Wiccan Morality

"An ye harm none, do what ye will."
--Wiccan Rede


Wiccan morality, like Wicca itself in general, can be very ambiguous and unfixed.  This post will consist mostly of a comparison of Wiccan morality to Christian morality in terms of overall frameworks and the specificity of their claims.  To do so I will reference two Wiccan poems: The Charge of the Goddess and the Rede.

The vagueness of Wicca appears in many places, including The Charge of the Goddess, which proclaims that the Goddess' (I think also called the Moon Goddess) law is love [1].  What does love mean here?  Does it refer to some ideal that the individual Wiccan chooses and defines for himself or herself?  One could ask similar things about the Rede!  Does someone have to harm someone physically to harm them?  What about causing emotional or psychological pain?  Is saying something that would offend someone else harmful, even if it's true (aka "Two contrary claims can both be correct")?  If so, is identifying as a Wiccan in the presence of someone who dislikes Wicca wrong according to Wiccan morality?  Is spiritually misleading someone condemned here?  And if I am being abducted, assaulted, or murdered, does an act of self-defense on my part violate this law?  The Rede does not clarify.

Conscience can at most tell me what I think or feel is morally wrong; it can never prove to me either that morality exists--that some things really are right and wrong independent of my feelings of conscience--or that my conscience is rightly informing me of actual specifics about morality if such a thing exists [2].  Anyone who looks to conscience as a moral guide does not base his or her moral beliefs on reason or divine revelation, the first of which leads to moral skepticism and the second of which alone can provide moral knowledge.  Besides, my conscience will not necessarily consist of the same feelings and reactions as the consciences of other people.  Conscience is subjective at best but it is all a Wiccan has to understand the "harm none" rule by.  Wicca does not at all seem to teach outright moral relativism (which is a philosophy that is objectively impossible; either moral realism or moral nihilism is true), but the practices of individual Wiccans will almost inevitably drift into a relativistic stupor in their application.  That is not to say that beyond what is specifically mentioned in the Bible Christians are not permitted total personal freedom to live entirely as they please (Deuteronomy 4:2), as they certainly are, but Christianity has a much more thoroughly defined moral system.

What about justice?  Punishing acts of crime wouldn't actually be punishment if it didn't involve some consequence at least subjectively viewed as undesirable by someone.  What does Wicca say about justice, giving to people what they deserve?  Other than that a vague Karma-type force related to the "Law of Return" may visit those who harm others, nothing at all.  The interesting thing is that if Wicca's version of "Karma" involves humans inflicting harm on those who harmed others, then the very human agents of that Karma violated the Rede's moral principle prohibiting infliction of harm!  If this is the case, not only is Wiccan morality in many ways ambiguous at best, it is downright hypocritical and logically inconsistent!  But it may be that the Law of Return simply has to do with some negative emotional state or "negative energy" that comes to reside in someone.  The Bible, on the other hand, the only legitimate source of Christian moral knowledge, offers many precise details about its own positions on justice.

So is terrestrial justice not a moral obligation on the Wiccan worldview?  I do not think Wiccans would represent their religion this way although that may the logical conclusion of the matter.  Even so, whereas the Bible has very detailed explanations about terrestrial justice, Wicca can offer no illumination on the matter.  The Bible classifies certain sins (murder, rape, battery against one's parents, kidnapping, etc) as capital crimes (Exodus 21:12-14; Deuteronomy 22:25-27; Exodus 21:15; Exodus 21:16); for others (theft, assault and battery with no permanent injuries, etc), it prescribes financial penalties or penalties involving the surrender of property (Exodus 21:1, 3b-4; Exodus 21:18-19); for some, (miscellaneous unidentified crimes) corporal punishment in the form of 1-40 lashes (Deuteronomy 25:1-3); for still others (assault and battery causing permanent injury, a woman physically assaulting a man's penis), the amputation of body parts (Exodus 21:23-25; Deuteronomy 25:11-12).  The Bible is extremely specific about what it does and does not condemn and explicitly condemns adding to or subtracting from its moral commands (Deuteronomy 4:2).

It is unclear what the metaphysical basis for the goodness of the "harm none" rule is in Wicca.  In Christianity goodness is a reflection of God's immutable nature (Malachi 3:6) and evil or sin is what deviates from conformity to that character; in Wicca I not only see no particularly clear moral framework, but no obvious ontological basis for what even would make something good if Wicca were true.  The Goddess' charge to humans, if Wiccan morality also is grounded in the character of its deities, would not be a reflection of the nature of the deity who created her and the Horned God (see here for an explanation of the Moon Goddess and the Horned God [3]).  This morality would be a reflection of the nature of a created superhuman being and not the Wiccan uncaused cause, which is a mostly deistic being.

These differences in ethical stances do not prove that Christianity is true and Wicca is not, though.  Remember, the primary point of this post is to explain Wiccan morality and compare it to Christian morality.  It remains true nonetheless that Wiccan morality is vague and largely undefined.  Christian morality offers a specific avenue of moral knowledge and a simple standard by which to judge the morality of something on the Christian worldview.  Anyone making moral claims needs to have far more support for the claim than just "It's my interpretation of a vague rule", for every claim about morality is either true or false, just as every other claim about everything.  And considering that Wiccan morality devolves into subjective application very quickly, it also forfeits objective defensibility when it embraces that subjectivity.


[1].  http://www.doreenvaliente.com/Doreen-Valiente-Doreen_Valiente_Poetry-11.php#sthash.GQamo98E.dpbs

[2].  https://thechristianrationalist.blogspot.com/2017/03/the-nature-of-conscience.html

[3].  https://thechristianrationalist.blogspot.com/2017/08/an-introduction-to-wicca.html

A Refutation Of Trinitarianism (Part 1)

In the course of growing as a Christian and as an intellectual it is absolutely necessary to challenge the Biblicality of whatever doctrines are put forth by the majority of Christians.  Understanding the necessity of this for Christian growth, I want to thoroughly examine the claims of Trinitarianism and demonstrate that it is a deficient ideology.  Trinitarianism is the belief in the Christian Trinity, which is itself the belief that the Christian God consists of three persons who are distinct from each other yet each the same divine being.  Trinitarians reject all charges of polytheism (belief in multiple deities) and might claim that they embrace a mystery that is not comprehensible by reason and yet does not violate reason.  But . . . as anyone with a very minor grasp on logic and mathematics knows, three does not equal one and different beings cannot be identical to each other.  And I call bullshit!

Why is Biblically proving or disproving Trinitarianism a big deal?  Well, as I have told people in person, belief in the Trinity actually impacts very little of the lives of most Trinitarians.  The very esoteric, illogical, abstract nature of the Trinity makes it very difficult to actually live, pray, and act differently in one's everyday life because of belief in the Trinity.  The importance of examining the concept of Trinitarianism has nothing to do with some resulting transformation of one's spirituality; the importance has to do with the fact that if the Trinity is logically impossible and if the Bible teaches the Trinity, then at least the parts of the Bible speaking of the Trinity are objectively false and cannot be true.  The very credibility and veracity of Christianity are at stake!

Lest I get accused of heresy over my opposition to Trinitarianism, let me explain what heresy actually is.  Heresy is a claim about God's nature that contradicts his actual nature; thus, in the Christian sense heresy is something that contradicts what the Bible teaches about God's character or nature [1].  I cannot know God's moral character, will, or much of his nature at all (beyond what logic and philosophical metaphysics can prove) unless God reveals those things to me.  All the cries of pastors and lay Christians alike do not and cannot make something heresy.  Even if it was impossible to logically and Biblically disprove Trinitarianism (and it is certainly possible!), unless Trinitarians could prove their position from the Bible they would have no basis to call me or any other non-Trinitarian a heretic.

Many beliefs accepted by Christians are in fact heretical.  It is heresy to say that moral obligations regarding justice (criminal punishments) changed between the Old and New Testament, for morality is a reflection of God's nature and God's nature does not change (Malachi 3:6)--not to mention that Jesus did not come to abolish the Law and affirmed it repeatedly (Matthew 5:17-19).  It is a heresy to represent God as a being who will torment all unsaved beings eternally when the Bible says the destination of the human unsaved is annihilation (Matthew 10:28, 2 Peter 2:6, Romans 6:23, Ezekiel 18:4)--not to mention that his own moral revelation in Mosaic Law contradicts the very idea of eternal conscious torment (Deuteronomy 25:3, Exodus 21:23-25).  It is heresy to condemn the naked human body as sinful when it is the epitome of God's creation (Genesis 2:25), which he called good (Genesis 1:31) and which is not ever condemned in itself--not to mention that God, who cannot tempt people to sin (James 1:13), commanded the prophet Isaiah to go naked for three years (Isaiah 20:1-6).  It is heresy to claim that God does not hate at least some sinners, as Scripture is clear that he does (Psalm 5:5-6, 11:5, Proverbs 3:32).

