we visited were lovely, but, truth to tell, I could have been back in Urbana and would have been fine, as long as I was with the person I had my heart set on. #RyanPhillippe 7 of 9

Do my wishes sound overly sentimental? I love writing poetry (is everyone a poet these days?). Even as beauty of body is an harmonious blend of all that become a body so far as size, color, figure and so on are concerned, so the goodness of a moral act is a combination of all that is becoming to it according to right reason (ibid). One must consider not only the nature of the action itself but also all the circumstances, including the purpose of its performance. Walking, running, and the like may be done awkwardly or with a certain grace or beauty. Like bodily beauty, this accidental quality is a melodious of all that becomes the thing in question. Actions also can have such a natural goodness, not just kind words. Right reasons tells us there is one action that can never be inordinate or unbecoming under any set of circumstances: the love of God for his own sake. God is to be loved is the first moral principle or ethical norm. This and its converse, God must never be hated or dishonored, as two obligations from which God himself can never grant dispensation. He is the one absolute intrinsic value, which cannot be loved to excess; but anything other than God is good because Gods wills it and not in reverse order. #RyanPhillippe 8 of 9

The cause of divine intellect denotes the intelligibility of a creature depends upon God’s knowing it, and not the other way around. So too its actual value or goodness depends upon God’s loving it with a creative love. God is like the master craftsman. For all his artistic liberty, he cannot turn out a product that is badly done. Yet no particular creation is so perfect, beautiful, or good that God might not have produced another that is also good; neither must all evil or ugliness be absent, particularly where this stems from a creature’s misuse of his freedom. Nevertheless, there are limits to which God’s providence can allow evil to enter the picture. He may permit suffering and injustice so that mankind may learn the consequences of its misbehavior and through a collective sense of responsibility may right its social wrongs. It is important to know that some actions are good or bad only because God forbids them, whereas he enjoins or prohibits other actions because they are naturally good or bad, that is, they are consonant or in conflict with man’s nature in the sense that they tend to perfect it or do violence to it. The supreme value of love and friendship, which directed God, makes men truly wise. Now after all we have been through, you must tell me your new secret. I can promise that I will not laugh.  #RyanPhillippe 9 of 9

All right, if you will not sit in front of the mirror and draw me a picture with your pencil, please sit in front of the mirror and draw me a picture with your words. Look in the mirror, right now, and tell me what it is that you see. I will put together my own picture. Every individual always chooses what seems best to them, that no one can set as the object of one’s choice something that seems evil or bad to the individual. Determinism accounts of our human choices and actions that make them into effect of causal sequences—sequences of such kind as to raise a question about the freedom of choices and actions. Many determinists suppose or say we are perfectly free. No one knows what is good can possibly choose anything else. The obvious corollary of wrongdoing or the pursuit of evil must always be either involuntary or the result of ignorance. No, no previous abuses of livestock, at least not any that landed me in the hospital. That earlier hospital visit was due to trying to scale the walls of the Women’s Building and sneak into Alice McGinty’s room. I shinnied up the drainpipe and had almost made it to the top when my hands slipped. My leg was broken and so was my heart, as Alice did not even appreciate my effort. #RyanPhillippe 1 of 7

A thirsty man might choose to drink from a certain cup in ignorance of the fact that it contains poison, or knowing its contents, he might be forced to drink from it. However, he could not, knowing that it contained poison and that this would bring upon him a great evil, voluntarily drink for it.  I can understand her displeasure, as she was nearly kicked out of the dormitory over the incident. And do you know the most frustrating part of it all? I had climbed that very same drainpipe on more than one occasion, often with a jar of grasshoppers tied in my jacket or, on one memorable evening, a sack of squirrels. And our tree (we christened him “Paulie”) is still inching up. We may win this war yet! I was quite shocked when you said you had never read Mark Twain. What sort of education do you get in Scotland? This is a deficiency I shall have to rectify. Please accept this copy of Huck Finn—as a belated Birthday Gift, if you like—excusing its battered appearance. I found it in a bookshop of gently recycled books and it appears quite well loved, if recently kicked to the curb. I could not give it a good house, already having a copy above my desk, but knew I could entrust you with its well-being. #RyanPhillippe 2 of 7

