The Insufficiency Of The Current American Minimum Wage

As a matter that overlaps with many of the practical details of human life, economics will confront practically everyone at some point.  Developed and developing communities are particularly reliant on standard economic structures that include wages for jobs, and the minimum wage laws in America were initially introduced to create a wage floor that would grant workers enough income to support themselves.  Thus, if prices of necessary items like food increase without an accompanying increase in the minimum wage, the entire conceptual point of a minimum wage is ignored.  Even bringing this up might be met with straw man charges of socialistic motivations, however.

Socialism and improving the national minimum wage are by no means identical.  The former concerns a potentially mild redistribution of wealth already owned by various taxpayers and subsequent attempts to maintain the redistributed status.  The latter has no connection to shifting wealth from one citizen to another, as it is about ensuring that every person, no matter their seniority, skills, or opportunities, is able to receive a liveable wage.  These two issues do not necessarily overlap at all no matter how loudly and persistently conservatives might protest at the slightest reference to minimum wage reform.

If there was no minimum wage law--and there is certainly no demonstrable moral obligation for a government to impose one--individual employers would almost certainly need to offer competitive pay if they wanted to attract workers away from other job opportunities, but if there is a minimum wage law, the only logical justification is a baseline level of pay that would address the basic needs of at least a lone worker.  The American minimum wage is often unable to meet even this fundamental requirement at its current status.

No one has to be a socialist to realize that approximately $1,200 a month is not enough to support one person's food, clothing, rent/house payments, transportation costs, and medicinal items (if needed), not to mention periodic repairs for vehicles, appliances, and other belongings.  Except in cases where their expenses would be far lesser than those of the general population for some unusual reason, adults in general simply cannot afford even these foundational and often necessary aspects of life with a full-time job when they are only paid close to seven dollars for every hour of work.

To admit these problems with the present American minimum wage is not the same as embracing socialistic policies to any extent.  Instead, doing so merely acknowledges a part of daily life that many Americans brush up against in some manner even if they have not seriously thought about how the situation could be changed.  The minimum wage needs to be amended if it is to accomplish its original purpose, or it needs to be abolished so that different job providers will offer superior wages in order to entice new workers away from other jobs.  It might only takes a few moments for an adult living in America to reason out that the status quo is not as beneficial for the workforce as either of the other options.

Logic, people.  It is very fucking helpful.

All Money Is Fiat Currency

The phrase "fiat money" refers to a currency that has exchange value because the people on both sides of the exchange act like it does.  They may realize the fiat nature of the currency in use, but they still honor it for the sake of mutual gain.  Fiat currency is sometimes treated as a separate category from other state-sponsored money tied to a particular metal, such as gold.  However, only a distinction of degree can be legitimately made between these two types of money.  At best, a currency is associated with some object like gold that is itself merely a fiat item.

There is a sense in which all money is some sort of fiat currency, as money is a digital or physical object used to make exchanges with others--in other words, money is a social construct, just not the kind of social construct that popular but false philosophical ideas reduce down to.  Money is not something found in the natural world or a self-evident fact of logic; it is something created by social beings in an effort to benefit themselves and/or those around them.  Thus, any particular currency has no inherent monetary value becaue monetary value is itself a social construct.

Even if a currency is backed by gold or some other coveted metal, does gold itself have intrinsic value?  It can be used for a variety of useful purposes, but this still has nothing to do with it having intrinsic monetary value.  Again, nothing has intrinsic monetary value because nothing is intrinsically a currency to begin with.  All economies are created by the societies that use them.  Some of them may use more stable and versatile kinds of objects or state-produced money as currency, but there is no objective financial value to either metals or bills.

All formal currencies are assigned a "value" that is subject to potential change.  Whatever metal or other physical substance might be used to back a currency is itself assigned a "value" that could change as social norms shift, so positing that not all money has an arbitrary, socially constructed financial value is outright false.  This, of course, is what makes all money a fiat currency!  Anyone who simply analyzes the concept of money in the light of reason thoroughly enough will come to this.

That all money is some kind of fiat currency does not mean there is basis for panic.  After all, there is no escaping the objective nature of currency, and money is necessary if people are likely to widely exchange belongings without one party taking from another by force at whim.  Entire economic systems still function despite currency having no wholly objective value.  When people distinguish between fiat and "other" currencies, it is foundational to recognize that there are different kinds of fiat money, but all money is inescapably fiat--and that this is not a devastating truth.

Misunderstood Harshness: Exodus 22:20

There is a perceived but imaginary distinction between Old Testament and New Testament morality in the minds of many.  The Old Testament is usually seen as a gratuitously brutal, oppressive set of commands (as if the normal appeals to subjective conscience and social norms are valid to begin with), whereas the New Testament's vague commands about loving others, which merely continue the commands of the same kind in the Old Testament, are often seen as calling for tolerance.  In light of this, verses like Exodus 22:20, which says to put anyone who sacrifices to a deity other than Yahweh to death, are regularly greeted with condemnation or misrepresentation by readers.

It only takes a few moments to show that the common reactions to this verse are very disproportionate to its content, not that subjective dislike or cultural context validates or invalidates Exodus 22:20 as a moral demand.  Mosaic Law does not say to execute people for endorsing atheistic philosophy, for confessing agnosticism, for entertaining the idea that some non-Christian religion is true, or for admitting that it is logically possible that the uncaused cause is not the Biblical Yahweh at all.  Sacrificing to another deity is the only offense Exodus 22:20 refers to, whereas Leviticus 20:2-5 specifically condemns sacrificing children to Molech as a capital crime.  What does and does not follow from this needs to be properly understood.

Christian theonomy is therefore not a threat to the lives of atheists, Muslims, or members of other religions that do not prescribe sacrifices to other deities (or prescribe any other capital offense) in that they would not be hunted down by anyone who does not go beyond what the Bible itself calls for.  Never once does the Bible command anyone to purge the entire world of those who are affiliated with all religions outside of allegiance to Yahweh.  In order to deserve capital punishment by Biblical standards, one must carry out very specific actions.

Indeed, it is only certain actions or kinds of speech that merit any sort of criminal penalties at all according to Biblical justice.  A person's worldview might be self-refuting, wholly unprovable, assumed to be true, or thoroughly evil, but no one is to be put to death or otherwise prosecuted or punished for false or unproven/unsupportable beliefs or for ideological stupidity.  Worshipping other deities in the relative privacy of one's mind is thus not automatically a Biblical crime, even if it is sinful.

Worship of another deity or the practice of another religion is exempted from legal punishment as long as it does not involve sacrifice to that respective deity--especially human sacrifice--or explicit blasphemy against Yahweh (Leviticus 24:16), rape (Deuteronomy 22:25-27), sorcery (Exodus 22:18), abduction (Exodus 21:16), and so on.  Without these outward actions, it is actually unjust, or sinful, for someone carrying out Mosaic Law to in any way impose legal penalties on non-Christians.  This important clarification is almost universally left out of discussion on matters of Biblical laws both inside and outside of the church.

Platonic Touch

Attraction and affection for friends of either gender can be strictly platonic, no matter how intense a person's love for them is.  Introspection can immediately reveal this, even though one can reason it out without even partaking in a specific kind of friendship in the first place.  Touch, like affection, can be platonic, even in a world where touch might be mistaken by many to signify sexual attraction or romantic openness.  Friends eager to embrace each other and show other forms of physical affection can become very familiar with this.

