Pagan And Christian Polytheism

The true Biblical Trinitarianism, if one calls it that at all, is not that Yahweh, Jesus, and the Holy Spirit are all manifestations of the same being that still somehow have their own independent wills and roles.  It is not the case that the Bible teaches that the "Trinity" is just one being revealing itself in different ways either.  The first of these is logically impossible unless God actually had three different personalities within the same overall mind, like a human with dissociative identity disorder (once called multiple personality disorder).  This is not what most Trinitarians affirm, at least when pressed.  As for the second, standard Trinitarianism entails that Yahweh, Jesus, and the Holy Spirit are distinct, yet that they are still somehow the same being.  This is not the same as one being manifesting itself in different ways as if the other two members of the Trinity are momentary constructs of the first.

However, evangelical/traditional Trinitarianism is logically impossible.  This is not Biblical, but God could be just one being presenting a front of sorts with two alter egos or there would have to be three separate metaphysical entities, unless the Holy Spirit is only an expression of the others' power, in which case there would be two.  There could also be multiple divine beings, which is what the Bible actually teaches.  What is impossible whether or not Christianity is true, since it is a logical contradiction, is the version of "three in one" that is popularly held to by many Christians who are desperate to gratuitously oppose polytheism for its allegedly inevitable pagan nature.  Jesus is not the Father and repeatedly differentiates himself from him.  He says God is good and not himself in Mark 10:17-20, says that he did not know the exact time of his return though the Father did in Matthew 24:36-41, and submits his will to Yahweh's in the Garden of Gethsemane in Luke 22:39-44.

The Bible is not at all reluctant to clarify that they are different beings, and other New Testament authors do the same simply by referring to them independently in the same sentences--not even evangelicals can reference the Trinity without speaking in contradictory ways.  This is not the same as pagan polytheism although it is indeed a form of polytheism all the same.  While the Olympians of Greek mythology, for example, are created beings with differing dominions and conflicting attitudes that are still erroneously called gods or goddesses, even if Jesus was created by Yahweh as some verses suggest (after all, he is called God's begotten son more than once), he is a being in unity with the Father (John 10:30).  Biblical Christianity is polytheistic, but its kind is scarcely like that of the Greco-Roman pantheons.

Yahweh and Jesus created the universe together according to the Bible (John 1:1-3) and have the same purpose for humanity: that of moral betterment to the point of perfection and that of punishing sin with the cosmic justice of the second death.  Whether or not Jesus was created, the two are still separate beings with divine power, with the Son deriving his power from the Father if he was truly begotten.  However, they are one in intention and moral character either way (again, see John 10:30), the Father giving the Son his approval for the latter's righteousness and sacrificial commitment to human salvation.  Christian polytheism is actually a very core doctrine of Biblical philosophy in the sense of being very foundational to its teachings.  Jesus cannot have his own existence and will if he is the same as the Father.

Non-Biological Family

The only relationships one could not will away or spontaneously dissolve at any time are the connections one has on a biological level with family members.  Yes, a person could turn their backs on family whether or not it is just to do so, but the family tie would remain.  With friendships and romantic relationships (the latter being a thriving friendship itself when it is handled correctly), there is always a voluntary element, something that makes them more fundamental to social expression and something more life-giving than just family bonds alone.  These relationships are selected and nurtured with intentionality.

Family that is chosen, either the non-biological family of close, rationalistic, friendships with philosophical equals or a rationalistic romantic partner (with a compatible personality) that might receive lifelong commitment, is always greater in significance than the people to whom one has involuntary, happenstance, mere biological ties.  That is, this is true unless one's literal family is worthy of the same kind of personal devotion.  One can certainly be friends with biological family members and, unless they have done something to deserve being ignored or unless one is willing to show mercy towards their failings, this is a good thing to pursue.  Unfortunately, many family relationships are not this positive, though they could be or could have been.

Investing in quality friendships and romantic/marital relationships is by default higher than investing in natural, biological family relationships simply because they involve siblings or parents.  For parents, there is a responsibility to take care of their children while they need it, but if they become or remain irrationalists as they physically mature, then their children, too, are not as worthy of attachment and personal love as intellectual, moral, and relational equals united in rationality and mutuality.  Biological family members are not enemies or inferior because they are family, just not special in any way as a human or an individual.

Seeking out and actively prioritizing friendships or the bond with a significant other, if they are chosen on valid grounds, that is, is the ultimate form of building human relationships.  Friendships can be shared between siblings, parents and their children, and extended family, of course, so this does not exclude family members, who could wind up being excellent people worth investing in relationally.  That these friendships within family are chosen is what makes them superior, more genuine, more personal, more stable.  Voluntary, mutual relationships can always have what mere biological ties do apart from the blood relationship; they also can have so much more depth and expansiveness.  Non-biological "family" is often the very best kind.

The Logically And Biblically Egalitarian Nature Of Engagement

One does not even have to look outside the Torah itself to find overt acknowledgement of the fact that if a woman is engaged to a man, the man is engaged to the women, and in light of the metaphysical equality of Genesis 1:26-27 (and 5:1-2) and the non sequitur and contradictory nature of the alternative, of course there is no difference in the sexual morality of an engaged man having sex with a woman outside of the relationship and the opposite that is mentioned in Deuteronomy 22:23-24.  As I will tackle below, the identical nature of engagement in both directions is true by logical necessity and thus the Bible would have to be consistent with this for it to even be possibly true.  It is just that it does from start (Genesis 2:23-24) to finish affirm that the status of engagement and the marriage to follow is egalitarian.

In the words of Deuteronomy 20:7, men were/are pledged to women just like the other way around.  No, the Torah does not demand male soldiers or prohibit women from direct military service here or elsewhere (see also Deuteronomy 4:2 and 12:32), but it does say that any male soldier who is engaged but not married can be excused from fighting; after the legal marriage arrives, spouses are furthermore not to be given military service or other major public tasks for a year so that they can bring happiness to their new wife, or by logical extension husband (Deuteronomy 24:5).  The statements in Deuteronomy 20:1-9 are not prescriptive whatsoever of any gender stereotypes or roles.  Song of Songs 6:3 likewise says, in the words of the woman who loves and is loved, that she is her beloved's and he is hers.  There is no sexist ownership in one direction or the other hinted at here and no such thing taught in the Torah, though the two do belong to each other on one level.

1 Corinthians 7:36 also addresses men who are engaged to marry women, while 7:1-5 very clearly teaches that in marriage, there is mutual obligation to submit and pursue only consensual interpersonal sexual acts.  It says the husband and wife "own" each other.  This is written by Paul, who says over and over, contrary to the church's conventional anti-theonomy, that Mosaic Law is righteous and enduring in its perfect, universally obligatory status (Acts 24:14, Romans 7:7, 12, 1 Corinthians 9:7-12, 2 Corinthians 13:1, 1 Timothy 1:8-11, 5:17-21).  Just as Jesus and other New Testament figures affirm it (Matthew 5:7-19, 15:1-20, Mark 7:1-13, Luke 16:16-17, Hebrews 2:2), so does Paul, and yet God does not change (Malachi 3:6, James 1:17).  What the New Testament teaches about the egalitarian nature of marriage (see also Ephesians 5:21) and by extension engagement is exactly what the Old Testament directly or indirectly teaches.  It is not that the Torah is sexist and the New Testament corrects or upholds this!

The Bible would not have to explicitly say that engagement is two-sided, however, for it to teach this (Genesis 1:26-27, one of the most important parts of the entire Bible, is of course relevant) or for it to be consistent with the fact that engagement is two-sided in itself.  Obviously, this is true by logical necessity even if a person or culture thinks that engagement and marriage are one-sided statuses.  For marital engagement to occur, two people must be engaged to each other, not just one to the other.  If one of them, regardless of gender, becomes pledged to the other, the same could only be true in the inverse direction.  The very nature of engagement is in this sense gender egalitarian no matter what falsities someone might hold to, even a person who is himself or herself engaged.  For the Bible to be logically possible, much less true, it would have to be consistent with these facts that as logical necessities are true independent of cultural recognition, Biblical acknowledgement, or subjective feelings and preferences.

Now, the Bible is consistent with them, and not just because it openly teaches that men are pledged/married to or belong to women no less than the other way around.  It would not have to directly state this for its doctrines to be consistent with these logical necessities (what a fool and insect someone is who thinks that a text has to directly say something to be consistent with it!).  In fact, it would have to plainly say otherwise for a passage like Deuteronomy 22:23-24 to be sexist in its treatment of marital engagement and the ethics of an engaged person having sex with someone they are not married/engaged to.  In the absence of any teaching that in itself--not as it seems to come across to a reader, but in the concepts it is actually putting forth--is articulated in a manner such as "It is sin for a man to rape someone, but not for a woman", even with no other textual context, logical equivalence by default would mean that the Bible is already egalitarian there.  What it directly says about marriage and engagement before legally finalized marriage is simply gender egalitarian as well.