Hence, virtue is knowledge and vice ignorance. If one knows the good, one automatically seeks it; if one seeks something else, it can only be because one is pursuing an apparent, but specious, good—in other words, because he is ignorant of what is in fact good. The best local media (news stations) would never be governed by philosophers—that is, by people who know the good and can intellectually distinguish it from its counterfeits. Oh, I am so horrid at guessing ages. I think with those round cheeks (so perfect for pinching, boy!) and that lock of hair falling into your face, you look about eighteen or so. Men’s voluntary actions are invariably determined by an apparent good; hence, all their actions are determined by this, if nothing else. Freedom, is precisely the determination of the will by what is good. To have one’s will or choice determined by what is bad is to be enslaved; to have it determined by something less than the highest good is, to that extent, to be less than perfectly free. Thus, the wicked tyrant, who pursues what is evil because he or she is ignorant of the true good, as enslaved and an object of pity. #RyanPhillippe 3 of 7

Karma? What a crock of boo boo. When my sister-in-law Alma and her husband Joe needed a co-signer so they could buy a house in Las Vegas, Nevada USA, I had been there for them. I even ponied up $5000.00 I could not really afford to help them with the down payment. And when Rick’s pothead son Kevin was arrested for attempted arson in Sacrament, California USA, I had cabled the boy money for bail and paid for Rick’s plane ticket to Sacramento, as well as a significant percentage of the lawyer’s fees. Not to mention the loan I had given to my Aunt Melissa when her husband ran off with his press secretary, or the “presents” I had given to far-flung relatives who had fallen on hard times, or than many instances when I had picked up barely known offshoots of my family tree at the airport and given them a place to stay. So when I lost my job at the Research and Development firm, I naturally thought that everyone would be there for me. However, when a year passed and I still could not find another job, when I began gently hinting that I could use a little help to tide me over, my brother and sister suddenly started making themselves scarce. And all of those other relatives? Conspicuously absent. #RyanPhillippe 4 of 7

So much for the idea that sending out good stuff brought back good stuff in return. It seems clear to me that sometimes a man’s desires or appetites are in conflict with his reason, precisely in the sense that he desires something bad even while knowing that it is bad, which is the very essence of incontinence. A drunkard well knows that his use of spirits is bad for him, but the mere knowledge of this cannot be depended upon to extinguish his desire for them. It is the very nature of things bad to be shunned, and that is precisely why they are called bad. Perhaps the real issue here is the more general opposition between rationalism and voluntarism. Some people think their appetite or the object of their will is always good. Statements about the future need not be either true or false and hence cannot be know in advance by even gods. I was so surprised when, one early October morning, out of the blue, Paris called to check up on me. She had heard from her mom, who had heard from Rick’s mom, that I had lost my job and been out of work for the past year, and unlike other selfish, self-involved narcissists who called themselves my family, she actually seemed concerned. #RyanPhillippe 5 of 7

I did not want to burden her with the full extent of my financial problems—my savings were practically gone, pension checks were scheduled to stop soon, and I was going to have to sell my condominium (if I could in this market) and move to a smaller apartment in a cheaper area of the Valley because I could not keep up on the payments—but under her determined questioning, I buckled, confessing all. There was a teasing quality to her voice that I remembered from childhood and that made me feel as though no time had passed and we were both ten years old. Paris’s intent was to give me some financial breathing room. She suggested that I rent out my condominium in order to earn some extra money to help keep up the payments. That way, I would still have the place when I did find a job. In the meantime, I could spend a few months in Manhattan with her and her husband. They had over an acre, and there was a shotgun house on the property where they would live while they were building their mansion. I was more than welcome to use it. I thanked her, and told her it was very generous, but I could not. I still needed to look for work and did not think I would find too many engineering position. And I had to show up in person every month, sometimes twice a month to get my pension. #RyanPhillippe 6 of 7

Paris said when my pension was up, I could come and take a break from the rat race because they have plenty of space and would love to have me. And to seriously consider renting out my condo instead of selling it because it was just a temporary setback. Paris did not want me to lose everything that I worked for just because of a little bad luck. I was touched. As much by the reconnection as by her genuine kindness and generosity, especially in comparison with the rest of my family and friends. However, before she got off the phone, Paris invited me over to New York. She thought it was be a good idea to get to know her husband, whom I had only met once. And maybe I would take a sabbatical from real life, drop out of society and live off the grid for a couple of weeks. It would give me a chance to think about my future, to make plans without a gun to my head. I found myself smiling into the phone. There is a little God called Love. Love is a very subtle thing, and, like water, will work its way into the banks that are set up to confine it, if it be not watched, and dammed out in time. Love will subsist on wonderfully little hope and change, but not altogether without it. #RyanPhillippe 7 of 7