Although each of these things is a heresy in its own right, it is not in any way uncommon to find them preached in the name of Christian teachings.  And yet they are false and destructive lies!  As Jesus said, the truth will set us free (John 8:32).  Only knowledge of truth can liberate humans from bondage to ignorance and error.  The unfortunate truth is that many humans who read the Bible do not seem to start with no inherited assumptions about the text and then proceed to ascribe to the Bible only what the Bible teaches.  This methodology is the only reliable way of investigating anything at all--no assumptions, just starting with foundational principles and working upward from there in accordance with reason.

Can Trinitarianism survive a confrontation with logic and Scripture?  In the next parts in this series I will examine the laws of logic and Biblical passages relevant to this issue.  For now, it is sufficient that I have defined heresy and shown that if Trinitarianism does not have airtight Biblical support, then even if it was true it would not have the status of some indisputable central doctrine of Christianity.  Expect the follow ups soon!


[1].  https://thechristianrationalist.blogspot.com/2017/05/on-heresy.html

Is Omnipotence Possible?

The issue of God's alleged omnipotence is one that can get Christians riled up very quickly.  On one hand, many seem to view a God who is anything less than omnipotent--capable of doing anything--as not being God at all, yet they can have great difficulty answering questions about this alleged omnipotence.  At the point that they realize the indefensibility of the concept of an omnipotent being they may resign hope of understanding God's nature for the afterlife.  Or they may claim that God can never be understood, as if that proposition actually resolves the impossibility of omnipotence as often defined.

Omnipotence, if defined as the ability to do anything, is impossible because it would allow for contradictions to be possible--when contradictions are by their very nature objectively impossible.  What are some things that God cannot do or bring about?  God cannot create a married bachelor or a being that is both conscious and unconscious; he cannot make something exist and not exist simultaneously, nor can he do or be anything other than what his own nature permits.  He cannot both be perfectly holy and engage in or instruct someone to sin.  Likewise, he cannot bring it about that nothing is true.

Defenders of the concept of an omnipotent being
can be rationally refuted with a single question: can
God make a stone so large that he cannot move it?

Can God make a stone so large that he cannot move it?  Regardless of whether the answer is yes or no, there is something that God cannot do!  There is no way for God to be capable of doing anything, as to do so he would have to violate logic, which is inviolable.  For instance, the logical law of non-contradiction says that something cannot be and not be in the same way at the same time.  My shirt cannot be entirely blue and entirely green at the same time; I cannot be asleep and awake at the same time; a door cannot be open and closed at the same time; atheism and Christianity cannot be true at the same time; God cannot want everyone to be saved and not want everyone to be saved at the same time; I cannot be married and unmarried at the same time; I cannot speak and not speak at the same time; I cannot be both biologically alive and biologically dead at the same time.

Indeed, if someone were to say that the law of non-contradiction is false, they are only proving that it is not, for if they are correct in saying that contradictions are possible, then it must by necessity be true that contradictions are not impossible.  This is the inviolable nature of reality and one of multiple examples of how those who argue against reason must use reason to argue against what cannot be false.  And since anything that contradicts reason is by necessity false, and the existence of an omnipotent being contradicts reason, then there can be no such thing as an omnipotent being.

Does it follow, then, that it is impossible for God to exist?  Of course not!  In the Western world people have been largely conditioned to define the word "God" in a certain way, with God being commonly understood to mean a male monotheistic entity who is omnipotent, omniscient, and omnipresent.  Some of these attributes seem to be taught in Scripture and some of them are not.  In short, people might assume that since what is often meant by the word God includes attributes that are impossible, there can be no way for God to exist.  But just because a certain type of deity cannot exist does not mean that no other types can.  There is a god, if by "god" one means an entity which has always existed without a beginning [1].  And so the only rational conclusion, considering the immutable facts which I have presented in this post, is that God is not omnipotent.

For some, this revelation might shatter the core of their theology.  Some may find the idea of a non-omnipotent God repulsive and unworthy of worship.  It remains true that they are basing this theological expectation and belief on an assumption, an assumption which cannot align with reality.  Anyone who asserts that a god who is not omnipotent "can't be God" commits, at the very least, the no true Scotsman fallacy, fallacy of circular reasoning, and fallacy of begging the question.  Such a person, in effect, is saying that God has a certain impossible nature, and when this claim is objectively disproven he or she responds by restating that God just can't not be omnipotent!  This person does not believe in a sound conclusion, but instead clings to a puzzle piece that does not fit the puzzle of reality before him or her.

It's time for Christians to stop presenting a straw man version of Christianity to ideological opponents of Christianity.  Not only is the idea simply incorrect, intelligent people from other philosophies like atheism will see right through the fallacies and irrationality of such a claim.  They may mistake this for actual Christianity and theism and may reject both in rejecting the concept of an omnipotent deity (which is also a fallacious response).  May these errors on both sides never occur again!


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

The Epistemology Of Absurdism

In his Myth of Sisyphus, absurdist philosopher Albert Camus offered a rather excellent description of the epistemology of an absurdist.  Absurdism as a philosophy is not the product of mere emotional confusion, but the conclusion of a purely rational examination of the human limitations we find ourselves confined by.

Camus explains how the absurdist stands firm amidst the irrational calls of others:


"I don't know whether this world has a meaning that transcends it.  But I know that I do not know that meaning and it is impossible for me just now to know it . . .

At a certain point on his path the absurd man is tempted.  History is not lacking in either religions or prophets, even without gods.  He is asked to leap.  All he can reply is that he doesn't fully understand, that it is not obvious.  Indeed, he does not want to do anything but what he fully understands.  He is assured that this is the sin of pride . . . Hence, what he demands of himself is to live solely with what he knows, to accommodate himself to what is, and to bring in nothing that is not certain.  He is told that nothing is.  But this at least is certain." (17-18)


Camus here summarizes the goal of an absurdist.  An absurdist realizes that meaning cannot be proven to exist, yet many people cry out that it does in the name of numerous conflicting religions and ideologies.  In turn, the religious often accuse the absurdist of wallowing in pride that comes from wanting rational proof, as if they are not arbitrarily begging the question.  The absurdist rejects their unverified claims of meaning and resigns himself or herself to what can be known, for he or she is after truth, not preference or a desired belief.

Now I want to draw attention to the last two sentences of the quote.  Some religious apologists or apologists of arbitrary secular meaning reply with the self-defeating response that nothing is certain and therefore the absurdist should just accept something as meaningful.  But he or she sees that if nothing is certain, then the fact that nothing is certain is certain, and thus the objections of a non-absurdist fail, for certainty does exist in some places.  Truth exists, some knowledge is possible, and it is impossible for a conscious, rational being to escape these brute facts; to deny them is to rely on and prove them.  But meaning is not among the brute obvious facts of reality.  Camus explains elsewhere that the illogical pleadings of others are "not likely to stop the absurd man.  Seeking what is true is not seeking what is desirable" (14).

In short, the absurdist of Camus's description here is a thorough rationalist, who admits that certainty does exist in some areas but refuses to embrace what lies beyond the video of what can be objectively, absolutely known, whereas his or her critics may deny that certainty is possible (a self-defeating move) and tell the absurdist to believe in an unverified claim about meaning.  When people say we can know nothing, they could not possibly know nothing without knowing that they know nothing.  They defy and contradict a necessary truth grasped at the core of my conscious experience and existence.  When they say that the impossible claim that we know nothing somehow justifies belief in an unverified proposition, they have committed a double error, both denying something that cannot be false and then pretending that their absurdity justifies whatever beliefs they desperately want to be true.  It is they who have an absurd philosophy, not the absurdist.

I myself am a theistic absurdist in that I admit the necessary existence of an uncaused cause and realize that an inability to prove either nihilism or objective meaning results in a void of certainty about issues of meaning.  I am a Christian in the sense of having committed myself to live for Christianity on probabilistic evidentialist grounds, for Christianity has threefold support: 1) it agrees with necessary truths that cannot be false and can be known with absolute certainty, 2) it is internally consistent with its own claims, and 3) it is consistent with evidence from external disciplines which do not deal with necessary truths (like science and history).  Yet the entirety of Christianity cannot be proven and thus cannot be known to be true (including its value claims).  No, it does not follow from the existence of the uncaused cause that objective meaning exists.  That is why theism does not disprove either absurdism or nihilism.

Absurdism is not easy.  "It is always easy to be logical.  It is almost impossible to be logical to the bitter end" (3), Camus writes.  That is the problem I have faced as a theistic absurdist: I find myself embracing the discoveries of reason which cannot be false as I share a world with those who tell me that reason is unreliable (an impossible thing) and that nothing is certain and so I should just accept unproven value claims.  Yet it is indeed not an easy thing for me to look within my heart and mind and recognize that my desires for meaning and objective fulfillment might be desires for things that do not exist.  That is why my commitment to Christianity, a commitment far more nuanced and intellectually-fortified than that of many Christians I know of, actually displays a far more impressive allegiance to Christianity than anything that those who pursue blind faith or an irrational justification for Christianity can possibly exert.