The Consumption Of Pig

Like the requirement of only eating underwater creatures having both fins and scales in Leviticus 11:9-12 (which excludes animals like octopi, crawfish, sharks, and lobsters), the requirement of only eating land-based creatures that both have cloven (also called split) hooves and chew their cud is put forth in Leviticus 11:2-7.  It is both of these factors that must be present for a creature that walks the land to be morally suitable for eating by Biblical standards.  An animal such as a cow or giraffe would meet both requirements because their hooves are split and they regurgitate food to their mouths to be rechewed.  The pig does not have both characteristics at once.  It only has one of them.

Leviticus 11:7 does use a pig as an example of a prohibited beast that has split hooves but does not chew its cud, but pork is commonly singled out by many people who do not eat the kosher diet, or have Biblical familiarity with it, as at least one thing they might have heard is forbidden (they might not have actually even read the Bible on this matter at all and be thinking only of cultural hearsay).  A pig is listed as a creature that has a cloven hoof but does not chew its cud, yes.  It is not the only animal that does not meet both requirements for land-based animals.  Leviticus 11:4-6 uses camels, hyraxes, and rabbits as examples of forbidden land animals right before mentioning pigs, though they are examples of animals that inversely chew their cud without having split hooves.

Being the only creature specified as not chewing its cud despite the split hooves is noteworthy in one sense.  For pigs to be the only animals that many appear people recognize as non-kosher, at least according to whatever hearsay they have encountered, shows how unfamiliar the masses are with something that Jesus never actually repeals [1].  Many seem to ignore the dietary laws of Leviticus 11 and Deuteronomy 14 as if they are irrelevant to their lives, but the Bible does not ever say that God's nature and his stemming commands changed on the issue of food, and it is really more that they are inconvenienced by something contrary to human traditions.  Altering everyday food habits is more than plenty of Christians seem willing to do.

Still, there is nothing specifically about pig flesh that is representative of the whole of the Torah's dietary laws.  Pork might be referenced as if it is one of the most obvious of the non-kosher food examples, and it is certainly one of the most culturally acknowledged in some circles.  In a country like modern America, it is also far more popular of a food than the likes of jellyfish, camel, dog, and so on, though all of the latter are also non-kosher animals.  In some cases it could be the case that certain people think mostly or only of pork when thinking of the dietary laws because they are reacting to their culture without making assumptions.  In others, it is assumptions about the criteria for kosher food, or disinterest in its ongoing obligatory nature in Christian theology, that is behind this trend.

[1].  https://thechristianrationalist.blogspot.com/2023/09/that-which-defiles.html

Movie Review--X-Men: Dark Phoenix

"What happened to you in space was not a solar flare, and it was not an accident.  It was drawn to you."

--Vuk, X-Men: Dark Phoenix

What heights First Class, Days of Future Past, Logan, and the Deadpool films climbed to!  The best of the X-Men films are indeed among the best of the entire superhero genre and in turn among the best films of the last 15 years.  Continuing the wide variation in quality that marks this Fox franchise, Dark Phoenix does not even begin to rival the greatness of its predecessors.  For the second attempt at adapting the Dark Phoenix story in the same live-action X-Men continuity to not amount to anything more than what resulted is an enormous failure.  Is everything in Dark Phoenix abysmal?  No, and certain elements are even very well-done, but they are islands of triumph in an ocean of wasted opportunity.  Not even Jessica Chastain, Michael Fassbender, a fairly spectacular action sequence, and a promising set of extraterrestrial villains save this film.

Production Values

As early as the space shuttle rescue scene, the visuals are rather good for a film this mixed overall.  These shots of outer space are the best in the entire movie along with those alongside Vuk's explanation of the Phoenix Force, though the finale also has its own bursts of rather excellent camerawork and effects. Jean feeding her cosmic power into Vuk shortly before the credits is especially stellar.  As Jean Grey the titular Dark Phoenix, Sophie Turner gets her chance to be the leading character in an X-Men ensemble movie, and she does her best to emote as the plot calls for it.  Fittingly, she has one of the best characters here, and she also sometimes contributes to great shots; her eye turning gold when in her father's house and her holding back Magneto's metal railing are framed well.  Jessica Chastain, on the contrary, has a much more emotionally reserved role.  Despite doing well at portraying Vuk's coldness, she is not used for almost anything else except providing plot-necessary information to Jean Grey.  James McAvoy and Michael Fassbender are wonderful--but when is Michael Fassbender not fucking amazing?  On the less utilized side of the cast, Jennifer Lawrence and Evan Peters (American Horror Story) are only shadows of their former selves in Days of Future Past.  Without them actually giving poor performances, their roles do not get the same level of focus and development as they did before.

Story

Some spoilers are below.

The mutant named Jean Grey accidentally led to a fatal car accident when she was a young girl as her mutant ability first triggered, after which she was recruited by Charles Xavier.  Charles is called by the president of America many years later to rescue astronauts, and the ensuing extraction mission exposes Jean Grey to a solar flare that unexpectedly does not kill her even when the shuttle around her vanishes, leaving her in outer space without protective gear.  She not only survives, but she also begins displaying signs of heightened powers.  One consequence is that mental barriers Xavier, as a telepath, placed in her consciousness to suppress the memory of the accident disappear.  Meanwhile, the survivors of an alien civilization have come to Earth pursuing the same cosmic power that Jean contacted, and their leader Vuk tries to make an ally of Jean.

Intellectual Content

This is one of the areas where Dark Phoenix most significantly declines from the franchise's former glory.  Some of the past X-Men movies were rather philosophically inclined in very outwardly explicit ways, like Day of Future Past and Logan.  Here, Xavier's closet utilitarianism is briefly explored as other characters confront him for using people as a means to an end, and the D'Bari leader Vuk brings up some of the metaphysics of the energy force that gives Jean Grey her Phoenix powers, but these and other issues, either newly introduced or carried over from before, are never thoroughly addressed.  Like the fellow mutants Xavier initially uses as "benevolent" pawns, Dark Phoenix uses these subjects as a means to the end of telling a story it does not even properly navigate.

Conclusion

Dark Phoenix is neither the second coming of Suicide Squad some people treat it as nor a great movie.  It commits a terrible cinematic sin: it is aggressively mediocre, so mixed or middling in quality that it does not even embrace being a bad film.  It hovers in the same limbo as many other movies that squander genuine potential and yet have some successful aspects, though perhaps only unintentionally successful.  Lacking the clever humor of Deadpool 2, the somber depths of Logan, the incredible characterization of Days of Future Past, and the historical grounding of First Class, Dark Phoenix offers little to nothing to replace them.  Some of the acting is strong, yes.  Some of the visuals are grand, yes.  Flashes of the layered characters occasionally come through.  Additionally, the climactic fight is generally choreographed and executed well.  This film just needed to be and could have been so much more than mediocre.

Content:

 1.  Violence:  One of the more violent scenes shows Mystique as she is impaled with blood around her wounds.  Later, mutants fight the D'Bari in a bloodless clash that still involves a great deal of physical force.

 2.  Profanity:  The infrequent profanity includes words like "shit."

The Limited Power Of Sex To Heal Marriages

Sexual expression in the context of marriage cannot heal any problems except for those strictly pertaining to sexual deprivation.  Certainly, it could help in conjunction with other measures--having sex in the context of lasting, loving romantic commitment is literally the only Biblical distinction between a marriage and any other human relationship--but neither having sex nor having a child will stabilize a couple whose problems are more penetrating, more multifaceted, more serpentine than this.  If only the potential trials of marriage were this simple!

It is true that almost no one is a rationalist and that no non-rationalist can select a spouse well.  At best, they choose on the basis of assumptions or ignorance.  A focus on one attribute to the exclusion of others, silence on major philosophical and personality matters, unwillingness to be fully transparent or to discuss every issue, and relational coldness are lethal for marriages, and yet in one way or another so many can easily slip into these pitfalls while dating.  It is possible for these things to befall someone after they are already married as well, contrary to what all evidence pointed to.

It would be wonderfully helpful if all it took to resolve intentional or incidental relationship problems was having sex.  Yes, sex can express and deepen nonsexual bonds, and this is a life-giving truth.  It still does not rescue people from a plethora of a avoidable conflicts, avoidable by rationality and communication or avoidable by having never continued a romantic partnership, or prevent the possibility of new ones arising.  Anyone who looks to sex with their husband or wife for deliverance is shackled to delusion and perhaps even more woes to come.