Your thoughts and language are full of poetic flavor and philosophic theory and so magical. Thinking is good. It is what separates humans from cockroaches. In poor countries, workers lack even the most rudimentary tools and, as a result, have low productivity. Small amounts of capital investment would substantially raise these workers’ productivity. By contrast, workers in rich countries have large amounts of capital (cash, machines, land) with which to work, and this partly explains their high productivity. Yet with the amount of capital per worker already so high, additional capital investments has a relatively small effect on productivity. So poor countries who are just starting out, as they gain money they are able to build new infrastructure, houses, and are more efficient because they did not have these things. Also, their cities, roads, public transportation and architecture will be more advanced technology wise because it is new. Whereas in America, everything is already built and the infrastructure is antiquated. So as these poorer nations continue to develop, they will become more productive and advanced than America is. This catch-up effect can help to explain why poorer countries tend to grow at a faster rate than rich countries. #RyanPhillippe 1 of 6

Also, in American, they still have a problem with racism and gender discrimination. Some people in positions of power are corrupt and like to suppress people because of the color of their skin or because they are women, and this leads to a loss of talent and tax revenue. If you keep people out of the work force, they will not be making money to support the system and will become dependent on the government, which is bad because that means the economy will not grow as fast people not as many people are working, paying taxes, buying new houses, and new cars. So discrimination really hurt the livelihood of America. Other countries do not even know what racism is, and they are more about unity and advancement of society. You really need to look at your fellow Americans as a family. If you slander and steal from your own family, your neighbor’s will think less of you. Not only that, but it is more attractive if you come from a family where everyone is doing well. That will make you more attractive to potential mates and careers. The Hilton’s for example, they are known for having money and attract others with money. #RyanPhillippe 2 of 6

People around the World think Americans are all cowboys and outlaws and everyone is howling for German blood. Gone are the day when our countries were so isolated. This is the twenty first century. What affect one country affects us all. So as a country, you need to uplift and support your people and government so you have a strong and proud nation. Now my students see that the World is worth fighting for. I hope that your photo sitting went well, if it has happened yet, and that you were not resigned to wearing your old trousers or being photographed among the sheep. I should dearly like to see the result. I feel a bit hollow. I feel lonely, but that is not an unusual feeling these days. I feel somehow wistful, though for what I am not sure. However, I do not feel sad or angry or scared or worried. At least not right. I pray that the Sunshine is bright and green grass is plentiful. On these lively days, may warmth, quietness, joy and happiness be in your heart. Look from left, right, front and behind; look directly, obliquely or up and down; you are the loveliest no matter how I look at you. May you be happy forever. #RyanPhillippe 3 of 6

Absent is warm sea beach turning my missing to blessing and sends to you in the distance. I am not ashamed to confess that with this virtual denial of God, the Universe has lost to me its soul of loveliness. The state of mind of some is tragic and shattering. I am not saying that all unbelievers are bad, because some people who believer and God are grim soulless mortal also. However, for me, the absence of God makes the Universe lonely, soulless, and tragic, but it also deprives it of love. America was a country built on Christianity and I believe that these people really need the love of God. So many people are now so sneaky, and cunning, and always trying to sabotage others they are jealous of. I have always taught my family to work hard and honestly for the things that they want in life. Only when we have become accustomed to a loveless as well as a Godless Universe we realize what evil really means. People without love in their hearts are prevented from getting out of the game of existence its keenest possibilities of zest. Our attitude toward concrete evils is entirely different in a World where we believe there are none but finite demanders, from what it is in one where we joyously face tragedy for an infinite demander’s sake. #RyanPhillippe 4 of 6

Religious faith sets free every kind of energy, endurance, and courage in the believer and on the battlefield of human history, religion will for this reason always make irreligion very unhappy and full of anxiety or anger. It seems sometimes that evil deprives life of its meaning. People who do not have love in their hearts cannot be attached to certain goals which give direction to one’s life, then the charge is quite plainly false. Many people cannot longer justify any of their activities by reference to God’s will. Scientific research, assisting people who are in trouble, singing or dancing, or showing appreciation and affection for others or eating superb meals are even more pleasurable when it is done in the name of the God. The unbeliever may, in justifying his acts, regard as fundamental such judgments as happiness is intrinsically worthwhile, or the increase of knowledge is good for its own sake, whereas some believers may say that only service of God is intrinsically valuable. Nonetheless, atheists should not be mixed up with grim soulless mortals. Some atheists have made great progress in science and social progress, and it often in conditions is requiring unusual stamina and fortitude. #RyanPhillippe 5 of 6

As for the loveless Universe, it must of course be admitted that if there is no God who loves his creatures, there would be that much less love in the World. Aside from certain mystics and their raptures, it may be questioned whether a biologically normal human being is capable of feeling any real or deep love for an unseen power; and it hardly seems credible to suppose that a person will cease to love other human beings and animals (if he ever loved them) just because he does not believe them to be the work of God. There are atheists who believed in immortality, and they would deny that their atheism had any gloomy implications. You are so considerate and generous; I cherish the gift of life. It is hard for me to express my thanks for your kindness and present. I am deeply moved by it. Being long together makes us remember each other forever. A moment ago, I was content to sit in here all day, waiting on the rain, but now I am stirred to action! Just as I was writing to you about being content by the peat fire, I overhead my mother’s lullabies. Let my blessing, like sweet-sounding bell, hover over your ears and remain in your heart. Happy birthday. #RyanPhillippe 6 of 6

