Swimwear Other Than Bikinis

Just like women can still experience sexual attraction towards men even when they are fully clothed or when their torsos are covered, men can still experience sexual attraction towards women even when they wear swimsuits that cover more than conventional bikinis do.  The lies of modesty would have people believe that a woman "desexualizes" her body with swimwear such as a one-piece, when neither the male nor female body is sexual and when any type of clothing for men or women could be found sexually attractive by members of the opposite gender.  Bikinis are not sexual [1], and even one-piece swimsuits can be perceived as sexy. 

Some men may even prefer to look at and think about women in swimwear other than bikinis in a nonsexual or sexual way!  Modesty proponents might be reluctant to think about this fact, if they have ever realized it at all, in spite of how it so plainly refutes certain tenets of their ideas.  Just as they shy away from discovering or at least from admitting that male sexuality is not a simplistic, overpowering thing and that women are very visually attracted to men, they will simply not address how sexiness is a subjective perception-based thing that contrasts with the objectively nonsexual nature of most activities and thoughts, which means that even clothing that shows less of the human body might be sexually enjoyed more by certain people.

A one-piece swimsuit does not alter either the fact that no man is a slave to sexual feelings--and that men are not inherently attracted to women in any kind of swimwear by default.  The experiences of attraction and the way that attraction is shaped and enjoyed pertain to the specific details of a person's psychology, not just the appearance of someone else's body.  Some men and women might sexually appreciate the sight of the opposite gender even when most of their bodies are covered in a way that culture at large would not quickly label sexy.  Thus, forgoing bikinis in favor of female swimwear that covers more than the genitals and breasts has nothing to do with thwarting sexual excitement or interest from men.

Clothing will not erase human sexuality, and lack of clothing cannot erase the objectively nonsexual nature of the human body.  Swimwear that covers either the male or female torso has no power to alter logical truths about the matter.  Women's one-piece swimsuits and bikinis alike can be deeply sensual despite having no connection to sexuality other than one of intent or perception.  Covering more of the male or female body will not suddenly remove sexual interest in the opposite gender altogether.  It may change the experience of visually beholding some bodies of the opposite gender, but it can do nothing more.

A rational person does not think that the human body, male or female swimsuits, or even total public nudity in all of their potential sensuality are sexual even if they have sexual thoughts of, feelings for, or perceptions of any of these things.  Nothing about the tenets of modesty teachings does not contradict reason and genuine Biblical morality; to embrace these tenets, a person must side with non sequitur fallacies rejected by reason and legalism rejected by the Bible.  There is no such thing as a rational or Biblically sound belief that anyone, man or woman, should cover their bodies if others are not to covet or objectify them.

[1].  https://thechristianrationalist.blogspot.com/2018/04/bikinis-are-not-sexual.html

The Use Of Demonic As An Adjective

The word "demonic" can be used so casually that the ones using it ignore its conceptual connotations.  I have seen people call things like racism inherently demonic, when this is not an inherent quality of most particular sins.  Genuine racism is sinful by Biblical standards, but nothing about this or many other specific sins have an immediate affinity for the demonic.  This misapplication of the word, like all other similar uses of it, is more about stirring up shocked or hostile attitudes towards the sin in question within listeners/readers than accurately conveying concepts from one rational person to another.

Calling something demonic does not make it so, and the descriptor of "demonic" at most only applies to a very specific subset of spiritual events or entities described in the Bible or other religious systems.  In fact, it is outright asinine to refer to a person or activity as demonic when neither has a direct relationship with actual Christian demonology.  Doing so only obscures the linguistic context of the word's more directly applicable usages in the perceptions of someone who actually believes that Biblically sinful behaviors that are unrelated to demonic possession or activity are somehow still affiliated with demons.

Does a savage act have a "demonic" aspect simply because it is brutal in its injustice?  How savage or contrary to God's will would an action or attitude have to be before it becomes demonic?  The non sequitur relationship between the general concepts of human sin and demonic activity aside, there is no line other than an assumed and arbitrary one distinguishing sin that has nothing to do with acknowledging or aligning with demons from the very same sins when they are called demons.

Indeed, arbitrary lines are all evangelical Christians have--both conservatives and liberals who claim that title.  Conservative Christians might call sexual promiscuity demonic, while liberal Christians might call racism demonic (if only on a selective basis, like when a white person is racist towards a black person), but neither has done anything more than use an irrelevant word.  The way the Bible describes demons portrays them as entities that may or may not involve themselves in human affairs, which means human life is separate from the demonic except in specific circumstances.

