Tidbits:
Stories, Quotes, and FAQs.
The wisdom builder tidbits that feed the columns, articles, and trainer.
PHILOSOPHY OF RELIGION
Featured Story
Updated This Week
Philosophy
Story
Spirituality is exploration.
Material-Spiritual Framework
New Look
2 Layers & Metaphysics
The Material-Spiritual Framework begins with common footing. Our firsthand knowledge of the material world. From solid footing, you can map how people extend meaning beyond it. Do not force belief or disbelief on someone else, that’s dominiation, not tolerance. Instead, strive to clarify categories and understand with respect what others believe. It is never a debate.
Featured QUOTE
Updated This Week
Philosophy
Quote
Frameworks vary, but reality does not.
- Michael Alan Prestwood
TST Ethics
Be open to new ideas, but anchor yourself in reality. Examine your framework. Refine it. Test it. The goal is not to defend your lens, but to align it more closely with what is. Intellectual humility begins with recognizing the split between interpretation and the world itself.
Featured FAQ
Philosophy
FAQ
Can the Venus Flytrap Count?
Evolution
The Venus flytrap shows that structured responsiveness exists before human math, and human counting. Math wasn’t invented from nothing — it was discovered in patterns already woven into the fabric of life. Two rocks and two shells were equal long before we named them “two.”
Philosophy of Spirituality
Respect the believer. Test the belief.
Reality is our common ground.
Spirituality is an open-minded exploration of reality through science, reasoned thought, and honest speculation. It explores concrete things, valid ideas of the mind, and the unknown or unknowable. The goal is to clarify your beliefs within your worldview, helping shape your personal language, religious views, and guiding philosophy.
Deep-Dive Articles
TST Doxastic Formation: Public Belief, Tribe, and Worldview
This is your life. Embrace the beliefs you understand and believe in, not just the beliefs you inherited.
Philosophy: The Existence and Essence Debate
In religion and philosophy, the existence and essence debate asks if you exist before your time on Earth.
Pragmatism and Pythagoras
Pythagoras exemplifies rational pragmatism and reminds us that authority is often topic specific. Choose your authorities carefully, because good authority is usually limited to a ...
2 Layers: The Material World Split
Our ideas about the material world are not the material world. There is a split between reality and our descriptions of it.
Speculative Ideas in Science: Rip-Bang, Bigfoot, and Beyond
Speculation has a real place in science, but speculative ideas are not established truths. They are starting points, possibilities, or failed guesses that must eventually ...
Must-Reads
Ancient History
Pragmatism and Pythagoras
Pythagoras exemplifies rational pragmatism and reminds us that authority is often topic specific. Choose your authorities carefully, because good authority is usually limited to a ...
Artificial Intelligence
Consciousness: From the Soul to the Abyss
Consciousness is the experiencing of reality through senses and cognitive abilities, not as a mysterious all-or-nothing trait limited to humans.
Ancient History
Echoes of the Self: Exploring Consciousness Across the Ages
Consciousness is the capacity for awareness; animals add subjective experience, and humans add self-reflection and inquiry.
New Ideas
Idea of Ideas
2 Layers: The Material World Split
Our ideas about the material world are not the material world. There is a split between reality and our descriptions of it.
Updated Articles
Speculative Ideas in Science: Rip-Bang, Bigfoot, and Beyond
Idea Theory Framework
Wed 5 Jun 2024
(2 years ago)
Updated 2 days ago.
Sat 4 Mar 2023
(3 years ago)
Updated 1 week ago.
Philosophy: Dualism and Nondualism
Metaphysics
Wed 29 Mar 2023
(3 years ago)
Updated 1 week ago.