I am not an authority on anything, so take everything I say with a grain of salt. You should exercise this same caution with what everybody else says, as well. It's only common sense; nobody can know what is good for you better than you know yourself. But you must trust yourself while at the same time realizing that you, too, sometimes make mistakes, even potentially fatal mistakes, and so must be very, very careful about your own thinking. None the less, you still must do your own thinking. If you let other people do it for you, remember: the "road to Hell is paved with good intentions."
Thus concludes the caveat emptor -- the "buyer beware" -- for this site, all my sites everywhere, and all my writings.
I plan to build this site over time and during the construction it will act as a kind of half-way house for my notes, partially finished articles, and completely finished articles, some of which you may recognize from other publications around the internet.
So, with no further adieu, let me slop up a few diverse notes here for a beginning.
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James H. Bath
First of all, existentialism is just a term, no matter how full or empty of meaning. And as a term, it limits consciousness down into its own field of ideas. To speak of God is rather nonsensical, whether we�re arguing for His existence or against it. Usually, people use the term �God� in order to skirt the responsibility of doing the considerable amount of work required in thinking about Him. Anything infinite, anything omniscient and omnipresent, and anything so vitally important to our existence, should require more than a simple wave of the hand statement or one-syllable word to indicate.
Only a philosopher who has never suffered greatly would utter such a thoughtless, wave-of-the-hand statement as �we are responsible for our own actions.� This is absurd on many levels. One such level is that it completely disregards our interconnectedness with Earth�s enormously complex ecosystem and, by extension, disregards all of Earth�s connection to all the rest of space and time. For a so-called philosopher to utter such a statement is both idiotic and abusive of power and position. He can only excuse himself by prefacing his work with an acknowledgement that he is basing his ideas on various assumptions and that he is merely speculating and contemplating. For if he really did know the truth of such matters, he would be an intellect so infinite and omniscient that he may as well be called �God.�
Anyone who argues that philosophy has nothing to do with the real world is arguing from an unexamined and erroneous position. Everyone is guided by philosophy, from the most ruthless business person, bent on hording wealth and power, to the poorest dumpster diver who speculates his best bet for supper is to beat the other derelicts to the trash. And there is the middle class carpet-dweller who thinks keeping his nose hairs clipped and his tennis shoes pristinely white is the best philosophy. The truth is we�re all guided by philosophy which is eternally changing in our minds to meet our own constantly changing circumstances.
One of my favorites is the sublime armchair thinker, the ponderer of things close and far. This of course is the true calculus of philosophical exercises. This inquiry delves into the mysteries of the universe. But it is not the final word.