For the sake of rationality and Biblicality, Christians need to be careful with what they label demonic.  Humans are capable of great acts of selfishness and unjust violence on their own, and mere macabre imagery or dark inclinations have no connection to the concept of fallen angels in themselves.  The only sins that could truthfully fall into this category are those undertaken in the name of actual demons or due to direct demonic influence.  Since most people do not even claim demons are behind their actions, whether or not they think their actions are morally good, there is no evidence whatsoever that demons are involved at all.

Philosophy In Television (Part 2): WandaVision

"I have what I want, and no one will ever take it from me again."

--Wanda Maximoff, WandaVision (season one, episode five)

Philosophy is not something foreign to superhero lore in the Marvel Universe.  Because of this, it is only natural that at least shards of explicit philosophical concepts make their way into some entries in the Marvel Cinematic Universe.  Captain America: The Winter Soldier dealt with very timely issues of navigating national security and personal freedom.  Doctor Strange, without presenting any logical proofs that are ultimately accessible to everyone, addressed the distinction between consciousness and matter.  The first Iron Man film touched upon the moral issues associated with selling weapons even if the protagonist reacted to abuses of his company's weaponry with slippery slope fallacies.

Until WandaVision, however, nothing in the MCU had ever tackled more strictly abstract concepts about epistemology, metaphysics, and personal desire with an almost exclusive focus on them.  The new show has jumped into thematic and artistic waters that the most unique MCU movies have avoided.  Initially set up like a mid or late 1900s sitcom, even to the point of the first two episodes almost completely taking place in black and white, it presents Avenger Wanda Maximoff as having a seemingly blissful life with Vision, an android who had been her romantic partner before his death.  The two of them enjoy marriage in a town populated with strange neighbors who sometimes appear on the verge of admitting a grand secret.

Wanda, otherwise known as Scarlet Witch outside of the film universe, suffered multiple losses even before the first episode of WandaVision portrays her.  Her twin brother Quicksilver was killed in their debut film Age of Ultron.  Her dating partner was killed by Thanos in Avengers: Infinity War because one of the Infinity Stones was embedded in his forehead.  WandaVision gradually bestows clues to viewers that, in the aftermath of Thanos's invasion and eventual defeat, Wanda felt such pain at the loss of Vision that she constructed a fantasy world as a coping mechanism.  In the fourth and fifth episodes, it becomes clear that Wanda has actually altered a town in the real external world and is holding its inhabitants hostage via her ability to override other minds.

Even this reveal leaves the vast majority of WandaVision's events ambiguous.  The metaphysical and perception-based abnormalities have even led to the appearance of an alternate universe version of Wanda's dead brother Pietro--or at least what seems to be an alternate universe version of her brother.  The scope of her powers appears to tamper with the multiverse, but, without looking into his mind, she has no way to truly know if Pietro is her brother from another universe or an imposter who seeks to manipulate her for its own gain.  In either case, Wanda's retreat into her own whims has profound consequences for her charade and perhaps the universe as a whole.

Wanda has become so fixated on letting her preferences dictate her life that she prefers an abusive illusion that involves the mind control of an entire town and the manipulation of a corpse to simply accepting that her android partner is dead.  She is aware of what she is doing (even with the reveal that "Agnes," or Agatha Harkness, is behind much of the situation, Wanda still participates in maintaining the illusion at the cost of others): she forcefully prevents others from saying or doing things that undermine her egoistic deeds and goes so far as to reveal herself to inquiring outsiders beyond the town as a warning.  Since Wanda has mystical powers that can manipulate physics and even the phenomenology of other people, she can genuinely change some aspects of reality to fit her whims, although no power can change the laws of logic.

It has already been announced that WandaVision will have in-universe ramifications that shape the stories of upcoming MCU films, one of which has to do with the multiverse (the Doctor Strange sequel).  Regardless of how exactly it sets up more of the MCU's Phase Four, WandaVision boldly takes a slower approach to storytelling that directly tackles matters of metaphysics and personal psychology.  Ordinary humans might not be able to exert mental control over other minds or external events, but Wanda's feeble attempts to permanently hide from her own emotions and circumstances mirror how some people act as if willpower structures reality.  Some ambiguities, like the epistemological relationship between sensory perceptions and external matter, remain even in ordinary life nonetheless, making WandaVision more relevant to everyday philosophical matters than some might think.

Cultural And Individualistic Moral Relativism

There are two distinct forms of moral relativism, even if both reduce down to many of the same fallacies and errors.  One is based on collective societal trends and the other is based on personal preferences.  As asinine as it is to believe that either social forces or subjective, individual perception or whim shapes truth itself, the former is more irrational than the latter.  This is because sound epistemology is not even founded on societally common ideas or consensus.  All relativists have rejected alignment with reason, but not all rejections of reason deviate from reason to the same extent.