My eyes were intense in the weak blue light from the kitchen window. He had it all wrong. She killed a man and covered it up. She was not a blessing at all. If anything, she was a curse. I did not ask for her hand in marriage. You should have seen the stir in our tiny post office, everyone gathered to watch me read my first letter from a “dead fan,” as you Americans would say. I think the poor souls thought no one outside our island had ever laid eyes on my articles. I do not know which was more thrilling to them—that someone had indeed read one of my books or that someone was an American. You are all outlaws and cowboys, are you not? I myself admit to some surprise that my humble little works have fled as far as America. I would not have thought it had time to wing across the ocean yet. However, you have acquired it, I am just glad to know I am not the only one who reads the blasted thing. Let me tell you something, in the popular apologetic pronouncements of liberal believers, it is customary to contrast the agnostic, who is praised for his circumspection, with the atheist, who is accused of arrogant inflexibility and who, like the orthodox or conservative believer, claims to know what, from the nature of the case, no mere human being can possibly know. #RyanPhillippe 1 of 8

The atheist is a contemporary Unitarian, and they believe that each person is free to search for their own personal truth on issues, such as the existence, nature, and meaning of life, deities, creation, and afterlife. Unitarian Universalists can come from any religious background, and hold beliefs and adhere to morals from a variety of cultures or religions. However, a Unitarian can be just as obstinate as the man who knows everything. The atheist just knows everything in a negative direction. If I knew all it would take to lure you to the house was a dish of Mackie’s cakes, I would have tried it ages ago, sugar ration or no! Reasoning of this kind figured prominently in several influential works by the nineteenth-century Protestant theology. Their favorite argument was the following reductio ad absurdum: Atheism could be known to be true only if the atheist knew everything; but this is of course impossible; hence, atheism cannot be known to be true. For a man to deny God, he must be a God himself. He must arrogate the ubiquity and omniscience of the Godhead. However, the believer has a great initial polemical advantage over the atheist. For, some limited segment of the Universe may provide the believer with a strong or even decisive evidence, with an unequivocal token of God’s existence. The atheist, on the other hand, would have to walk the whole expanse of infinity to make out his case. #RyanPhillippe 2 of 8

If you only knew how my heart wrenches to read your note on the table, amidst the crumbs on the empty cake plate. If you knew how it feels to run after someone for a brief snatch of time, how the World stops spinning, just for a moment, when you hold them in your arms, and then starts again so fast that you fall to the ground, dizzy. If you knew how every hello hurts more than a hundred goodbyes. If you knew. However, you do not. I never told you. You have no secrets from me, but I have kept a part of myself locked away, always. A part of me that started scratching at the wall the day this other war stared, that started howling to get out right now, the day you ran off to meet your soldier. I should have told you, should have taught you to steel your heart. Taught you that a letter is not always just a letter. Words on the page can drench the soul. If you only knew. By what miracle can an atheist acquire the immense intelligence required for this task? Unless he is omnipresent—unless he is at this moment at every place in the Universe—he cannot know but there may be in some place manifestations of a Deity by which even he would be overpowered. And what is true of space equally applies to the immeasurable ages that are past. The atheist could not know that there is no God unless he had examined every part of the Universe at every past moment to make sure that at no time was there a trace of divine activity. #RyanPhillippe 3 of 8

The situation should be clear to anybody who reflects on the difficulty of proving negative. If a man landed on an unknown island, any number of traces in almost any spot would be sufficient to show that a living creature has been there, but he would have to traverse the whole island, examine every nook and corner, every object and every inch of space in it, before he was entitled to affirm that no living creature has been there. The larger the territory in question, the more difficult it would become to show that it had not a single animal inhabitant. If, then, it is proverbially difficult to prove a negative, there can surely be no negative so difficult to prove as there is no God. This is plain if we reflect that before we can be sure that nothing testifies to His existence, we must know all things. The territory in this case is the Universe in all its length and breadth. To know that there is no trace of God anywhere in eternal time and boundless space, a man would have had to examine and to comprehend every object that every existed. This would indeed require omnipresence and omniscience, and the claim is perfectly right when one maintained that the atheist’s claim implies that he himself is God—ibid (the same source). #RyanPhillippe 4 of 8

