I Can’t Think of a Title…(Pun Intended)

by Victor Uy

Existence presupposes thinking. This is primarily the reason why we, as human beings, are affirmed of our existence in this world – we are thinking beings. Because we can think, we are certain that we are alive.And by being alive, we are able to act on our own free will. But how do we think? What do we think about? Are we certain that whatever is in our minds is true? – These are just some of the questions that require, again, some form of thinking.

Thinking, as we are all capable of, is an affirmation of life. We undergo this process every single day, and we don’t even notice that we are thinking because it all comes naturally. Thinking is good. It provokes more ideas to flourish – it adds fuel to the fire that is doubt. Doubting has a bad connotation but isn’t necessarily detrimental; in fact, doubt could lead to the discovery of things and insights that we’ve never thought of before. An example would be the classic notion that the Earth is flat. Had there been no one to doubt it, we would still think that the Earth is, indeed, flat – had we just stopped there and accepted everything that was presented to us, we wouldn’t find out that the Earth is an oblate spheroid, that there are, in fact, other planetary bodies out there waiting to be discovered…so on and so forth.

Thinking is not just “thinking” anymore because we live in a vast world of subjectivity.The way I see it, people who doubt more are the ones who think more. Doubt canbe a vessel to be able to arrive at certitude. Sometimes we need to clear our minds first of anything and everything to be able to arrive at a certain insight.Accepting an idea or anything for that matter requires less thinking, as opposed to questioning the process, disagreeing with the norm, fighting for what you believe in, or what have you. Doubters often have this defensive stance with regards to different matters mainly because they want more physical proof. However, proof is not that easy to come up with. A classic example of this will be the existence of a God or a “higher being”.

We, including anything and everything in this world, are creatures. A creature, for it to be a creature, then presupposes that there is, indeed, a creator.This might sound all philosophical and abstract to some, if not to most people.Oftentimes, skeptics ask for proof. Unluckily, the world didn’t come in Blu-Ray format wherein you could just press rewind and watch everything from the very beginning to see if there really is a “higher being”.

Some people say, “to see is to believe” – and these kinds of peopleare the ones who are more skeptical because they want physical or scientific proof. The popular phrase is an overused argument when it comes to the existence of a God. A pilosopoway of catching these people off-guard is by responding to their argument with another question: “do you have a brain?” of course, the person would affirm that he or she has one. The next question is “have you ever seen your brain?” expect a moment of silence and prepare to tell him or her “that’s right...you don’t have a brain”. If the person you’re arguing with is tougher than most, he would respond, “How can I think if you don’t have a brain?” Then you can go hit him or her back with another argument, “How can you be a creature if there is no creator?” Following the to-see-is-to-believe logic, we could formulate a lot of fallacious statements.

There will always be a heated debate on topics regarding religion and we will find ourselves, most of the time, agreeing to disagree. Some people would be convinced by the fact that it is written in some document called “The Bible” or “Koran”, but the other side of the spectrum – the one composed of skeptic thinkers – will always yearn for that “proof”. However, up to the present, there is no way to prove God’s existence by means of intellectualization, for belief in God requires a “leap of faith”.


So as to close my blog entry, I have one question for you…Do you have a brain?