I just finished watching Alita: Battle Angel and I would first like to say, before anything else, that it was an amazing film! I like the cliffhanger in the end. The movie ought to have a part two, and I’ll be eagerly waiting for the part two.             Anyways, there were parts of the movie which I want to talk about in a Hylomorphic Dualist perspective. Hylomorphic Dualism is the view on the mind’s relationship to the body (and vice versa) taken from the Aristotelian-Thomistic concept of matter and form. Things of our experience, according to Aristotle and Aquinas, are composed of matter and form. Take, for example, a black leather shoe. The matter, or the material cause, of the leather shoe is obviously the leather. The form, or the formal cause of the leather shoe is its patterns, or the structure it exhibits, like its blackness, size, etc.             Things of our experience are then composed of form and matter. They won’t exist unless form instantiates matter. After all,

There’s a story about Diogenes the Cynic confronting one of the most well-known philosophers of the ancient times, Plato. Plato was once giving a lecture when he described man as a “featherless biped”. Plato’s listeners applauded him for his definition. Diogenes, however, was unimpressed by Plato’s description of man. He brought a featherless chicken in front of Plato’s Academy, raised the plucked chicken and exclaimed, “Behold, Plato’s man!”             Of course, Plato didn’t really misconceive what a man is, since men are indeed featherless. The problem with Plato’s definition is that while it’s correct, it’s actually incomplete. Men are indeed featherless, but there’s obviously more to us than that. To limit the nature of man with mere featherlessness is to equate man’s nature with a plucked chicken’s nature, or even a pig’s.             Fast forward 2300 years later, from ancient Greece to modern day Philippines, President Rodrigo Duterte has this well-known hobby of spitt

[F]aith, properly understood, does not contradict reason in the least; indeed… it is nothing less than the will to keep one’s mind fixed precisely on what reason has discovered to it. - Edward Feser, The Last Superstition: A Refutation of the New Atheism, p.154 The modern world is an irreligious world. Sure, you still meet someone out there who still identifies as “Christian” and probably still fulfils his Sunday obligation. But is his belief in God firm? Does he still care for his immortal soul? Is his moral view consistent with his Christianity, or does he think that there’s nothing wrong with a woman “marrying” or “having sex” with another woman? We can never be sure these days given that we live in a post-conservative society that is hostile to traditional religion and morality and is open for “innovations” and “progress”. Forget about Jesus Christ and all these crap about “eternal damnation” if you refuse to believe. Forget about sex only for procreation. Today we know b