Sex alone does not help if one spouse threatens the other with abuse or abandonment, perhaps abandonment by suicide, if they are not given what they insist on in emotionalism and selfishness.  Sex alone will not change a lack of eagerness to communicate and invest in one's spouse.  Sex by itself does not make an irrational or apathetic suddenly care about other aspects of the relationship.  The unfortunate truth is that marital sex is of course most healing, if not exclusively healing, when there is an absence of other problems or when there is needed progress being made outside of sex.

It is a tragedy that more people are not ruthlessly communicative about worldview and personality before ever having sex or getting married to begin with.  It is a shattering thing if they then look to sex to save them from trouble that either could have been averted by other things, such as breaking up earlier on, or that will fester irrespective of sex.  As dim as it is, there is always the possibility of reconciliation, of priorities and attitudes changing, of spouses clinging to each other in truth and love even after a string of relational disasters.  They just cannot rationally expect sex to lift them out of all such trials.

Currency And The Natural World

Money is a necessary component of business transactions, as even in the absence of an established currency like the dollar, peso, or euro, minerals or animals used in exchanges are still required to have transactions at all.  The form of a currency could vary even as its economic role would not.  Regardless of its names, appearances, and exchange rates around the world, money is a major part of human civilization, yet one that is often coveted and pursued and practically worshipped as if it is the essence of the natural world.  Indeed, I have heard the literal claim that money is "how the world works," with no distinction being recognized on the other person's part between the social "world" as separate from the physical world.

Money is constructed out of natural resources for the intentions and use of humans.  It is in no way "how the world works" in any sense other than an economic one, which is already, other than logically truths about economics, nothing but a social construct.  The matter of "the world" is a prerequisite to currency, and currency only even has its pragmatic function because of human needs and desires.  Of course, nothing in the natural world or the human mind is the same as the necessary truths of logic, the space that holds matter, or the uncaused cause, which are the most foundational things of all reality.  These truths and existents transcend a physical world, with logic governing the truth of its very possibility, but even within the physical world itself, money is not what determines the existence or behaviors of particles and objects.

No, these items would be what physically constitutes money.  Certain kinds of people are so voluntarily blinded by the subjective appeal of money, the privileges and comfort associated with money, and the consumerist pursuit of possessions that they truly will overlook that even on the secondary level of physical metaphysics (though digital currencies like crypto are logically possible, they are not the same as, say, the dollar), money is not what makes the world go on.  It does not; the matter of the world is a metaphysical prerequisite to currency, not the other way around.  Without currency in the conventional sense or something physical to use as currency, like salt or cattle, there can be no business transactions, but this is not the same as the world not existing or continuing to function as it does.

Business, money, and physical possessions are in no way the core of human life or the external world, even as human life and the external world are themselves not the very heart of reality.  Those I have heard say that money is how the world works did specifically insist that money is a more fundamental part of the physical activities on Earth more than scientific phenomena, which is of course backwards.  Although plenty of people might not directly, literally believe this erroneous metaphysical framework, there are many who still act in part as if money truly is more supreme than the laws of logic, God, moral obligations, fellow humans and relationships with them, and the less important but still somewhat important natural world that allows for currency to be made in the first place.  They wonder in an irrationalistic manner at the human construct of currency as if it is more than just a construct that, in itself, is created for mere practical ends.

The Evangelical Laminin Fallacies

Similar to how John 1:1-3 says that Jesus created the universe along with Yahweh, Colossians 1:15-17 emphasizes that Christ created the universe, in addition to certain invisible existents, and helps sustain them.  Though it would be absolutely false if it went so far as to say God and/or Christ genuinely created all things, including the necessary truths of logic and God himself, the Bible makes it plain in Genesis 1 that not everything is created, God being given as a textual example, and John 1 says that Yahweh and Jesus only created contingent things, not everything.  There are other things that cannot possibly have been created to be mentioned by me yet again below, but some evangelicals think Colossians 1:17, in saying that all things are held together by/in Christ, at least partly refers to how a sometimes loosely cross-shaped protein called the laminin holds cells together.

There are many errors in this.  Laminins are not all supposed to be universally shaped like a cross, and, as I will address in more detail below, they are not quite small enough to even be the underlying unit within the currently predominant framework of physics.  Regardless, a miniscule biological structure, albeit a microscopic one, is not the same as a superhuman being like Christ, so no, even if certain things about the laminin's size and shape were true, the laminin holding cells together could not possibly be the same as Jesus metaphysically holding a broad cosmos together.  Aside from this, cells are not the entirety of the physical world or else all matter would be living, so holding cells together would not be the same as binding all material composites together, not that everything is made of matter or could hinge on God to start with [1]!

As a protein, a laminin, if atomic theory is true, would be made of molecules, which are in turn comprised of atoms, which break down into protons, neutrons, and electrons; protons and neutrons, the nucleons of the atom, would also supposedly reduce to various arrangements of quarks.  A laminin would not be the smallest or most allegedly elementary particle [2], so it would not be what physically holds matter together at a quantum scale.  A laminin is not even subatomic, after all, since it would be made of multiple atoms!  Of course, not everything is constituted of matter, such as the self-necessary laws of logic (which thus could not depend on God or Christ in any way) and the empty space that is a metaphysical prerequisite for matter [3], so no physical unit holds "all" things together except for perhaps that which is also physical.  Laminins on the current paradigm would not have this quality anyway.

Colossians 1:17, moreover, does not mean that Jesus holds God together metaphysically, and God would be another thing that exists.  If anything, as the begotten Son of God, Christ would himself be a creation of the Father, yet the laws of logic and metaphysical space exist by necessity in the absence of both; reason being false still requires that it is true, and thus it transcends biology, physics, and theism altogether.  The ideas about laminins and Biblical philosophy, as well as how this would relate to broader science and other philosophical truths so much more foundational than anything about religion or science (what fools the masses are for neglecting pure reason in favor of either, when the truth about both could only depend on reason!), that some evangelicals espouse are utterly asinine.  They misrepresent reason, the Bible, and science all at once.

[1].  https://thechristianrationalist.blogspot.com/2023/06/the-metaphysics-of-logic-and-god.html

[2].  https://thechristianrationalist.blogspot.com/2019/12/fundamental-particles.html

[3].  https://thechristianrationalist.blogspot.com/2023/07/god-and-empty-space.html

The Criteria For Animal Intelligence

In everything from casual videos to formal articles, one might hear of how allegedly intelligent dogs, octopi, dolphins, pigs, crows, orcas, and other animals are.  Since almost everyone is not a rationalist and therefore does not know what intelligence truly is, what is almost never mentioned here is that intelligence is rationality, and rationality is direct, intentional grasp of the laws of logic.  The only alternative to being rational is making assumptions or neglecting self-evident (axioms like the fact that something which follows from another thing cannot be false) or other logically necessary truths of supreme centrality.  Intelligence can be expressed outwardly using behaviors or words, but it is not actions or the use of language, all of which can be engaged in without true rationality.  A person or animal could go so far as to engage in elaborate activities without any recognition of logical axioms or even any attempts to forsake philosophical assumptions, which exclude rationality and genuine knowledge.

Hunting in coordinated packs (like with wolves or orcas), navigating environmental mazes (like with octopi), reacting to facial expressions/cues (like with dogs), and other such seeming expressions of sensory perceptions--other minds, human or animal, cannot be proven to exist [1]--can be done while a creature is still assuming things or operating on passive sensory perceptions.  What a creature passively experiences with the senses does not make it intelligent or unintelligent.  What it believes and why determine if it is intelligent, which can only be achieved to the extent that it believes in things that are demonstrably true on the basis of strict logical necessity.  The necessary truths of logical axioms are true in themselves, dictating what does and does not follow from a given thing. Since they are necessary truths, they do not depend on anything else and cannot be false, so all else must be consistent with them to even be possible.  There is no way to know other things without knowing logical axioms.

Thus, a conscious being must actively identify, realize the self-necessity of, and embrace axioms to be intelligent.  Axioms like how truth exists (if truth did not exist, this too would be true, so the alternative is impossible) can be known without relying on other things, but not the other way around.  Without knowledge of them, with axioms being absolutely certain as long as someone approaches them while making no assumptions, there is no such thing as a conscious creature being rational.  There is no exception for animals like an ant or an octopus.  It does not matter if ants use teamwork to create mounds or if crows recognize individual human faces or if various cephalopods use ink to effectively obscure their escape from predators.  To be rational (intelligent), a being has to avoid assumptions and come to the correct awareness of logical axioms.

There is no different "standard" of intelligence for different animals like humans and whales.  There is only intelligence, which could only be the grasp of the inherent, immutable, objective truths of logic that underpin and dictate all other things.  Just as a film director or politician can make a decision or believe in something that is itself rational even though the person himself/herself is not (for they would have to be rationalistic enough to know logical axioms for what they are and not make any assumptions about the given matter), a non-human animal, like a human, is not intelligent just because of outwardly observable behaviors, especially if they are driven by instinct instead of awareness of reason and introspection.  It takes intentional alignment with reason to be intelligent, which is more than having the mere capacity for intelligence.