There will always be someone with a fear of the sea, and someone who lives so close to the ocean would see firsthand how frightening it can be. Have you never even crossed over a bridge? Okay, do you really want to know my secret? My parents do not know this, and my friends would bust a gut if they heard. If I could be anything in the World, I would be a dancer. A ballet dancer, like Nijinsky. I saw him dance in Paris and he would inflame me and I would feel the passion others seem to feel—that I knew, without a question, what I wanted to spend the rest of my life doing. However, here I am. I always assumed that I would follow my father into medicine. Well, I suppose he has always assume that. We are not always made for doing the same as the others. To establish that the existence of evil is incompatible with the view that the universe is the work if an all-powerful and all-good creator, to show that a given theory is too vague to be of any explanatory value, or to call attention to the fact that certain words have in a certain context lost their meaning—none of these require omniscience. I am sorry to burden you with such glum ponderings. Do not go jumping off your library tower, please! #RyanPhillippe 5 of 8

Some people seem to labor under the impression that as far as its refutability is concerned, God exists is on par with a statement like “A hippogriff exists, existed, or will exist in some place at some times.” It may be plausible to maintain that our not having found any hippogriffs on Earth is no conclusive evidence that such an animal does exist in some other part of the Universe to which we have no access. The same does not at all apply to the question of whether one is or can be entitled to reject the claims of believers in God. For, unlike the hippogriff, God is by some declared to be the all-powerful and all-good creator of the Universe; he is said by most believers to be a mind without a body; and it is asserted by some that predicates taken from ordinary experience can never be applied to God in their literal senses. These features of theological claims may make it possible to justify their rejection although one has not explored every small, out-of-the-way place or places where something can be hidden in the Universe. Do not look for a picture from me. No camera over here, and I do not think I could draw myself objectively. I would keep modifying and erasing until you had a picture of God. We always want to appear more attractive than we really are, would you not agree? I mean, if you had been sketching your picture instead of snapping it with a camera, would you really have drawn in that dreadful striped shirt? #RyanPhillippe 6 of 8

And dear boy, regardless if you have read Through the Looking-Glass more than one, you and I will get on beautifully. You spoke of having been in the hospital recently. What sort of livestock had you been using inappropriately at the time? Trying to waltz with a horse? Play football with a ram? Now that I have seen your picture, I can imagine you and your mates passing around Three Weeks.  You do not know how I worried about you, traveling all the way to Plymouth by yourself. You have never been so far from the house. You have gone down, you have cheered up your friend and satisfied yourself that he is as well as can be. You have even brought him every last crumb of the precious cakes bought with my money. You should come back to the house now. You should come back to the house before this becomes anything serious, please. Do not make any rash decisions. Not for my sake; for yours. It has been half a year since you have been in the same city as Chad. There are days when the two of you could not stop bickering. And then all this love and marriage out of nowhere? And then something happens—a fractured spine, a sprained wrist, a bullet that whizzes by too close for comfort—and suddenly they are grabbing for whatever they can hold on to.  #RyanPhillippe 7 of 8

That golden pool, it swirls around them, and they worry they might drown if they are not careful. They hold on tight and make whatever promises come to mind. You cannot believe anything said in a wartime. Emotions are as fleeting as a quite night. Please be careful. Last week, we had planes overhead and more than a hundred incendiaries around the Castle. Nothing on the city, thank God, but the planes go right above us. Two nights, hearing the air-raid sirens and the growling engines and the rattle of the anti-aircraft guns but not really knowing what was happening. It is wearing on me. All I want is my kids by my side. Please do not make any decision you will regret later. Please do not give away your heart without realizing it, because, my sweet boy, you may never get it back. Again, it has been held that without God the Universe becomes terrifying and a man’s life a lonely and gloomy affair. Antiquated age has the last word: a purely naturalistic look at life, however enthusiastically in may begin, is sure to end in sadness. I am particularly concerned about the terror of a silent Universe without God, in a similar vein that the last act is always tragic—a little Earth is thrown upon our head, and that is the end forever.  #RyanPhillippe 8 of 8

Love,

Dad

If there were reason to believe that any of the arguments for the existences of God are sound or have at least some tendency to establish their conclusions, then they would of course constitute objections to atheism. Just love me. I am not going to ask for a sip when I am thirsty. And you do not have to hold my hand when I am hurting. Will not make you sober up when I am turning. And you do not have to say it, I know I am worthy. You could ask me for a sorry. Let it calm before the storm. Ask for pieces of my body until all of it is yours. However, I am not going to ask you for anything, just love me. I am keeping it simple, real simple. If you thing I am saying that because I am high maintenance, like I am trying to mask every problem that I am facing, well you are wrong because I do not need nobody when I am breaking. All I need is your love and a little bit of patience. You could ask me for a sorry. Like a lighthouse guiding us into harbor on a balmy August night, I am finally here. Friday, the make me, I am most ready for it. So ready, in fact, I avoided you, so I could enjoy the final. #RyanPhillippe 1 of 7