Physical touch can be sexual or romantic, and it can also be platonic (even among sexual/romantic partners), but it may or may not be sensual in either case.  Touch has the power to evoke deep emotions in contexts with no connection to sexual actions or motivation.  While touch can certainly be used with flirtatious or explicitly sexual intent, it can be used to communicate emotional intimacy and personal care that has nothing to do with attraction of a different kind.

The sensual potential of the human body with regard to both its visual appearance and its capacity to give and receive physical contact can be misperceived by some.  Unless its nature is understood in light of reason, someone might conclude that there is some sexual or romantic aspect to all physical affection shared by friends of the opposite gender, even if it is minor and in the background of the relationship.  Sensuality can be experienced in sexual and nonsexual manners, and the distinction is a matter of intention.

Friends of either gender--but especially friends of the opposite gender--can use the intimacy of touch to communicate their affection in purely platonic ways.  Whether that touch is experienced or used in explicitly sensual ways is a separate matter, but there is nothing scandalous about sharing physical affection in itself.  The Western world has made great strides towards acknowledging this far more than the historical record suggests previous generations did.  There is need to affirm this for the sake of those who still confuse all touch with sexual invitation or romantic affection all the same.

Game Review--Borderlands: Game Of The Year Edition (Switch)

"He who controls the means of production controls the government, and that power belongs in the hands of the proletariat!  Only then can the great machine march on!  It's true!  I read it!  In a book!"
--Interplanetary Ninja Assassin Claptrap, Borderlands: Claptrap's New Robot Revolution

"Don't turn your back on me unless you never want to turn your back on anything ever again.  Wait, that was a crap threat."
--Jakobs Cove Claptrap unit, Borderlands: The Zombie Island of Dr. Ned

Anyone who plays the original Borderlands after first playing any of the three sequels will see that the series has undergone a massive evolution since its early days.  Borderlands introduces many of the key mechanics that define the subsequent games, but its stort is extremely weak and its missions are brief to the point of sometimes being finishable in less than 45 seconds.  Despite these blatant limitations, Borderlands sets up a world full of comedic and philosophical potential that is scarcely exploited until its first sequel.

Production Values

The sudden freezes and crashes of the Borderlands 2 PS Vita port were nowhere to be seen in my 30+ hours of playing the Switch port of the first Borderlands, and the graphics are comparable to those of last year's PS4 release [1].  Several strange glitches, such as one that makes enemy corpses jump up and down repeatedly, do not detract from the aesthetic integrity of the port.  As has been the case with Doom (2016), The Witcher 3, and Dead by Daylight, Borderlands: Game of the Year Edition shows that even the Switch Lite is entirely capable of running massive games from the more powerful traditional consoles of the current generation.  It isn't until Borderlands 2 that developed dialogue and frequent voice acting are introduced, but what relatively small amount of voice acting is in the game was translated well to the Switch--not that the voice acting and dialogue were ever the high points of the game.

Gameplay

The basic RPG-shooter mechanics of Borderlands as a series are all present in the initial title, but the lack of almost any distinct characterization and the unusual brevity of many missions holds the game back from the later heights of the Borderland series.  Some entire missions literally involve walking several feet away from a certain character to a bounty board or to another character.  The following missions might even involve walking right back to the nearby area you just walked away from and pressing the button prompt at the right place, making (some of) the missions of Borderlands the shortest I've ever encountered in a mainstream console game in the last few years.

One of the only core game mechanics that does not make a comeback in either Borderlands 2 or The Pre-Sequel is a system that levels up the damage, reload speed, and accuracy of each class of firearm that can be used as one gains XP from using that class.  Of all the weapon classes, Eridian weaponry is perhaps the most powerful and even boasts unlimited ammunition (though they can require a recharge period), but every category of weapons besides grenades can be passively upgraded so that it is permanently deadlier.  These upgrades carry over in the new game plus playthrough, which features tougher enemies, more XP, and superior weapons.

Story

Some spoilers are below.

Four Vault Hunters ride to the town of Fyrestone in a van, but only one of them (whoever the player chooses to use) is contacted privately by an artificial intelligence called Angel.  She guides them as Commandant Steele, working on behalf of the Atlas Corporation, attempts to open an alien Vault containing great wealth and weaponry.  The player allies with a resistance movement led by Helena Pierce as they rush to open the Vault first.  At the end of the main story, Claptrap's software is suddenly hijacked by Hyperion, a weapons corporation, setting up the Claptrap's New Robot Revolution DLC.


Intellectual Content

The philosophical and even clever comedic writing present in the rest of the series is largely in its embryonic stage in Borderlands, but it does occasionally shine through the narrative's general mediocrity.  The DLC campaigns actually have the most prominent and witty references to philosophical concepts or writings about certain concepts.  Moral rights, artificial intelligence uprisings, insincere corporate apologies, and Marxism are just some of the topics joked about in a self-aware way, although players might miss some of them if they have not already reflected on the issues.  Claptrap's New Robot Revolution even features a very distinct BioShock reference parodying Andrew Ryan's opening speech in the original BioShock, hinting at the grander themes of that respective franchise.


Conclusion

Borderlands may utilize only a fraction of the franchise's later excellence, but embers of greatness appear every now and then.  Some series starters already reach the peak of the franchise quality before the sequel has even been released, but the opposite is true of Borderlands.  It is inferior in almost every way to later installments.  This means that players who start with the first game will only find that the sequels tower above many of the original's elements.  Borderlands still offers dozens of hours of exploration, quests, and skeletal worldbuilding, and the physical copy of the Legendary Collection includes two other larger Borderlands games in addition to the first game for less than $40 (at least on some online retail sites).  For these reasons, interested Switch owners still have much to gain by playing it.


Content:
 1.  Violence:  Heads and limbs can be shot off of living enemies (as opposed to robots or zombies) with bursts of blood, even if the stylized animation softens the gore.
 2.  Profanity:  "Damn," "shit," and "bitch" are used on occasion.  However, the profanity is infrequent.


[1].  https://thechristianrationalist.blogspot.com/2019/07/game-review-borderlands-game-of-year.html

Life Without Technology

A pandemic brings certain difficulties whether or not it takes place in a century teeming with the kind of technological advances that make electronic screens commonplace.  If a disease ravages the world, the presence of electronics does not neutralize the risk posed by the pandemic--but it can dramatically soften the troubles experienced by the millions who need to communicate with friends and family members and pass the time as they self-isolate.  Those who are aware of what the year would have looked like without modern devices are likely very grateful for them.

Without electronic technology, 2020 would have been an extremely dull, unproductive, and stagnant year for many people on both a social and occupational level, moreso than other recent years.  I wonder if those who denounce the modern emphasis on technology wish they had endured the COVID-19 lockdown without electronics.  After all, it is rare to find someone who discourages or condemns the regular use of technology and is also consistent in living out their ideas.

Technology is what allowed education and jobs to transition to a virtual phase for at least part of the year, without which entire educational processes and businesses that were able to continue functioning in some capacity might have completely gone on hold.  The type of conservative most likely to selectively object to technology's prominence--and conservatism is at least somewhat directly associated with anti-technology ideas due to its emphasis on tradition and slow change--often relies on technology for things they need or use on a regular basis.