[1].  For some articles where I address this, see here:

A.  https://thechristianrationalist.blogspot.com/2022/04/the-gulf-between-minds.html

B.  https://thechristianrationalist.blogspot.com/2022/01/an-unproven-hierarchy-of-consciousness.html

Exploitation In The Hiring Process

Having to submit work history in individual units in addition to submitting one's resume, the document that would already detail that very work history, is but one of many ways that, by intentional irrationality or by a more passive philosophical incompetence, the hiring process of some companies is artificially prolonged or difficult.  Such things in no way make receiving applications or conducting interviews more easy for anyone on either side of the process.  No, they are there because those in charge of hiring do not have the rationality to recognize them for what they are (or to care) or, even worse, they might be irrational and apathetic towards how they treat general applicants, hoping to find people desperate or compliant enough that they will endure all of this obliviously or knowingly.  Requiring that people provide their full work history more than once, when a digital resume already addresses this information, is not even the worst that could be done here.

Asinine practices like having multiple gratuitous rounds of interviews (I have heard of scenarios with up to seven, though there is always the possibility of having one more if interviewees will put up with it) are in place to glorify pathetic traditions or to pressure interviewees anxious or frustrated enough to accept offers that might be subpar.  These processes are especially wasteful of time and effort on everyone's part if there is already an internal candidate selected for the role and all external interviews are an illusionary formality.  However many people apply in such cases are putting their time into these interviews uncompensated, in all likelihood, though they have devoted effort for the sake a company as if they were already hired, in a sense.  Even worse than this is the possibility of a company having a candidate complete an uncompensated task to "test" them, only so that the organization can use their method or results for themselves without hiring someone.

Then there is the fact that if someone can do the job adequately, but derives no grand pleasure from the role, some employers would reject them for this alone.  Only if there is an equally talented or more skilled applicant/choice who also has passion for their field would dismissing someone for lack of passion be valid.  A lack of excitement, after all, is not a lack of skill or willingness.  Passion will only be exploited by some employers or managers anyway, another thing they can rely on to keep certain workers enthralled with their job despite a rotten company culture, inequivalent pay, and few opportunities for advancement.  Even with passion, some employers might only want enough passion for the desire to be emotionalistically blind, a shallow motivation to be harnessed by a shallow organization.

People without passion could not deserve to die for it, as passion is a subjective thing that does not necessarily reflect a person's worldview, core intentions, and competencies.  A specific kind of employer really is treating people like this is the case.  If no one hired someone who is honest enough to say that they have no incredible personal attachment to their professional life beyond the money and security it brings, those people would starve or die of dehydration unless they were freely able to live directly off of the natural world--a difficult thing for ordinary workers in countries like America.  The idea that people should long to devote their lives to professions is itself folly unless the profession is something morally valuable in itself; it is only something that is assumed by irrationalists and, more significantly, it contradicts reason since only philosophical truths could be worth living for, not careers or money or social recognition.

Why does almost anyone want to professionally work?  They want to get paid so they can easily pay for shelter, food, water, clothing, entertainment, and so on.  There is absolutely nothing other than subjective preference that would motivate a person to work beyond this.  It is not irrational or otherwise sinful to enjoy or look forward to professional opportunities, and there could be deep passion choosing behind certain jobs, but passion and skill are ultimately secondary to the real reason why jobs as a whole are created at all.  Some people need tasks completed, and some people are willing to do them in exchange for compensation of some kind in order to survive or fortify their life security; these are the driving factors behind most work.  Rationality and righteousness are the only additional things besides skill or willingness that by necessity matter in the interview process, and they are what will often be ignored in favor of idiotic cliques, superficial words, and connections with reveres figures.

True Skepticism

The skeptical position is not one of denial that something is true, but that a given thing is not known or knowable: someone who believes elementary particles or ghosts or yetis or aliens do not exist is not a skeptic regarding the respective subject although they might be stupid enough to think they are.  They are really an anti-realist with that particular thing existing or being true.  Rationalistic skepticism, moreover, is not a default skepticism of all matters.  This is idiotic in certain cases, as with logical axioms and one's own mental existence, for these are self-evident.  They can only be doubted by relying on them, so they are verifiably true independent of what else is.  Other truths can be known, when applicable, if they follow by logical necessity from something that is self-evident, or if one perceives--one can at least know that the precise perceptions exist even if their correspondence to outside factors is unverifiable in some cases.

If someone is inattentive or shows bursts of outward hyperactivity, they might say they have ADHD.  Among other things, I do not know if they are lying to me intentionally, confused about their own condition, or telling the truth.  The same is the case with any instance of physical weakness or illness with no external symptoms, though it is entirely consistent with logical axioms, and thus possible, that they are either right or wrong in their projected stance.  A skeptic of whether another person has a particular learning disability or mental disorder would not believe they do not have it.  No, they would not believe either way.  Their reason for doing so would determine the extent of their rationality.  However, given human limitations, there are many things that cannot be known by people who might passively or actively think otherwise.

A skeptic of the external world would not hold that there is no such thing as matter; he or she would think that they do not or cannot know (each would be its own form of skepticism).  A skeptic about the afterlife does not believe in scientific reductionism, immediate and permanent soul annihilation upon death, or any other such thing.  Rather, this person would believe that they do not or cannot know if there is life after biological death, much less which of all the logical possibilities it would be.  Sensory skepticism aside, I have no way of observing photons at the quantum level to see if they exist and are immaterial, and hearsay is never proof of anything but that hearsay is being proposed.  As a rationalist, since the logical possibility of either the existence of nonexistence of photons cannot be proven, I am a skeptic about such things.  This does not mean one cannot find fallible evidences in favor of something or at least know that if the hearsay is true, certain things would be entailed.

As long as it is consistent with the laws of logic, something is possible, although a concept's veracity and falsity cannot both be correct at once.  Many things are possible despite their inability to be proven or disproven, such as that electrons actually break down into some smaller particle, that the inhabitants of Earth live in a supernatural or technology-rooted simulation, that God hates all people and does not love anyone alongside this (love and hate are not always exclusive), that an alien species with the power to keep us alive for decades of torture is mobilizing against the planet now, and that Jesus did not exist in spite of the evidence suggesting otherwise.  A true skeptic would embrace true skepticism (but only rationalistic grounds, which themselves require the absolutely certain knowledge of reason, can make someone legitimate in their skepticism) and not deny the possibility or veracity of any of these things.

No intelligent skeptic has a bias against the supernatural or extraterrestrial life or undiscovered terrestrial life forms or the possibility of human historical records being either true (or false).  A rational skeptic, more importantly, does not hold to something that is merely logically possible simply because it does not follow from either axioms nor any other necessary truth stemming from them that the idea is true.  They do not have an assumed skepticism.  With select issues, someone might even be a rational skeptic only in the sense that they have not had the chance to particularly focus on a matter that is demonstrable one way or the other, yet they know that they can at least have genuine knowledge, which is always absolutely certain, that logical axioms govern the issue, that some things would or would not follow if true, and so on.  The person who thinks rational skepticism is anything else is gravely mistaken, and the person who thinks base skepticism is about anything other than a lack of personal knowledge or epistemological knowability altogether is even more wrong.

The State Of Death

The presence of consciousness is the difference between a living human body and a corpse.  The body's only foundational difference in death is that it is not animated by a mind, and it is thus inactive and lifeless.  This conceptual distinction and the logical fact that to perceive requires only an immaterial mind and not a body (even if no human minds actually exist apart from bodies, there is nothing logically impossible about an unembodied consciousness).  It does not follow that the mind does or does not depart from the body directly or at some later point after death, free of its corporeal confinement, though there would be no outward evidence for this as far as ordinary sensory experiences suggest.  Still, when someone dies, all mere evidence for their independent consciousness as a separate mind vanishes.  One can no longer see their expressions or movements.

If soul oblivion/sleep until the resurrection (Daniel 12:2) is true as the Bible plainly puts forth (Ecclesiastes 9:5-10, Job 3:11-19, Psalm 88:10-12, and more), then when it seems like the consciousness fades from the bodies of people into nonexistence or metaphysical inactivity--immaterial whether it separately exists from the body or not, as a mind and its perceptions can only be nonphysical even if they reside in a material form--this really is what is happening.  The soul is not leaving the body to go to a purely spiritual realm or inhabiting a placeholder or new body away from the dimension of our earthly lives according to the Bible.  It is impossible to know from sensory observation if other minds do or ever have existed, if the sensory perceptions as a collective correspond to the external world at all, or if other minds have gone to an immediate afterlife, but if the Biblical doctrine of soul sleep really is true, then what appears to be the case on a terrestrial, sensory level matches with what is the case on a grander metaphysical level: the consciousness of the dead has ceased to exist or is locked within an unperceiving state.

