Closer To Truth

What Is Ultimate Reality?

COSMOS - What’s the deepest nature of things? Our world is complex, filled with so much stuff. But down below, what's fundamental? Only the physical world? Or anything nonphysical?

What Things Are Real?

COSMOS - Is the physical world real? Or an expression of consciousness. Is consciousness real? Or an illusion? Is there a spirit world? Many dismiss anything other than the physical.

How Can Emergence Explain Reality?

COSMOS - Does ordinary stuff have mysterious properties? Take anything; find all its parts; combine those parts any way you like. What do you expect? Nothing at all like what you have. It's called "emergence" and it describes how wondrously our world works. But is it a real mystery?

Is God Responsible For Evil?

MEANING - How on earth could God be reconciled with massive, monstrous Evil? If God is all-powerful and all-knowing, and if God is the creator, wouldn’t God be responsible for evil?

Does Evil Disprove God?

MEANING - Theologians have no tougher task than explaining evil, its enormity even more than its existence. Give the clergy their due: they've devised clever, even profound, rationale. But at the end of the long day, do these explanations, or rationalizations, really work?

Did God Create Evil?

MEANING - Whoever believes in the existence of God must explain the presence of evil. To theists, it's "the problem of evil," which they struggle to resolve. To atheists, it's "the argument from evil," which they wield like a sword. Moreover, if God is all-powerful and all-knowing, how could God not have created evil?

Is Death Final?

CONSCIOUSNESS - Death is the ultimate defeat. No matter our successes, we are all doomed to suffer the final failure. But some claim that death is not final. Can the defeat be defeated?

What's Wrong With Immortal Souls?

CONSCIOUSNESS - Do human beings have immortal souls? Science dismisses anything nonphysical, and even some theologians reject immortal souls. But if no immortal souls, what happens to eternal life?

Immortality and Eternal Life

CONSCIOUSNESS - I'd like to live forever. Wouldn't you? But what would "living forever" mean? Almost every religion offers life after death. What would immortality and eternal life be like?

What Things Are Conscious?

CONSCIOUSNESS - Consciousness is the great mystery of inner awareness. Where does it exist? Humans, obviously. Animals? Which animals? Chimps, elephants, dolphins, dogs? Termites, snails, amoeba, bacteria? What about non-biological intelligences like super-supercomputers of the future?