Even before COVID-19, technology was routinely used by people who might turn around and make arbitrary, ironic condemnations of how much the West uses technology, but the pandemic period would have been even more frustrating or fearful for many without electronics.  Electronic technology has provided a plethora of communication channels during a global pandemic, allowing friendships, educational processes, and various jobs to go as unaffected as possible during this time.  It has also sustained the entertainment world to some extent.

Life without technology would not be the social haven that certain subsets of Western culture think it would be.  It would result in fewer social connections and career opportunities, friendships between parties that cannot communicate as frequently, and periods of far greater potential boredom in between meetings with friends.  There would only be a hanful of situational benefits for some people in a world without modern technology, but there would be numerous devastating consequences.

Logic, people.  It is very fucking helpful.

Selective Calls For Originality

I have seen numerous people criticize someone with a contrary ideology on grounds that they were not being "original," when the person being criticized may very well have come to their conclusion, true or false, on their own by looking to logic instead of appeals to authority.  Perhaps they arrived at their conclusion wholly on their own, or perhaps they encountered it through someone else and then personally reflected on the matter by focusing merely on what logic reveals instead of what other people have or have not said.  In either case, as long as they have not simply parroted others or embraced an idea because of social influence, they have exercised intellectual autonomy--or originality.

Their thoughts are still theirs, and they have still held up the concept to the light of reason without concern for who has endorsed it.  There are different ways to express philosophical originality!  Not all of them pertain to reasoning out strictly logical truths that are either new or familiar to others completely on one's own.  Nevertheless, whether their beliefs are true and verifiable is the first thing to consider.  Autonomous reflection and reasoning are absolute necessities for sound epistemology, but without truth to underpin it, originality is pointless.  Originality in all its forms is at best trivial when it is divorced from truth and rationality.

Moreover, the kind of person who attacks someone for making a statement the former opposes because it is familiar to a broader part of the culture instead of for stating something that is objectively false or unprovable usually supports other people who articulate their own positions, no matter how common those positions and the associated arguments actually are.  Not only do these people misunderstand the nature and different manifestations of originality, but they also are inconsistent in how they treat others.  They are hypocrites who selectively use accusations that might be irrelevant to silence those who represent other worldviews.

In other words, it is not unusual to see various ideological adherents charge each other with unoriginality--even though autonomous, rational reflection is still originality even if many others have already arrived at the same truths--and turn around to applaud their own philosophical allies, no matter how unoriginal they are in the sense of either lacking novelty (which is sometimes inescapable) or failing to believe truths because of personal reflection and strict alignment with reason.  Intellectual intolerance is not the issue, and, indeed, the inflexibility of reason itself is the basis for philosophical imtolerance.  The problem at hand is the sheer hypocrisy displayed by people who both do not understand the nature of originality and are inconsistent in living out their own asinine beliefs about the issue.

Perfect Consistency

A blatant inconsistency stands out far more than the more subtle disparities that plague common worldviews, but both can be purged completely.  Since consistency is a minimum requirement for something to be true, as both a self-contradictory nature and conflict with another truth render something inherently false, it is vital for sound thinkers to be as consistent as possible.  At least some parts of a given worldview are otherwise false.  However, there is no inconsistency that cannot be identified, avoided, or surrendered.  It may sound arrogant to non-rationalists to even suggest that perfect consistency is possible, but it is entirely obtainable.

Consistency merely means that two ideas, or an action and an idea, are not in opposition with each other.  To be consistent, a concept must not exclude another; the two must either be logically tethered to one another so that one follows from the other or be compatible even if not directly related.  Without either of these two kinds of relationships, two concepts would exclude each other so that neither could be true at the same time as the other, and so the logically impossible nature of such a thing means that consistency is an inescapavle part of reality itself, not just an arbitrary notion.  Thus, to be intellectually aligned with reality, one must be consistent.

If there is no single error or inconsistency that someone must inescapably embrace, there is nothing to keep a self-aware rationalist from becoming or remaining fully consistent.  This does not mean that there will never be additional philosophical revelations of any kind, as a newly discovered truth will never contradict a separate truth.  What it does mean is that perfect consistency is not the same as omniscience--one might know every logically necessary truth about a given part of reality, as logic provides absolute certainty and governs all things, but it is impossible to know at least certain truths given human epistemological limitations.

Perfect consistency is not unattainable, but it can only be secured by intentionally abandoning whatever assumptions were in one's worldview before the turn to rationalism and by refusing to believe that which cannot be known.  Reason is the only key to genuine, provable consistency and perfection in that consistency.  All one must do to be without consistency is understand the foundational axioms reason reveals about itself and reasom out subsequent truths about logic and one's own experiences without making assumptions or beliving contradictions.  For some, this may seem incredibly difficult, but it is the only way to escape the philosophical and practical pitfalls of ideological incompleteness.

It needs to be understood that consistency alone does not make an idea true.  A concept can be consistent with itself and with reason and still not be true.  A thinking being could conceive of a false religion that does not have any internal contradictions and that does not contradict the necessary laws of logic or any other aspects of reality, for example.  This is the difference between logical possibility and that which is already a part of reality, so conflating the two is philosophically disastrous.  Moreover, a person can be consistent without being rational in that he or she may be consistent within a framework of assumptions and arbitrary preferences rather than a set of logically verifiable truths.  All of these truths are consistent with each other!

Several Ways Physics Relates To The Immaterial

Matters of pure logic, personal introspection, values, and other key areas of metaphysics and epistemology have nothing to do with the entire spectrum of physics, as they either can be/are philosophically self-contained or do not conceptually require any awareness of how particles behave.  Physics holds all of science, yet science does not encircle all of reality; only logic can.  Logic, by nature of governing all truths and things that exist, is the immaterial thing that all else are subservient to.  Reason is grasped directly and without any input from physics, while no one can understand physics without the light of reason.  What this does not mean is that there is absolutely no way that physics can directly relate back to anything that is immaterial.

Sound itself is nonphysical, for example, but if sound requires physical substances to travel through, empirical observations of the correlations between vibrations in matter and sound fall in the domain of physics.  Vibrating matter cannot be excluded from physics no matter what immaterial things it might interact with.  Likewise, consciousness is immaterial, but the neurological phenomena that correlate with certain mental experiences reduce down to a biological subcategory of physics.  Sound and the human consciousness that perceives sound are both metaphysically comprised of non-matter, but physics is still associated with them in a more indirect sort of way that lurks in the background--beyond the most important aspects of their metaphysics but still somewhat relevant all the same.

This is also how physics is relevant to the issue of energy, particularly as nonphysical energy is conceived of as the ultimate foundation of matter according to string theory.  While consciousness is understood through logic and immediate introspection, not outward scientific observations, energy's relationship with matter can be at least hypothetically seen in some cases.  The relationship between energy and matter, ironically more so than that between consciousness and matter, is closer to the forefront of scientific thought and discussion, even though the nonphysical nature of energy is seldom emphasized in a way that acknowledges its philosophical ramifications [1].  This is perhaps the connection between physics and an immaterial thing that receives the most contemporary attention at the popular level, even if energy is distinguished from matter only to be inconsistently treated as a material thing by some.

Only logic encompasses all metaphysical and epistemological matters, but physics still encompasses all of the physical events and objects that have any sort of relationship to immaterial existents like the laws of reason themselves, sound, human consciousness, and the energy so many people mention when they elaborate on scientific descriptions of matter.  Physics may be irrelevant to understanding almost everything about core metaphysics and epistemology, from the self-verifying nature of logical axioms to issues of morality to inquiring into the existence of other minds, but the former is still connected to the latter in a different way.  In this regard, physics has a side far grander than the practicality and convenience its other benefits reduce down to.