At least an individualistic relativist has more independent thought and self-awareness than a cultural relativist who truly thinks that their local community or broader culture can make something morally true simply by willing it, all while directly believing that there is no objective morality, from which it would follow that there is no obligation to submit to cultural whims anyway.  A cultural relativist must look to others, starting from a philosophically backwards position of working from that which is not self-evident or necessarily true instead of starting from logical axioms, and insist that one should submit to culture even though there is no objective obligation to do or not do anything at all.  Otherwise, they are not even a cultural relativist!

If nothing else, an individualistic relativist is slightly closer to objective truth by happenstance, as individualism is a correct philosophy centered on individual uniqueness, experiences, and desires, the very existence of which refutes collectivist stereotypes.  The logical fact that other minds cannot even be proven to exist, and therefore are not known to exist, already shatters the veracity of any appeal to social authority, leaving one with the self-verifying nature of logical truths and the existence of one's own mind as the only possible starting points of true knowledge.

This does not mean individualistic relativists have reason to think their worldview valid.  All forms of relativism are inherently false.  That subjective perceptions and preferences exist is at least somewhat obvious on some level to anyone who has ever engaged in even mild introspection and found that they wish one thing over another, but the only thing having preferences means is that one has preferences.  This much is objectively proven by merely having preferences.  Truth itself, including whatever moral obligations may exist, may or may not correspond to those preferences, meaning preferences prove nothing about the existence or nonexistence of moral obligations.  Either way, though, some degrees of relativism deviate further from the necessary truths of reason than others do.

There is no excuse for embracing an internally contradictory and therefore inherently false idea.  Relativism of all kinds is a prime example of that which is self-refuting and thus inherently false.  However, since individual distinctiveness and perception are objective facts of human existence and one's own existence is objectively, infallibly provable to oneself, at least an "individualistic relativist" has deviated from truth less than whoever thinks truth itself is a social construct.  It is logically true regardless of preference that agreement and perception do not make something a part of reality.  This applies by necessity even to perceptions that are not molded by submission to arbitrary, irrelevant societal forces.

The Textual Ramifications Of Language's Arbitrary Meaning

Almost everyone needs to use or interpret language on a daily basis.  That makes the epistemology of language a matter of everyday relevance alongside many other aspects of epistemology, in spite of the seemingly minimal or almost nonexistent effort that is consciously put by many people into philosophically understanding words.  Few ever seem to come to the conclusion that there is no inherent meaning to words [1] without someone else specifically coaxing it out of them, and the rarity of this means bickering over personal communication styles and word choice might be common for some people even to the point of overlooking the concepts supposedly behind the words.  For those who do get past this, though, an important distinction needs attention.

Just because no word has inherent meaning does not mean that words never have objective meaning.  In this case, inherent and objective refer to distinct qualities, with the former referring to an intrinsic nature and the latter referring to the fact that it is objectively true that words mean whatever they were intended to mean.  If I use a word, it objectively means whatever I intend for it to communicate to others or represent to myself in the case of an introspective self-conversation using words.  It is still objectively true that words have no link to specific concepts or experiences on their own, with even the most consistent usage of a word in reference to a concept having nothing to do with any inherent meaning.

Thus, a text like the Bible does have objective linguistic meaning, albeit not in a sense entailing that words are anything more than arbitrary sounds or letters with no fixed definitions.  The meaning of the words therein are not up to the whims or perceptions of readers; they are set in stone by whatever the authors meant by the words at the time of writing.  This is how all oral and written language functions.  People can pretend like the words of the Bible or some other text mean whatever they want them to mean, but this contradicts the truth of how the author's intentions fixed the meaning. 

Concepts are objectively knowable in that even concepts that cannot be proven to be true can be known to logically necessitate certain conclusions.  Every individual who uses language can think about concepts directly and can even have the words of others, spoken or written, prompt thoughts of new concepts despite the fact that the intentions behind the words of others are ultimately unknowable.  Even though the authorial intent behind a text like the Bible cannot be known with absolute certainty (due to a host of epistemological barriers preventing direct knowledge of historical events and the existence or content of other minds), there is still a great deal of evidence that the authors meant certain things by using specific words.

This is the truth of the matter behind the epistemology of language as applied to the context of analyzing specific books like the Bible.  There is no subjective meaning of the text, no shortcut to understanding the meaning by means of assumptions or emotional guidance.  There is also no way to truly get around the logical fact that just because an author had a very specific meaning in mind when using a particular word does not mean that the word has that same meaning when used by other people.  It does not even matter if the other people are from the same generation or a later one; regardless of the era in which they live, their words are their own.