Scientific epistemology is indeed utterly secondary and therefore inferior to logic.  Reason provides absolute certainty because of its necessary truths, while sensory perceptions are involuntary experiences that, except in the very precise case of there simply being a physical body that my consciousness currently dwells in [1], are not knowable except on the level of mental experiences that might not correspond to an outside world of matter, for it does not logically follow from seeing or hearing something that it really exists as more than an immaterial hallucination.  One knows from reason that reason exists; one knows from reason that one's consciousness exists, with direct introspective experience also being accessible; one knows from reason that science is epistemologically useless except for discovering correlations and practicalities on the level of mere perception.

All the same, what would seem to be the case on the level of observing human corpses is really the case according to the Bible.  Though an immediate afterlife is logically possible, it would only be possible for there to be an afterlife of torment (as evangelicals often conceive of Sheol) that some or all of the dead instantly go to if it was an amoral afterlife, for otherwise people are tormented for longer or shorter periods based only upon the happenstance timing of the birth and death in human history, and it could not be an everlasting torment and still be proportionate to finite sins.  As irrelevant as it is to knowing logical possibilities or necessities that do not depend on matter or perception of matter, as well as to knowing the teachings of the Bible, the seeming lifelessness of a corpse would left to itself provide no evidence for or against an immediate afterlife and makes the dead truly seem dead.

The seeming causal springing of the mind from the human body--it could be the other way around, though the divine mind would sustain all matter and all minds besides its own either way--simply parallels the Biblical teaching that the soul is not conscious between death and the resurrection unless it is briefly, prematurely revived by supernatural powers, such as with the witch of Endor summoning Samuel (1 Samuel 28) or Jesus conversing with Moses and Elijah during his transfiguration (Matthew 17).  The Biblical Sheol is and was not a place of torment or paradise for anyone as creation waits for the apocalyptic return of Christ and the events that follow.  It is the grave, the physical ground or tomb that holds the body and it is also the corresponding mental nonexistence or existence in a dreamless, unthinking sleep of death.  According to this, what would seem to be the case more strictly from observing a corpse would actually be true, and death is a foreshadowing of the total nonexistence of the soul in the second death (Ezekiel 18:4, 2 Peter 2:6, Revelation 20:15).

[1].  https://thechristianrationalist.blogspot.com/2017/07/dreams-and-consciousness.html

Emotionalistic Patriotism

If everyone was patriotic to their country at the expense of rationalistic awareness and moral uprightness, then every person would be a fool, living for a meaningless personal love of an arbitrary geographical state in denial or ignorance of logical truths about the matter.  As associated in many minds as patriotism is with specific countries, and as much as some patriots all but worship their country while denouncing foreigners for doing the same, there is no one country or group of people that is incapable of choosing to fall into this stupidity.  Emotionalistic patriotism is always a voluntary philosophical stance, and more nations than simply the United States could be guilty of this, with the patriotism of each person being tied to them as an individual rather than decided by their country of birth or residence.

America's historic fascination with the most asinine forms of patriotism is certainly not its only possible manifestation.  It is not as if other countries cannot or have not or do not grasp for this same kind of idiotic loyalty to and approval of a country simply because its people are born there, no matter how irrational or unjust its leaders and social norms are.  The logical possibility of other countries fostering fallacious patriotism (which is knowable without historical or modern examples) aside, China, England, and more pressure their citizens to have a meaningless subjective attachment to their state or, in certain cases, force outward submission to oppressive governments, such as North Korea.  A country like China or North Korea is according to many accounts led by egoistic, irrationalist fools who demand allegiance not to reason, God, and justice, but to the whims and benefit of a ruling figure or elite at the threat of death or worse.

In the United States, while patriotism is not necessarily expressed domestically with this level of direct, casual brutality, it is strong enough in its hold on some people, particularly conservatives, that it dissuades them from criticizing their country's glaring faults or even reevaluating their pathetic faith in their happenstance homeland.  For someone like this, the only focus will be on supporting their own country in thought and deed to the extent that people from other countries are possibly regarded as inferior.  This kind of patriotism is almost inseparable from adherence to nationalism when given full devotion.  Thinking they are not being arrogant, "only patriotic," this kind of irrationalist deceives himself or herself to avoid giving up comfortable but false or assumed beliefs.

In all of these types of patriotism, the forced outward compliance with social constructs or the assumption or cultural conditioning-based allegiance reduces to the stupidity of emotionalism or relativism.  Patriotism can be misused or embraced on fallacious grounds by people of any nation, not just America or the other major political presences in contemporary global events.  Universally, if it is anything more than a subjective affection for one's homeland recognized as not being morally obligatory or a logically necessary truth, it is a terribly irrational stance to have.  American or not, no one is on the right side of reality for their irrationalism and emotionalism in a political context and beyond.

Language Is Not In The Domain Of Science

Language is not found in the natural world, which itself would exist directly or indirectly because of the uncaused cause [1], and even then, the uncaused cause and cosmos can only exist if they are logically possible--if they are consistent with or necessitated by the intrinsic truths of logical axioms.  Yes, the physical materials used to craft the parchment (animal skin) or page (wood converted into paper) on which linguistic symbols can be written would be made of matter, and thus are part of the natural world and subject to whatever laws of physics are active at the macroscopic or quantum level.  Language itself is not; language can be expressed in written form on physical substance, but it can also be used privately inside of a person's immaterial mind (though this is not necessary for thinking whatsoever [2]), and the logical necessities governing language are of course more foundational than science and language and thus transcend them [3].

Since language is not part of the cosmos, for it is something that conscious beings have to create and use, it cannot be grounded in physics or discovered through the scientific method.  Yes, how the vocal cords correlate to the production of sound used in conversation, which requires language, is a matter of science.  How the muscles in the body behave and the air from the lungs brings about the vibrations connected with the audible voice are scientific in nature (although science hinges on logical truths dictating necessity and possibility and thus is never supremely central to any aspect of reality).  How changing the way one utilizes specific muscles generates specific vocal sounds to modify spoken language is an issue of science, but language is not noise: it is a system of written or verbalized symbols that have to be arbitrarily created.

Language is not arbitrary in the sense that it is beyond reason.  Nothing can be.  If something is logically impossible, it cannot be true.  The truth about all things is governed by logic, though truths about what does and does not follow from something, metaphysical identity, and possibility and impossibility are all true independent of examples beyond the inherent reality of reason itself.  Logical axioms like how something which follows from another thing cannot be invalid, as necessary truths in themselves, have to be true pertaining to language as well as outside of it (a word is a word, which requires the law of identity's veracity, a letter is not a word, which requires the law of non-contradiction's veracity, and so on).  No, language is arbitrary in that words are individual or social constructs used to communicate information.

They are not the things being described.  The word love is not the mental state of love.  The word bacterium is not any of the many microorganisms it could be referencing.  The word reason is not the necessary truths of logic that are true in themselves apart from the creation or use of any language.  The word dust is not actual particles of dust.  Like it can refer to other things related to or beyond science, language can convey or be assigned to scientific objects, events, and laws.  However, it is not perceived out in nature or initially perceived with the senses at all.  No, it is contrived by people for the sake of communication between non-telepathic beings, and there is no inherent meaning to any sound or symbol no matter how much it might seem to be the case--the fact that people can intend different things by the same words alone requires that this is true.

Since some people think that linguistics is a social science, it is relevant that social "science" is not science.  Unless the laws of physics change, dropping a stick under identical conditions will lead to identical outcomes because scientific phenomena entail physical environments/objects behaving in specific ways.  There is no such thing with people.  Conscious beings have their own individualistic wills and personalities that can vary dramatically from person to person.  There is also no deterministic outcome with outward behaviors when different people are in the same situations as there would be with truly scientific phenomena.  Thus, even on the level of human behavior regarding language, language is not in the domain of science metaphysically or epistemologically.  Like science, it is governed by the laws of logic, but unlike scientific objects and laws, language is often a social construct (otherwise it still has to be created and amended by individuals).  The only person who thinks otherwise is highly irrational.

[1].  https://thechristianrationalist.blogspot.com/2017/04/the-uncaused-cause.html

[2].  https://thechristianrationalist.blogspot.com/2021/06/thinking-using-language.html

[3].  https://thechristianrationalist.blogspot.com/2023/06/scientific-contingencies.html

The Power And Empowerment Of Self-Control

It takes genuine power of will to suppress irrational or immoral desires, including the desire to believe something because it seems persuasive rather than because it is metaphysically true and epistemologically verifiable by logical necessity.  In this sense, there is objective power entailed by self-control: power over one's arbitrary, subjective impulses and potential willingness to allow them to dictate beliefs or behaviors.  Not everyone needs self-control to avoid any particular sins because not everyone finds the same things appealing, no matter their circumstance.  Still, there are many ways to exercise self-control in an amoral or supererogatory way, even with the likes of sexuality or money.  Holding back in these instances is not always a moral requirement and yet it can be some people's preference.

