Closer To Truth

Is God Necessary?

MEANING - Whether God exists may depend on whether God is necessary. Even if God exists, would it have been possible for God not to exist? In other words, even if God does exist, could it have been otherwise?

Wondering about God

MEANING - The God debate is not a game. Is there a God? If so, what are God's essences and traits? What are all the ways that God could be? Or could not be? We discover different beliefs of different kinds of Gods.

Death Disrupted?

CONSCIOUSNESS - Religions offer life after death. Many people are skeptical. Evidence for post-mortem survival? Again, skeptics abound. Can death ever be defeated? Are these possible ways?

How Could God Make Miracles?

MEANING - Where do miracles fit in belief systems that center on God? If God exists, how could God make miracles happen, and what would miracles imply about the way God relates to the world?

Speculating about God?

MEANING - In searching, striving to know God—if there is a God—we discover contrasting ways that God could be. It is good to wonder about God, see a landscape of possibilities, get the big picture of what God may be like.

Can Metaphysics Discern God?

MEANING - How to think about God rationally, logically, profoundly, critically? Have no illusion that metaphysics can find God, but can a kind of progress be made?

Does the Cosmos Have a Reason?

COSMOS - What remarkable discoveries are being made in cosmology! Cosmologists now develop credible theories about the beginning and end of our universe and theory-based speculations about vast numbers of multiple universes. But does the cosmos have a reason? Could revolutionary ideas support some kind of 'universal reason'? The bar is set high, and it is OK to say no.

Can the Mind Heal the Body?

CONSCIOUSNESS - It is standard medicine that mental states can affect physical states. That's how placebos work—when sham drugs improve health, working by inducing the body to generate hormones. But some claim that the mind goes even further in healing the body, operating through consciousness in some nonphysical manner. Can this make sense?

What is Consciousness?

CONSCIOUSNESS - Consciousness is what we know best and explain least. It is the inner subjective experience of what it feels like to see red or smell garlic or hear Beethoven. Consciousness is baffling.

How Does Personal Identity Persist Through Time?

CONSCIOUSNESS - Is the self an illusion? Decades roll by; every molecule of my body changes many times. Yet I sense myself the same-continuous, a unity. How can this be?