The mystery of the Universe—it has been argued by several writers that whatever objections to the different forms of theology may be, atheism is also unacceptable since it has no answer to the ultimate question about the origin of the Universe. Who, gentlemen, made all of these stars? That question still remains unanswered, and science makes no attempt to answer it. The real mystery of the Universe lies unsolved, and, as far as we are concerned, is incapable of solution. The position of the atheist is just as vulnerable as those who believe in God. What is the origin of it the Universe? By saying the Universe always existed, one has the same difficulty to contend with as the believer has when he is asked the question, “Who made God?” To say that the Universe was here last year, or millions of years ago, does not explain its origin of things. This is still a mystery. As to the question to the origin of things, man can only wonder and doubt and guess. #RyanPhillippe 2 of 7

Viewing Gothic mystery, as a substitute for discredited religious mystery, we may consent to recognize that le genre noir represented for its producers and consumers alike a genuine expression of profound religious malaise. In maps of Heaven and Hell, religious terror derives their emotive power from a metaphysical discourse that is fiercely disallowed in public. Immortal existence is an ontological impossibility and, therefore, the greatest proof of God’s absence. When some people wander into the Cathedral, they realize that they are the sole supernatural presence in the sacred building, and neither Heaven nor Hell seems more than a tormenting fancy. To know, to believe, in one of the other that was perhaps the only salvation for which I could dream. In some sense the fantastic is a compensation that man provides for himself, at the level of the imagination, for what he has lost as the level of faith. After seeing that I have become, I can now accept the most fantastical truth of all: that there is no meaning to any of this! #RyanPhillippe 3 of 7

A philosophical acute atheist could offer a twofold answer to arguments of this find. First, one would maintain that the question about the origin of the Universe or the origin of it all is improper and rests on the mistaken or doubtful assumption that there is a thing called a Universe. It is tempting to suppose that there is a such thing because we have a tendency to think of the Universe as a large container in which all things are located and, perhaps more important, because grammatically the expression functions analogously to expressions like “this dog” or “the Cathedral of Notre Dame,” which do denote certain things. Upon reflection, however, it becomes clear, the rejoinder would continue that the Universe is not a thing denoting expression or, putting the point differently, that there is not a Universe over and above the different things within the Universe. While it makes sense to as for the origin of any particular thing, there is not a further thing left over, called the Universe or it all, into whose origin one can sensibly inquire. The origin of a great many things is of course unknown to us, but this is something very different from the ultimate mystery that figures in the argument under discussion; and there is no reason to suppose that questions about the origin of any individual thing fall in principle outside the domain of scientific investigation. #RyanPhillippe 4 of 7

By 1830, the original impulse of the Gothic was spent, though the tale of terror was to survive both as an influence upon mainstream realistic fiction through the Victorian era and beyond. Physical horror is the distinction of psychological terror in supernatural sensibility that is the problem, not his vampirism. Furthermore, even if it is granted both that the question concerning the origin of the Universe is proper and that we do not and cannot discover the true answer, this is not by itself an argument against atheism. You must understand I did not snub him because he did not appreciate his experience. I simply could not understand how such feelings could be wasted. It may well be possible to know that certain suggested answer to a question is false (or meaningless) without knowing the true answer. All kinds of crimes have never been solved, but this does not prevent us from knowing that certain people did not commit them. An atheist can quite consistently maintain “I have no idea how the origin of the Universe is to be explained, but the theological theory cannot be the right answer in view of such facts as the existence of evil.” #RyanPhillippe 5 of 7

Therefore, what is the origin of the Universe? Conflated semen with blood in the psychic economy, the vampire theme has a history of identification with homoeroticism. Every cock sucker is a kind of blood sucker. Havoc in broad daylight, get right. Just been through it all and. Blood, sweat, and tears. People is dead and shit. What the fuck else can happen yo?! I do not think much more son, word to mother, yo. We done seen it all, and been through it all, you. Let y’all people know right now. Word to mother, for real, for real. This shit is the truth. I am not lying. Blowing people with rusty ass German things, keeping it thorough is or mother fuckin’ claim to fame. Throw on your wetsuit, when it rains it pours and all. Hit them with the four. Do not even know him from a hole in the wall. Get at me, people want to clap me, snitches want to rat me? Put it right where they back be. Keep my guns close to me, enemies even closer. Sendin’ kites with the Samsungs, yo. Given them the cold shoulder with a hollow-tip to match. #RyanPhillippe 6 of 7