Even when it concerns permissible/amoral things, a person might relish the freedom to decide if they will or will not not engage in a permissible activity that is personally alluring to them.  To savor this sense of empowerment, which is their subjective reaction to the objective truth of free will [1], without which there could be no such thing as self-control since the self is forced to believe or act by forces external to the mind, is a legitimate goal in itself as long as there is no fallacious belief present.  Someone might go so far as to abstain from something they crave indefinitely, even "knowing" (as much as can be the case, for only probabilistic evidence is accessible here, with conscience being an irrelevant subjective set of perceptions and social norms being arbitrary group habits on their own) that it is permissible, just to experience the fulfillment of being the introspective master or mistress of their own behaviors.

In such a case, it is not the anticipation of finally giving in on some planned or spontaneous date that compels them to do this, though someone who wants to see how long they can maintain their resolve is both volitionally and morally free to do so.  It would always be logically possible to go one more moment, but in the sense of perceived inability to continue, finding the "breaking point" could be an introspectively delightful and satisfying experience for someone with the right personality.  No, anticipation of an eventual yielding does not have to be the intention.  Abstinence not for the sake of moral obligation but expression of personal self-mastery can be entirely rational and empowering.

Now, someone who pursues any and every permissible pleasure--Biblically, this includes any kosher food [2], a host of sexual activities with or without a partner (for instance, what is addressed here [3]), and alcohol use short of drunkenness, as well as friendship and anything from lighthearted to dark entertainment--has not sinned.  A pleasure cannot be permissible if seeking or practicing it is immoral!  Self-control is only morally mandatory when a person is tempted to believe something false or do something that is itself evil.  While this kind of self-control being obligatory when needed already follows by logical necessity from the Torah condemning certain actions and intentions, this is what the New Testament explicitly commends or prescribes (such as in Galatians 5:22-23).

The excitement that can be tied to self-control for certain people can be just as intoxicating as pursuing permissible pleasure with rational, nonsinful motives, all of which would involve motivations other than hedonistic gratification.  Hedonism, of course, is the philosophical stance holding that all or most pleasure is good, even the greatest good, or that personal pleasure justifies any/many beliefs or actions, which does not logically follow from something being pleasant or stimulating.  On its own, loving pleasure is not irrational or evil, and many pleasures are not Biblically sinful; in fact, one could find great pleasure in knowing the necessary, objective truths of reason, in aligning with righteousness, or in self-control for the sake of individualistic preference.  Empowerment related to self-control is even itself about subjective pleasure!

[1].  https://thechristianrationalist.blogspot.com/2018/09/refuting-assumption-about-free-will.html

[2].  https://thechristianrationalist.blogspot.com/2023/09/that-which-defiles.html

[3].  https://thechristianrationalist.blogspot.com/2017/12/the-truth-about-erotic-media-part-2_19.html

The Bible Is Not White Supremacist

The Bible is so clearly against white supremacy, or any kind of racial supremacist philosophy, that one has to be a thorough non-rationalist to even begin gravitating towards the idea.  As humans, white people would of course have no less baseline value than anyone else from any time, from geographical location, or or any skin color (Genesis 1:26-27), but this does not make them metaphysically superior to anyone else on the basis of skin color or lineage.  The early chapters of the Bible already affirm the tenets of this and Mosaic Law does the same.

Foreigners, which could sometimes be members of other races, are not to be treated differently than the human rights of all people under Mosaic Law dictate (Leviticus 24:22, Exodus 22:21).  People of other nations or that look different from whatever one's race is are not regarded as subhuman by any means.  However, the happenstance fact that some white supremacists throughout American history believed or claimed that Biblical theology is consistent with their racist ideology does not mean it is so.  This does not logically follow, which itself means the idea is epistemologically flawed already, and then the Bible also contradicts this.

Besides the way that the Bible repeatedly makes clear statements that would exclude racial supremacy--when other people groups besides the Jews are killed, it is not just because they are outsiders/foreigners, but because of their predominant sins--the Bible simply never says that white people are superior to others.  In fact, the only white people it directly mentions are the Greeks and Romans, though, say, the Roman Empire contained many various groups of conquered people within it.  Salvation is offered to them, white or not, just as it is extended to all people (Galatians 3:28, John 3:16).

There is only one kind of racial/national supremacy that assumptions and superficial misconceptions might lead the irrational to believe are actual doctrines of the Bible, and that would be Jewish supremacy.  Since so much of the Torah is devoted to injunctions to not mistreat outsiders and to specifying obligations without even mentioning race or nationality (the two are separate qualities anyway), the misunderstood verses would not exactly be all over the place as some imagine.  Deuteronomy 23:19-20, for instance, says charging interest to a fellow Israelite is forbidden but that interest can be charged to foreigners.

As if Leviticus 25:35-37 does not separately say to treat the poor Israelite like a foreigner or stranger by not charging them interest or even selling them food at a profit, meaning at the very least that poor foreigners were not to pay interest to Israelites either, Deuteronomy 23:19-20 would still be consistent with Genesis 1:26-27.  The obligation would be to not charge interest to people of one's own country or community, not to treat Jews as superior to the many non-Jewish peoples of the ancient or modern world.  In either case, the same obligations are universal to all, and none of this has anything to do with white supremacy.

Contemporary American liberals are in many ways just as delusional as the conservatives they oppose, sometimes pretending like the Bible is white supremacist or misogynist or some other such thing as a basis for rejecting it as even possibly true.  It is absolutely not white supremacist in any way.  Biblical philosophy is thoroughly racially egalitarian and anyone who believes otherwise only assumes out of irrationality.  Moral value, justice, and salvation are either respectively possessed, owed, or offered to everyone according to Biblical teachings.

Conservative Sensitivity

Sometimes conservatives are the biggest snowflakes of all despite their common use of the word in reference to liberals.  Whether it is criticizing Donald Trump, not practically worshipping firearms (of course firearms are morally neutral since they can do nothing on their own, though), pointing out that Soviet communism is not pure communism since it had a ruling/enforcing class (I am not a communist, nor am I a capitalist, for both are neutral until misused), using legal freedom of speech in ways they do not subjectively approve of, or something else, conservatives rush to show their worldview is driven by emotionalism potentially without realizing it.  Yes, liberals are pathetic as well, despite more of the affiliated philosophical stances being true or probable in their case even if the liberals themselves distort them.

With conservatives, who tend to deny their extreme sensitivity, casting a black actor/actress in Rings of Power or the live action The Little Mermaid upsets many of them, as if the color of a character's skin automatically changes anything about the base plot.  A hint of gender or racial egalitarianism frightens many of them.  For instance, acknowledging something such as the objective truth that men can be raped by women can stir up animosity in them.  Moreover, mocking the epistemological stupidity of deep state conspiracy theories with satire or casual comments might light their hearts aflame with fury or panic--certainly, it is logically possible for there to be a secret shadow government in true control of America or the world, but this could not be proven and is not some metaphysically inevitable state of affairs.

These are the people who might think the phrase "Happy Holidays" is some malicious, egoistic attack on Christianity.  They are the ones who might think that the COVID-19 vaccine is the mark of the beast or that a woman wearing a bikini is by default sexual.  They might rightfully (since it is true as a concept, not that they approach it with rationalistic epistemology) but for all the wrong reasons say that "facts don't care about feelings" and then believe in the existence of moral obligations on the basis of petty conscience just like so many liberals do.  The only racism they might want to talk about is that directed against white people, and they think themselves the victims of an evil world when they are mocked, when everyone who is not a rationalist, short of the very young or the likes of the catatonic, could not deserve to be hated or ridiculed.

Liberals can be wonderful examples of emotionalistic snowflakes, but so are conservatives; each ideology is crucially false independent of how the adherents act, as tradition and shifting away from the status quo for any arbitrary/emotionalistic reasons are both irrational.  In addition to this core ideological error, many adherents to each political philosophy are outwardly emotionalistic in their outbursts, reacting to things disproportionately, giving what would otherwise be legitimate reactions that are motivated by emotionalism, or by objecting to things that are not problematic at all.  Conservatism is false either way just like liberalism.  It is just that conservatives can be more likely to pretend with their words and attitudes as if they are the ones trying to look to reason, unlike liberals, members of the supposedly only major political party guilty of irrationalism.