The Myth of Sisyphus and Other Essays.  Camus, Albert.  Trans. O'Brien, Justin.  New York: Vintage Books, 1991.

An Introduction To Wicca

Wicca is a rather diverse and complex belief system that could be easily misunderstood or misappropriated.  In an effort to begin showing the intellectual deficiency of Wicca, I have here tried to summarize some of the basic and general practices and miscellaneous beliefs of its adherents, although I must admit that the nature of Wicca can make a unified treatment of it difficult.  I'll also admit that part of this investigation was triggered by recalling that Sully Erna, the singer for one of my favorite bands called Godsmack, has identified as a practicing Wiccan.

I will say ahead of time that Wicca can be a somewhat complicated system to explain because of the numerous nuances in it and the many different directions one could take or apply Wiccan beliefs in.  This erodes the credibility of Wicca entirely in some areas and severely in others.  But it is rare to find a worldview that does not have at least one ray of truth protruding out from it.  The nature of reality is such that even false religions often have at least shards of truth embedded in them.  So it is with Wicca, for it does hold to at least several things which Christianity also affirms.  My life goal is to discover truth, and I have no desire to condemn the whole of something which is only false or unverifiable in part.  I have chosen to primarily address Wiccan theology and views on sexuality in this post, and I made sure to note which parts of Wiccan belief in each category are true, in accordance with how they concur with what reason proves and what Christianity teaches.


Wiccan Theology

Wicca is a form of paganism, with paganism roughly equating to various pre-Christian or non-Christian religions that often feature nature worship and some form of polytheism (though the Trinity certainly has polytheistic elements, despite what many Christians claim when pressed).  Its practice may involve some similar rituals or themes, yet it remains rather decentralized and has no board which presides over it, as the Vatican does Catholicism.  As such, Wicca is not so much an organized theology as it is a general spiritual belief system which individual followers apply in a subjective, loose way.  I've actually read that agnostics and atheists can identify as Wiccans, so theism can be more of a symbolic formality than a serious metaphysical belief for Wiccans (like Satan in LeVay's Satanism).

Wicca does include, at least in some versions, an uncaused cause, a deistic being that created the universe and a male and female deity who can have large roles in the belief system.  While Wicca is often described as a duotheistic worldview featuring the Horned God and the Moon Goddess, the two deities created by the uncaused cause, it views other deities ascribed to other religions as manifestations of the power and personalities of these two deities.  Yet it can get very pluralistic.  Pluralism is a mixture of various religious and spiritual beliefs or the belief that most or all religions are simultaneously true.  Since Wicca allows for very individualized, arbitrary, and pluralistic practice, it has the same flaws of any other pluralistic system.

Of course, pluralism is objectively false because conflicting claims cannot be simultaneously true.  Truth is objective and discovered, not created by human merging of random ideas; for this very lack of specificity and uniformity at least some versions of Wicca suffer a hopeless defeat at the hands of logic.  The logical law of non-contradiction states that something cannot be and not be in the same way at the same time; something is either true or false, and mixing incompatible or arbitrary beliefs is not a rational way of recognizing truth.  Conflicting truth claims are innately exclusive by nature.  For one to be correct, all other competing ideas must be false.  And thus the versions of Wicca held to by different individuals cannot all be true.

Also incorporated into some Wiccan teachings is the use of magic.  I do not think that the condemnation (and demand for capital punishment of) sorceresses and sorcerers in Mosaic Law (Exodus 22:18, Leviticus 20:27) would in itself paint all Wiccans as male and female witches, as, although magic can be featured in Wicca, the malleability and subjective application of Wiccan principles, along with the fact that even atheists can be included as Wiccans, mean that not all Wiccans will even believe in magic, much less attempt to engage in it.  Honestly, it seems dubious to me if all Wiccans even believe in sorcery and its practice considering the somewhat loose ideological boundaries of the system.

Such a malleable set of specific theological beliefs could also make Wicca difficult to define.  I have done my best to summarize what I have learned about Wicca here, and I welcome any clarification or correction from both Wiccans and non-Wiccans alike!


Wiccan Sexuality

A poem called The Charge of the Goddess details some Wiccan beliefs which I will assess here:

"And ye shall be free from slavery; and as a sign that ye be truly free, you shall be naked in your rites; 

and ye shall dance, sing, feast, make music and love, all in my praise. For mine is the ecstasy of the spirit, 

and mine also is joy on earth; for my law is love unto all beings." [1]

Wicca can involve rituals where men and women shed all clothing and expose their nude bodies, though no one is pressured against their will into nonconsensual display of his or her body and nudity is not utterly mandatory for participation in some rites.  The system views nudity as a natural thing, and yes, nudity is objectively neither sexual (in itself) nor unnatural; in truth, the Bible does not condemn nudity and largely approves of it, but evangelical Christians will rarely hear this from other Christians [2].  Although nudity is not inherently sexual (as logic and experience can prove), it remains relevant to a discussion of Wicca and sexuality because of the ways American culture misunderstands nudity.  I have read that nudity in Wiccan practice can represent a type of existential and philosophical honesty where one symbolically sheds illusion in favor of truth as the quoted excerpt from The Charge of the Goddess explains in part, yet, as many Wiccan beliefs are ludicrously arbitrary, pluralistic, and unverifiable, Wicca as summarized by me above is not a religion of reason and reality.  It seems to me that nudity in Wiccan rituals is intended to declare personal freedom from slavery to false ideals.  Though nudity can indeed be very liberating, the beliefs of Wicca, where pluralistic and vague, cannot free anyone from the objective problems philosophy and theology grapple with.

The Great Rite is a ceremony where one of two things occurs: either a Wiccan priest and priestess have ritual sex to symbolically represent Wiccan ideas, or they carry out a symbolic procedure by placing a special knife into a chalice (cup).  Since Wicca is a fertility religion as The Charge of the Goddess alludes to, the Great Rite's themes can be quite central to it.  Really, it is not the public nature of this sex that contradicts Christianity, as public sex is never condemned as sinful by the Bible (I hope to elaborate on this and its ramifications more at a future time), as any rationalistic Christian theonomist knows.  The true abomination is its idolatrous nature and function in rituals of Wicca's paganism and pluralism.  Wicca's pagan and fertility religion aspects focus on the generative, life-giving nature of sex as something that glorifies the Goddess.

Wicca does honor the emotional and relational intimacy sex can bring.  It allows but does not mandate practically any consensual sexual act, marital or extramarital.  It does prohibit nonconsensual and irresponsible sex (sex addiction, emotionally-damaging sexual encounters, etc.), but beyond these principles it leaves the morality of sexual acts to individual preference.  Part of the Wiccan stance towards sexuality totally agrees with the Bible--sexuality is a thing with definite spiritual and moral significance, but both sexuality in the name of a false deity and participation in acts of Biblically defined sexual immorality cannot be reconciled to Christianity.


Wicca's Weakness

Not only is Wicca loose and somewhat pluralistic, with pluralism being inherently false by its very nature, but its beliefs suffer from an inability to be subjected to rational verification.  Logic can incontrovertibly prove the existence of an uncaused cause, an undertaking which natural theology and abstract philosophy strongly reinforce.  One does not need any faith to believe in an uncaused cause as long as he or she understands the purely logical necessity of the existence of a cause which has always existed uncaused [3].  So at the very least, some form of deism or theism is true (even if only a more solipsistic kind of theism).  Wicca acknowledges this, or at least some adherents of Wicca do.  The Horned God and Moon Goddess are sometimes described as created by this uncaused cause, who is a fairly deistic being that does not actively interfere with the material universe or the lives of the humans which inhabit it.  Yet Wicca (at least when its duotheism is not just ideologically symbolic but reflects actual theological beliefs) goes beyond this to posit a type of paganistic duotheism.

Christianity has an objective advantage over Wicca once one moves beyond the logically necessary existence of an uncaused cause.  Christianity centers on alleged historical events like the resurrection of Jesus which either happened or did not happen.  While I openly concede that no one can prove anything about the past except that it has existed for at least a moment and that any material world must have a beginning (and therefore an external cause), there is definite historical evidence for some of the most important claims of Christianity.  First century historians Josephus and Tacitus, among others, documented the existence and crucifixion of Jesus.  Historical references to the rise of Christianity despite major persecution can be researched, and, if history did unfold as believed by most historians and reported by alleged historical documents, then it follows that events occurred in the first century AD which only the veracity of Christianity seems to explain [4].

Wicca's weakness, thus, is its near total lack of supporting evidence, much less proof.


Conclusion

Wicca is indeed full of shit at times, but I did want to explicitly acknowledge where Wicca overlaps with Christianity.  Out of the information I presented here, the areas where that overlap would exist would be in Wicca's inclusion of belief in the existence of the uncaused cause and its acceptance of nudity as a natural thing.  As I said before, not every component of a false religion is necessarily untrue.  Islam, Wicca, and other non-Christian theologies do not disagree with reason and the Bible in full.

