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Justice and Justness and Injustice—Streets with Only One Side
It must be remembered that we are free to acknowledge and surrender our feelings, and we are free not to surrender. Legislation can never foresee all the cases that will fall under a rule, and it must be too rigid to do justice on every occasion. In some branches of law judges rely on standards rather than strict rules and precedents, enjoying, in effect, wide discretion, or the law authorizes administrators to decide cases on their merits in the light of very general canons of policy, subject only to procedural safeguards of impartiality. However, if the law can be too rigid to do justice, does this not imply some extralegal canons of justice, by which perhaps the rules of law themselves might be assessed? Or again, what help is it to say, as we did earlier, that doing justice consist in making only relevant distinction if the criteria of relevance are themselves in dispute? A judge may enforce a racial segregation law with strict impartiality and yet commit injustice if the distinctions embodied in the law are not themselves relevant. Is not the person guilty of a high degree of injustice who is more apt to give contradiction then able to bear it? #RyanPhillippe 1 of 9
Justice teacheth us not to love punishment, but to fly it for necessity. Legal positivists are skeptical of nonlegal criteria of justice. To use the word “just” as a description of a rule or general order, rather than of a particular decision in accordance with the rule, is merely to express emotion, like “banging on the table.” Justice is simply what is advantageous to the stronger. The modern more sophisticated; what is considered just, depends on the conflicting economic interest in a society, and law reflects those of the dominant class. “Just” and “unjust” presuppose a coercive power capable of enforcing obligations and that no complaint of injustice could be made against the sovereign may act inequitably, that is, contrary to natural law, canons of legal criticism beyond positive law do exist; it is only that the subject is not entitled to use them. The idea of a law behind the law, the standard of justice to which a positive law must conform, is exemplified in immutable and unwritten laws of Haven. Even if one could suppose that God did not exist, one would still be bound by the law of nature, since it derived from the two human qualities of sociability and rationality. Our need of society dictates the minimum conditions for social harmony. Natural law thus came to be regarded as a Universal test of the justice of positive law. #RyanPhillippe 2 of 9
Classical natural law theory took too little account, no doubt, of the variety of legal institutions and moral standards and of their dependence on social and economic conditions. Modern natural-law theorists admit this. What are constant, they would say, are formal criteria of justice rather than the substantive rules. They insist, however, that a just law formalizes a pre-existing, objective, juridical relationship, that it does not create justice but recognizes and attaches sanctions to what already exists, and that it can be rationally established independently of positive law. A highly abstract generalized theory put forward. It is based on the principle that a person subjected to legal norms must be respected as an end in himself, and treated as a participant in the community. However, this is really to abandon the notion of a law behind the law and to offer, instead, formal or procedural criteria for rational criticism of positive law. Justice, in this sense, would be objective in that it would not be a matter of fiat but would be the subject of reasoned argument and justification. However, it is doubtful whether there would now be any point in talking about justice as if it were something pre-existent—there to be discovered, like a new galaxy. #RyanPhillippe 3 of 9
Justice and injustice do not exist in relation to beings who have not been able to make a compact with the object of avoiding mutual harm. A compact, however, seems to imply that the duty to act justly stems from the duty to keep a promise, and that, is no easier to establish. The strength of the conventionalist position is illustrated by the view of a just order as that body of principles that anyone might recognize as in one’s interest to maintain, given that others, on whose acquiescence he depends, have interest that conflict with one’s own. Although the rules might appear to discriminate against one on some given occasion, one would be able to see the point, nevertheless, of having those rules. Justice is conventional in the sense of being necessary to society. Though there were discrepancies in detail, human ideas on justice corresponded in essentials because they arose from needs common to all social situations. To rob Peter to pay Paul would be unjust, even though Paul gained more in happiness than Peter lost. One could always argue against a change in the rules that people would be treated differently from the ways others similarly placed had been treated theretofore. #RyanPhillippe 4 of 9
A practice is just if it answers most fully to wants and interest. Justice is not the outcome but is presupposed by such a calculation. Any interest not compatible with justice ought not to be counted because it permits one to give as a reason why slavery is unjust that the advantages to the slaveholder do not outweigh the disadvantages to the slave and to society at large. Justice, understands fairness, and will not admit to the calculation the advantages of the slaveholder as such because one’s role could not be mutually acknowledged as part of an acceptable practice by all parties involved. It would not be thought relevant for one person, engaged with another in a common practice and accused by him of injustice, to answer that nevertheless it allowed of the greatest satisfaction of desire. Adhering to rules gives greater general satisfaction than deciding every case on its happiness-producing merits does not meet the objection that a rule would still be unjust which deprived a tiny minority of the basic conditions for a decent life, even though it gave great satisfaction to everyone else. Strong minds perceive that justice is the highest of the moral attributes; mercy is only the favorite of the weak ones. #RyanPhillippe 5 of 9
If the World is unjust, or rash, in one man’s case, why may it not be so in another’s? The Benthamite saving clause—each to count for one and for no more than one—attempts to write the principle of impartiality into the foundations of the system but does not meet the objection. One has to make the further assumptions that the more desires one has satisfied, the less one values the satisfaction and that there is an interpersonal equivalence of satisfaction and that there is an interpersonal equivalence of satisfaction all the way up the scale. One might then argue that the cost in satisfaction to a sacrificed minority would be so great that whatever the additional satisfaction to the majority, it must be less. However, this is a quite arbitrary postulate, to avoid the conflict between the theory and our moral sentiments. Things people have done out of constriction, gear, guilt, or a sense of duty may be suddenly thrown overboard. It would be generally agreed that doing justice means treating equals equally and unequals according to their relevant inequalities. #RyanPhillippe 6 of 9
Disagreements arise over the criteria of relevance—that is, over the rule to be applied. Distribution (for example, of income, taxation, social service benefits, rations) may be organized on any of at least three principles of justice: arithmetical equality, merit (or desert), or need. Where no good ground can be shown for treating people differently, they clearly ought to be treated alike. New levels of consciousness change perception and new horizons open up. Many of the motives that drive people may suddenly become meaningless. Such things as money, fame, esteem, position, prestige, power, ambition, competitiveness, and the need for security diminish. They are replaced by the motivations of love, cooperation, fulfillment, freedom, creative expression, expansion of consciousness, understanding, and spiritual awareness. There tends to be more reliance on intuition and feelings than on thinking, reason and logic. This is a form of procedural presupposition of justice. The principle “one human, one vote” asserts that there are no differences between people that would justify a differential franchise. This is not the case with progressive taxation, where capacity to pay is taken as a ground for discrimination. #RyanPhillippe 7 of 9
Some social reformers have believed that distribution according to works should be replaced entirely by distribution according to need. Need criteria presuppose some standard condition that a person would fall short of were the need not satisfied and that falling shot of it would be a bad thing—a hardship. Special disabilities involve special needs, calling for special treatment if the standard is to be reached. Needs are therefore claims, grounded on a standard to which a person is entitled simply as a person, irrespective of merit or desert. (There are also functional needs, like the plumber’s need for tools, which would have to be justified in utilitarian terms.) The working of need criteria in general bears out the criticisms made earlier of utilitarian theories based on the satisfaction of desires. If it is prima facie (based on the first impression; accepted as correct until proved otherwise) unjust to give well-fed millionaires a publicly funded sports arena ($255 million in public funds), while the fire department, police department, and school districts are underfunded, it is not because that is not the way to maximize satisfaction. #RyanPhillippe 8 of 9
Justice has been treated here as a particular virtue. Some philosophers, however, have meant by it an all-embracing virtue, closer to righteousness than to fairness. Contact with the narrower sense is t some extent preserved, however, in that justice is thought of as apportioning to each particular virtue or excellence its proper sphere. Every person does the job to which one is best fitted, under the direction of the wisest; the just individual is the one in whom the parts of the soul are harmoniously governed by reason. This conception may not be so far from our notion of a just human as one who possesses integrity, who lives according to consistent principles and is not to be diverted from them by consideration of gain, desire, or passion. However, justice in this sense has been the preoccupation of moralists rather than moral philosophers. Letting go has a peculiar advantage in that the surrendering of one negative feelings also relinquishes the energy behind many other negative feelings, so is a constant across-the-board effect. Nothing, to the noble heart, is so afflicting as the consciousness of having done injustice. #RyanPhillippe 9 of 9

