People are often amazed that we exist. For example, I have heard on numerous occasions people say something like: "How crazy is it that atoms have aligned in a particular way to produce you and I, in the circumstances that we're currently in, as seemingly conscious beings?" Is the answer to that: "It's not crazy, it was bound to happen at some point!" ? Isn't time so long that every possibility of life, every permutation or combination of every event is bound to occur? For example, sometime eons in the future or the past, another me could be sitting here writing this exact question, only to make a miniscule typo, and that be one of the only differences between then and now? Is the fact that I am alive and conscious as I am right now a certainty given how long time is?

Do you really believe that the entire universe was made by a "big bang?" Doesn't it seem like there must be some type of higher being something? It just doesn't seem like all the pieces of the puzzle come together from a few dust particles...

Couldn't we take the "ontological proof" of God's existence to prove that there are many God-like creatures? For instance, imagine a creature that has all thinkable perfections except for the fact that it has dirty fingernails. If existence is a perfection, then this creature must have this perfection, since one can both exist and have dirty fingernails. And so, if the ontological proof proves that God exists, then it proves that dirty fingernails-God exists too. Doesn't it?

Is there something fallacious/illogical about how the theist/atheist debate in the west is currently framed? Let me illustrate my point with an example. Consider the Irish legend of Fionn mac Cumhaill. In making sense of this legendary figure we could start by analysing arguments for and against his existence. We could count, for example, the "Giant’s Causeway" in N.Ireland to be evidence in favour of his existence. But this approach seems slightly misguided. We have jumped right into debating his physical existence without first looking at the sources of the Fionn mac Cumhaill tale. A knowledge of Celtic mythology and folklore would reveal to us the mythological nature of this figure and it consequently becomes illogical for us to debate his actual physical existence. Is the same true of the existence of the Biblical god "Yahweh"? Once we analyse the sources of the Bible, particularly noticing the influence of Near-Eastern mythologies and the development of monotheism from its henotheistic context, we...

Do humans have a greater right to live than other animals? If so, would beings of much greater intelligence and perception hold that same right over humans?

Can any one give an insightful analysis of statements such as God exists, There is only one God etc. What does "exist" mean ? Are there so many differnt types of existence- existence of the chair, the God, the concept of numbers, the existence of the electron, the wave-particle's dual existence, the existence of beauty, existence of UFO, existence of angels, existence of strings in the string theory, existence of mathematical objects such as N dimensional space, existence of dark matter, etc. Is this all a matter of linguistic naivety in the sense of some observations of Wittgenstein?

Is it paradoxical to ask what existence is without already knowing the meaning of the term "is"? A statement such as "there is a crate of oranges in front of me" seems like a statement about the "existence of oranges." But at the same time what does it mean to say that the "crate of oranges" exists? Existence seems like the most intuitive and indubitable metaphysical pronouncement and yet at the same time it evades clear definition. I suppose you can say "the orange crate exists because you can pick an orange up or it exists because you can observe it." But it seem like their is something more to saying something exists than that, but I can't put my finger on it.

If, as Dawkins reminds us in "The God Delusion", our cellular self is completely renewed over time, should we absolve the criminal of his crimes after time has passed on the grounds that he is no longer the person that committed the crime - for example, the rapist who is not caught until decades after his crime, or the aging general who committed war crimes. If not, does this prove that there is more to the self-hood of a person than just a collection of cells?

Are there any books you could recommend about the concept of reality? The philosophical origins of reality that is. Thank you!!

This is a twist on the "If a tree falls in the woods" question: Certainly there lived in the past a person, but the person in question has some very typical attributes: Nothing was written about or by this person. The person in question made no lasting contributions or left any tangible artifacts. No-one living has any memory of this person, nor are there any stories, legends, or tales being told. Did this person ever exist even with no known qualities, age, timeframe, or attribute other than "a human in the past?" There may well have been the faceless masses that are written about and populate historical accounts and ancient Greek plays, but what about specific but unspecified persons? They must have existed, but did they exist as individuals or only as a type?