I have tried to not misrepresent Wicca to the best of my ability and current knowledge of it.  If I have misspoken or misrepresented a doctrine of Wicca, as I already said, "I welcome any clarification or correction from both Wiccans and non-Wiccans alike!"  I hope that this explanation of Wicca is informative, although its contents might be confusing at first.  I will hopefully write more about Wicca as I learn and become familiar with it.


[1].  http://blessedbe.sugarbane.com/goddess.htm

[2].  See here:
A.  https://thechristianrationalist.blogspot.com/2016/08/bible-on-nudity-part-1.html
B.  https://thechristianrationalist.blogspot.com/2017/07/the-naturalness-of-nudity.html

[3].  See here:
A.  https://thechristianrationalist.blogspot.com/2017/04/the-uncaused-cause.html
B.  https://thechristianrationalist.blogspot.com/2017/03/the-god-of-big-bang.html

[4].  https://thechristianrationalist.blogspot.com/2017/04/the-importance-of-resurrection.html

The Multifaceted Nature Of Sexual Attraction

Sexuality can occupy a great deal of human focus and thought.  This is no cause for alarm as some may teach, but the subject of sexuality can be quite complex.  And thus sexual attraction is not unvarying across the experiences of all people.  The study of human sexuality, sexual physiological reactions of the human body, and different types of sexual desire is called sexology, but one does not need to be a professional sexologist to realize the complexity of sexuality.  This post will address some of the diverse ways people experience sexual attraction.

I must distinguish romantic attraction from the sexual kind.  Romantic attraction is affection for someone in a way beyond mere friendship that does not necessarily include anything sexual in nature; sexual attraction is present when sexual feelings are drawn towards a person (it is not mere aesthetic attraction).  A romantic relationship is a relationship different than that which friends share but not necessarily one focused on or involving sexual expression.  But I will explain in a bit how some romantic activities can definitely nurture sexual desire!  Romantic attraction can lead to sexual attraction and vice versa, but they are not identical.

Christians have nothing to fear in exploring these, although in my experiences many Christians shy away from detailed open discussions about sexual physiology or morality.  Sexuality is nothing to fear, but it is also nothing to worship.  It is not uncommon for for the modern church to stoop to fear of it, while the secular world often worships it.  Yet neither reaction is justified.

The specifics of sexual attraction can vary greatly from person to person.  One person might have great difficulty experiencing sexual feelings and desires apart from a deep emotional connection with someone else (demisexual), while another person might value physical attraction very highly.  Yes, physical attraction can be a major part of sexual attraction, and some people I know have explained to me that their sexual desires definitely have a physical side.  But sexual attraction can have much more diverse and even more powerful components than just physical attraction.

People can conceptually divide sexual attraction in general into two main groups: primary and secondary sexual attraction.  Primary sexual attraction involves an initial physical attraction to someone based upon his or her appearance.  It does not require knowing someone's mind or personality, just that person's physical attributes--not that admiring the beauty of a man or woman or visually appreciating his or her body is a sexual thing in and of itself; it certainly is not.  Secondary sexual attraction is a deeper attraction that forms from the process of getting to know someone over a period of time.  This attraction has passion pushed by the full force of an intimate emotional and personal connection.  I referred to this when I said above that nonsexual romantic attraction and activities (dates and so on) can cultivate sexual attraction.  And, just as Song of Songs 8:6 describes love, a deep secondary sexual attraction can burn "like a blazing fire, like a mighty flame".

I say this not to imply that primary or physical sexual attraction is somehow sinful, only that without the deeper personal connection of secondary sexual attraction it cannot necessarily fuel a long-term attraction.  Emotional bonds with a significant other or spouse acknowledge that humans have more than just an external body.  A demisexual needs a significant emotional connection to have sexual attraction to someone, and thus a demisexual will likely invest in secondary sexual attraction.

Sapiosexuals are sexually attracted to intelligence.  Appreciation of a spouse's or significant other's mind, intelligence, creativity, intellectual complexity, and wit can certainly spark and nurture a sexual attraction based on far more than desire to enjoy a body that time and physics will change.

There are some types of sexual attraction which, whether or not they are inborn, God has condemned acting upon.  Bisexual and homosexual desires rank among these.  It is not that homosexual or bisexual orientations are defined as sinful, but that acts of homosexuality are.  For a greater elaboration on homosexuality and related issues like the naturalness of homosexual attraction, the biological incompatibility of same gender genitalia, and a summarized explanation of the Biblical position on homosexuality and what it means and does not mean, see here [1].

God created human sexuality, but he did not make it uniform across all people.  Sometimes I get the impression that some Christians might shy away from admitting this in an effort to not condone what they know the Bible condemns as sexual immorality.  God made it clear in the Bible what sexual acts are sinful, and having a desire to engage in a sinful act is itself sinful.  But neither fact changes the diverse nature of human sexual attraction.  Sexual attraction is not necessarily as simple as seeing someone and judging that person attractive, and it can have far more than one component, with the potency of the attraction deepening and growing over time.


Summary of observations:
1. Sexual attraction is not identical to romantic attraction.
2. Primary sexual attraction pertains to initial physical attraction; secondary sexual attraction can develop as partners grow closer emotionally.
3. Sexual attraction is far more multifaceted than just physical attraction alone: attraction to intelligence, or someone with whom one shares a deep emotional bond can prove far more powerful than mere initial physical attraction.


[1].  https://thechristianrationalist.blogspot.com/2017/08/on-homosexuality-and-bible.html

Moral And Natural Evil

As I have sat in my house over the past few days observing rain and wind from Hurricane Harvey, I realized the need to distinguish moral evil from what is sometimes called natural evil.  Philosophers and theologians may separate the two concepts from each other in discussions about theodicies--defenses of God's existence or goodness despite the presence of evil or destructive natural events.  Really, to call natural evil "evil" is a very misleading description, as I will explain below, yet a complete theodicy will not totally ignore what is meant by the phrase natural evil.

Moral evil occurs when a human violates a moral obligation.  If rape, slave trading, and sexism are wrong, then any human who carries out any of these actions (or attitudes in the case of sexism) is guilty of moral evil.  Moral evil can only exist in a theistic universe, for without a deity of some sort there can be no moral authority [1] presiding over the cosmos.  In the absence of a deity or deities, there are conflicting, subjective human moral preferences, but there is no metaphysical anchor for any actual moral obligations.  When most people complain about the "problem of evil", they are usually complaining about immoral behaviors undertaken by human agents, like the aforementioned actions, or such things like political corruption, murder, robbery, racism, or sexually cheating on a spouse.  Christians would call moral evil sin, with sin being any activity or desire that deviates from God's moral nature.  God's nature and the moral revelation of the Bible are the overlapping standards that Christians use to judge if something is right or wrong--well, at least what consistent, rational, and Biblically-grounded Christians will use, as many professing Christians I've known seem to adopt many of their specific moral beliefs from culture or their subjective preferences.

Natural evil, on the other hand, is a destructive act of "nature", like a hurricane (such as the damn Hurricane Harvey I'm putting up with the side effects of), flood, or earthquake.  This type of "evil" is nothing like moral evil.  Ultimately, calling these events "evil" or immoral is a misnomer, for they, if humans or some other conscious force (God, Satan, etc) do not spark them, result from deterministic processes that have no moral responsibility.  Mere matter only reacts to previous causes and effects; it has no mind, and without a mind there can be no free will [2], and without free will there can be no true moral responsibility.  Natural evil in and of itself is nothing but the product of blind, deterministic, non-personal, unintentional, unanimated material forces.  Although natural disasters can come about without human or divine origins, humans could, of course, knowingly or unknowingly trigger certain violent or dangerous natural processes.  Unlike moral evil, natural disasters do not require God's existence in order to exist.

Neither moral evil nor natural evil proves that God does not exist, as it does not follow from the occurrence of natural evil that atheism is true (total non sequitur) and moral evil cannot exist unless a moral authority, i.e. God, exists as well.  Sometimes someone might refer to a case of one or the other in an argument against theism, as if a calamity in the natural world or a human act of evil demonstrates that God does not exist!  Despite the irrationality of such arguments, one must still interact seriously with the claims made by them.

And now I will address yet again an issue that I have never heard more than two Christian apologists of sorts (including my best friend, whom I have mentioned multiple times on my blog) acknowledge, much less rationally confront.

No, contrary to what Martin Luther King, Jr. rhetorically implied in Strength to Love, by asking "Is anything more obvious than the presence of evil in the universe?" (77), the existence of moral evil is not the most obvious thing in the universe.  In fact, it is not logically or philosophically obvious at all that right and wrong exist, though any individual with a conscience will realize that it is obvious that he or she has a sense of morality.  Right and wrong can only exist if God does for reasons briefly summarized above, and yet although logic proves that a deity (an uncaused cause) does exist it does not automatically follow that morality exists.  In other words, if morality exists, it follows inescapably that God does; if God exists, it does not necessarily follow that morality does.  Christian apologists, if they want to be intellectually and logically honest, need to acknowledge this, yet I have only met three people in my life who readily understood this point when I articulated it to them.  In response to the masses of people who either intentionally ignore this fact or do not grasp reason enough to realize it, I affirm and paraphrase the words of Camus--it is indeed very easy to be logical, but very difficult to be logical to the bitter end.