Love is the Master-Key that Opens the Gates of Happiness, the World, and the Celestial Sphere
Deep true love, proved by years, is the advocate. The soul is a race viewed from within, and it is the racial soul that moves World history. The blood which died, begins to live. In its mystical signs the cells of the human folkish soul renew themselves. Past and present suddenly appear in a new light, and for the future there results a new mission. The highest aspects of the soul are the pure intelligence and the synderesis (signifying the innate principle in the moral consciousness of every person which directs the agent to good and restrains him from evil), or that which inclines the soul toward the good. The cognitive and affective aspects of the soul are closely related; thus, the knowledge of an object involves a feeling toward it, and feeling involves an element of intellectual knowledge. In the highest stage, the soul attains union with God, but this union is a union of love, in which the human will is in total conformity with the divine will. However, the values of the racial soul, which stand as driving forces behind this new image of the World, have not yet become a living consciousness. Soul means race seen from within. And, conversely, race is the external side of a soul. To awaken the racial soul to life means to recognize its highest value, and, under its dominance, to allot to other values their organic position in the World, in art, and in religion. #RyanPhillippe 1 of 6
The task of our century is to create a new human type out of this new view of life. And for this, courage is needed; courage of each single individual, courage of the entire generation growing up, indeed of many following generations. It seems that the eloquent heroic fortitude in the American Dream is gone. Naked brutality has seemingly won the day. For chaos has never been mastered by those without courage, and a World has never been built by cowards. Whoever wises to go forward, must therefore also burn bridges behind him. Whoever sets out on a great journey, must leave old household goods behind. Whoever strives for what is highest, must turn his back on what is lesser. Some individuals enjoy special providence; this consist in a knowledge, received from the Active Intellect, of stellar configurations that determine events on Earth. The communication of astrological information to the human intellect by the Active Intellect is known as prophecy. The prophet, to the extent of one’s ability, interprets the general information received, in the light of the particular circumstances in light of the particular circumstances with which one is concerned. #RyanPhillippe 2 of 6
And to all doubts and questions the new human of the coming great World knows only one answer: I alone will triumph! The prerequisite of personal freedom of conscience is directed by those who have inwardly released the fixed style of architecture and have fought their way forward to new ideological links. The fact that these already number millions lays obligations on every fellow fighter to help oneself and other seekers through deeper reflection. I do believe that a solution to the great themes placed before us by destiny has been achieved. However, I certainly hope to have clearly posed questions and to have coherently answered them as the foundation for the bringing about a day of which we all dream. Sharing a message of faith sometimes seems to immediately call forth the most violent arguments. Owing to the deliberate questions and sharpened outlines, attacks were to be expected. However, if I am to be completely honest, then I must say that I am astounded (but also overjoyed) at the concentrated hate I have encountered a long with the unscrupulous distortion of what I have written and experienced in my life, by the manner in which these attacks appeared as if by command. #RyanPhillippe 3 of 6
Certain conclusions and assertions were, of course, taken out of context from this extensive experience and these documents, and the blasphemy, the atheism, the Wotanism of the author and individual were held out before the credible audience. The falsifiers overlooked documented facts and omitted information. The great respect which is show the founder of Christianity in the work was overlooked also. Information was deliberate concealed and distorted. In short there was nothing which critics did not distort or falsify; and what appeared correctly expressed in a literal sense received a completely different colouring by being taken out of context. A lot of people’s activities and attachments are based on fear and anger, guilt and pride. As these negative feelings are relinquished in any given area, one moves up in courage. Or, if one chooses to continue the same activity, those critical and ungodly individuals will remain grim soulless mortals. When one learns to focus on themselves and do what is right and moral, one will make a delightful discovery that one’s capacity for love is far beyond what one ever dreamed. The more we let of things which are less than Godly, the more loving we become. #RyanPhillippe 4 of 6
What happens to a part of the whole is determined by intrinsic laws inherent in this whole. There is a substantial identity with God and love uniting the soul and God could be identified with the Holy Spirit. Psychological organization will always be good as the prevailing conditions allow. It embraces such properties as regularity and symmetry, simplicity, and others. This awakening makes efforts to strengthen every noble and strong. Stop listening to the tyranny of your individual natural life and win freedom into the spiritual life. The savior has set us free from sin, but this is the freedom that comes from being set free from myself by the Son. We tend to reply on our own energy instead of being energized by the power that comes from identification with Jesus Christ. Forgiveness means that I am forgiven into a newly created relationship which identifies me with God in Christ. The miracle of redemption is that God turns to me. Forgiveness is the divine miracle of grace. God’s forgiveness is possibly only in the supernatural real. #RyanPhillippe 5 of 6
Once you realize all that it cost God to forgive you, you will be held as in a vise, constrained by the love of God. As this happens, our life becomes transformed. We look different. People respond differently to us. We are relaxed, happy, and easy-going. People are attracted to us because they feel comfortable and happy around us. Waitresses and limousine drivers suddenly mysteriously become attentive and courteous, and we will wonder, “What has come over this World?” The answer to that question is “You have!” Once we let go the negative, we come into our own power. It happens of its own. Happiness was in there all along and now it shines forth after the block to it have been surrendered. We are now influencing everyone with whom we come into contact in a favorable way. Love is the most powerful of the emotional energy vibrations. For love, people will go to any lengths and do things that they would never do for any amount of money. Love is the master-key that opens the gates of happiness, the World, and the Celestial Sphere. Love gives even to a dull human the knowledge of a lover’s heart. #RyanPhillippe 6 of 6