Bad apple out of the batch, obsessed with gats since a little dude, eating people’s food, buck-fifty’s people can kill me, but they comin’ with me. How about that, send the little O.G. to attack. Only I like that can leave them and laugh. Rock them to sleep, make them think the Shakespeare drama is dead. Yo, I smile up in your face, though I am plotting instead. The U-N-O competitor. I am ten steps ahead of you. Coming in this game on some modeling shit. Bitches suck cock just to get to the top, I put 100 percent in every line I drop. What? Y’all wish you lived the life I live. This common alienation, perhaps, is why we can have some sympathy for a vampire, why we have unfailingly embraced the legend as part of collective human culture. We can identify with him, with his need for love, his feelings of guilt, and even with his evil. The public will never tire of seeing Dracula, because he represents the evil in all of us. The vampire, both in itself as itself an example of the Byronic hero, holds a timeless fascination for us. Love is love. #RyanPhillippe 7 of 7

If I be not in a state of Grace, I pray God place me in it; if I be in it, I pray God keep me so. What reasons could or would be given for rejecting explanation of diplomatic failures in terms of the Devil’s cunning ways? Aside from possibly questioning some of what is going on in the World we do not need to bring in the evil to explain the failure of diplomats to reach agreement on important international issues. We are confident, on the basis of past experience, that explanations of those failures in terms of human motives, in terms of human ignorance and miscalculation, are quite adequate, although in any particular case we may not be in the possession of such an explanation; and, the Devil hypothesis, granting it to be intelligible, is too vague to be of any use. It is hinted that the Devil has a body, bur what that body is like or where it lives and exactly how it operates, we are not told. If “Devil” I construed on the analogy of the theoretical terms of the natural sciences, our complaint would be that no, or none but totally arbitrary, correspondence rules have been assigned to it. I do sometimes think it is possible that the Devil does exist and has evil offspring on Earth and that Ryan Phillippe and his tabloid media friends are all from the same evil composition. #RyanPhillippe 1 of 8

It should be observed that the Devil theory is rejected although it has not been tested and, hence, has not been falsified in the way which certain exploded medical theories have been tested and falsified. There are, in other words, theories which we have rejected (and which agnostics, like others, believe they have good reason to reject), although they have not been falsified. It is important to distinguish here two very different reasons why a theory may not have been tested and, hence, why it cannot have been falsified. The theory may be sufficiently precise for us to know what would have to be done to test it, but we may be chronically or temporarily unable to carry out any of the relevant tests. This is to be sharply contrasted with the situation in which a theory is so vague that we do not know what we must do to subject it to a test. In the former case, suspension of judgment may well be the appropriate attitude; it does not follow that the same is true in the latter case, and in fact most of us regard rejection as the appropriate attitude in such a situation until and unless the theory is stated with more precision. #RyanPhillippe 2 of 8

Some have said things such as: I will drink no wine with an atheist. I should expect the Devil to make a third in such company; for, since he knows you are his, he may be impatient to have his due. An atheist would maintain that we have just grounds for rejecting belief in the supernatural mysteries of religion and in a finite anthropomorphic deity of any sort as we have for rejecting belief in Zeus or in the Devil or in witches. It should be noted that the believers in the finite anthropomorphic God usually advance their theory as hypothesis which is the best available explanation of certain facts, which they call natural truths. Some think that the Design Argument, in the form in which it is advocated, affords a large balance of probability in favor of creation by intelligence, although concede that new evidence for the Darwinian theory would alter this balance of probability. An atheist would argue that we do not need a finite God to account for any facts any more than we need the Devil theory; and, more important, that the theory is too vague to be of any explanatory value. In contrast, one might talk of creation of intelligence, but will not give any detail what the Author of Nature is like, where he can be found how he works, and so on. Furthermore, because of its vagueness the theory is totally sterile. It does not lead to subsidiary hypotheses about celestial laboratories or factories in which eyes and ears and other organs are produced. Nor does it help us to interpret fossils or other remains here on Earth. #RyanPhillippe 3 of 8

It is tempting, but it would be misleading, to say that the accumulation of evidence for the Darwinian theory (or some modified version of it) has put the design theory out of court, nor ruled it too unimportant for consideration. This would suggest that the theological explanation was at some time in court or very important, in the way in which a falsified scientific explanation may have once been a serious contender. It is true, of course, as a matter of history, that informed people cause to being in God as an explanation for a given set of phenomena once a satisfactory scientific or naturalistic explanation is available. In a more important sense, however, the theological explanations were never serious rivals, just as the Devil explanation of diplomatic failures is not a serious rival to psychological explanations. The theological explanations never were serious rivals because of their excessive vagueness and their consequent sterility. We do not at present have anything like a satisfactory science explanation of cancer, but no theological theory would be treated as a genuine alternative by a cancer researcher, even if he were a devoutly religious man. #RyanPhillippe 4 of 8