Strength to Love.  King, Jr., Martin Luther.  Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1963.  Print.


[1].  See here:
A.  https://thechristianrationalist.blogspot.com/2017/03/the-nature-of-conscience.html
B.  https://thechristianrationalist.blogspot.com/2017/01/the-futility-of-existence-without-god.html

[2].  Matter without a conscious mind cannot have a will and intentionality.  Mere matter cannot reason, only react.  With no conscious mind, will, intentionality, or ability to perceive or think, matter without mind cannot have moral responsibility.

Examining The Meditations (Part 5): "I am, I exist"

Entries in this series:

Examining The Meditations (Part 1): The Religion Of Descartes --https://thechristianrationalist.blogspot.com/2017/08/examining-meditations-part-1-religion.html

Examining The Meditations (Part 2): Cartesian Doubt --https://thechristianrationalist.blogspot.com/2017/08/examining-meditations-part-2-cartesian.html

Examining The Meditations (Part 3): Descent Into Skepticism --https://thechristianrationalist.blogspot.com/2017/08/examining-meditations-part-3-descent.html

Examining The Meditations (Part 4): Illusion And Reality --https://thechristianrationalist.blogspot.com/2017/08/examining-meditations-part-4-illusion.html

Examining The Meditations (Part 5): "I am, I exist"


At this point in the series, I had previously just explained the relationship between illusion and reality and how Descartes used the hypothetical scenario of a powerful demon manipulating his senses to perceive illusions to demonstrate to himself that he does not know if the perceptions of his senses are in alignment with objective external reality.

Now I will begin dissecting the second meditation, or chapter, of his book:


"So serious are the doubts into which I have been thrown as a result of yesterday's meditation that I can neither put them out of my mind nor see any way of resolving them.  It feels as if I have fallen unexpectedly into a deep whirlpool which tumbles me around so that I can neither stand on the bottom not swim up to the top." (16)


I myself know the intense mental agony of going through a deep existential crisis such as the one described by Descartes.  I tend to travel into mini existential crises on a sporadic basis, with these mini periods of uncertainty and mental pain focusing on specific propositions that I cannot have absolute certainty about, not about things I know for sure, like my consciousness, first principles, necessary truths/axioms, and logical truths (which include the necessity of an uncaused cause).  During an existential crisis, uncertainty can result in great fear and mental sensations of confusion.  Although at this point Descartes sits right on the precipice of admitting that he knows at least one thing for certain, he still experiences a raging inner storm.

Descartes goes on to summarize how he will not yet grant that any of his memories or sensory perceptions are more than mere perceptions that do not connect with the external world:


"I will suppose then, that everything I see is spurious.  I will believe that my memory tells me lies, and that none of the things it reports ever happened.  I have no senses . . . So what remains true?  Perhaps the fact that nothing is certain." (16)


But if nothing is certain, then "nothing is certain" is actually certain, and thus it is impossible for nothing at all to be certain.  As I explained yet again in the previous post in this series, there are multiple truths which cannot be false.  I will quote another post of mine where I listed some necessary truths in order to make my point:


"1).  Truth exists.

2).  Some knowledge is possible.

3).  Words can convey truth.

4).  Everyone has a worldview.

5).  Deductive reasoning is reliable (Example: If X is true, Y is true.  X is true.  Therefore Y is true.)

6).  Something is what it is (Law of Identity).

7).  Something cannot be true and false at the same time in the same way (Law of Non-contradiction).

8).  Something is either true or false (Law of Excluded Middle)." [1]


None of these things can be false, and no one can deny them without using and proving them.  Again, the existence of one's own conscious mind is not the only thing which is self-evident (meaning its denial results in impossible contradiction) or which one can know with absolute certainty!

As I've said before in this series, if my sensory perceptions do not correspond to the actual objects and appearance of the external world, then at least my senses and their perceptions still exist, so it is impossible for any being experiencing sensory perceptions to not have any senses.  And if my memories of the past do not correspond to actual past events, then at least my memories still exist.  And yes, one can verify the reliability of one's memory, depending on what it meant.  Indeed, if my memory was not reliable in the sense of at least storing and recalling ideas and concepts (not in the sense of all of its recollections of past events having occurred just as recollected, or even occurred at all) and enabling reasoning to occur, continual contemplation itself would be impossible.  It also remains true that if my memory did not present to me familiarity with objects which my senses perceive in the external world or with my own personality, I would be unable to function; I would be in a relentless, near-total stupor.  Thus the very fact that I am not constantly struggling with unfamiliarity proves to me entirely that my memory is reliable in the sense I stated above [2].

Anyway, allow me to return from my tangent to my commentary on the words of Descartes.


"Am I not so bound up with a body and with senses that I cannot exist without them?  But I have convinced myself that there is absolutely nothing in the world, no sky, no earth, no minds, no bodies.  Does it now follow that I too do not exist?  No: if I convinced myself of something then I certainly existed.  But there is a deceiver of supreme power and cunning who is deliberately and constantly deceiving me.  In that case I too undoubtedly exist, if he is deceiving me; and let him deceive me as much as he can, he will never bring it about that I am nothing so long as I think that I am something.  So after considering everything very thoroughly, I must finally conclude that this proposition, I am, I exist, is necessarily true whenever it is put forward by me or conceived in my mind." (16-17)


When Descartes says that his imagined deceiving demon cannot reduce him to nothing, he does not mean "nothing" in the sense of being psychologically or socially demeaned, but in the sense of nonexistence.  As long as he thinks he is something--as long as he thinks at all, whether he dreams, is awake, doubts, desires, contemplates, wills, assents--it is impossible for him not to exist.  No one can doubt his or her existence without by absolute necessity existing in order to do so, just as, in the same way, no one can doubt that truth exists without proving that it does indeed exist in some form.  Just as the existence of my mind is not uncertain to me at all, I also cannot be deceived about the contents of my mind, though my senses may be manipulated by an unseen being of immense power like Descartes' hypothetical demon.

If perceptions exist, something must exist which perceives; if thinking exists, something must exist which thinks.  I have actually had people tell me that it can only seem to someone like he or she exists and whether or not that person actually exists is not fully known by that individual, yet, as anyone who exercises reason here will quickly recognize, if anything at all seems like anything at all to me, then I must exist in order for something to seem a certain way to me.  The experience of seeming to exist proves to a thinking mind that it does exist, with its nonexistence totally impossible as long as any internal thought is present.  However, although I know with absolute certainty that my own mind and consciousness exist, I can neither know if other people I perceive with my senses truly exist and have conscious minds, nor can I prove to them, if they really exist and have my limitations, that I myself exist.  That does not mean that I cannot have absolute certainty that something material exists outside of my own mind--but I will explain that more as this series continues.

With the fact of his existence infallibly certain, Descartes seeks a more full understanding of what this self is which is thinking:


"But I do not yet have a sufficient understanding of what this 'I' is, that now necessarily exists.  So I must be on my guard against carelessly taking something else to be this 'I', and so making a mistake in the very item of knowledge that I maintain is the most certain and evident of all." (17)


With his existence established with perfect certainty, Descartes will soon move on to distinguishing the exact nature of the conscious mind from the nature of the physical body, an undertaking that thoughtful Christians will recognize as very beneficial to Christian apologetics.  Expect the next installment in this series soon!


Summary of observations:
1. Total skepticism is impossible, for a conscious, thinking being knows at least some things with absolute certainty.
2. Consciousness cannot be illusory.  Logic and immediate experience prove this incontrovertibly; anything that thinks must exist as, at the very least, a conscious mind that perceives its thoughts.


Meditations on First Philosophy with Selections from the Objections and Replies.  Descartes, Rene.  Ed. Cottingham, John.  Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996.  Print.


[1].  https://thechristianrationalist.blogspot.com/2017/01/the-error-of-presuppositions.html

[2].  For more on memory, see here:
A.  https://thechristianrationalist.blogspot.com/2017/03/the-reliability-of-memory.html
B.  https://thechristianrationalist.blogspot.com/2017/06/the-cruciality-of-memory.html

Movie Review--The Incredible Hulk

"I don't want to control it.  I want to get rid of it."
--Bruce Banner, The Incredible Hulk


I finally got around to watching The Incredible Hulk, one of the two original MCU (Marvel Cinematic Universe) films.  Released in the same year as the successful and popular Iron Man, it, unfortunately, remains a fairly underrated movie at times.  It did a very admirable job of helping set the stage for phase one of the MCU in general, with references to Nick Fury, SHIELD, the Super Soldier program responsible for Captain America, Stark Industries, and an appearance by Robert Downy, Jr.'s Tony Stark at the end.  I greatly enjoyed the fact that, unlike many later MCU movies, it didn't try to cram one-liners and cheap comedy into scenes of brawls and gunplay.  Bruce Banner's first transformation into the Hulk is shown in an opening credits scene, leaving the rest of the movie free to tell a much more unique superhero tale.