A Supernatural Virtue–His Heart Assured Him that a Want of Faith was a Want of Nature
A thing may be incredible and still be true; sometimes it is incredible because it is true. Faith is total reliance upon God’s omnipotent goodness. And many infidels but disbelieve the least incredible things; and many bigots reject the most obvious. Love is faith, and faith, like a gathered flower, will rootlessly live on. Faith is belief in revealed truths. Ultimately the object of faith is God himself, who is not, however, known by the human mind in his divine simplicity but only discursively and by means of propositions. These revealed truths are authoritatively presented in the creeds. Thus, to have faith means to believe in the articles of faith summarized in the creedal affirmations of the church. Faith stands between knowledge (Scientia) and opinion. As a trusting and confident attitude toward God, faith (fiducia) may be compared with trust in one’s fellow human beings. Faith is firm and free from all hesitations. Some truths may be objects of faith to one person and of knowledge to another. In particular, some of the preliminary articles of faith—such as the existence, unity, and incorporeality of God—are capable of being philosophically demonstrated and are revealed as objects of faith only for the sake of those many who are unable to follow the path of abstract reasoning. Those matters which are of faith absolutely are above reason—incapable of being arrived at by human reasoning, however expert. #RyanPhillippe 1 of 8
Truth of faith is above reason. At the end of the year we turn with eagerness to all that God has for the future, and yet anxiety is apt to arise when we remember our yesterdays. However, God is the God of our yesterdays, and He allows the memory of them to turn to the past into a ministry of spiritual growth for our future. God reminds us of the past to protect us from a very shallow security in the present. This is an area where faith and reason overlap, since the basic theological propositions—those of natural theology—are held to be both demonstrable and revealed. Faith is an act of the intellect assenting to divine truth at the command of the will moved by the grace of God. That is to say, whereas in knowledge the intellect is moved to assent by the object itself, known either directly or by demonstrative reasoning, in faith the intellect is moved to assent through an act of choice, whereby it turns voluntarily to one side rather than to the other. Faith does not, however, represent an arbitrary or unmotivated decision. It is a response, under influence of divine grace, to certain external evidences, particularly miracles. As such, it is sufficiently determined by evidence to be rational and yet sufficiently undetermined and free to be meritorious. #RyanPhillippe 2 of 8
All of God’s people are ordinary people who have been made extraordinary by the purpose He has given them. Faith is defined by the first Vatican Council (1870) as a supernatural virtue, by which, guided and assisted by divine grace, we hold true as what God has revealed, because we have perceived its intrinsic truth by our reason but because of the authority of God who can neither deceive nor be deceived. Unless we have the right purpose intellectually in our minds and lovingly in our hearts, we will very quickly be diverted from being useful to God. We are not workers for God by choice. Many people deliberately choose to be workers, but they have no purpose of God’s almighty grace of His mighty Word in them. Let Him have His way. Be careful that you vigorously maintain God’s perspective, and remember that it must be done every day, little by little. Do not think on a finite level. No outside power can touch the proper perspective. The Constitution on Faith provokes a query, for faith, characterized as a belief in various truths on divine authority presupposes a knowledge both that God exists and that he has revealed the propositions in question. The whole structure of belief rests originally upon the historical evidences of miracles and others manifestations of divine activity which do not establish the articles of faith themselves, but rather the fact that the omniscient God has revealed these articles. #RyanPhillippe 3 of 8
The human’s need for perfection is the fulfillment of both our intellectual and our emotional powers, which indeed are not existentially separate. The more it is pleasing, liberating, and intrinsically human the closer we are to the culmination of the ethical life—the life devoted to freedom of the intellect—and this is found in the intellectual love of God. One must lose oneself in order to find oneself, but in so doing, one finds that what one really has discovered is God. Love and charity is practiced and through love we shall have harmony and through harmony, peace, as potent a force in our lives as it has ever been before. However, we have the right to choose for ourselves between the risk of falling into error by adopting a faith which may turn out to be false, and this risk of missing our highest good by failing to adopt a faith which may turn out to be true. This hypothesis refers specially to a personal God; and in our dealings with a cosmic Thou, as with our fellow humans, a venture of faith on our part may be necessary if we are to establish any beneficial relationship. To respond as a person and to another person involves showing a certain trustfulness and willingness to believe something good about someone, rather than something bad, when you have the possibility of doing either and thereby anticipate proof and verification. #RyanPhillippe 4 of 8
It may be that God can or will disclose himself only to one who shows such an initial faith and is willing to venture in trust beyond what has been established by scientific proof or philosophical demonstration. Stated differently, it is possible that in order to gain the religious knowledge upon which our personal good depends, we must give rein to our passional desire to believe. We cannot reasonably be required to adopt a methodology which would prohibit us from finding this good: for a rule of thinking which would absolutely prevent me from acknowledging certain kinds of truths if those kinds of truth were really there, would be an irrational rule. There is nothing to make it significantly more probable either that there is or that there is not a God; and in such a situation, we are entitled to follow our desires. In social situations, our willingness to trust someone in advance of proof of his trustworthiness may help to make him trustworthy but does not bring him into existence, and faith in the existence of a divine creator of the Universe cannot bring such a being into existence. We shall act, then, only upon live options which we should most like to be true. The right to believe argument stands to reveal an invitation to wishful thinking. #RyanPhillippe 5 of 8
I am aware of God acting toward me in and through events in the World around me, so that at all times I am having to do with God and God with me. In every advance from sense data to the perception of an ordered World or from the projection of a scientific hypothesis to its observational verification, as in every successful voyage of discovery or in the invention of some new kind of machinery, there must be not only an act of theorizing or of insight but also a sustained effort of will which carries the operation through to completion. In both these respects religious cognition shares a common structure with knowledge in the sciences and in person life. It is direct awareness of God, with its own assurance. And not merely in works, but also in faith, has God preserved the will of humans free and under his own control. God is willing to appear openly to those who seek him with all their hearts, and to be hidden from those who flee from him with all of their hearts, he so regulates the knowledge of himself that he has given signs of himself, visible to those who seek him, and not to those who seek him not. #RyanPhillippe 6 of 8
God having created human beings as personal, always acts toward him in ways which respect and preserve man’s freedom and responsibility. For this reason, God does not reveal himself to man in his unveiled glory, for in a direct, unmediated awareness of infinite perfection of man’s frail moral autonomy would be destroyed. Therefore, the divine presence is always mediated through the events and circumstances of a World which God has created to be a relatively independent sphere of interaction with his human creatures. Human personal autonomy is protected by the fact that one can become conscious of God’s activity towards one only by an uncompelled response of faith. Thus, humans are not only free to obey or disobey God; they also have the prior and more fundamental freedom to be conscious of God or to refrain from being conscious of him. Thus human mind displays a natural tendency to interpret its experience religiously, but this tendency acts only as an inclination which can be resisted and inhibited. Man is this cognitively free in relation to God. Faith is the correlate of freedom and is related to cognition as free will is to conation. Faith is a sense perception. We may look at the puzzle picture, seeing it now as a meaningless disarray of lines and now as the outline of, say, a human face. This is an instance of purely visual interpretation. #RyanPhillippe 7 of 8
However, the concept of seeing can be expanded into the of experiencing as, referring to the way in which a situation is apprehended through our sensory apparatus as a whole is experienced as having some particular kind of significance; that is, as rendering appropriate some particular dispositional response on our part. We have seen how troubling mental conflicts, under a high need for closure, can lead us to seize and freeze, to grow servile or increasingly rigid. However, meditating the presence and activity of God and as speaking a divine imperative to them, we are undergoing a religious mode of experiencing as. Those events which we see as acts of God can also be seen as having proximate natural or human causes; and the person of Christ, seen by Christian faith as divine, is depicted in the New Testament as being at the same time genuinely human. The precondition of faith serves to protect human’s freedom and autonomy as a finite personal being in relations to the infinite God. However, once we lose sight of God, we begin to be reckless. However, have faith and God will do greater things that he has ever done before. I cherish your true love in my heart. I wish to always live in a dream, in which your image I can see. #RyanPhillippe 8 of 8

What Secret of Happiness is Greater than to Follow Your Illusions?
In an increasingly complex, unpredictable World, what matters most is not Intelligence Quotient, willpower, or confidence in what we know, but how we deal with what we do not understand. Almost all people have had dreams, yet few can say with confidence what they are, beyond agreeing that they occur during sleep and have some likeness to waking experience. In the embittered controversy, which has seemed irreconcilable, whether the psychic life is asleep at night, or can make the same use of all its faculties as during the day, we have been able to conclude that both sides are right, but that neither is entirely so. In the dream-thoughts we found evidence of a highly complicated intellectual activity, operating with almost all the resources of the psychic apparatus; yet it cannot be denied that these dream-thoughts have originated during the day, and it is indispensable to assume that there is a sleeping state of psychic life. Dream are visions within us, which are remembered by us when we are awake and in the external World. The deflection from the outer World retains its significance for of view, though not the only factor at work, it helps us to make possible the regressive course of the dream-representation. #RyanPhillippe 1 of 7
The dream is a kind of imagination, and, more, particularly, one which occurs in sleep. A dream reveals something about the sleeper, either about physical condition of about one’s mental stats. Psychic life does not thereby become aimless, for we have seen that upon relinquishment of the voluntary directing ideas, involuntary ones take charge. The dream can be an archaic World of vast emotions and imperfect thoughts. Our dreams bring us back again our earlier and successively developed personalities, our old ways of regarding things, with impulses and modes of reaction which ruled us long ago; the suppressed material becomes the mainspring of the dream. While we are having them, dreams often appear to be as real as waking experience; children have to be told that the object of their terror “was only a dream,” hence not part of the World. However, the World of dreams is our real World whilst we are sleeping, because our attention then lapses from the sensible World. Conversely, when we wake the attention usually lapses from the dream-World and that becomes unreal. I see so manifestly that there are certain indications by which we may clearly distinguish wakefulness from sleep that I am lost in astonishment. #RyanPhillippe 2 of 7
The dream relieves the mind, like a safety-valve, all kinds of harmful material are rendered harmless by representation in the dream. We know dreams by the recollections, which usually seems fragmentary and which occurs upon awakening. The entire sum of transforming processes which have changed the latent dream-thought into the manifest dream is called the dream-work. The astonishment which formerly the dream evoked in us is now perceived to be due to the dream-work. The function of the dream-work may be described in the following manner: A structure of thoughts, mostly very complicated, which has been built us during the day and not brought to settlement—a day remnant—clings firmly even during the night to the energy which it had assumed—the underlying center of interest—and thus threats to disturb sleep. This day remnant is transformed into a dream by the dream-work and in this way rendered harmless to sleep. However, in order to make possible its employment by dream-work, this day remnant must be capable of being cast into the form of wish, a condition that is not difficult to fulfill. This wish emanating from the dream-thoughts forms the first step and later on the nucleus of the dream. #RyanPhillippe 3 of 7
A dream is the reproduction, in the sleeping state of the brain, of images and impressions produced on it in the waking state. Experience gained from analyses—not the theory of the dream—teaches us that with children a fond wish left from the waking state suffices to evoke a dream, which is coherent and senseful, but almost always short, and easily recognizable as a wish fulfillment. In the case of adults the universally valid condition for the dream-creating wish seems to be that the latter should appear foreign to conscious thinking, that is, it should be a repressed wish, or that it should supply consciousness with reinforcement from unknown sources. In my daily life, I have been trying very hard to overcome a particular situation and have really being missing my family and wanting to spend time with them. While, I was out for a walk yesterday, I saw my dad’s mother checking the mail, and I was having a really hard time because of an ongoing situation. The day had started of great, but a situation occurred and it kind of annoyed me intensely, and I had not been sleeping much. I had also been thinking about my clothes and how a lot of them are not the styles I like, but stuff my dad likes. #RyanPhillippe 4 of 7
When I got back to the house, I went to bed and had a dream that my dad’s mother cooked this big feast and we ate dinner at his house and it was really good. Then later in the dream, he came back to my house with me, and waited outside for me. I had flooded my apartment and there was work being done, but my dad was outside waiting for me so I had to rush out and meet him. When I got outside, my neighbor was talking to my dad, and I overheard her saying to him, “Don’t just think he has everything he needs.” Then we went shopping, at the GAP, and there were all of these shirts with stripes on them (he hates stripes) and I remember feeling like I was not supposed to buy them, so we left the store without making any purchases. Then when I woke up, I felt a little better because it has been a really rough day the night before. So sometimes in dreams, God supplies of with the things we miss in life. I remember feeling loved and warm and really enjoying family time. God does not give us overcoming life—He gives us life as we overcome. The strain of life is what builds our strength. If there is no strain, there will be no strength. Are you asking God to give you life, liberty, and joy? He cannot, unless you are willing to accept the strain. And once you face the strain, you will immediately get the strength. Overcome your own timidity and take the first step. #RyanPhillippe 5 of 7
Dreaming is an activity of the sensitive faculty, but of it as being imaginative. We do not dream, but only wake with delusive memories of experiences we have never had. The expression, “I must be dreaming” is normally used in circumstances when I am quite sure that I am not dreaming, to express surprise at some pleasant occurrence, for example, the arrival of a loved one whom thought to be somewhere distant. I am of the reality of my surroundings, something may happen in the future that will elaborate dream material to the region of perception, whereby the dream becomes conscious. The forces participating in the dream-formation may be recognizes as the following: the wish to sleep; the sum of cathexis which still clings to the day remnants after the depression brought about by the state of sleep; the psychic energy of the unconscious wish forming the dream; and the opposing force of the censorship, which exercises its authority in our waking state, and is not entirely abolished during sleep. The task of dream-formation is, above all, to overcome the inhibition of the censorship, and it is just this task that is fulfilled by the displacement of the psychic energy within the material of the dream-thoughts. I have dreamt in my life dreams that have stayed with me ever after, and changed my ideas; they have gone through me and through me, like wine through water, and altered the color of my mind. #RyanPhillippe 6 of 7
Dreams are experiences and illusions and are found to be so by the same criteria that play to illusions in general. The dream comes into its own; in recounting it I am not claiming that these things happened. Because while I am dream there is no possibility of making assertions about my experiences to other people, to describe dreams as illusions makes no sense. As I am writing this, I recall the birthday dinner my dad planned for me, and how someone else sabotaged it by inviting me to lunch. I did not want to be rude and decline the lunch invitation, so I accepted. Nonetheless, the person ended up taking me out of town, then we got stuck in rush hour traffic and did not make it home until 9pm. So my dad was very upset and we did not have dinner. He loved these dreams and the success of his imaginary achievements. They were its best parts of life, its secret truth, its hidden reality. When someone robs you of precious times, I guess dreams are a way to experience things you wish you had been there for. It seems difficult to deny that dreams are experiences, if only because the description is sufficiently vague to cover almost any mental phenomena. We dream not ourselves, but the things within us. Dreamers see the Heavens open every day. #RyanPhillippe 7 of 7