It should be added to all this that believers who do not treat their theology as a kind of hypothesis, are not affected by the above objections. Indeed, quite a number of them have strenuously opposed any kind of God of the gaps. However, some of the very writers who insist that their theology must not be regarded as a scientific hypothesis elsewhere make statements which imply the opposite. They also frequently maintain that certain phenomena—for example, the Universal hunger for God or the origin of life—can be explained only, or can be explained best, on the assumption that there is a God, and a God of a certain kind. Whatever they may say on other occasions, insofar as they propose their theology as the only possible, or as the best available, explanation of such phenomena, they are committed to the position that has been criticized. The image of God underlies the essential difference between religion and philosophy. Religion is essentially dramatic. God himself is dramatic, id est (that is), personal being. Take away the image from religion, and you take away its thing, and you are left with nothing but Caput Mortuum (dead head or worthless remains) in hand. The image, as image, is the thing of religion, and is generally taken to mean the entities are viewed as real, in the framework of religion to which the believer is committed. #RyanPhillippe 5 of 8

The entities that popular the religious Universe are images, and the true believer who knows these entities are to be images, is aware of their character. This established the purport of inquiry. Knowing the content of religious consciousness take the image to be a thing, the genetic-critical philosopher asks, “How does this image formation take place? And what explains the hypostatization, the entification of the image?” In scanning the Heavens with a telescope, one has found no God. Can we regard the Universe or that part of it which immediately surrounds us, as a vast brain, and therefore the reality which underlies it as a conscious mind? The simple natural truths to which the supernatural mysteries of religion are reduced are, therefore, truths about human nature—specifically, truths, about the psychological processes that literally create the supernatural mysteries. The ghost of the supernaturalism of early Christianity still haunts the secularized theology and philosophy of the present. Ghost are the shadows of the past. They necessarily lead us back to the question: what was the ghost when it was still a creature of flesh and blood? The student of nature, before he can allow a physical principle to the Universe, will demand to be shown somewhere within it, embedded in neurine convolution of ganglionic globules and nerve-tubes proportioned in size to the faculties of such a mind. #RyanPhillippe 6 of  8

However, in fact, no such gigantic ganglionic globules or nerve-tubes are discoverable, and, hence, we should not allow a physical principle to the Universe. Experience shows that thinking volition, and other psychological phenomena do not and cannot occur without a certain physiological basis—more specifically, without a brain or nervous system. Our observations appear to indicate, although this is not a matter of which one can be certain, that no cosmic brain or nervous system exists. Hence, it is probable that no cosmic consciousness either. However, psychologist have also opened up the brain and they could not discover a soul. Although the psychologist finds no soul when he opens up the brain, we positively know (by introspection) the existence of conscious thought. Similarly, that the telescope misses all but the bodies of the Universe and their light has no tendency to prove the absence of a Living Mind through all. If you take the wrong instruments, you will not find what you are looking for. The test tube will not detect an insincerity, nor will the microscope analyse a grief; but insincerity and grief are real for all that. The organism of nature, like that of the brain, lies open, in its external features, so to the scrutiny of science; but, on the inner side, the life of both is reserved for other modes of apprehension, of which the base is self-consciousness and the crown is religion. #RyanPhillippe 7 of  8

One is strongly inclined to agree that there is something absurd in scanning the Heaven for God. One must not expect to find God or God’s body in the Heavens because God is not a huge man with huge arms, legs, arteries, nervous system, and brain. Only children think of God as a king sitting in his throne in Heaven. Educated grownups do not think of God in such a crude fashion. Ignoratio elenchi is a logical fallacy that consists in apparently refuting an opponent while actually disproving something not asserted. We shall avoid any abuse of this mode of representation if we remember that ideas, thoughts, and psychic formations in general must not in any case be localized in organic elements of the nervous system but, so to speak, between them, where resistances and association-tracks form the correlate corresponding to them. Everything that can become an object of internal perception is virtual, like the image in the telescope produced by the crossing of light-rays. However, we are justified in thinking of the systems—which have nothing psychic in themselves, and which never become accessible to our psychic perception—as something similar to the lenses of the telescope, which project the image. If we continue this comparison, we might say that the censorship between the two systems corresponds to the refraction of rays on passing into a new medium. We have developed our psychology on our own responsibility. #RyanPhillippe 8 of 8