The Incredible Hulk is quite distinct in tone from many superhero movies that followed; instead of being an origin story narrative laced with gratuitous comedy, it is a solemn story about a person living as an outcast among his fellow humans--having obtained his ability long ago--who learns that he can harness his superhuman strength for benevolent causes.  Thank God for the graver, less comedic tone!

Photo credit: yotambientengosuperpoderes
 on Visualhunt / CC BY-NC-SA

Production Values

Much of the acting really works, with Edward Norton and Liv Tyler offering excellent performances that showcase their characters well.  I didn't know until recently that Arwen made an appearance in the MCU!  Liv's character Betty Ross gets to show some physical and emotional aggression that some female love interests in the MCU never display, with her character even going so far as to disown her father to his face.  She had more to do than many other love interests in the interconnected series formed since 2008.  Ed Norton balanced portraying a sensitive protagonist trying to keep others from harm with portraying a character who can channel superhuman physical abilities expertly.  In fact, his performance was spectacular, far exceeding what I expected.  Although occasionally the movie tries to show Banner's/Hulk's personal struggle with his condition (like the cave scene), none of it compares in depth to the thorough depiction of Wolverine's existential struggles in Logan.  Other characters like General Thaddeus Ross (William Hurt, who reprised his role in Captain America: Civil War) were also acted finely, although they receive less screen time and development--but some of Tim Roth's earlier lines as Emil Blonksy, later to become the villain Abomination, didn't strike me as professional or realistic.

Some of the CGI still holds up well.  A few particular scenes showcase detailed animations for the Hulk and Abomination, like a scene with Betty and Hulk in a cave and, of course, the climactic ending fight between the movie's two titans.  On that note, despite only having three action scenes, The Incredible Hulk handles its action spectacularly while also refraining from sprinkling gratuitous explosions or brawls throughout the story.

Craig Armstrong's soundtrack also struck me as standing out far more noticeably than the soundtracks of many other MCU entries.  I don't recall particularly noticing the soundtracks of other Marvel movies while watching them (though Iron Man did use the Black Sabbath song of the same name to great effect in its ending credits).  I actually thought that pieces like Hulk Smash (at least the second half of it) were rather beautiful for a Marvel soundtrack, and I have never once thought that while listening to soundtrack pieces from other Marvel movies.  I have a link to that piece below.  Yes, appreciation of music is subjective though the quality of it isn't, but I'm just reporting my reaction to it.

https://open.spotify.com/track/1pdKEwnypBep3veN8TSedn?si=C6ztv98R


Story

As usual, expect spoilers below.

Bruce Banner, who already became the Hulk (this is not an origin story) due to participating in an attempt to resurrect the World War II Super Soldier serum from Captain America, resides in Brazil, where he works in a bottling factory and takes breathing classes to help control his heartbeat.  When his heartbeat reaches 200 beats per minute, his high pulse triggers his Hulk form.  American General Thaddeus Ross learns of his location due to a mistake in the factory, sending a team of soldiers led by the Russian Emil Blonsky to tranquilize and extract Banner.

Bruce communicates online with a figure who identifies himself as Mr. Blue in an attempt to discover an experiment process that could reverse his gamma radiation condition.  He escapes Blonsky's attempt to capture him, with Blonsky receiving a small dose of the Super Soldier serum to boost his combat abilities and physical endurance.  Banner reunites with his past girlfriend Betty Ross--daughter of General Thaddeus--gets cornered and fights off US military forces at Culver University, and kicks Blonksy's body into a tree with great force during the fight.  Blonsky ends up recovering due to the effects of the Super Soldier serum injected into him before.

Betty and Bruce locate Mr. Blue, otherwise called Dr. Samuel Sterns, in New York, where he administers a successful test that triggers the Hulk transformation and uses an antidote to return him to his human form.  Shortly after, Blonsky and General Ross apprehend Bruce and Betty, transporting them away in a helicopter.  Sterns had replicated a sample of Banner's gamma radiated blood sent to him from Brazil, and Blonsky demands to have it injected into him, despite the presence of the Super Soldier serum within him.  Blonsky becomes the Abomination, with a brutal fight between him and Hulk ensuing.  Hulk defeats Abomination, flees, and displays some mastery over his transformation before Tony Stark finds General Ross, explaining that he is helping assemble a team--the Avengers.


Intellectual Content

The physics of Banner's transformation to and from his Hulk form raise the question of where in the world all that additional mass comes from and goes.  Although the overall tone of the movie is more grounded in realism than Marvel films like Spider-Man: Homecoming or much of Age Of Ultron, I still wonder about the physics behind the Hulk.  But the real intellectual question pertains to how his pants stay on every time he switches to Hulk form even though Blonsky lost his when he became Abomination!  How does that happen??

Yes, since the movie doesn't have much intentional philosophical substance (it could have really explored Banner's existential identity struggles a lot more), this time this section holds my sarcastic questions about Hulk's pants and mass changes.


Conclusion

One thing I appreciated about The Incredible Hulk was the absence of jokes during combat, a thing that helps highlight the far more grave, realistic tone of the film.  I thought that the tonal uniqueness works in its favor.  After all, almost every movie to come afterward in its universe relies on roughly the same style of comedy, with the MCU doing little to vary its style or abate its primary problems, like the general lack of development granted to most of the villains and love interests in its movies.

When fixing an electrical problem near the beginning of the film, Bruce says "I can make it work for a little while, but you need . . .", his boss finishing by saying "A new factory."  The days are arriving when some people have started to think similar things about the MCU.  If more MCU directors made movies with distinct and more serious tones, perhaps some people would lose their reluctance to watch yet another MCU movie.

If only this one had received a sequel!  Alas, it stands as a well-crafted and acted introduction to the Marvel universe.


Edit (11/18/17):  After watching Thor: Ragnarok, I now see that the current MCU Banner/Hulk has very little in common with the Norton portrayal of the character.  The Incredible Hulk is a serious film with very talented acting on Norton's part, but Ruffalo's Banner in Ragnarok is often played for laughs, having little to none of the gravity of Norton's version.  Ruffalo's Banner is an entirely different character.


Content:
1. Violence:  The Incredible Hulk only has three action scenes, but despite the absence of blood with some exceptions, the fighting is far more physically brutal than in any of the other MCU movies I've seen.
2. Profanity:  A few characters use infrequent profanity.

Examining The Meditations (Part 4): Illusion And Reality

Entries in this series:

Examining The Meditations (Part 1): The Religion Of Descartes --https://thechristianrationalist.blogspot.com/2017/08/examining-meditations-part-1-religion.html

Examining The Meditations (Part 2): Cartesian Doubt --https://thechristianrationalist.blogspot.com/2017/08/examining-meditations-part-2-cartesian.html

Examining The Meditations (Part 3): Descent Into Skepticism --https://thechristianrationalist.blogspot.com/2017/08/examining-meditations-part-3-descent.html

Examining The Meditations (Part 4): Illusion And Reality


In The Ramifications Of Skepticism, the third part in this series, I left off after bringing attention to Descartes' claim that no sure way to distinguish being awake from dreaming exists.  Continuing his thoughts about dreams, he eventually considers his renowned evil demon hypothesis.  I want to say up front that for all his rationality in certain areas, Meditations on First Philosophy does not always acknowledge the full range of what can be known with absolute certainty.  Thus, I will occasionally point out some statements of Descartes which are self-defeating or provably false.


"Nonetheless, it must surely be admitted that the visions which come in sleep are like paintings, which must have been fashioned in the likeness of things that are real . . . For even when painters try to create sirens and satyrs with the most extraordinary bodies, they cannot give them natures which are new in all respects; they simply jumble up the limbs of different animals." (13)


Illusion cannot exist unless it deviates from reality.  Otherwise, it would itself be reality!  And it is impossible for there to not be a way reality is, as then the way reality is would be that there is no way reality is--a self-refuting impossibility.  And so Descartes sees that even his perceptions, whether or not they originate from dreams or actual external objects, must contain some hint of reality in some form.  He then realizes that he has to continue breaking down his observations into smaller categories to find foundational truth, for "composite" beliefs, beliefs comprised of a combination of other beliefs, remain uncertain until one examines the very foundations they rest upon.