I See You Getting Pleasure by Looking at Me Up and Down Smiling

Concealed pleasures are the greatest. The main conception of the World is that of three divine hypostases, or natures, which are, in descending order, the One Intellect, the Soul, and Time. The One is that from which all else depends, and toward which all aspires to return. It is above the realm of Being, lying beyond the possibilities of thought and discourse, and is to be attained only by a rare ascent of mystical exaltation. The realm of Intellect is the realm of Being, and Intellect contains the system of Ineligibles within itself. Intellect turns its back on the One in contemplation and derives thence its own productive power, while the intelligible World itself is seen not as static but as instinct with life. Soul derives from Intellect and looks toward it, and itself in turn gives rise to the World of nature; it is (importantly for Plotinus’ psychology) at the level of the Soul that we encounter time, which is the life of the soul in movement. God is not working toward a particular finish—His purpose is the process itself. It is the process, not the outcome, that is glorifying God.

Dark matter makes up about 27 percent of the Universe and is some strange kind of energy-fluid that filled space, unknowable in itself, represents the farthest limit to which the process of descent points; utterly negative, it is for Plotinus the source of evil. The other 68 percent of the Universe is dark energy. The Universe is thought to be 13.8-billion-years-old. Dark matter is an invisible substance that can only be seen through the effects of its gravity, while dark energy is pushing the Universe apart. The nature of both remains mysterious. Yet it is through these very clouds that the Spirit of God is teaching us how to walk by faith and not by sight. The Greek influence of the Platonic theory is shown to have a tendency to correspond with the Bible narrative of the divine Logos by means of which God formed the World: the intelligible World, subsisting in the Divine Mind, served as a pattern for the production of the material Universe. What is my vision of God’s purpose for me? Platonic tradition believes that the soul has a pre-existence, of a cosmic Fall, and that reincarnation is possible. If I can stay calm, faithful, and unconfused while in the middle of the turmoil of life, the goal of the purpose of God is being accomplished in me.

No civilized person ever regrets a pleasure, and no uncivilized individual ever knows what a pleasure is. If you do it too often, anything becomes a pleasure. The concept of pleasure has always bulked large in thought about human motivation and human values and standards. It seems clear to most people that pleasure and enjoyment are pre-eminent among the things worth having and that when someone gets pleasure out of something, one develops a desire for it. Moreover, from the time of Plato much of the discussion of the topics of motivation and value has consisted in arguments for and against the doctrines of psychological hedonism (only pleasure is desired for its own sake) and ethical hedonism (only pleasure is desirable for its own sake). One can make an intelligent judgment on these doctrines only to the extent that one has a well-worked-out view as to the nature of pleasure. Otherwise one will be unable to settle such questions as whether a putative counterexample, for instance, a desire for the welfare of one’s children, is or is not a genuine example of desiring something other than pleasure for its own sake.

The love of pleasure and the fear of pain are the ruling principles of the human heart, in which they maintain an uninterrupted struggle for superiority. Pleasure and pain have usually been regarded as opposite parts of a single continuum. As pain diminishes, it tends toward a neutral point; by continuing in the same “direction” we move toward increasing intensities of pleasure. Amounts of pain are negative quantities to be algebraically summated with amounts of pleasure in computing the total hedonic consequences of an action or a piece of legislation. This was in accordance with the utilitarian principle that an action is justified to the extent that it tends to produce pleasure and the diminution of pain. Since “pain” is most commonly used as a term for a kind of bodily sensation, it is natural to think of pleasure as having the same status. And indeed there are uses of the term “pleasure” in which it seems to stand for a kind of bodily sensation. Thus we speak of “pleasures of the stomach” and thrills of pleasure. However, as hedonists have often insisted, in any sense of the term in which psychological or ethical hedonism is at all plausible, the term “pleasure” must be sued so as to embrace more than certain kinds of localized bodily sensations.

The pleasure which attends noble aims remunerates not the pains they bring with them. When someone maintains that pleasure is the only thing which is desirable for its own sake, one certainly means to include states of the following sort: Enjoying taking pleasure in doing something, such as playing tennis. Getting satisfaction out of something, such as seeing an enemy humiliated. Having a pleasant evening; hearing pleasant sounds. Feeling good, having a sense of well-being. Feeling contented. It seems clear that phenomena of these sorts do not consist in localized bodily sensation of the same type as headaches, except for being an opposite quality. When someone has enjoyed playing tennis, it makes no sense to ask where (in one’s body) did one enjoy it. Nor does it make sense to wonder whether the pleasure one got from the tennis came and went in brief flashes, or whether it was steady and continuous; but theses would be sensible questions if getting pleasure from playing tennis were a localized bodily sensation like a headache.

Choosing to suffer means that there must be something wrong with you, but choosing God’s will—even if it means you will suffer—is something very different. No normal, healthy saint ever chooses suffering; one simply chooses God’s will, just as Christ did, whether it means suffering or not. God places His saints where they will bring the most glory to Him, and we are totally incapable of judging where that may be. The questions about the experience of playing tennis would not deny that various localized sensations might be involved in one’s enjoyment of the game, such as a swelling in one’s chest after making a good shot, or a sinking sensation in one’s stomach after muffing a shot. The point is that one’s enjoyment of the game cannot be identified with such sensations, for one could be enjoying the game throughout its duration, even though such sensations cropped up only from time to time. My vision of God is dependent upon the condition of my character. My character determines whether or not truth can even be revealed to me. There must be something in my character that conforms to the likeness of God. What I need is God’s surgical procedure—His use of external circumstances to being about internal purification.

Pleasure is a quality that can attach itself to any state of consciousness. In the state of future perfection, there will be pleasure without danger and security without restraint. Enjoying listening to music and feeling good on arising in the morning are special forms of “getting pleasure.” Getting pleasure can, then, be thought of as a good feeling. However, we have various degrees of getting pleasure. To be deprived of one pleasure is no very good reason for rejection of the rest. One can enjoy oneself more or less and be displeased at something more or less. Moreover, it would seem that there is an intermediate neutral point at which one is neither pleased nor displeased at what is happening, neither enjoying oneself nor feeling miserable, and so on. Nonetheless, the near approach of pleasure frequently awakens the heart to emotions which would fail to be excited by a more remote and abstracted observance. I have never had more pleasure in my contrivances then in the end of them. Keep paying the price. Let God see that you are willing to live up to the vision.

