From the blog
Is Consciousness Natural?
And why you should care about the answer. … One of my readers responded to my article Why Consciousness is Such a Big Deal. They were surprised I would argue consciousness is fatal to the philosophy of naturalism and therefore it must be supernatural. The first thing to note is, I didn’t use the word…
Keep reading
The Authentic Spiritual Life
Curing the dis-ease of your soul. When we come to the point of extreme disappointment with this material world, our authentic spiritual life can begin. We accept the futility of searching for lasting joy in a world of suffering and death. When we have the courage to accept that harsh truth, we stand on the…
Keep reading
Does it Matter if God exists?
Naturalism’s magic bubble. One of my readers on Medium recently posted an article asking two questions: In all these discussions about God, we assume we’re using the word God to mean the same thing, but our conception of God is often very different. What does the word God mean? I generally don’t like using the…
Keep reading
Naturalism’s Dilemma: False or Meaningless? Pick one.
The popularity of modern naturalism relies on conflating a method with a metaphysics. The dazzling success of science is used to blind us to the naturalists hidden philosophical assumptions. Once those assumptions are exposed, metaphysical naturalism is revealed not as the most rational world view, but the dogmatic prejudice of the modern world. What is…
Keep reading
The Dynamic Life of Consciousness
Embracing the idealist worldview. What does it mean to say the substance of the world is conscious? Is idealism just an interesting philosophical theory with no practical relevance? Or does it turn our view of the world inside out, and illuminate the path to a fulfilling life? The dynamic life of consciousness Consciousness is a…
Keep reading
The Conscious Dimensions of Reality – A Vedic Analysis
Conscious experience is the essence of reality. Reality is that which is undeniable, and consciousness is exactly that. The very denial of consciousness presupposes its existence. Vedanta philosophy begins and ends with consciousness. According to Vedanta, consciousness encompasses four states or dimensions. Each dimension represents a deeper and more profound experience of reality. It’s important…
Keep reading
Why Consciousness is Such a Big Deal
Understanding the Spiritual World View. Consciousness is a hot topic these days, but most of the popular discussion misses the point. It either misunderstands the hard problem of consciousness, or sidesteps it. One example of the sidestep is found in neuroscientist Anil Seth’s book, Being You. He sets aside the hard problem of “why and how consciousness…
Keep reading
The Elegant Simplicity of Idealism
The best explanations of the world are not only the most accurate, they’re as simple as possible. There is an elegant simplicity to Einstein’s e=mc2, and yet it encapsulates a profound truth. This principle of explanatory simplicity is called parsimony. According to modern propaganda, naturalism is the simplest explanation of the world. It’s claimed that we…
Keep reading
Why I’m not a Naturalist
Naturalism is the cultural dogma of the modern world. It’s a story that’s repeated so often, people accept it without questioning its truth. The naturalist story says that as scientific knowledge advances, it’s proving beyond reasonable doubt there is no God, no eternal soul, no afterlife, and we live in an insentient and purposeless universe.…
Keep reading
God is Love
When some people hear that God is love, it arouses the image of a benign old gentleman. An inoffensive chap who is insipidly polite and agreeably kind. This superficial idea comes from the dogma of materialist thinking. We’re accustomed to think of love as an emotion, a feeling evoked by an object in the world.…
Keep reading
The Rational Path Leads to God – following the demands of logic
Everyone has heard the propaganda that theism is irrational. We’re told belief in God is wishful thinking. A security blanket for people who can’t cope with the harsh realities of life. But this patronising idea is the opposite of the truth. If we follow logic where it inevitably leads, it will take us to God.…
Keep reading
The Universe is a Spiritual Black Hole
Exposing the illusion of the material world. The term black hole is a misnomer. A black hole isn’t empty space, it’s the opposite. It’s a region of space so dense even light can’t escape its boundary. When viewed from the outside the space appears to be empty, because a black hole swallows everything, even light.…
Keep reading
The Perfection of Free Will – Voluntary surrender to divine love
The will is the power which moves everything in the conscious world. How you choose to move and interact with the world is determined by your will. While our limited sphere of influence moves according to our will, the entire reality moves according to God’s will. God is omnipotent, his will is all-powerful. There is…
Keep reading
The Problem of Evil and Suffering – Is there a solution?
The problem of evil is often called the rock of atheism. This describes its enduring power to cast doubt on the existence of a loving God. While we think of it as a logical problem, its force reaches far deeper than the intellect. It’s a simple matter to solve the logical problem of evil and reconcile…
Keep reading
The Insidious Cult of Scientism – The power of cultural indoctrination.
We can’t avoid cultural conditioning. We absorb it through psychological osmosis. From the moment of our birth, we’re immersed in social interactions which instil the cultural values and beliefs of our society. All human societies function through a set of shared values, beliefs, and practices. Culture is the conceptual infrastructure of a society. These cultural…
Keep reading
The Fulfilment of Consciousness – Moving in harmony with the divine.