[1].  https://thechristianrationalist.blogspot.com/2019/09/the-pseudoscience-of-string-theory-part_3.html

Sexual Expression In Dating

If a desire is natural for an individual person or humanity as a whole, it does not follow that it is automatically good or permissible in a moral sense to act on or encourage that desire, but it does follow within the Christian worldview that there is nothing either unnatural or sinful about wishing to express sexual feelings for one's partner--whether one is married, engaged, or dating.  The capacity for sexual and romantic feelings, commitments, and behaviors originated from God, not from a psychology fractured by sin.  Indeed, the very first chapter of the Bible entails this.

There is nothing about the common desire to engage in sensual or sexual acts with one's dating partner that contradicts God's initial plan for humans to procreate, or, as Genesis puts it, "be fruitful and multiply" (Genesis 1:28).  Instead of warring with themselves, Christians can be liberated by realizing that it is natural for most people to have such longings--not in the sense that it they are natural to fallen beings, but in the sense that the Edenic state does not conflict with them.  Casual sex is still contrary to Mosaic Law (Exodus 22:16-17), yet mutual, sincere commitment legitimizes sex between a man and woman.

Perhaps to the great surprise of some, it does not even follow from the notion that all sex outside of a legal marriage is immoral that a couple sins if they pleasure each other in other ways.  Other sexual acts are obviously sexual in nature, yes, but they are not sex itself, so the latter being sinful before a legal marriage would not logically entail the former also being morally wrong in a "premarital" context.  While Exodus 22:16-17 does push many couples who sleep together before marriage towards a formal lifelong relationship, the commitment that grounds a marital relationship is not a Biblical requirement for lesser kinds of interpersonal sexual acts like oral sex [1].

There is also the fact that it would not follow from something like premarital oral sex being sinful that sensual but nonsexual experiences with one's dating partner are likewise immoral, even outside the context of any sort of formally declared emotional commitment.  For example, it would still not be sinful for men and women who only just started dating to display their exposed or fully nude bodies to each other.  When public nudity is already nonsinful as it is [2], it would not be sinful for it to be enjoyed in a dating context, no matter how powerful the sensuality of the experience is.

A dating relationship is therefore not a cage on the Christian worldview, or at least not to the extent that many inside and outside of the church tend to think.  It is a chance for introspection, nonsinful pleasure, and possible sanctification amidst these things.  The presence of strong romantic or sexual feelings, as well as any desire to engage in sensual acts, is not something to be shunned within oneself or within others.  Dating gives Christians the opportunity to explore and perhaps better understand these parts of human life.  If God did not want humans to have sexual attractions and longings of any kind, he would not have created human sexuality in the first place.

[1].  https://thechristianrationalist.blogspot.com/2019/10/premarital-affection.html

[2].  https://thechristianrationalist.blogspot.com/2019/06/nudity-in-ancient-jewish-culture.html

Liberal And Conservative Propoganda

Modern news about current events is nothing more than glorified hearsay even when it is accurate and presented without irrationalistic biases, as it is this inherently fallacious to believe that any particular event has happened just because someone claims it did.  Bipartisan political assumptions only obscure the truth even more by changing hearsay claims that might otherwise have provided genuine evidence for certain events into biased declarations used to sway emotions.  At this point, news is actually propoganda meant to persuade people of an idea's veracity unsoundly--and, in many cases, the idea isn't even true to begin with!

If conservatism and liberalism are conceptually attached to assumptions and biases, any news sources that interpret events through the lens of either ideology will tie itself to mere assumptions and logical fallacies.  Indeed, this is exactly the case.  Conservatism is tied to tradition, intentionally slow change, and a respect for the status quo, while liberalism is tied to mostly arbitrary definitions of "progress" and selective affirmation of societal hypocrisies.  Although some individual ideas associated with either conservatism or liberalism (at least in the modern standing of the terms) happen to be logically valid by accident, both political frameworks are thoroughly irrational.

This has important ramifications for news media and how followers of either party misperceive what happens around them.  For example, conservatives and liberals who zealously cite biased news sources are even less likely than mild conservatives or liberals are to evaluate the political landscape in the light of reason, without concern for who may be offended or what may be rejected as a consequence.  They make assumptions (which are philosophically asinine regardless of what they are about), shelter their biases in favor of those assumptions, and panic at the thought of others making different assumptions or rejecting political assumptions altogether.

The tendency for non-rationalists is to call a great amount of attention to the logical or moral failings of their political opponents, real or imagined, while selectively tolerating the same errors, hypocrisies, and injustices of their subjectively preferred political party.  This is why conservatives seem to care far more when a liberal candidate is accused of sexual assault than when one of their own candidates is accused, and vice versa.  Very rarely does someone truly support a candidate because they are intelligent and morally consistent; in almost every case, the supporters of both primary parties betray their lack of concern for truth and rationality by saying whatever they think will discredit their opponents, whether or not it is true.

The only path to sound political philosophy is rationalism, which necessarily entails the absence of assumptions, inconsistencies, and propoganda.  The more rational someone is, the more they will reject or even effortlessly sidestep the common assumptions in favor of either major political party in America.  Rationalistic philosophy uproots the foundations of the bipartisan giants of conservatism and liberalism.  Tradition and novelty have nothing to do with truth on their own, and thus a political cannot both be valid and rooted in one or the other.  Propoganda from both conservative and liberal sources is asinine by default.

The Conceptually Unrelated Nature Of Abiogenesis And Macro-Evolution

Macroevolution is often discussed alongside abiogenesis, the notion of life emerging from non-living matter, as if the two share an inseparable philosophical bond.  The popularity of this approach in Christian circles overlooks the utter lack of conceptual overlap that these two ideas ultimately have.  Indeed, abiogenesis does not require macroevolution and macroevolution does not require abiogenesis--moreover, abiogenesis is not even a rival to basic theism (whether it is compatible with Christian theism is a separate issue)!  This is yet another clarification that would not need to be made if not for the fallacies and assumptions of others.

If abiogenesis was true, it would not follow that life underwent macroevolution after it came into existence from physical causes.  It does also not follow from life evolving from one form to another that a process that reduces down to abiogenesis was responsible for the existence of life.  Human and animal consciousness could spring into existence with the right arrangement of particles at least in the sense that there is no logical contradiction in such a thing, and there is also no disparity between this and any scientific observations about the correlation between neurological activity and certain mental states.  If this was true, we still do not know the veracity of macroevolution, and vice versa.

The tendency here is for evangelicals to conflate atheism with naturalism, naturalism with abiogenesis, abiogenesis with macroevolution, and macroevolution with nihilism.  Each of these concepts is actually distinct from the other even if some of them have a very specific relationship.  In other words, the concepts must be addressed on an individual basis because they do not entail the same ideas, no matter how closely linked they are according to the public.  Abiogenesis, the age of the cosmos, and macroevolution are not all necessarily true or false at the same time.

One of the relevant facts evangelicals would object to the most involves all three of the aforementioned ideas: the three of these issues combined have nothing to do with whether theism is true.  The existence of an uncaused cause is a logical necessity, meaning only the manner in which the uncaused cause permitted conscious life other than itself to come into existence is truly up in the air.  The theistic creation of the universe and abiogenesis origins of human life are not logically incompatible, regardless of what a particular religion might hold.  The issue of God's existence and the necessity of an uncaused cause behind the physical world are not directly related to the three at all.