The Winchester Mystery House

Discover the tales of the ghosts and specters that linger in The Winchester Mystery House. https://winchestermysteryhouse.com/
The Victorian Internet, See how it Rises—Is it Not Wonderful?!
Life as a process is the pole of flux and becoming; it can be lived, but not known. Forms is stable and has structure; it is the pole of being and is intelligible. Life experience expresses that there are many Worlds that serve the individual. Neither Being nor Becoming, neither the One nor the Many, holds exclusive sway. The tension between the poles of these antitheses is a permanent feature of the World. Knowledge, art, religion, value, and philosophy are among the important forms (or World forms) by which humans have shaped the realm of contents. Reality, too, is only one such form and enjoys no privileged status; the objects of reality constitute the World of practice—those objects which we perceive and manipulate in our daily lives. There are other forms and other Worlds, however; one of these tasks of the philosopher is to distinguish and analyze them. In virtue of this productiveness of human life, one begins to learn that life is more-than-life. These products constitute the realm of culture and include not only works of science, history, and art, but social and political institutions and religious theories and practices as well. These objects stand in a twofold relationship to human life: their genesis lies in human experience and, once in existence, they are independently subject to being experienced in various ways. #RyanPhillippe 1 of 7
If you are going to be used by God, He will take you through a number of experiences that are not meant for you personally at all. They are designed to make you useful in His hands and to enable you to understand what takes place in the lives of others. Because of this process, you will never be surprised by what comes your way. Experience is formative; to see how form arises thus requires an understanding of the natural history of experience. There is a stage in human life in which all needs are instantly satisfied, in which there is no gap between desire and fulfillment. Such a stage of life would be prior to experience (the act of living) and hence prior to any differentiation of subject and object, there would neither be self nor sugar, but only sweetness. However, the World is clearly not so organized that life could actually be lived in this way, and in the gap between need and fulfillment both experience and form are born. In becoming conscious, we distinguish between ourselves as subject and that which we experience as objects. Experience, however, is not all of a piece: we gain knowledge in in different modes. It is one thing to know an object, another thing to appreciate it as beautiful, and still another to revere it as an object of worship. Just because people are exposed to the same stimuli, does not mean they will share the same visions, feelings, and emotions. #RyanPhillippe 2 of 7
For the most part, humans act to fulfill their needs. Their experience gives shape to contents only to the extent to which the immediate requirements of a situation demand it. Terminus a quo (the origin) and terminus as quem (the goal) of objects produced by ordinary experience—of whatever mode—remain within the biography of the individual producing them. As a result of this subservience to the needs of individuals, form in ordinary experience is not pure, and the objects that are produced in this way are not yet properly the objects of culture. As along as life sets the goals of action (characteristic of the phase of life is called teleological or pragmatic), knowledge is tentative and limited—not yet science; art is homespun and primitive—not yet fully aesthetic; religion is simple and sporadic—not yet embodied in a theology and in institutions. The form is proto-form (unspecified, free-flowing, metallic matter layered over basic robotic systems) and objects are proto-culture (the passing of behaviours from one generation to another). God brings you to places, among people, and into certain conditions to accomplish a definite purpose. All your circumstances are in the hands of God. We know what it is to pray in accordance with the Spirit, but we do not often realize that the Holy Spirit Himself prayers in us which we cannot utter to ourselves. God searches your heart to find out what the prayer of the Holy Spirit is. #RyanPhillippe 3 of 7
However, the bonds of the teleology of life can be broken. The terminus ad quem of human’s actions need not reside within their lives: they can act for the sake of a form, a type of free action. Instead of knowing for the sake of acting, some humans act in order to know; instead of seeing for the sake of living, some humans—artists—live in order to see. In acting for the sake of a form, experience relevant form is refined; the structure inchoate in ordinary experience is made explicit and worked out. Form proper is born and the objects of culture are produces. Academcea was the name of a public park, equipped with a gymnasium and lecture facilities, located about a mile northwest of Dipylon Gate of ancient Athens. There, probably shortly after 387 Before Christ, Plato bought a house and estate and began to teach, so successfully that his school dominated the facilities of the area, was named after the park, and continued until Justinian’s closure of the pagan schools of philosophy. Plato’s life began some thirty years before the end of the fifth century Before Christ, and ended soon after the middle of the fourth century. Plato died in 347 Before Christ at the age of about 81. He never married. #RyanPhillippe 4 of 7
Plato came from an aristocratic and wealthy family, several members of which has been politically prominent on the anti-democratic side. The victory of the democratic cause left Plato and his surviving relatives without political influence or prospects. Plato’s attitude toward the leaders of the democracy—that is, the demagogues—is what could be expected. The account in Letter VII of frustration of Plato’s political ideals and ambitions is likely to be true in substance. Plato certainly saw military service in the war against Sparta. It is probable that he belonged to the cavalry. He was a close associate of Socrates, anyhow during the last few years of Socrates’ life, which ended when Plato was about 31. The story is quite likely true that after the execution of Socrates (allegedly for witchcraft and corrupting the youth by failing to acknowledge the gods that the city acknowledges and introducing new gods) Plato and others’ of Socrates’ circle found it politically expedient to take refuge in Megara, where Euclides seems to have had some sort of school. Plato’s school was very important. #RyanPhillippe 5 of 7
Aristotle, who was 37 when Plato died, had belonged to the Academy for the last twenty years of Plato’s life. Yet in his voluminous writings that have come down to us there is next to no personal information about Plato. No one knows much about his personal life. Certainly Aristotle’s lectures would not have been thought the proper places for casual anecdote or personal gossip; but we search them equally vainly for reports of Plato’s replies to objections or of his developments or revisions of his earlier idea. Hardly one whisper of the tutorial voice of Plato is relayed to us by Aristotle, even on philosophical matters. The Christian worker must be so closely identified with his Lord and the reality of His redemption that Christ can continually bring His creating life through him. When we preach the historical scriptures and facts of life and death of our Lord as they are conveyed in the New Testament, our words are made sacred. God uses these words, on the basis of His redemption, to create something in those who listen which otherwise could never have been created. #RyanPhillippe 6 of 7
The orator Isocrates lived in Athens for nearly a hundred years. Though he was born before Plato and outlived him, in his orations he never mentions by name Plato or the Academy of Speusippus, Xenocrates, Eudoxus, or Aristotle or, for that matter, any contemporary politician or rhetorician. His speeches and letters do contain, however, a number of indubitable anonymous references, as well as many other likely or merely possible references, as well as many other likely or merely possible references to Plato and the Academy and even one or two to Aristotle. These references tend to be acidulated. A careful sifting, especially of his Helen, Busiris, Antidosis, and Panathenaicus, might give us more information about Plato than all that we can cull from Plato’s other contemporaries. Plato had an indefinable sense of largeness about him, and he so radiated vigor and kindliness that any pettiness of thought seemed to fade away beneath his keen gaze. He always made you feel that there was so much of interest in the Universe, so many fascinating things to observe and to think about, that it was a criminal waste of time to indulge in gossip or trivial discussion. He possessed a remarkable kaleidoscopic brain. Plato turns that head of his and these things come out as in a kaleidoscope, in various combinations, most of which penetrate your mind and get you to think. #RyanPhillippe 7 of 7

Morning Glory Bread is Naturally Sweetened at Cyprus-Rhodes

Every person has also in his moral backside which he does not show except under the stress of necessity and which he covers as long as possible with the pants of good breeding. To be in doubt about a proposition is to withhold assent both from it and from its contradictory. Although people sometimes withhold assent with no reason for doing so and persist in this even after conceding that they have no reason doubt is rational only when one has a reason for it and reasonable only when the reason is a good one. Doubt may be accompanied by various feelings, but it seems unlikely that there are specific feelings uniquely associated with it; in general, the feelings associated with distrust are anxiety or hesitation, which are identified as feelings of uncertainty when they arise in context involving questions of belief. The motives for our actions may be arranged like the thirty-two winds, and their names may be classified in a similar way, e.g., Bread-bread-glory or Glory-glory-bread. I did not come to bring peace but a sword. If you are sensitive to God’s way, your message as His believer will be merciless and insistent, cutting to the very root. Otherwise, there will be no healing. We must drive the message to the house so forcefully that a person cannot possibly hide but must apply the truth. #RandolphHarris 1 of 9

In any case, philosophers are not ordinarily concerned with psychological characterizations of a doubter’s state of mind. Their attention is primarily devoted to understanding the conditions under which doubt is reasonable and to defining the limits of reasonable doubt. Whether it is reasonable for a person to doubt a proposition cannot always be decided solely by considering the evidence which the person possess relevant to the proposition or, in a situation in which the purportedly noninferential knowledge, by considering his ground for assent. Doubts that are reasonable in another, although the available evidence or ground is the same in both cases. For example, special caution is appropriate when the penalties for error are particularly great; hence, an ordinarily acceptable basis for assent may be inadequate if much depends upon avoiding error, although the gravity of the risk does not in itself constitute evidence. Moreover, a basis for assent that would be entirely compelling in normal circumstances may be insufficient if otherwise remote possibilities of error must be taken seriously because of threats posed by a resourceful deceiver. Deal with people where they are until they begin to realize their true need. Until, at last, the buttons tore from the pants of his patience. #RandolphHarris 2 of 9