"So a reasonable conclusion from this might be that physics, astronomy, medicine, and all other disciplines which depend on the study of composite things, are doubtful; while arithmetic, geometry and other subjects of this kind, which deal only with the simplest and most general things, regardless of whether they really exist in nature or not, contain something certain and indubitable.  For whether I am awake or asleep, two and three added together are five, and a square has no more than four sides."  (14)


Even here, Descartes practices the Cartesian rationalist methodology of breaking perceptions down into what must be true.  To know something about a subject, one must understand its foundations, for no one can understand information that rests atop other information unless one understands the facts it rests upon.  The core of reality is still knowable regardless of dreaming, as Descartes hints at: "whether I am awake or asleep, two and three added together are five", and I still have a mind, thoughts, perceptions, and a grasp of reason and my own consciousness, things that cannot be illusions.  Yet Descartes suddenly doubts what he only just recognized as true by necessity:


"And yet firmly believe rooted in my mind is the long-standing opinion that there is an omnipotent God who made me the kind of creature that I am.  How do I know that God has not brought it about that there is no earth, no sky, no extended thing, no shape, no size, no place, while at the same time ensuring that all these things appear to me to exist just as they do now? . . . how do I know that God has not brought it about that I too go wrong every time I add two and three or count the sides of a square, or in some even simpler matter, if that is imaginable?" (14)


Despite his rationalism, Descartes does not always say or claim to believe rational things in his Meditations.  In the case of the quote above, after just explaining that whether he dreams or is awake mathematical truths remain fixed, certain, and knowable, he hypothesizes that perhaps God deceives him about mathematical truths.  He does not explain here that although one could be confused about what to call various numbers or equations, what he calls two added to what he calls three must by logical necessity equal what he calls five.  God could at most manipulate his perception of the titles, not mathematical truths themselves.  At most, the names he assigns to numbers can be illusions, while mathematics itself, a numeric extension of logic, cannot be false.

And then comes one of the most well-known parts of Meditations:


"I will suppose therefore that . . . some malicious demon of the utmost power and cunning has employed all his energies in order to deceive me.  I shall think that the sky, the air, the earth, colours, shapes, sounds, and all external things are merely the delusions of dreams which he has devised to ensnare my judgment.  I shall consider myself as not having hands or eyes, or flesh, or blood or senses, but as falsely believing that I have all these things." (15)


He does not know if such a demon exists; he uses the scenario as a way to doubt the truth of his sensory perceptions, even doubting that he has any physical body at all.  But it is impossible for anyone with sensory perceptions to not have senses, as no one's senses or sensory perceptions can be unreliable unless one has senses to begin with!  My senses may not perceive reality as it is, but the fact that I have senses cannot be false!  He also doubts the existence of any external material world whatsoever, yet, as with other things like how to distinguish dreaming from being awake (as promised), I will show how certain knowledge that some sort of external world exists is possible, although its exact appearance remains uncertain.  Descartes then resolves to do at least what remains in his power and describes how he feels his new mental condition is comparable to a longing for an illusion to remain unshattered:


"I shall stubbornly and firmly persist in this meditation; and, even if it is not in my power to know any truth, I shall at least do what is in my power, that is, resolutely guard against assenting to any falsehoods . . . I am like a prisoner who is enjoying an imaginary freedom while asleep; as he begins to suspect that he is asleep, he dreads being woken up, and goes along with the pleasant illusion as long as he can." (15)



It is impossible for no truths to be knowable; why Descartes didn't elaborate on the infallibility and perfect knowability of first principles (the laws of logic and what follows from them) and axioms (necessary truths which, when denied, must be relied upon to deny them), I do not know.  His later revelation that he can know for sure that his mind exists is only possible because other things can be known with absolute certainty as well (that truth exists, that deductive reasoning/logic is reliable, that something is what it is and is not what it is not, that some knowledge is possible, etc), but he never brings this up to my recollection.

For instance, it is absolutely impossible for nothing to be true (if no truth exists, it is true that no truth exists, and thus something is true by necessity), yet he implies in the above quote that he does not yet think it is in his power to know any truths.  Yet if he did not know any truths, he could not realize that he has no way to know if his senses perceive reality correctly, that it is possible that a demon deceives his mind with false perceptions, or that it is true that he does not yet believe he has discovered any truths!  Also, if he did not grasp reason, which is infallibly true when used properly (without fallacies or leaps), he would be unable to realize anything at all.  To doubt or argue against reason one must use reason, proving that it is absolutely certain either way.  Reason cannot be false.  Thus, even before Descartes acknowledges that he knows for sure that he exists, he has already relied on other things knowable with absolute certainty, he just has not drawn attention to them in this way.

As Descartes will soon acknowledge in his second meditation, at least some truths are knowable.  Illusion can only exist as a deviation from reality, and thus the very existence of any illusion proves at least that reality exists and that the illusion does too.  Soon, Descartes will begin distinguishing what cannot be illusion from what may be illusory.  Descartes also hints at knowledge of his own free will here--the ability to make at least some choices uncoerced in his thoughts.  He doesn't develop the idea much, but readers can see through logic that if he truly has the power to refrain from mentally assenting to false beliefs and embrace beliefs, then he has at least some freedom of the will, something that all beings which can truly reason possess [1].  Again, I find it odd that Descartes leaves so much about first principles and logic unsaid, but that does not affect the innate veracity of them.


Summary of observations:
1. Any perception involves some element of reality, even if only that the perception itself is real, even if the thing perceived is an illusion.  Illusion cannot exist except as a deviation from objective reality.
2. Whether or not I am dreaming, whether or not I am awake, the core of reality, consisting of necessary truths, still remains fixed.
3. It is impossible for a conscious, thinking being to not know any objective truths, but by the end of his first meditation Descartes, fearful of any fallacious misstep, has not yet re-acknowledged this.


Meditations on First Philosophy with Selections from the Objections and Replies.  Descartes, Rene.  Ed. Cottingham, John.  Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996.  Print.


[1].  https://thechristianrationalist.blogspot.com/2017/07/reason-refutes-determinism.html

The Berean Spirit

In my experience, few professing Christians are Bereans in spirit.  During Paul's New Testament missionary travels, he ventured to Berea, where he taught.  But the Bereans did not just accept his representation of Scripture as true; they investigated the text to verify his claims.  Below is Acts 17:11, which describes what the author of Acts commended the Bereans for:


"Now the Bereans were of more noble character than the Thessalonians, for they received the message with great eagerness and examined the Scriptures every day to see if what Paul said was true."


If only most Christians actually abided by this principle!  I have seen almost nothing to assure me that American Christians at large truly rely not on other people for their Scriptural knowledge, but the Bible itself.  How many Christians truly reject, for instance, moral claims that the Bible does not make?  According to the Bible there is no such thing as morality beyond the scope of what the Bible reveals (Deuteronomy 4:2, Romans 7:7).  Many seem to adopt the morality their church or culture teaches and cherry pick Biblical morality at whim to argue for their arbitrary moral beliefs, which leads to neglect of actual Biblical commands and false guilt over things which are not sinful.  Much false guilt in the lives of Christians would vanish if they merely operated as the Bereans did in this area.  Likewise, how many needless struggles with doctrines like eternal conscious torment would people not fret over if they realized the utter error of them?  I have known very few bold, rational, and committed enough to reject tradition and the consensus of theologians when they study the Bible.

I could list many false theological beliefs which I have targeted on my blog, but I will instead mention only four: the belief that unsaved humans will suffer conscious torment without end [1], that premarital sex is universally sinful [2], that people have a moral obligation to cover a certain amount of their bodies [3], and that humans do not choose to become saved [4].  All four beliefs hold to things which downright contradict the Bible, yet I've sure as hell met a lot of Christians who believe in them!  If anyone reading this doubts the falsity of these ideas, let them read the links I have provided and, not committing any logical fallacies, see that what I say is correct.

A legitimate exegesis of the Bible will have no need to appeal to extra-Biblical authority like tradition, popularity, emotion, or ignorance on any matter (the only extra-Biblical authority on theological matters is reason itself); it will, except in cases where extra-Biblical historical support is needed [1], need only the Biblical text and reason to establish itself as an accurate interpretation.  It will be Scripturally defensible in and of itself and will not require reading anything into the text or interpreting it with inherited assumptions passed down by generations of irrational theologians (anyone not ruled by reason alone in their belief formation is not a rational person, and most people fall into this category).

Many theological beliefs which one would subject to either rejection or skepticism are ones to which many have deep attachments to.  Whether on an emotional or psychological level, many people have biases and presuppositions that prevent actual clarity in understanding the Bible, obscuring to them what the Bible actually teaches.  It doesn't take long for a Berean mindset to expose the logical and Biblical errors in many teachings.  Take Trinitarianism as an example!  The popular conception of Trinitarianism, where God is represented as three distinct beings with separate minds and wills who are somehow still identical beings, is obvious nowhere in the Bible (not to mention this description of the Trinity is logically impossible), yet the vast majority of churchgoers I have met seem to agree with it--though they rarely seem able to recall any verses in its defense when I ask for them, much less formulate a rational and Biblical defense of it!  In fact, the common conception of Trinitarianism is not a doctrine the Bible teaches (I have yet to post more elaborately about this).  And yet many who do not have the qualities of the Bereans accept this belief as Biblically true.

