by Jishi Santos

Created on: April 18, 2009

Staircase or a flowing wave.

Ontology means a department of metaphysics concerned with the essence of things or being in general. Metaphysics, on the other hand, is concerned with speculations on the nature of being, truth and knowledge and contains abstract or subtle talk. To put it crudely, a laymen might sum this up as bullshit baffles brains, but that is cutting to the core rather crudely and too quickly. I am not going to dwell on the history associated with this topic and who first put it forward. Quite frankly I don't know a thing about that, but thought it might be interesting to view the philosophical discussion, using the analogy of a staircase and a rolling wave. We get many rolling waves on our surf beaches here in Australia, which is one big land mass surrounded by water and flow. Our thinking is very much straight forward here and there is a happy disposition to life and a no beating round the bush attitude. Hence the reference to bullshit versus brains. We are a young country and are not steeped in the old world tradition of churches, cathedrals, and forever trying to work out the existence of God. You either accept it or you don't and it doesn't matter. Not only that, we have descendants of the oldest race on earth, the Australians aborigines, who themselves have an earthy explanation of a Creator, or God.

If one is forever trying to put God in some sort of box for the convenience of a religious explanation, then in my opinion that is like chasing your tail but never catching it. This is the important statement from my lips, (and only a personal opinion) but linked to ontology and metaphysics, if they too can speculate on an abstract level. * If no one knows what God looks like, or is, but a Great Power somewhere, to pay homage and thanks to and keep you on the right path, then there are no steps to explanation in a hierarchical sense, having God at the top of the ladder. This sort of talk is just to satisfy logical explanation and too cut and dry; not full of wondrous mystery. Here's a simple test . You are a priest and a small child asks you to explain God and where he lives and if he has a wife and family. These questions are asked in front of the adult audience, you have just preached to in an abstract way, for you really don't know yourself. How do you answer that child honestly. Now here is a vital word in my commentary. Honesty. Because I think it is much easier to explain the existence of God as a big rolling wave of truth, that keeps

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