Nowadays, failure is much praised—the failed start-up has become a badge of honor among Silicon Valley entrepreneurs—and rightly so. Failure is part of the process, the error in “trial and error,” trying repeatedly for success. Originality requires venturing out into the unknown, dwelling in uncertainty, and learning an instance of wrong or improper conduct. And the more inventive a product, the less one knows about its chances of success. Innovation drags one into the realm of ambiguity—a continuous area or expanse that is free, available, or unoccupied. The dimensions of height, depth, and width within all things exist and move. In some scientific fields, experiments fail more than 70 percent of the time. Between more than 70 and 80 percent of new food products are failures. Venture capitalists, film producers, book editors, video game programmers, and pharmaceutical researchers all face extraordinarily high average failure rates. Failure is central to the discovery and creativity, and failures are more common than success. Today’s economic instability and globally competitive markets have also made remaining positioned on the top of someone or something harder than ever. The average time that a company spends in the S&P 500 index in 2016, is 25 percent of the average time in 1936. #RandolphHarris 3 of 9

The long-term health of [the American] economy and full economic recovery depend upon finding ways to encourage far more innovation. Only innovators and entrepreneurs will be safe from losing their jobs to automation or outsourcing. In a World where, say, a refrigerator instruction manual can be edited cheaply and proficiently by an English teacher in the country of Afghanistan, and where tax preparation can be done by algorithm, the people most likely to succeed and flourish are those who are creating new economic opportunities. Tomorrow’s workforce needs to handle the uncertainty and failure that go along with innovation. Unfortunately, today’s students are woefully unprepared. When is one entitled to regard a proposition as indubitable? It might be maintained that one is not entitled to do so as long as anything which can serve as evidence relevant to the proposition remains unexamined, on the ground that when this evidence comes to be examined, it may turn out to require an alteration of belief. When you are not playing eighteen holes of golf, you have to be inventive. You do not hit the same shot twice in a row with the same club. You are switching clubs, the slopes of the course are changing, and the ball is always in a different position relative to the hole. A better way to practice at the golf range, would be to train to face new and shifting challenges. #RandolphHarris 4 of 9

The practice range has it uses, of course. For building basic skills, repetition is great. Hitting buckets of call is what you should be doing. Golfers have to learn the baseline mechanics before they can apply them, just as physics students need to memorize basic equations. By virtue of the empirical and logical connections among facts, the truth-values of an unlimited number of proposition are relevant to that of any proposition to examine each of these other propositions, no proposition could ever be regarded as indubitable if it were first necessary to examine everything that may serve as evidence relevant to its truth-value. On the other hand, it seems that this impasse can be avoided only if it is possible to settle in advance the important matters that have not been examined. Instead of treating technique as the be-all and end-all, I emphasize training to face playing situations. Ideally, I want players to practice on the widest range of golf courses under different conditions, but that is not so realistic in terms of resources. We can viably transform the driving range into a place where golfers do not just learn to hit shots mechanically, but also prepare to adjust fluidly while something or someone is operating or moving. One has to simulate the unpredictability of the golf course by switching clubs, alternating distances, and playing out different scenarios. #RandolphHarris 5 of 9

It is best to prepare of competition by withholding feedback, something that many pupils and even fellow teachers are initially uncomfortable with. Whenever a golfer hits a shot, he or she gets nonverbal feedback from how the body feels, how the ball moved, and how it sounds. Golfers perform better during training if they can adjust to a coach’s constant feedback, but that very feedback can be a crutch, hurting them later on when they have to think for themselves. Since it is impossible to examine each of these other propositions, no proposition could ever be regarded as indubitable if it were first necessary to examine everything that may serve as evidence relevant to its truth-value. On the other hand, it seems that this impasse can be avoided only if it is possible to settle in advance the important of matters that have not been examined. The impossibility of checking all the consequences of an empirical proposition must always remain dubitable. Graduates confronted with a labor market that increasingly puts a premium on creativity, exploring uncertainties and learning from failure, yet many college professors still act like antiquated-school golf instructors focused on automatically applying skills, rather than helping students learn to deal with the challenges of invention. The current education system was designed and conceived and structured for a different age. Western education system has become obsolete; it is preparing workers for a World that no longer exists. Can we not do better? #RandolphHarris 6 of 9

Under what conditions is it reasonable to make such a requirement of incorrigibility—to arrange that nothing count as evidence against a certain proposition? In some cases (for instance, when a geometrical proposition is supported by a well-understood proof, or when a basic proposition is grounded in immediate experience) it may seem fairly clear that the conditions are satisfied. However, philosophers have failed to provide a general account of these conditions; instead they have usually limited themselves to identifying particular instances of their satisfaction. Some philosophers have claimed with considerable plausibility that certain elementary mathematical propositions (such as that 2 + 2 = 4) may be regarded as indubitable without proof, but they have done little to explain systematically why this should be so. Today’s pedagogic driving range is the university lecture, the standard form of teaching in higher education for six hundred years. In a typical classroom, students are neatly arranged using clear, declarative statements. Lectures are not usually designed to help students grapple with ambiguous problems. Professors do not generally include gaps in logic for students to fill in, or contradictions to workout, or pauses that encourage students to reflect. #RandolphHarris 7 of 9

That is because teachers get nervous or impatient and then answer their own queries. With regard to empirical propositions, neglect of the problem of clarifying the conditions in which they may be accepted as indubitable has resulted in part from widespread controversy over whether the problem properly arises at all. It is estimated that ten second usually elapsed between their questions and then the professor resumed speaking. Another study revealed a stunning ratio of teacher-to-student questions: an instructor in one causes posed eighty-four questions, while students asked only two. A more general obstacle to a sound understanding of the basis of indubitably lies in a tendency to look for it in the wrong place. Lectures do little to inspire interest, encourage conceptual or active thinking, change students’ minds, or help students learn how to respectfully disagree with their peers (since they are not discussing material with another). A proposition is indubitable when there could be no reason to doubt it, but this impossibility is not in general inherent in the logical character of the proposition itself. indubitability is an epistemic property which depends on the relation between a proposition and the evidence or ground for assent with which it is considered. #RandolphHarris 8 of 9

In particular, dubitability and indubitability must not be confused with logical contingency and logical necessity. The logical contingency of a proposition may reasonably be doubted by someone who is not in a position to appreciate its necessity and who therefore must concede the possibility that further inquiry will uncover evidence against it. Moreover, it is a mistake to suppose that evidence for a proposition it not conclusive unless its conjunction with the denial of the proposition is self-contradictory. To be sure, a proposition is indubitable if and only if no basis for assenting to its alternative is conceivable, but something may be inconceivable even though it contradicts neither itself nor what has already been established. To support the claims that a certain proposition is indubitable, it is not sufficient to understand the conditions in which such claims are justified; it is also necessary to know what the conditions are fulfilled in the particular case in question. The regress supports no more than the mordant comment that it is never reasonable to insist that the question of whether one is being reasonable is entirely closed. Lectures are often as good as reading the textbooks. They convey facts. The role is fitting, since in the Middle Ages, a lecture meant that a professor would read aloud from an original source. The problem is not with the lecture, but comprehension and discussion of the material. You may need to spend five years in Kappa Tau Gamma and Omega Chi Delta or Zeta Beta Zeta. #RandolphHarris 9 of 9

Half a Loaf is Better than Starvation–On What Does Our Knowledge Rest?