Again, conservatism is false independent of how conservatives conduct themselves because logical truths and moral ideas, and thus the subcategory of political ones, are not true or false based upon how someone carries themself.  Conserving any tradition, unless the tradition is a moral obligation (which would not be due to its social normalcy or personal appeal), is idiotic.  This is like how Islam is not false because of how some or all Muslims behave.  It is false because it contradicts the Torah it also says it true.  Still, though their philosophical foundations are already invalid, modern conservatives often go further in their errors than they would need to in order to simply be basic conservatives.  Baseless outrage for the sake of outrage, which is especially irrationalistic when directed against logically necessary truths, is what they are empowered by or push themselves to.

Selecting A Spouse

No one is ready for marriage unless they are a rationalist.  Irrational people cannot deserve to be happy in their delusions and in relationships based on them of reason, which is inherently true, morally matters.  If anything matters, reason must as well since it is what governs the rest of reality.  If nothing matters, no one deserves anything at all, certainly not happiness.  However, just because someone is a rationalist does not mean that they will not land in the unlikely place of a relationship they or their partner were absolutely not prepared for (whether in the sense of intellectual and moral correctness or in the sense of personal psychology).

Even a thorough rationalist could paradoxically wind up trapped in a marriage with an irrationalist simply because he or she truly has no way of knowing other minds, hoping that someone is as they appear and discovering that it was never likely the case.  It is logically possible for someone to hide their irrationalism even by accident, just as it is possible for someone to change after they get married and become an emotionalistic, selfish, abusive, or philosophically apathetic husband or wife after commitment was formed.  There is absolutely never a way to prove that someone else is or will remain a rational partner, the only kind of person who could possibly be worthy of marriage or of existing at all, and this is an unrecognized truth for many cases.

There is no number of conversations or other activities that confirm that someone truly loves you or, more importantly, is truly rational.  Only one's own mind is knowable when it comes to its existence and when it comes to its contents.  No matter how many talks or expressions of seeming or genuine love or rationality there are, a non-telepathic being will never actually know anything more than possibilities, probabilities, and perceptions of what another person is thinking, as well as what would logically follow if a given thing is true about them.  Anyone who heads into friendship or marriage thinking otherwise is undeserving of having either in the first place since they have disregarded reason, that which all else hinges on.

What if a spouse does descend into madness or was already there unnoticed?  There is, in one sense, not always a Biblically valid escape for all spouses from their marriage.  Only sinful interpersonal acts qualify for divorce, and these acts are far broader than many Christians think (these imbeciles do not understand the Torah or how the New Testament is but conditional upon it, as affirmed by the likes of Matthew 5:17-19): deeds like abuse or neglect (Exodus 21), abandonment (1 Corinthians 7), sexual immorality such as adultery or rape (Matthew 19), and general sin (Deuteronomy 24).  This true scope of Biblical divorce is liberating indeed, but it is not all-encompassing.  Non-sins do not merit divorce, as difficult as they might be to deal with.

Marriage, like deep non-marital friendships, is nothing to rush into.  Still, only a fool would think they could know that someone is actually rational, just, or loving as opposed to somehow saying all the right words and acting outwardly as if this facade is the case.  This makes marriage nothing to rush into even with someone who genuinely towers above the superficiality and unworthiness of so many people.  A total, unflinching rationalist and devotee of Yahweh could find himself or herself tethered to someone they should never have stayed involved with for logical, moral, personal, and even pragmatic reasons.  This would be terrifying to any rational person.

Complying With Asinine Workplace Policies

A person is not irrational in carrying out unneeded workplace steps or one part of conflicting orders (if they conflict, you cannot fulfill all of them wholly) if they do not believe anything false about the nature of their goals, or if they recognize at least the basic illogicality of someone else wanting these procedures in place.  Anyone in the workplace is still likely at some point to be faced with such policies or expectations, passed down to them by someone else above them on the hierarchy.  There is a way to satisfy at least some of these policies in a manner that either draws attention to how idiotic they are or that sabotages the company simply by doing what one was told.

What if they tell you to send a manager an email update for every single trivial or pointless change in scheduling something with a client, every fluctuation in an office plan that does not involve them, and so on?  Since they supposedly wanted an email update for everything, giving them what they asked for might make them realize that they either did not really know what their own instructions meant or that they do not actually want that after all!  An inbox flooded with gratuitous emails could interfere with their own work and remind them of how pathetic their own commands are when they are not in alignment with reason.

Do they claim they want to be told about every five minute adjustment to tackling an objective that comes up across every single workday?  Well, if that is truly what they want, they have no basis for objecting when all of the workers given this task do exactly that.  No delays in their own productivity or personal frustration would make them repeal this demand if they truly were rational and sincere in making it.  However, it is likely that if their own workload is large enough, they will regret giving instructions that slow down not only the employees, but the managers or employers themselves.

Some managers love to push for changes just for the sake of change, an irrational reason, or they will pressure workers to do completely unnecessary or counterproductive things merely for the sake of exercising power arbitrarily or emotionalistically.  They do not do it for the sake of the company, as if the company is not made of people who are more foundational than success and profits already, but they do it in order to act on delusions or to make themselves feel important or useful when they are in opposition to reason, the only thing that intrinsically legitimizes anyone's stances.

Complying with their irrationalistic demands can be done in such a way that they see how much it ultimately slows them and perhaps hinders the very goal the demands were intended to bring about.  This does not have to be done out of malice as irrational, hypocritical, egoistic workers might assume is justified.  Because malice in a moral sense is the desire to inflict unjust harm on someone or to punish them for emotionalistic reasons, malice is not the same as complying with certain asinine instructions in order to subvert them.  One can do this without being irrational or without being motivated by malice or selfishness.  The phrase malicious compliance is a very misleading one when it is used in reference to this.

Self-Love And Moral Freedom

Self-love, as opposed to selfishness, is at a minimum no less righteous than love of others if everyone bears God's image (Genesis 1:31).  In fact, since one's own mind is the only one a non-telepathic being can know exists, and neither individual nor group whims make something morally binding anyway, it is folly to think loving others necessarily entails submission to them, be they a stranger, authority figure, parent, sibling, or even a spouse.  That is, it does not entail submission via tolerance (which is stupid or evil) or mercy (which cannot be obligatory because it would mean justice is not, though justice is treating people as they deserve).

Biblical or rationalistic love of others is not universal, unconditional support for them in all of their, for non-rationalists, folly.  One is free to love oneself in the same way: as long as one does not intentionally harbor affection for any irrationality or other sin in oneself that one must and can overcome, one is in the right to celebrate and explore one's own being (involuntary feelings and preferences are not the issue, but believing in what is false or doing what is evil).  We are to love our neighbors as ourselves (Leviticus 19:18).  We are to treat ourselves justly and hold ourselves in the same regard as other people, at least when it comes to base human value and rights.

Now, with love of others could come some instances of submission.  Husbands and wives can submit to each other in things like temporarily, consensually abstaining from sex (1 Corinthians 7:2-5) or try to please other Christians in general, non-obligatory individual cases--in the sense of showing them kindness or honoring their amoral wishes (Ephesians 5:21).  With matters like one person preferring another person to never play violent or sexually graphic video games or have no opposite gender friendships, among many other things, love does not require submission.  Reason and morality permit one to do whatever one wants without disregarding these two things themselves (Deuteronomy 4:2).

There is never a legitimately moral need to submit to anyone unless they are on the side of reason and justice and you are not, but each person can independently ensure that they make no assumptions, know logical axioms, discover a great deal about what follows from them by necessity, and be devoted to doing whatever morality might require of them.  If a person is already on the side of reason and God/morality, there cannot be anything necessary about submission to others in this sense.  The moral freedom of all people is to love themselves and to do as they please without betraying reason or morality.

Selfishness is living for the self over reason or obligation.  Rational, Biblical self-love can provide the psychological resolution to never give in to anything but reason, God, justice, and any affiliated thing.  One already has the moral freedom on the Christian worldview to love oneself, which is actually a requirement.  This can be an additional motivator to never take lesser people's wishes into consideration when going about one's life.  Their preferences are irrelevant!  Let any submission be out of knowing, non-fallacious mercy, non-emotionalistic love, or for a matter so trivial or amoral it does not matter how one acts.

Movie Review--Dragon Wars

"Imoogi.  It is a creature from a Korean legend which turns into a dragon."

--Jack, Dragon Wars

Dragon Wars has a unique place in cinematic history as the first Korean movie to be released in general American theaters, a poor to mediocre film that at one point was supposed to be the most expensive South Korean movie to be made, though films like Snowpiercer (by Parasite director Bong Joon-ho) have since dethroned it in this regard.  South Korean productions have led to some incredible films, but Dragon Wars, in spite of the then-record amount of money that went into it, is at best a mediocre execution of something far more promising than the final film turned out to be.  It is not as if there is no artistic and philosophical potential in a story about reincarnated lovers, cosmic serpents, and an exploration of South Korean culture, but Dragon Wars fails to make the most of its premise, though it does still have some unintentional and intentional humor, adequate lore, and the occasional great action sequence.  It is at its worst no Suicide Squad, Iron Man 2, or Black Christmas (2019), and yet it still falls far short of the likes of Parasite!