The red herring ideas associated with macroevolution in evangelical circles exemplify just how deeply non sequiturs can be absorbed into a community without almost anyone on the inside noticing just how unrelated they are.  Even if macroevolution was philosophically falsifiable, it would still be slanderous and irrational of Christians to treat abiogenesis, an an ancient universe (with an age of billions of years old), or atheism itself as if they logically follow.  For people who claim to live out the commands of a book that condemns slander or at least to want to live them out, evangelicals often have very little comprehension of the concepts they are in a hurry to discuss.

Movie Review--Terminator: Dark Fate

"There once was a future in which humankind was hunted by a machine that could think and Terminators built to kill.  A future without hope.  That future never happened, because I stopped it."

--Sarah Connor, Terminator: Dark Fate


Terminator: Dark Fate stands alongside films like The Last Jedi in that it subverts expectations to the fury of vocal moviegoers while still managing to be a better movie than many recent entries in its own series.  This does not mean that it has no glaring mistakes or missed opportunities.  It is not that Dark Fate is the utter filmmaking abomination that many people are labeling it, but that it does not utilize the full potential it offers.  It does not reach the same heights of T2 even though the performances and action do elevate it far above Genysis.  At the very least, Dark Fate includes some genuine innovations, reclaiming some of the franchise's best qualities.  Everything from the reprisal of Linda Hamilton to the opening scene to the new take on the iconic theme music that accompanies the credits complements T2 even as Dark Fate departs from its predecessors dramatically.

Production Values

The opening scene of Dark Fate has already become extremely controversial for plot reasons, but the de-aging for Sarah and John Connor in the opening is some of the best that has been used in a major recent film.  Elsewhere in the film, the effects mostly hold up well, including the scenes where the Terminator played by Arnold Schwarzenegger has its face partially shredded yet again to show the metal beneath its skin and scenes of futuristic warfare against an alternate manifestation of Skynet.  As for the story, if one can get past the immense controversy around the first scene, the rest of the movie is much closer to the plot of the original films.

This means Dark Fate does revisit established story beats that will be familiar to fans of the first two installments, but, at the same time, it also introduces some new ideas.  One example is that the hostile Terminator's liquid metal can now separate itself from the endoskeleton and act as a second Terminator.  Another is the portrayal of a Terminator that chooses its own life after it fails to receive more orders from Skynet.  Characters Grace and Dani are among the new components of the film, complementing Linda Hamilton's much older Sarah Connor.  The strong characterization and philosophical themes of the original Terminator movies even survive--inconsistently.  Some characters were clearly given more to work with than others, even if the acting on the part of each lead cast member is superb.

One scene with Sarah well into the runtime is particularly well-executed, touching on the emotional toll she has taken in her war against Skynet.  Every other major character gets at least one comparable scene that cuts to the heart of their motivations and experiences, with Natalia Reye's Dani getting less development.  Her character is simply not as strongly explored as those of McKinzie Davis (Grace), Linda Hamilton, and Arnold Schwarzenegger.  Arnold's aged character is even able to use some great comedic lines without going into the more mainstream territory reserved for MCU-style movies.


Story

Major spoilers have to be included in any non-ambiguous description of the introductory scene.  If you want to avoid reading about a potentially shocking and unexpected event.

After Judgment Day is averted thanks to the events of Terminator 2, one of several additional Terminators not seen in T2 locates and kills the young John Connor.  Despite this, another Terminator is sent at a later date to kill a woman named Dani before she herself becomes the savior of humanity in a revised future.  In this future, Legion replaces Skynet, but several key things happen anyway.  Humanity is targeted by a (seemingly) sentient software that uses drones and Terminators to hunt survivors.  Augmented humans, people given cybernetic enhancements that impact their senses and combat ability, are used to fight Legion, and one of them visits the past to save Dani from a Legion machine.  Her journey to safety unites her with Carl, the T-800 who killed John, and also with Sarah, John's mother.


Intellectual Content

"Carl's" change of direction in his artificial life after fulfilling Skynet's prime directive directly touches upon the notion of an AI having free will.  Initial programming could certainly allow a sentient machine to make its own voluntary, free decisions without deterministic causal relationships in its circuitry negating its genuine choices.  Physical components are not consciousness, and it is implied that the Terminators, even though they are only modeled after biological humans, are indeed sentient.  The immateriality of human or AI consciousness (yes, it is nonphysical even if generated by physical objects) allows for free choices that in turn lead to certain thoughts or physical actions.  

Something the movie seems to brush up against without exploring it as directly as an AI's existential evolution is the concept of certain events occurring no matter what the rest of the timeline looks like, with different, or at least somewhat different, contexts and preceding steps setting them up.  For example, Skynet's Judgment Day was averted, but Legion still becomes Skynet's equivalent in the new future.  John may be removed from the timeline, but Dani becomes the new "Messiah" figure for humanity to rally behind.  X-Men: Days of Future Past brings attention to this very idea in a much more blatant way: through dialogue.  Terminator: Dark Fate might not even have even been made with this concept specifically in mind, no matter how much it seems to be the case, yet viewers could be prompted to consider the idea all the same.

However, there are no specific events that have to happen, as even the very act on the part of the uncaused cause of creating time and the cosmos could have been withheld by the uncaused cause.  No particular event at the start of a causal chain or timeline has to occur by necessity because it is always logically possible for the starting event--and whatever effects would have resulted--to have simply never been anything more than a mere possibility!  It is also possible for similar events to eventually play out regardless of what led to them.  The free will of millions of people could still bring about an alternate Judgment Day even if one person's decisions would have otherwise altered the future; there is no contradiction in the fact that a past event can have truly prevented a future catastrophe and the fact that an equivalent catastrophe could still occur for some other reason.

Conclusion

The only way for the series to avoid sheer repetition was to either stop focusing on John Connor or show a very different story that in some way involves him, and Dark Fate does the former.  This decision was for the best, although it was executed in a very controversial and unforseen way.  Thanks to its boldness and more thematically mature approach than that of Genysis, it is the only Terminator film that rivals the original two to the extent that it does.  The first movie is more groundbreaking, and the second is more existentially deep, but Dark Fate is still the best Terminator entry since T2.  Although it appears there will be no resurrection of the franchise following the financial failure of the film, it succeeds as a return to at least some of the themes and characters that made the first two movies masterpieces.


Content:
 1.  Violence:  Only a few scenes have blood, but the artificial skin covering both Arnold's Terminator and the newer model he fights is torn off onscreen to expose the machinery beneath.
 2.  Profanity:  "Bitch," "damnit," "shit," and "fuck" are heard.
 3.  Nudity:  When she first teleports from the future, Grace is naked, as is the series norm.  Her full unclothed body is shown from behind.  Gabriel Luna's Terminator also appears naked, but his lower body is always out of focus.

Remembering The Deficiencies Of Memory

Every waking moment where a person recalls information or past experiences directly involves memory, as only immediate experiences require nothing but the thoughts and perceptions of that given moment in time.  Memory is a deeply vital part of human life for this reason and because of how it binds recalled experiences together in a way that develops personal identity.  In fact, although memory cannot ultimately reveal anything more than the contents of one's own mind, the very ability to even be aware of memory's deficiencies from moment to moment establishes something very important: memory is involved in the recollection of memory's own flaws.