Victorian writers who tried, in different ways, to work out a humanistic morality capable of satisfying the deep human needs that they thought the antiquated religiously based morality could no longer satisfy, understood that hereditary and social influences on character are heavily emphasized, as is the effects one’s repeated actions or evasions will have on one’s own character and hence on one’s future actions. The morality that springs from this view is primarily one of sympathy and compassion. The complexity and obscurity of motives and the mixture of good and evil in personality and deed are constantly displayed by an individual’s behavior, speech, and actions. To know what one ought to do in particular cases, one must rely ultimately on one’s deepest feelings when these are enlightened by sympathy and by knowledge of circumstances and consequences. Wrongdoing is usually traces to stupidity, callousness, or thoughtlessly excessive demands for personal satisfaction, rather than to deliberate malice or personal satisfaction. Vice and crime are shown as eventually bringing retribution, but the reward of virtue is at best the peace that comes with acceptance of one’s lot. #RandolphHarris 1 of 9

Renunciation and patient selflessness are chief virtue (behavior showing high moral standards). God cannot give until one asks. It is not that He wants to withhold something from us, but that is the plan He has established for the way of redemption. As redemption creates the life of God is us, it also creates the things which belong to that life. The only thing that can possibly satisfy the need is what created the need. This is the meaning of redemption—it creates and it satisfies. I do not like to be alone, as much as I give out. And I do not want to be alone at this moment. I do not think you know much about what I do. I love paintings. I love the soft colors. I love the sailboats and all the agreeable people, people in fancy clothes. There is a sweetness to paintings. I suspect they soothe people’s nerves. At the time, living on a small estate in Rixdorf, near Berlin in Germany, I gathered around myself a circle of free spirits (including my brother) and we frequented Berlin cafes. Five Elephant Coffee & Cake Shop was one of my favorite. Around my brother, I would be decadent and treat myself to a slice of Kasekuchen and an ice latte, so delicious. It would bring back wonderful memories. #RandolphHarris 2 of 9

That twinge of Autumn again in my beloved heart. I closed my eyes. I cleared my mind of all random images. I called out to my father and the dessert reminded me of the myths he told me about a tribe of all beings, tender of bone, ancient, simple, tangled with my fledgling, unknown to the World of records, history and location essential to the sanity of those I love. Guidance. Mistakes I have made with my fledgling, spiraling out of control. Father, give to me your wisdom, your keen hearing, your vision. Where are the tall creatures? I am your loyal subject. More or less. I send my love. Would he answer? I did not know. My father is an intelligent person who does great things for others and settled into a life of benevolence, as it is the only feasible way of achieving lasting good. Kasekuchen always reminded me of him. He brought one home when I was five, and I did not care much for it as a child for it was not sweet, but I grew to love it, and it reminded me of times we spent together. He taught me that religion, arts, laws, and intellectual activity—is the conscious expression of the total culture, the whole way of life. #RandolphHarris 3 of 9

Special pleading can be pure, and can replace blindness with true conceptions, and can bring about the fundamental change in human consciousness that would really be liberating. History will, by its own logic, bring about the transformation which no deliberate program can institute: what criticism has destroyed in thought today, history will destroy in fact tomorrow. These means can be justified by means of a metaphysic of consciousness, according to which the World is a projection of the ego. Matter is the as yet unclarified aspect of the World; evil social conditions are the product of uncritical and self-alienated principles. Christianity, for example, freed the ego from its thralldom to the material World, but only through an alienation of spirit from matter that had in its turn created a new burden. However, once Christianity’s historical roots are exposed, its self-alienating power is broken; hence the importance of criticism. The same must be done with other forms of human bondage: revolutionary programs which do not reach to the roots of consciousness are futile. #RandolphHarris 4 of 9

Any statement of fact is true or false in virtue of some existing state of affairs in the World. Several current and various reform movements are insufficiently radial. The urban and sports agitation for political rights, for example, should be encouraging students to study and earn good grades so they can improve their futures. Instead of protesting, which could get them in trouble. People would have so much more sympathy and understanding if students around the World, stopped playing sports and video games and formed study groups and prayer groups and their grades improved significantly. The real problem is economic class behavior. Social conditions can be changed by changing people’s minds. These protest are getting people talking, but the disruption that they are causing is deemed to generally be too eccentric to be relevant. In many cases the truth-value of a statement is determined by appealing to the truth-values of certain other statements because most conflict seems destructive given how poorly conflict is typically managed in groups. #RandolphHarris 5 of 9

When conflict spirals out of control it is destructive. Reaction to injustice by interference in the form of verbal abuse, physical abuse, murder, and vandalism may be incompatible with your perceived goals because it is perceived as destructive conflict. Destructive conflict is characterized by domination, escalation, retaliation, competition, defensiveness, and inflexibility. Participants lose sight of their initial goals and focus on hurting their adversary. If a proposition contains expressions standing for complexes, the sense of the proposition will depend upon the truth of other propositions describing these complexes. When you see that you are engaging in petty, even infantile, tactics to win an argument, you are getting less than smart. Becoming physically and verbally aggressive moved the conflict into destructive territory. This does not mean that you can never raise your voice, express frustration, or disagrees with others. Conflict can remain constructive even when discussion becomes somewhat contentious. #RandolphHarris 6 of 9

When conflict becomes more emotional than reasonable, however, when you cannot think straight because you are too consumed by anger, then conflict has become destructive. I understand how people can be frustrated because we are living in an age where some people in positions create conflict for no other means, but to be evil and hurt others, and when you call it to their attention they ignore you, threaten you, or pretend they do not understand what is going on and continue with the hurtful behavior. However, it is your job to rise above this futile behavior. We know that all things work together for good to those who love God. God may cause our circumstances to suddenly fall apart, which may bring the realization of our unfaithfulness to Him for not recognizing that He had ordained the situation. This is where the test of our faithfulness comes. If we just will learn to worship God even during the difficult circumstances, He will change them for the better very quickly if He so chooses. #RandolphHarris7 of 9

The principal focus is on trying to achieve a solution between struggling parties that is mutually satisfactory to everyone. Resolution suggests settling conflict or terminating the struggle, as if ending conflict by any means is always desirable. However, since conflict can be an essential catalyst for growth in a system, resolving conflict is not necessarily desirable. In some instances, increasing conflict may be requires to evoke change. Human rights demonstrators purposely provoke conflict to challenge racism. Women who file sexual harassment lawsuits provoke conflict in order to end an evil. These classes of statements provide an unshakeable, indubitable foundation. However, I believe more in conflict management. Managing conflict implies no end to the struggle. Although some conflict episodes do end with a group and are therefore resolved, conflict overall in a system is a continuous phenomenon varying only in intensity. Management of conflict also implies no judgment on the goodness or badness of struggles in general. Communication is central to conflict in groups. Our communication can signal that conflict exists, it can create conflict, and it can be the means for managing conflict constructively or destructively. #RandolphHarris 8 of 9

Many of the driving forces of modern society—especially its false emphasis on profit, its substitution of exploitation of men and things for right use, and its general adoption of commerce as the central human concern—are in fact hostile to any Christian life in the World. Once you have put someone on notice and made and effort to resolve the situation and let them know several times that they are causing you harm, then that leaves them open to penalties. When we compromise, we lower our expectations and goals. When compromising, we give up something to get something. Compromising is choosing a middle ground. Half a loaf is better than starvation—not in all circumstances, but certainly in some. Christianity can foster many valuable emotions and all actions must be for the glory of God. What we do will have good effect on future generations and we shall be remembered by them with love as there is a sufficient motive to virtue and a sufficient replacement of the belied in personal immortality and personal reward. #RandolphHarris 9 of 9

