Moral Law

When Are Abortions Acceptable?

A US Supreme Court ruling recently overturned abortion as a fundamental right and it has brought the issue of abortion to the forefront. In this article, I will discuss the problems with rights and freedoms, why they can never form a coherent legal doctrine, and how society is lost in strife when a legal system is constructed based on rights and...

Two Kinds of Mahattattva

A friend today pointed out to me a seeming anomaly between two descriptions of the Mahattattva. The first description appears as the second covering of the universe in Vedic cosmology, where the first covering is the Ahaṃkāra or ego. The second description appears in Sāñkhya where the Ahaṃkāra is said to be a byproduct of the Mahattattva. The anomaly is: Is...

The Cycle of Guna and Karma

The term guna indicates what we desire, and the term karma indicates what we deserve; both exist as possibilities, but their combination in time produces the cycle of birth and death. This is the essence of the Vedic science discussed in an earlier post where guna, karma, and kāla were described as three laws of nature. This post takes that description forward...

The Vedic Perspective on Free Will

My two previous posts explored the flaws in the materialist reduction of free will to rationality and discussed the use of free will in science. The second post concluded by arguing that every conscious experience involves choices, and these may be good or bad―depending on whether they are successful. This post extends the above arguments to incorporate our everyday notions about...

Numbers, Truth, Morality and God

What is a Number? Is it an idea or a thing? This question has been debated since Greek times, and it still remains unanswered in philosophy and science. This post examines the nature of the problem, and what its likely resolution will look like. It illustrates how the problem of numbers leads to the problem of choice, which then results in...