The only way to argue against memory even in the relative privacy of one's own thoughts is to use one's memory.  The accuracy of one's memory in terms of internal consistency is proven by the lack of utter confusion about every aspect of experience from moment to moment [1], not that this means past events occurred exactly as one remembers them if they occured at all; what it proves pertains to the correspondence between memories and sensory perceptions and between different memories themselves.  The occurrence of specific past events recalled by memory is still uncertain.

It remains true that recalling any personal deficiencies or epistemological limitations of one's memory is a mental act involving the very memory in question.  In other words, remembering the problems and epistemological boundaries of human memory brushes up against a paradoxical truth: memory is necessary to retain awareness of the problems one's memory has.  Thus, for this reason and others which I have addressed elsewhere (see [1]), it is utterly asinine and irrational to believe that memory tells one absolutely nothing about reality for sure beyond that one has certain memories at the present moment.

Now, arguing against memory is not self-defeating in the same way that arguing against logic is.  Since logic can only be false if it is true, rendering any charges or criticisms of its inherent veracity self-refuting in full, logic is true by inescapable necessity.  The accuracy of one's memory when it comes to recalling past events as they happened is at least partly verified if one remembers a severe memory problem, but even this cannot establish anything more than the paradoxically self-refuting nature of thinking that nothing about one's memory can be logically verified beyond its existence (and metaphysical subjection to reason, of course).

Memory's reliability is thus a more complex matter than even proving its internal consistency is.  Proving the epistemological disconnect between memory and past events and the lack of immediate confusion about almost all experiences can be relatively simple, but there is more to the issue that can be discovered.  The impossibility of arguing against memory without using it means that any total denial that any certain knowledge can come from memory is false.  Memory can, at the very least, illuminate several aspects of itself and the consistency of one's sensory perceptions with mental recollections.  This is no small thing.

[1].  https://thechristianrationalist.blogspot.com/2017/03/the-reliability-of-memory.html

Capital Punishment For Abortion

Saying that capital punishment for rape applies to all women who rape others is logically contained within calling rape a capital crime, and thus it would be repetitive and unnecessary to clarify this in a society that was truly egalitarian.  However, a host of cultural ideas that contradict this consistency make it necessary to specifically clarify that executing rapists entails executing plenty of women as well as men.  The same is true of saying that capital punishment for murder (in the moral rather than strictly legal sense) applies to those who perform abortions.

If intentionally killing a human outside of self-defense, just warfare, or just forms of capital punishment is murder, then abortion is inevitably a subcategory of murder.  If murder merits capital punishment, as the Bible plainly teaches (Exodus 21:12-14), then it follows that abortion deserves execution--except in cases of medical necessity to save the mother's life [1].  It is therefore impossible for someone who endorses the death penalty for murder to be consistent if they think that the issue of abortion is a wholly separate matter.

This means that, if murder is indeed deserving of capital punishment as the Bible says, it is not oppressive for abortion to be punished in such a manner; it would be just.  While there are pro-life adherents who have realized this, it is still somewhat uncommon for people to openly, directly support the execution of those responsible for administering abortions.  However, legal justice is tied to certain moral offenses, and thus it is rather important to not treat abortion and murder as a whole as something that can be adequately condemned apart from a deserved legal punishment.

Punishing abortion is far from the most important aspect of upholding justice, as there are Biblical crimes far worse than merely snuffing out the life of an innocent human being, even when the motive behind this murder is convenience, selfishness, or philosophical apathy.  That it is not the all-important issue of justice that evangelicals often treat it as does not mean that it is trivial or there is no need to firmly acknowledge it all the same, even though it is a very controversial point.  What abortion is not is a subject of no relevance to ethics.


[1].  https://thechristianrationalist.blogspot.com/2019/05/the-exception-to-abortions-immorality.html

Leisure And Intelligence

It is impossible to discern someone's true intelligence by purely external evidences.  A lack of telepathy leaves different human minds disconnected (if there are other human minds to gaze into in the first place), but each person can directly see and understand their own intelligence, even if they find it difficult to express their rationality easily or fully.  For those who understand that intelligence is nothing but rationality, it can be liberating to realize that faulty perceptions of one's communication skills, sharpness of memory, and breadth of experiences do not signify one's grasp of logic.  Unfortunately, there are even more irrelevant characteristics that some might have their intelligence fallaciously judged by.

How someone handles leisure, even if they engage in certain things that are not abstract, complex, or aimed purely at depth, is yet another thing that has no immediate connection to someone's intelligence.  In part, this hinges on the subjectivity and individuality of the motivations and appeal behind certain kinds of leisure, and it also hangs in part on the fact that immense intelligence does not mean someone is externally occupied by grand conversations or activities at every waking moment.  Regarding the former, one cannot be unintelligent simply for having a certain subjective desire because subjective desires are not always controllable.  Regarding the latter, intelligence is a feature of someone's mind: it is solely the extent to which someone understands and looks to the laws of logic without using fallacies.

A perfectly intelligent person--and I mean perfectly intelligent in the sense that they could not be any more rational than they are, whether or not there are more logical or experiential facts for them to discover--can enjoy specific kinds of entertainment or other pastimes that are intentionally supposed to be simple, casual, or ridiculous.  For example, someone who spends a sizeable amount of free time watching videos of other people failing to perform everyday tasks correctly for the sake of amusement has done nothing that diminishes their rationality or that conveys a lack of rationality.  Such habits are irrelevant to the degree to which they are aligned with reason and to which they genuinely care about matters of ultimate truth.

Of course, if a person enjoys an activity out of a misunderstanding of its true nature or out of some shallow set of priorities, they do indeed display a lack of intelligence as they go about their lives.  The difference is in the grasp of reason and self-awareness exhibited by the latter person.  Two individuals whose leisure looks outwardly similar could have drastically different levels of rational comprehension of themselves and their pursuits.  Leisure otherwise does not express a person's intelligence and philosophical competence, though it might display key aspects of their personality to onlookers.  Displays of the latter may not exhibit the former at all.

It is far easier for a philosophically inept person to assume someone possesses or lacks intelligence because of an arbitrary external characteristic like communicative ability or preferred pastimes than it is for them to refuse to make the assumptions that might come naturally to those around them.  An intangible quality like intelligence relates to a person's rationality and worldview instead of how they carry themselves in public or in private.  A distinctive sign of unintelligence is embracing the non sequitur approach of equating an outward factor like leisure habits with intelligence.  This irony means everyone who does such a thing intellectually shoots himself or herself in the foot.

The Errors Of Mere Christianity (Part 11)

Pride, or arrogance, is simply thinking of oneself more highly than one's metaphysical, epistemological, and moral status entails, making it one of the most misunderstood attitudes the Bible denounces.  It is not arrogant to think that one person is fundamentally superior to another within the context of a certain philosophy, such as the moral framework contained within Biblical Christianity, as long as moral superiority is the basis for elevating one person above another.  C.S. Lewis failed to recognize this, as Mere Christianity evidences:

"I now come to that part of Christian morals where they differ most sharply from all other morals.  There is one vice of which no man in the world is free; which every one in the world loathes when he sees it in someone else; and of which hardly any people, except Christians, ever imagine they are guilty themselves . . .