This is a Reason for Common Sense and Higher Learning
In the Spring of 2016 I learnt that two professors of Munich University had proposed me for the title of Professor Extraordinarius (assistant professor). The news came as a surprise to me and pleased me considerably as an expression of appreciation on the part of two eminent men which could not be explained by personal interest. However, I told myself immediately that I must not expect anything to come of their proposal. For some years past the Ministry had disregarded such proposals, and several colleagues of mine, who were my seniors, and at least my equals in desert, had been waiting in vain all this time for the appointment. I had no reason to suppose that I should fare any better. I resolved, therefore, to resign myself to disappointment. I am not, so far as I know, ambitious, and I was following my profession with gratifying success even without the recommendation of a professorial title. Whether I considered the grapes to be sweet or sour (something I could have or something disparaged and never desired) did not matter, since they undoubtedly hung too high for me. #RyanPhillippe 1 of 5
There is nothing about the loftiness of an inspiration that guarantees its truth. People whose loftiness makes them believe the best about their neighbors are probably as often mistake as those whose lack of loftiness makes them believe the worst. Whatever other aspects of meaning the word “sense” may retain in the compound “common sense,” it has prominently the force of a sense as opposed to nonsense. In what is contrary to common sense there is always something more or less—but obviously—nonsensical. It produced the feeling, varying in strength according to circumstances, that argument is only precariously in place in dealing with it. For to deploy arguments at all directly against the manifestly absurd is to invest it with some intellectual dignity and to muffle its self-annihilating character. It is, moreover, to invite the suspicion that one has failed to recognize absurdity, and such failure has a very foolish look. As a man of redoubtable common sense, it is wise to reserve dialectic for the right occasion. #RyanPhillippe 2 of 5
The individual must choose between several possible decisions. The possible decision may have variety of consequences, and ordinarily the consequences are not simply determined by the decision take but are also affected by the present state of affairs, or, as it is often termed, the present state of nature. One evening a friend of mine called to see me; one of those colleagues whose fate I had regarded as a warning. As he had long been a candidate for promotion to the professorate (which in our society makes the doctor accustomed from time to time to remind the authorities of his claims in hope of advancing his interests. It was after one of these visits that he called on me. He said that this time he had driven the exalted gentlemen into a corner, and has asked them frankly whether considerations of religious denomination were not really responsible for the postponement of his appointment. The answer was: His Excellency had to admit that in the present state of public opinion he was not in a position, excreta. #RyanPhillippe 3 of 5
Utility tends to produce benefit, advantage, pleasure, good, or happiness (all this in the present case comes to the same thing) or, what comes again to the same thing) to prevent the happenings of mischief, pain, evil, or unhappiness to the party whose interest is considered: if that part be the community in general, then the happiness of the community; if a particular individual, then the happiness of that individual. My friend, Michael Kafer, opened after his business degree, the legendary night club P1. For him it was very clear that he wanted to take over the family business. The Beetle Group was already a major player in catering, delicatessen and catering service in Munich, Germany at this time. Under his leadership, the company expanded steadily and today he has over 1,100 employees and an annual revenue of 140 million euros. The idea is the greatest good for the greatest number. Always choose that action which maximizes utility. We must, as in all over cases, set the observed facts before us and, after first discussing the difficulties, go on to prove, if possible, the truth of all the common opinions about these affections of the mind, or failing this, of the greater number and the most authoritative; for we both refute the objections and leave the common opinions undisturbed, we shall have proved the case sufficiently. #RyanPhillippe 4 of 5
Strong thinkers are apt to be greater breath-holders, but not holding one’s breath against belief is not doubting. The future holds possibilities of surprise for all our beliefs. You must not run away with the idea that you can name facts in any other way; you cannot. You cannot properly name a fact. The only thing you can do is to assert it, or deny it, or desire it, or will it, or wish it, or question it. You can never out the sort of thing that makes a proposition to be true or false in the position of a logical subject. Eternity itself, in all its terrible sublimity is far from making the same overwhelming impression on the mind; for it only measure the duration of things, it does not support them. We can put aside, and yet also cannot endure, the thought that a being, which we represent to should as it were, say to itself: “I am from eternity to eternity, and outside me there is nothing save what is through my will, but whence then am I?” The truest things are the things most fully in being. Now when many thing possess some property in common, the one most fully possessing it causes it in the others: fire, for example, the hottest of all things, cause all other things to be hot. There is something therefore which cases in all other things their being, their goodness, and whatever other perfections they have. And this we call God. #RyanPhillippe 5 of 5

Reasons for Believing in Immortality
Delight becomes pictorial when viewed through pain—more fair, because impossible that any gain. The mountain at a given distance in amber lies; approached, the amber flits a little—and that is the skies! Men always ought to pray and not lose heart. True intercession involves bringing the person, or the circumstance that seems to be crashing in on you, before God until you are changed by His attitude toward that person or circumstance. People describe intercession as allowing oneself to see or experience something from someone else’s place, and see how it feels. That is not true! Intercession is putting yourself in God’s place; it is having His mind and His perspective. Let your heart not be troubled. Our attitude must be one of complete reliance on God. Once we get to that point, there is nothing easier than living the life of a saint. We encounter difficulties when we try to usurp the authority of the Holy Spirit. Any problem that comes while I obey God increases my delight, because I know that my Father knows and cares, and I can watch and anticipate how He will unravel my problems. Peace I leave with you, my peace I give to you. #RyanPhillippe 1 of 7
The World is full of unbelievers and many of these nonbelievers feel a strong urge to worship something or somebody and therefore invent all kinds of surrogate deities. Man’s gods and demons have not disappeared at all; they have merely got new names. Those who do not believe in Him, believe nevertheless in some little pocket god or even devil of their own. Religious agnosticism is not a psychological fact, but a self-deception, it is an essential law [ein Wesensgesetz] that every fine spirit believe either in God or an idol. These idols may vary greatly. So-called unbelievers may treat the state or a woman or art of knowledge or any number of things as if they were God. Hunger for God, in its orthodox no less than in its newer substitute expression, is invariably the result of certain deprivations and traumatic experiences. People who suffer from insufficient contact with other human beings and who do not find the natural World satisfying will tend to experience longings for something supernatural or feel a need to endow human beings with supernatural attributes. #RyanPhillippe 2 of 7
All the faculties and feelings of our minds and bodies have their appropriate objects; and the possession of the faculties and feelings of our minds and bodies have their appropriate objects; and the possession of the faculties suppose the existence of those objects. Thus, the eyes in their very structure, supposes that there is light to be seen, and the ear would be unaccountable and inconceivable without the existence of sound, the heart would not feel if it could not project and sense love. In like manner our religious feelings and aspirations necessitate the existence of God. You must learn to grapple against the things that hinder your communication with God, and grapple in prayer for others people. Tussling before God makes an impact in His Kingdom. If you ask me to pray for you, and I am not complete in Christ, my prayer accomplishes nothing. However, if I am complete in Christ, my prayer brings victory all the time. Prayer is effective only when there is completeness. Therefore, take up the whole armor of God…praying always does. The yearning for some kind of God does point toward an in-built hunger in each of us—a hunger for something greater than we are. #RyanPhillippe 3 of 7
However, every other hunger has its normal gratification. This is true of physical hunger, of love and the sex, and of our craving for beauty. If, similarly, out religious hunger did not have its proper gratification, it would be difficult to see how it got built into natures in the first place. What is it doing there? We have eyes and that there is light and that the eyes are useful because there is light, so that, other things being equal, organisms with eyes are likely to win out in the struggles for survival in the struggle for survival against organism without eyes. Well, an architect of the human soul and body, who supplied organisms with their native equipment in order to fit them to their environment. Whatever desires are implanted in our minds by nature, we may reasonably conclude, will in due time be gratified under the government of a Being infinite both in power and goodness. Immortality after the existence of a beneficent deity has been independently established. Belief in God is instinctive. Men no more need to be taught that there is a God, then they need to be taught that there is a thing as sin. #RyanPhillippe 4 of 7
Adam believed in God the moment he was created, for this same reason that he believed in the external World. His religious nature, unclouded and undefiled, apprehended the one with the same confidence that his senses apprehended the other. The human mind was made by a God who would not deceive his creatures. And absence of the belief in God does not prove absence of a yearning for God; and in fact there are undoubtedly unbelievers who wish they could believe. All human beings, past and present, can be counted as believers in God. However, here it is not maintained that there are innate tendencies in human beings to believe in God. If anything, the opposite is true: men crave liberty of action and resent any being with superior authority. If, nevertheless, nearly all human beings are perfectly certain of the existence of their absolute Master, this can be so because the voice of reason is so clear and empathic: All races, civilized and uncivilized alike, are at one in holding that the facts of nature and the voice of conscience compel us to affirm this [the existence of God] as certain truth. If the whole of mankind were mistaken in a conclusion of this kind, it would follow that something is amiss with man’s intellect, that it is idle for man to search for truth. In this event, pure skepticism would be the only alternative. #RyanPhillippe 5 of 7
However, all of us, unless we wish to be perverse, realize that man’s intellect is fundamentally trustworthy—that, though frequently misled in this or that particular case through accidental causes, yet the instrument itself is sound. Since reason is fundamentally trustworthy, universal skepticism is not a serious alternative to the acceptance of mankind’s conclusion that God exists. In fact, visitors who tour the necropolis beneath Saint Peter’s tomb in the Vatican were impressed by the excavation of his bones. That is impressive because Saint Peter is one of the friends of Jesus, and that proves that God does exist, and many accounts in the Bible are true. Pope Benedict XVI also reported that Saint Paul’s tomb has been found and carbon-14 dating of the bone fragments gave the Vatican what it was looking for: The bones belonged to someone who lived between the first and second centuries. That was sufficient for the archaeologist to states that their findings did not contradict the tradition that this was, indeed, Saint Paul’s tomb. Even for the independent thinkers, there is such a thing as a consensus of best opinion which cannot be defied without the weightiest of reasons. #RyanPhillippe 6 of 7
There is in fact no race without religion. Focal things are concrete, tangible, and deep, admitting of no functional equivalents; they have a tradition, structure, and rhythm of their own. They are unprocurable and finally beyond our own control. They engage us in the fullness of our capacities. And they thrive in a technological setting. A focal practice, generally, is the resolute and regular dedication to a focal thing. It sponsors discipline and skill which are exercised in a unity of achievement and enjoyment, of mind, body, and the World, of myself and others, and in a social union. Simple artifacts and traditional practices sustained a spiritualized family life within a coherent social context. Examples of focal practices including running fly-fishing, or cooking and eating a family meal: each requires intimate, embodied knowledge and technique. Thus, deep engagement through focal things and practices stands against the postmodern device, like the television, that has become the new God of the masses and has step by step stripped the household of substance and dignity. Nonetheless, a person may be said to believe in God if he believes in a Supreme being, personal and intelligent, to whom man owes honor and reverence, regardless of what else he also believes or fails to believe. #RyanPhillippe 7 of 7
