When a writer is giving advice on writing and they are saying what not to do and what you should do, then do you take the advice or kind of find your own groove?

Premise 1: If God does not exist, objective moral values and duties do not exist. Premise 2: Objective moral values and duties do exist. Conclusion: Therefore, God exists. Can we accept the conclusion above as valid or even fact?

Are all political systems equal, meaning they bring out the goods that we all want in our society, when ideally practiced, or some would necessarily come out better than others just by the fact of their nature, arrangement and constitution? For instance, I once held the belief that communism is an equally good way of a government as democracy if it is ideally practiced, but I now doubt this point of view. Do I have good reasons to doubt it?

A presidential candidate's adviser earlier today asked supporters in one state to vote for a rival in order to deny the delegate leader another win. I have always thought that voting strategically--manipulating the process to promote a particular result rather than voting for your "best candidate"--was a perversion of the franchise. I was once criticized because I voted my conscience for a candidate with little chance of winning (a Green) because it robbed the Democrat of support in a close race. I found the reasoning flawed. I guess my question is what is best for a democracy--voting based on good faith evaluation of candidates or voting for the candidate closest to one's political view who is also electable?

My question is on death. I am young and have read a lot. A few people have passed in my short lived life and death is an interesting topic for me. Many people believe death is not the end, they say it is the beginning of life. How can it be the beginning if you are dead? Your body is dead I believe, but the soul lives forever even if it rotts in hell. Many claim they are not afraid of death. I think its true death is nothing to be afraid of. What we are afraid of is letting go of our bodies, of life as we know it. I am 12 and do not quite know my own theory on death, but I believe death is a great mystery and I like to study the different answers and everything. My question is - Is death real and should we be afraid?

In Plato's book 'The Republic' there is no mention of Plato himself (as far as I've gotten) and it seems the main speaker and also narrator is Socrates. If this is true and Socrates is the narrator/main speaker then how is it that the book was written Plato? Thank you!

My question concerns the ethics of mass influence, specifically when the intention is to help bring about positive consequences and the means of influence is manipulative. It seems to me that mass communication that is designed to manipulate public opinion is likely to be harmful to reason and rational inquiry, not to mention that it treats people as objects or pawns, it smacks of elitism (which if warranted requires justification), and in some case it can lead to social polarization and even violence. But grandpa here also wonders if he has held onto youthful idealism for far too long, and that maybe a realist would accept that anyone who wants to do good in the world on a large scale has no choice but to at least sometimes engage in some degree of manipulative mass communication, and that this is as ethically justifiable (depending on the situation) as deceiving Kant’s murderer at the door. I’ve searched in vain for philosophical commentary on this specific issue, and I would be particularly interested...

The haze in Singapore causes problems for the capitalist economic system. The forest fires in Indonesia cause the haze in Singapore. The forest fires in Indonesia are caused by the greed inherent in the capitalist economic system. So the capitalist economic system is inherently self-defeating. Is this a valid or Invalid argument?

Can we unknow what we already know?

Hi all, Don't know if anyone can answer but is it really possible to upload our consciousness onto a computer hardrive, and achieve Transcendence? I believe there was a movie with Johnny Depp, in the lead, that looked at this, but as I haven't seen it, I really don't know what treatment this topic got. Anyway I hope someone will take pity on me, and answer my question, because when it comes to Transcendence, its really the Elephant in the lounge room. Cheers Pasquale.