The vice I am talking of is Pride or Self-Conceit: and the virtue opposite to it, in Christian morals, is called Humility." (121)

It is fallacious and even false to say that everyone in the world is tainted by arrogance, as there is no particular sin that anyone cannot avoid or simply never even have a desire to commit.  It is also outright false to say that no one guilty of arrogance can escape it.  Even if someone is a Christian, they might be or become free or pride!  The fact that Lewis emphasizes pride as the allegedly most significant sin or root of all sin (as he goes on to say) shows his asinine virtue ethics flare up once again.  No attitude can be worse than sins like rape or many kinds of physical abuse that show heinous disregard for the beings made in God's image or for other living things God made.  Saying that one attitude other than an aversion to rationality motivates all moral errors is deeply asinine.

Lewis goes on to express more confusion about what pride is:

"Now what you want to get clear is that Pride is essentially competitive--is competitive by its very nature--while the other vices are competitive only, so to speak, by accident.  Pride gets no pleasure out of having something, only out of having more of it than the next man." (122)

Suppose that a person lived alone, isolated from all other people.  Whether they have been alone for so long that they forgot or do not think of others or there are no other people alive does not affect this hypothetical situation.  Is it logically possible for such a person to be prideful?  Of course!  Pride is about thinking of yourself more highly than you are/should, meaning it may or may not involve a comparison to some other person or being.  Someone could be arrogant by only forgetting or overlooking their own nature and assuming that they have some higher nature they do not truly possess.

As if Lewis has not already made enough irrational statements about pride, he literally credits nearly all human sin with originating from pride:

"Nearly all those evils in the world which people put down to greed or selfishness are really far more the result of Pride.

Take it with money.  Greed will certainly make a man want money, for the sake of a better house, better holidays, better things to eat and drink.  But only up to a point.  What is it that makes a man with £10,000 a year anxious to get £20,000 a year?  £10,000 will give all the luxuries that any man can really enjoy.  It is Pride--the wish to be richer than some other man, and (still more) the wish for power." (123)


Stupidity is behind far more sin than pride, and belief that one has a higher nature than is the case is a clear example of stupidity.  Thus, pride cannot be the one thing that nearly all evils in the world are driven by.  Irrationality is the sin at the heart of almost all other sin, if not all of it.  Even people without access to the evidence for Christianity who still realize the lack of evidence or internal contradictions of other prominent religions would avoid many sins if they dedicated their time to contemplating moral skepticism and epistemology more than they did to pursuing whatever random, potentially destructive whims they might have.

Even with Lewis' example of how a desire for more money can express pride, though, he misses the point even further by pretending like there is some point past which pride must be the motivator rather greed (not that wanting wealth is greed on its own).  Again, it is also possible to want more wealth out of greed without any reference point other than one's current wealth.  Other people might have nothing to do with it, which Lewis denies to uphold his assumptions.

A Specific Anti-Technology Bias

Novel technologies and practices sometimes face opposition from people who have become accustomed to a different lifestyle simply because they are new, and therefore somewhat foreign.  For this reason, electronic screens have received criticism now that they are commonplace to the point of permeating daily communication, the workplace, and the educational system.  Children may be scolded by their parents for preferring to spend free time using screens of some kind instead of playing outside, and young adults might be dismissed for their so-called "addiction" to electronics.

If objections to prolonged screen use for entertainment are based in a call for "balance" in recreation, as if balancing time spent in front of a screen and time spent partaking in hobbies that do not use screens is of any significance, then the parents making them would also object to children spending all of their time playing outside or engaging in other hobbies that have nothing to do with electronics.  Inconsistency here reveals they are either just using whatever argument they can, no matter how irrational it is, or that they have truly not understood what this kind of "balance" would require.

It is not the case that such people would be particularly familiar with the laws of logic, which means that they will almost never try to argue against widespread use of devices like smartphones, game consoles, and tablets on strictly logical grounds.  When pressed, people who dislike or discourage the use of screens will either try to appeal to a conservative type of moral framework that glorifies the "old days" or find some scientific reason to insist that screens are unsafe or otherwise damaging.  Of particular popularity is the idea that using screens for hours a day degrades eyesight.

In cases where screen usage is connected with the workplace or the shallow, non-rationalistic education system, suddenly these concerns are often ignored or forgotten, of course!  This alone shows that most anti-technology advocates are at least inconsistent enough to just selectively act upon or embrace their own premises.  Not only is it asinine to look to pure reason for a basis for avoiding or hating screens (only assumptions and non sequiturs await), but there is also no scientific evidence that regular, prolonged screen usage permanently harms the eyes.

Prior technological norms may be subjectively more appealing to some people who grew up with them, but appeals to tradition are just as inane as appeals to novelty.  Any attempt to claim there is an alleged non-subjective reason for people as a whole to avoid screen usage is uprooted by its own fallacies.  Exposing the stupidity and folly on display is a simple matter.  The objections to screen usage can then be seen for what they are: personal biases against technology that have nothing to do with either logic or science.

What Does And Does Not Follow From Atheism

Concepts, what follows from those concepts, and the various philosophies of people who sincerely or ignorantly say they believe in certain concepts are not at all the same thing.  There are some worldviews that are not commonly understood in a way that conflicts with these distinctions, but atheism is a regular exception.  Many theists conflate the varying beliefs and motivations of different adherents of atheism with the philosophical concept and ramifications of atheism itself.  In response, many atheists sometimes rightly affirm that atheism is simply a belief that God does not exist, only to turn around and pretend like there are not specific logical ideas that necessarily follow from the concept of God's nonexistence.

Individual atheists (as opposed to agnostics) can have wildly differing general worldviews and still be atheists as long as they simply believe that no deities of any kind exist.  There is nothing else that makes someone an atheist other than this particular belief.  Nevertheless, there are certain logical conclusions that inherently follow from the idea of atheism whether they are acknowledged or even understood by individual atheists or not.  The differences between the worldviews of particular atheists are often ignored by casual theists, and the logical ramifications of atheism are often ignored by atheists.

What atheism does not mean is that truth itself does not exist or that metaphysical relativism is true.  For any worldview to be true or even logically possible, it must not contradict or otherwise deny the laws of logic.  If atheism was true, it would be true that no deity exists, which makes all claims that nothing can be true without a deity as a reference point blatantly false!  Logic is still necessarily true and self-evident even on an atheistic worldview.  To deny this is to misrepresent the nature of reason and to straw man atheism.

However, it is true that atheism is philosophically incompatible with the existence of objective values.  Apart from the existence of a deity with a moral nature, there is no metaphysical anchor for morality, beauty, or meaning--not that any of these things can be proven to exist by appealing to emotions and preferences as many theists think.  If God has a moral nature, any objective moral obligations that exist are objective in that they are obligatory regardless of what any non-deity wants or is aware of, not in the sense that morality exists apart from any mind (this is not true of God's mind).

An atheist might not realize or believe that moral and aesthetic nihilism follow from atheism, but it is logically true that all aspects of reality are purely amoral within consistent atheistic philosophy.  What specific atheists think about this is irrelevant.  Finally, atheism is demonstrably false--not because it is logically impossible for objective values to exist, but because it is logically necessary for an uncaused cause to exist given that there are things that can be proven to exist which cannot have existed forever [1].  My own mind might be the uncaused cause, or perhaps a dozen or any number more than a single uncaused cause exists, but the existence of at least one deity of this sort is fully provable due to its logical necessity.