Production Values

Sharing its mixture of mediocrity and lack of effort with several other major aspects of the movie, the visual effects rarely look like anything more than very obvious CGI creations, appearing very artificial next to the human actors and physical locations.  To conserve resources for more pivotal moments, the scale of the army of exotic creatures needed to be scaled back, as only a handful of scenes have Imoogi serpents or dragons that do not look blatantly out of place, and only moreso compared to more recent CGI.  Oddities in the editing or execution of scenes also sometimes show up, such as a part where a group of soldiers shoots at the entryway to a mountain before a large, hostile serpent exits the tunnel a few seconds later--which would be a productive course of action if the soldiers were actually aiming inside the tunnel instead of running off to the side and shooting in such a way that they could neither see nor aim at the serpent.  Scenes like this can provide unintended comedy, but rare moments of intentional humor are actually handled better than almost everything else, such as when an old woman tries to phase through a gate after she sees a servant of Buraki do the same, only to hit her head on the material.  The characters are rather undeveloped, but at least Aimee Garcia, who plays a friend of a main character, and Craig Robinson, who is better known for his role in The Office, do more with their limited roles than even the leads do, as the main characters are not exactly acted with a high amount of urgency, depth, or general energy.

Story

Some spoilers are below.

Shortly after a massive scale is unearthed in California, which triggers a memory for a reporter named Ethan, a massive serpent called Buraki begins searching for Sarah, the reincarnation of a woman who died in 1507 AD.  This woman, named Nani, was the human embodiment of a power that would elevate one of two legendary Imoogi serpents to become a celestial dragon--for the one that sacrificed her.  Buraki scours Los Angeles as Ethan recalls that he is the reincarnation of Nani's lover from 500 years ago, and that unless Sarah is killed by/for one of the Imoogi, Buraki and his forces will only search for yet another reincarnation of Nani 500 years later.

Intellectual Content

Dragons Wars squanders plenty of its philosophical potential, though shards of important or deep issues are addressed.  That Sarah, the latest incarnation of the Yuh Yi Joo, a woman whose life force can transform an Imoogi into a dragon, is to be killed for either "heaven" or for the arrogant Buraki is something that could have made for a very elaborate, personal exploration of sacrifice, especially with Sarah as an unwilling pawn in a rivalry between serpents that are far more powerful than humans.  Combined with a stronger, better funded approach to the metaphysics of South Korean legends, this could have helped the film stand apart from others in a distinctly positive way instead of as a very mixed movie.  As it is, the themes of destiny and Korean mythology and human sacrifice are scarcely developed, much like the characters themselves.

Conclusion

A bigger budget and a more committed cast, or perhaps better directing as well, would have lifted Dragon Wars to the place of a more thoughtful, dramatic film that introduced Korean terms and legends to some Western audiences for the first time.  Yes, even though it might have been the most expensive South Korean film when it debuted, the budget certainly needed to be larger or the resources utilized better if this was to have the level of visual flair it seems to strive for.  Dragon Wars still turned out to be the film that reached some important milestones for Korean filmmaking, although Korean movies that followed boast some much better examples of how to reach artistic greatness.  It could have been far worse, certainly, and it also could have been far better.  This puts Dragon Wars, or D-War, as it is sometimes unecessarily called, in the company of many other movies from all sorts of countries that are based on ideas with potential and yet were mishandled in the execution.

Content:

 1.  Violence:  Bloodless explosions, shootings, and physical fights are the extent of the violence.

 2.  Profanity:  Words like "shit" are seldomly used.

Women In The God Of War Reboot

It is not portraying the individual male or female characters of a given story in a certain way that is irrational or evil.  Such a thing does not have to be sexist at all.  The same is true of making a story that features mostly (or exclusively) male or female characters.  The problem would be in the intention of promoting the fallacies of stereotypes, if applicable, or in mass trends of, say, presenting only women as sexual assault victims, presenting only women as having emotion and personal sensitivity, presenting only men as aggressive and domineering, and so on.  Likewise, the mass creation of entertainment with mostly men or mostly women would be discriminatory, whether or not the stories promote stereotypes.  Even if every character of either gender is largely portrayed as if stereotypes are true, but not every single one, this is idiotic because it contradicts the necessary truths of reason since nonphysical traits do not follow from having certain genitalia.  Stereotypes also contradict social experiences [1], though reason is true and knowable independent of all sociality and sensory experience.

The 2018 God of War reboot, on one hand, focuses on largely male characters.  It follows Kratos and his son Atreus, eventually joined by the reanimated head of Mimir, on their journey to spread the ashes of Kratos' wife from the highest point in all the nine realms of Norse mythology.  Unlike with some contemporary games, the majority of the enemies seem to be resurrected or corrupted male soldiers called Draugr, at least when they are not animals like wolves.  The duo winds up visiting a benevolent witch multiple times, this sorceress turning out to be the Vanir pseudo-goddess Freya.  There are also actual female witches without alleged divine power (a created being like Freya or even Odin could not be an actual uncaused cause) called Revenants that must be fought to progress.  One of them, encountered in an optional side quest, is named Gullveig.  Then there are the nine Valkyries, spirits trapped in female bodies that the player can fight to liberate them--a pure spirit has no body and thus no genitalia no matter what the myths or popular culture interpretations of them would posit, so it cannot be male or female even if it presents itself as having the appearance of one gender.

On the other hand, although there are long stretches of the game with no female characters, the ones that are part of the story are very integral to moving the plot forward, highlight how women can be malicious and selfish (a sometimes very neglected truth), or showcase how women can be mighty warriors.  The wife of Kratos and mother of Atreus, for instance, though she is used narratively as a significant catalyst that sparks the events of the game, is frequently spoken of by her surviving family members, and her death is a driving force for the plot.  There is only something erroneous about a female character dying to push male characters forward (she has died before the game starts, however) if this end was all that female characters were used for across different stories or if it was meant, in this respective case, to degrade the gender of the character by favorably expressing sexist philosophical ideas.  This is also not the case with the cameo of Athena, who might only appear as a hallucination, though having her post-mortem astral form from God of War III might point to her literally manifesting outside of Kratos' mind.  Athena and her words are used to show how haunted Kratos is by his actions from Greece, a very fitting thematic inclusion.

Some people might think that using the Valkyries as optional and often very powerful bosses to be killed is disrespectful towards women.  This is itself sexist: it is not that attacking women is always evil and attacking men is always permissible or at least not as bad.  It is that attacking anyone because of their gender is sexist.  In fact, it is highly sexist to think that having to fight or kill female characters is abominable, but not the other way around.  The 2018 God of War is not misogynistic, and the way female characters of earlier games are utilized is not sexist in itself either, despite the occasional sex minigames (like on the boat at the beginning of the original God of War or with Aphrodite in God of War III) and partial nudity.  After all, Kratos has his chest and much of his body exposed, and this is not sexist since the male and female bodies alike are just human bodies; his chest just might be perceived differently, to the detriment of both genders [2], by the typical idiotic non-rationalist than even nonsexual portrayals of female breasts, as with Eos, goddess of the dawn, when Kratos speaks with her in Chains of Olympus.

The God of War franchise has never contained any inherently misogynistic or misandrist leanings despite sometimes portraying things in line with various sexist ideologies and social practices.  Actually, female characters have been a prominent or pivotal part of the franchise since its start, from the village oracle of the original game to Athena, who guided Kratos until her accidental killing, even aiding him in his quest against Zeus from her own intriguing afterlife in God of War III (and perhaps appearing in her spirit form in the 2018 game).  Though they are closer to catalysts for the initial storyline, the deaths of the first wife and child of Kratos, named Lysandra and Calliope respectively, are of enormous significance in the series, for they are what drive Kratos to renounce service to Ares and serve the other Olympians as penance, though he comes to oppose them.  As the Furies in Ascension, Persephone in Chains of Olympus, Gaia in multiple games, Hera in God of War III, and more show, as well as miscellaneous female enemies like gorgons, women are not gentle or peaceful or selfless because they are female.  So much in the franchise brims with a philosophical depth that not everyone notices, and the way the series treats men and women is ultimately rather egalitarian, showing Kratos grapple with powerful emotions, women fighting and scheming, and a host of characters of each gender embrace varying moral alignments.

[1].  https://thechristianrationalist.blogspot.com/2020/06/refuting-gender-stereotypes-unnecessary.html

[2].  https://thechristianrationalist.blogspot.com/2020/05/the-twin-harms-of-denying-womens.html