Trinitarianism, honestly, does not affect people's everyday lives the way that other irrational and unbiblical ideas do.  Yet some false beliefs are very destructive and do affect the lives and spiritual health of people who believe them because they are not just abstract ideas that have little to no ability to be implemented in everyday life.  When Christians fail to reject them due to intellectual and Scriptural knowledge, these errors can hurt people.  I already talked about false guilt above, but more could be said about how erroneous beliefs like eternal conscious torment can truly impact people in a harmful way.

If more Bereans existed, far fewer heresies, distortions of Scripture, and legalistic beliefs and traditions would exist.  Wherever genuine knowledge of Scripture flourishes in churches, poor theology gets identified and expelled.  Thus the presence of so much bullshit in churches--fallacies, errors, assumptions, heresies, and general shallowness--means that the Berean spirit does not have a presence among them.  Whatever lip service Christians at large may pay to the idea of deriving their moral and theological [2] beliefs from Scripture, their beliefs and actions show that they deceive themselves.


[1].  See here:
A.  https://thechristianrationalist.blogspot.com/2017/02/the-truth-of-annihilationism.html
B.  https://thechristianrationalist.blogspot.com/2017/03/revelation-20-and-annihilationism.html

[2].  See here:
A.  https://thechristianrationalist.blogspot.com/2016/08/on-exodus-2216-17.html
B.  https://thechristianrationalist.blogspot.com/2016/12/sexual-legalism.html

[3].  See here:
A.  https://thechristianrationalist.blogspot.com/2016/07/the-folly-of-modesty-part-1.html
B.  https://thechristianrationalist.blogspot.com/2017/05/bikinis-are-not-sinful.html

[4].  https://thechristianrationalist.blogspot.com/2017/03/foreknowledge-is-not-predestination.html

[5].  Extra-Biblical historical knowledge may be needed to understand some prophetic or historical passages, but it is unnecessary for knowledge of the most important Biblical doctrines.  No one needs to understand what extra-Biblical historical documents say in order to know that the Bible teaches that the universe has a beginning and that God created it, that God has revealed moral obligations which humans have violated, that God will punish people for their sins, and that God has provided a method of salvation and wants every human to become saved.

[6].  No, the Bible is not needed to know that a deity exists, yet almost any knowledge of that deity's nature beyond its existence would require special divine revelation.

The Power Of Anger

I have found during my life that anger grants me an empowering energy which energizes and motivates me far more than almost anything else does.  This happens despite many false beliefs about anger that circulate among assumptive minds.  Often a conversation or event will stir me to have the desire to write a blog post about a particular issue, and that is the case this time, as yesterday I experienced strong anger over a situation and began reflecting on the fact that anger does grant me a definite mental power.

A potential danger of anger is that the empowering effect of anger can lead to overlooking the possible consequences of an act or trying to justify a sinful reaction to oneself.  Anger is not inherently destructive--it is inherently powerful, and some people happen to channel their anger into destructive actions.  The distinction is important.  "Powerful" does not equate to "destructive", only the capacity for possible destructiveness.

Myths about anger include the belief that anger solves nothing and that anger is sinful according to the Bible.  Anger does not solve "nothing", as it can, at the very least, release frustration, provide deep empowerment, and even motivate a desire for justice (though feelings do not dictate or reveal morality in any way, so care must be exercised here).  Any of the three does indeed accomplish something.  And anger is not sinful by Christian standards.  I already addressed this elsewhere [1]; anger is not itself sinful (Psalm 4:4), God gets angry (Exodus 22:22-24), and we are commanded to imitate God (Ephesians 5:1), which would include an imitation of his anger.

I want to draw attention yet again to the fact that anger truly can empower.  Allow me to explain examples from my own life.  When I find myself observing things like logical fallacies or inconsistencies, I experience surges of anger that, combined with my already very intense personality, enable me to have great verbal ferocity when it is needed to tear down fallacious arguments and intellectually deficient worldview conclusions.  Anger helps motivate me to seek out and confront users of fallacies.  It generates and sustains in me a deeper desire to call out the bullshit that most people seem to believe, especially when their claims involve misrepresentations of my own worldview.  A ferocious, vehement demon awakes in me in some such scenarios (I mean demon in a metaphorical sense)!  Sometimes people object to my anger, yet they have nothing by which to condemn my displays of anger over illogicality except fallacious appeals to emotion, popularity, and sometimes erroneous interpretations of Scripture.

Is anger sinful according to the Bible?  No.  Does the presence of anger alone mean that an angry person will think and act in an irrational, impulsive manner?  No.  Is anger synonymous with malice?  No.  Does anger accomplish anything?  Yes, even if just personal catharsis.  Can anger lend a strength otherwise missing from normal experience?  Yes.  Does anger empower?  Hell yes!  None of the arguments against anger itself hold true.

Let reason rule, and not anger, and one will not have to suppress anger in order to maintain a sound mind--and a sound mind is not a calm one, but a rational one.  Calmness does not indicate rationality and vice versa.  Anger in itself is not a sinful, poisonous, helplessly destructive thing; it empowers, motivates, strengthens, and focuses.  Mastered by reason, but even without the guidance of reason, it remains a very mighty force indeed.


Summary of observations:
1. Anger is powerful, but not inherently malevolent or destructive.
2. Anger does accomplish something, even if only the release of emotions.
3. Anger can be a very empowering impulse or emotion.


[1].  https://thechristianrationalist.blogspot.com/2017/06/the-morality-of-anger.html

Psychopathy And Sociopathy

People sometimes appear to use the terms "psychopath" and "sociopath" interchangeably, as if they do not represent distinct concepts that do not fully overlap.  Sometimes I have seen people loosely use the words in reference to people who do not necessarily qualify as either one.  I have also seen definitions for each which rely on very arbitrary, question-begging criteria, including some criteria which someone could certainly be a psychopath or sociopath without displaying.  An example is when people label someone a psychopath or sociopath after "repeated criminal activity".  How many crimes must one commit to be or become known as a either psychopath or sociopath?  Someone who gives any number offered as a standard has no reason for choosing that number over a different one.  So what makes someone one or the other, a psychopath or sociopath?

A psychopath is someone born without empathy or with very little empathy, capacity for guilt, or moral regret.  A psychopath can exploit, abuse, neglect, manipulate, and discard people without remorse or any tinge of conscience (a sociopath could too, but is not the same as a psychopath).  Someone who tries to persuade the moral feelings of a psychopath might be shocked at the fact that there are no moral feelings to appeal to or redirect, just a cold indifference to moral judgments and the empathy others show.

A sociopath is someone who, by will or by a mixture of other variables, lost empathy during his or her lifetime.  Sociopathy, therefore, is not innate; it is acquired.  While sociopathy shares some distinct similarities with the condition of psychopathy, psychopathy is normally viewed as more dangerous or alarming for this reason.  Because a sociopath (by the definition I provided) actually lived a life with somewhat "normal" levels of empathy before becoming a sociopath, he or she is often not expected to be as outwardly remorseless, whereas someone devoid of empathy and conscience from birth has no recalled precedent for experience of empathy.  Sociopaths may be far more likely than psychopaths to form actual intimate relationships with other people.  Practically anyone could become a sociopath, yet only certain people can ever be psychopaths.

Neither psychopathy nor sociopathy, especially sociopathy,
necessarily means that someone will commit acts of violence or
cruelty, only that little to no feelings of guilt or conscience
will hold that person back from committing such acts should
 they feel like engaging in them.

No, neither a sociopath nor a psychopath is necessarily a serial killer to be or in actuality.  Neither is necessarily a cruel or selfish person.  The absence of empathy or conscience alone does not automatically guarantee violent or insensitive actions, although it would greatly facilitate them.  The latter does not follow by logical necessity from the former.

And, no, psychopaths and sociopaths do not necessarily have any degree of insanity.  Lack of a sense of morality (the sense of which is totally subjective anyway) does not in anyway signify lack of rationality or a grasp of general reality, things which indicate the presence of insanity.  Sociopathy and psychopathy are not psychological or mental problems in the way that psychosis is; one's sensory and mental faculties can work perfectly apart from a sense of morality.  In other words, psychopaths or sociopaths could be extremely intelligent and rational despite having little to no concern for other people.  In fact, they may have a higher chance of being intelligent than people who do not have either condition due to them not having certain subjective, emotive impulses present within themselves.

With the difference between a psychopath and a sociopath clear, I hope to soon explore the issues of psychopathy and particularly sociopathy again soon, answering the following question: does rationalism produce sociopaths?  It is a question I have wanted to address on my blog for some time but have never gotten around to tackling.  If you hear someone accuse another person of either of the conditions discussed here, perhaps the accuser does not have accurate knowledge of how to distinguish and identify each condition.  I, as one might expect, am far more concerned with the ramifications of both for moral epistemology.  Not only is conscience subjective to each individual who has one, but not all humans even have one.  People who view conscience as an effective means by which one can obtain moral knowledge would do well to keep this fact in mind.