Political Emotionalism In America

Religious practice in America is regularly scrutinized by many people who don't have any allegiance to the religion they analyze and even by some within a given religion.  Occasionally, the average person might even hold to a true belief about the nature of a religion, even if they have never personally delved into the epistemology of religion through rationalistic contemplation.  Although it is still rare to find someone who avoids all misconceptions and assumptions for or against a particular religion, there are at least many partial attempts to understand theological concepts and weigh them.  American politics, however, is even more of an overt emotionalistic circus.

Politics is almost never openly dissected with the same alleged care that so many pretend they show in assessing different religions or the concept of theology as a whole, not that Christianity, Islam, or any other explicitly theological system is normally analyzed rationally!  The norm is emotionalistic attachment to one of two main parties that both stand on nothing but a vacuum of philosophical validity.  Assumptions, misrepresentations, hypocrisy on the level of both ideas and actions, and appeals to emotion are common.  America is full of people who are apathetic about far more foundational and vital philosophical matters, yet it is full of individuals who rabidly profess loyalty to invalid political ideologies.

Epistemology, metaphysics, and ethics frame every aspect of politics, but the majority of voters seem to have little to no experience with independent reflection about the philosophies behind various political ideas.  This incompetence and lack of familiarity with even basic concepts accessible to all people through pure reason inevitably results in emotionalism or egoism, which can so easily be found in American politics.  Usually eager to exaggerate the flaws of the other party, conservative and liberal voters overlook their own glaring assumptions in favor of emotion-fueled rejection of subjectively discomforting ideas.

Of course, conservatism and liberalism are asinine whether or not their supporters were often guilty of inconsistencies and blindness.  Tradition and novelty have no bearing on philosophical truth and thus no political system rooted in either could be valid.  It is not as if the veracity or consistency of conservatism or liberalism hinges on the actions of their followers.  The ideas stand or fall based on whether they conform to logical and moral reality, the only things that could ever justify any political system in the first place.  Emotional comfort, a sense of belonging, and mere preference are what fools look for in political ideologies.

Rationalism is needed at all times and in all facets of life, and politics, especially since it directly or indirectly impacts how people live and is inherently constructed on philosophical concepts, can have no exemption.  The emphasis on political ideas over the more important metaphysical and epistemological ideas they are immersed in and the disease of political assumptions are just symptoms of the deeply irrationalistic bent of the American people.  Apart from rationalism, the United States, like every other country in the world, remains adrift in ignorance and stupidity.

Logic, people.  It is very fucking helpful.

The Power Of Music

Anyone can reason out that it is logically possible for the experience of listening to music to be a deeply introspective and powerful one, but each person who has actually experienced this phenomenon knows firsthand how moving it can be to feel stirred by music.  Music can facilitate or unlock deep emotion, and that includes spiritual emotions.  Unfortunately, instead of uniting spiritual emotion with intellectual substance or even creating music that is not artistically shallow, a great number of Christian artists have settled for appeasing the evangelical world's desire for stupidity and mediocrity.

The potential power of music means that music as a whole, like numerous other things, could be harnessed by Christians in a way that is both artistically and theologically significant--and yet this is so often not the case.  Just as many Christians associated with filmmaking squander their creative opportunities by making shallow, irrelevant, or gratuitously simplistic content, many Christian music artists rightly have a reputation for creative and thematic ineptitude.  Now, nothing about being a Christian and a musician means a given person will be artistically or philosophically incompetent, but evangelical culture often tolerates and even sometimes directly encourages those who are.

Given the common role of music in church services, one might expect Christians to generally take the quality of music much more seriously than they tend to.  The truth is that many Christians would rather tolerate incompetence in the name of emotionalism and unity than simply challenge current norms.  Asking for music that reflects the philosophical maturity required of Christians is not too large of a request, and neither is asking for music that reflects the genuine creative talent that artists must develop in order to belong in their profession.  Asking for these things is a sign of spiritual thoughtfulness rather than superficiality.

It would benefit Christendom immensely if Christians produced music that is not only theologically sound and existentially comforting, but brimming with intellectual and emotional depth.  This is not because emotion should be the basis of commitment to Christianity or because emotion is a valid epistemological tool when assessing the evidence for Christianity.  It is because music, something that can rouse deep emotion, can facilitate or strengthen a deep emotional connection with God and with Christian companions.  There is nothing worth supporting about trivializing Christian theology, human spirituality, and artistic merit, and Christians should be eager to promote the artistic and philosophical excellence Christian music as a whole so desperately needs.

A Truth About Self-Pleasuring

Suppose a woman watches a film in her home, and one of her favorite actors has a lead role.  She has always respected his acting talent--in fact, this is one of the reasons she started watching this movie.  The attractive body of the actor in question catches her eye.  As the actor delivers his lines and carries out the physical actions of his role, the woman excitedly contemplates his sex appeal.  She eventually begins pleasuring herself while watching and thinking of his body, focusing on his sensuality and on her reaction to it.  She is captivated by the actor's skills and perceived beauty.  Not once does she think that his sex appeal to her is the most important aspect of his life, nor does her respect for him as a person and as an actor wane as she masturbates to him.

This hypothetical scenario demonstrates one of numerous ways that masturbating to an image, video, or thought of someone of the opposite gender is not the same as sexually objectifying them.  It is possible for someone to consider the members of the opposite gender they masturbate to (if they indeed do such a thing) as nothing more than a useful tool for self-pleasuring, but objectification of any kind, sexual or otherwise, is far more difficult to engage in than internally acknowledging that there is no single aspect of a person that their entire being reduces down to.  Whether a person masturbates to a genuine friend of the opposite gender, an acquaintance, a coworker, or a stranger, the object of the masturbation has not even necessarily been violated or degraded in any way short of objectification.

Masturbating to attractive bodies of the other gender does not exclude a respect for the minds within those bodies or a personal respect for the skills, personalities, or, in some cases, friendship of the persons who possess the bodies.  A man can masturbate to select opposite gender friends without ever trivializing the mutual affection of friendship shared between them, just as a woman can masturbate to select opposite gender friends while still cherishing the friendships themselves.  A woman can masturbate to attractive actors while still having a deep admiration for their acting talent and personhood, just as a man can masturbate to attractive actresses while fully respecting their professional accomplishments.

It is entirely possible to use the sight or thought of a body belonging to the opposite gender as a sexual stimulus for masturbation while also remaining fully aware that there is more to that person than their subjective sex appeal (of course, someone can enjoy masturbating to someone of the opposite gender despite never feeling any sexual attraction to them, such as in the case of some asexuals or people who merely want sensual stimuli).  Masturbating to someone of the opposite gender does not make someone ignore the intellect, emotions, talents, or trials of the latter person.  Even if someone masturbates to an anonymous model they see on the internet or to a random stranger, they can be fully aware that the object of their fantasy is more than the sexual pleasure derived from them.

There is no reason for masturbating to sights and thoughts to carry any sort of stigma in the church.  Sexual attraction, physiological arousal, and masturbation are not sinful on their own (Deuteronomy 4:2), and thus combining them is not sinful on its own.  If the act is not inherently wrong even when using an actual image or a mental recreation of someone's body as an aid, there is no reason to treat the matter with any sort of prudery or default shame.  The pleasures of sexual self-stimulation do not become sinful when coupled with physical or mental imagery of the clothed or unclothed body, and many Christians would benefit from liberating themselves from the extra-Biblical constructs of legalism that hold otherwise.