The conscious dimensions of nature are the substance of reality. The conscious self within your body is the substance of what you are, and the same principle applies to the whole of reality. The field of spacetime is a continuous fabric on which the details of the world are embroidered. Spacetime also has inner conscious…
Keep reading
The Silence of the Cosmos is the Sound of Freedom
The human search for meaning. Human life is an existential crisis. We do what we can to avoid it. We try to ignore it, outsource it, delegate it, divert our attention from it or deny it exists. But they’re all feeble and futile attempts to avoid the unassailable law of our being, the essence of…
Keep reading
Heaven is not a Geographical Location
In the spiritual view of reality, the inner dimensions of the world are primary. The foundation of the world is consciousness. Instead of the naturalist view that consciousness is a state of matter, the idealist view is that matter is a state of consciousness. Matter is an idea. When we limit our view of the…
Keep reading
The Substance of Reality – Consciousness filtered through space-time
In the modern world, naturalism exerts a potent influence on our way of thinking. The exuberance produced by the success of science caused an overconfidence in its ability to explain the world. As scientific discoveries accumulated, people assumed this trend would continue indefinitely. Eventually, science would discover the Theory of Everything, a complete description of…
Keep reading
The Inner Dimensions of Nature
There is a lot of debate about the characteristics of nature and the existence of the supernatural, but through it all the concept of nature is often obscure. We may use the same word, but often we’re not talking about the same thing. For the materialist, nature consists of the objective properties studied by science…
Keep reading
The Law of Karma – cosmic justice or natural law?
The doctrine of karma is sometimes interpreted as a system of cosmic justice. God is the chief prosecutor enforcing his laws through reward and punishment. Suffering is divine retribution for sin, and sin is disobeying God’s commands. With this interpretation of karma, it follows logically that people deserve to suffer. Their suffering is a just…
Keep reading
How to Construct a Worldview – A blueprint for building tolerance and humility.
Human beings need a worldview to function. A worldview isn’t a single belief or even a collection of beliefs. It’s the widest possible view we can take of reality. A worldview is an interpretative framework, a conceptual map containing all the various facts about the world. It orientates us to the world and informs us…
Keep reading
Can all the Different Religions be True?
The harmonious outlook of religious pluralism. There is a wide diversity of religious claims and practices. Conceptions of the divine range from the God of Abraham to Hinduism’s impersonal Brahman. This diversity exists between religions and within religions. Many of the different claims seem contradictory. Some people think this means only one religion can be…
Keep reading
Universes from Nothing?
Scientific euphemisms and equivocations The question of cosmic origins is a perennially popular question, but most theists think the answer has been known for thousands of years. God is the ultimate cause of the cosmos. While there’s room to disagree with that theistic conclusion, there are rational limits on the valid ways to reject it.…
Keep reading
Reflections on the Nature of Faith – Transcending the limits of the intellect.
Faith is sometimes described as belief without evidence. Non-believers promote this idea, but many believers also say this is the substance of faith. If we had evidence, why would we need faith? But this is a shallow understanding of faith. If that was the substance of faith, faith would be irrational. But the deeper understanding…
Keep reading
In Pursuit of the Good Life
The search for the foundation of ethics. Everyone wants to live a good life, but what does that mean? Generally we picture a life with enough money to make us independent, time to pursue activities we enjoy, and opportunity for sensual pleasures. But can you live a good life even if you don’t have the…
Keep reading
The Fingerprints of God – A finely tuned universe
Modern physics has produced some amazing insights into the nature of the universe. One of the most astonishing is the discovery the fundamental forces of nature are balanced with a delicate precision. Upset this delicate balance and the universe could have collapsed in on itself before getting started. No atoms could form, which means no…
Keep reading
The Presumption of Atheism on Trial
It’s become fashionable to say atheism has no burden of proof. It’s said atheism is the default assumption and the onus is on the theist to prove, not on the atheist to disprove. While this idea has the superficial gloss of rationality, under a critical cross-examination it falls apart. Rather than promoting rational methods, it…
Keep reading
The End of Knowledge – Introduction to Vedanta
Vedanta has been called the science of spirituality. It’s one of the six schools of Indian philosophy and takes its inspiration from the literature of the Upanishads. Upanishad means to sit nearby. It suggests the texts contain the secret knowledge of the sages. The Upanishads give the conclusions of India’s sacred Vedic literature. Veda means knowledge…
Keep readingNew posts in your inbox
About Me
Hi, I’m Prudence,
I love philosophy, religion and exploring all the big questions in life. This blog is my way of sharing all the knowledge I’ve gained in my studies. I hope you find it as inspiring and fulfilling as it’s been for me.
Prudence Louise 