[1].  https://thechristianrationalist.blogspot.com/2017/11/the-relativity-of-language.html

Greed And Capitalism

I am neither a capitalist nor a socialist in any strict sense.  Other than purely logical truths about economic concepts, economics is a social construct that does not even deserve the enormous attention given to it by Western society over more crucial, foundational matters of philosophy like the self-verifying nature of reason, introspective phenomenology, and possibility of absolute certainty.  In an ultimate sense, economics is not even necessary for individual survival, as it only arises in community settings!

All the same, reason divides misrepresentations of concepts from their true natures, and capitalism, like socialism, is widely misunderstood.  While misconceptions of socialism are still quite popular in conservative circles, misrepresentations of capitalism have become more and more mainstream, presenting capitalism as if it is conceptually tied to environmental destruction, abuse of workers, and incorrigible selfishness, all for the sake of greed.  People who support capitalism are said to be corrupt schemers or corrupted pawns.

The truth is more nuanced than this.  Capitalism and greed are not inseparable in the sense that concepts like stupidity and relativism or skepticism of logical truths are.  It is impossible to be rational and in denial of logical axioms at the same time, but it is possible to endorse and partake in capitalism without being driven by greed.  On its own, capitalism is simply about free markets.  The presence of any government regulation or intervention at all means that a purely capitalistic system is not in place.  Thus, many people for or against what they might call American capitalism may not have realized that even America is not a country without any socialistic tendencies built in.

Different participants in a capitalistic society can have wildly different intentions, moral stances, and broad philosophies beyond capitalism.  Treating each of them as if they represent the exact same approaches to capitalism is as irrational and unjust as treating all socialists as if they want a totalitarian ruling class to forcibly redistribute an entire society's wealth until no citizen has more or less wealth than another.  Greed could be an individual person's motivation to distort the basic concept of capitalism or socialism, but the concepts themselves need to be analyzed apart from how some people use or misuse them.

Capitalism can certainly be implemented out of motivations like greed, selfishness, and a blind desire for materialistic comfort.  So can socialism.  No broad economic system is inherently tied to greed, as only specific approaches to these broader systems involves the desire for personal enrichment without end, without purpose, and without regard for other people.  The truth is more nuanced than any liberal eager to demonize the whole of capitalism or any conservative eager to demonize the whole of socialism would understand.  Greed is only a characteristic of individual people who yield to it, not a feature of capitalism--or socialism.

How Erotic Media Does Not Degrade Opposite Gender Friendships

The creation and use of sexual imagery of the Biblically valid kind [1] is something men and women can enjoy without shame, but there are many slanderous accusations thrown at them from inside and outside of the church.  Some assert that sexual images, videos, and writings are inherently offensive, while others claim that to use erotic media while dating or married is a betrayal of one's romantic relationship.  In hopes of persuading people to avoid even minimally using erotic media, there are those who say that erotic media will damage a user's friendships with members of the opposite gender by influencing the user to see them as nothing but attractive or sexually enticing bodies instead of as whole persons who may or may not be sexually attractive and arousing.

Looking at sensual or sexual imagery of the opposite gender to stir up sexual attraction, to masturbate, or to accomplish both or some other nonsinful goal does not make someone view their opposite gender friends in a sexual way or override their ability to behave normally even if they do feel sexual attraction towards them.  This objection to erotic media wildly exaggerates the influence of sexual impulses and excitement on all individuals, treating sexual motivations as the primary factor that shapes human thoughts and relationships.  Even having focused sexual feelings about a person does not automatically displace or prevent other sorts of emotions from being experienced towards them.

Erotic media may or may not impact someone who uses it in a way that changes how they perceive friends of the opposite gender, but it is up to the individual men and women who use erotic media to decide how they interact.  Whatever changes it might bring are purely psychological and individualistic, having no ability to cause anyone act sexually towards an opposite gender friend.  Sexual admiration of members of the opposite gender whom a person would otherwise not think of in a way that is even remotely connected to sexuality is not the same as sexual interpersonal behaviors.

There is nothing Biblically immoral about feeling sexual attraction to certain friends of the opposite gender, nor is there anything immoral about using these select friends as stimulation for self-pleasuring [2], but it would be wrong to objectify someone of the opposite gender, friend or stranger, by thinking of them as nothing more than a means to sexual gratification.  While using erotic media could indeed create a sexual filter through which some users see some members of the opposite gender, it can never make someone sexually objectify others.

The claim that sexual images and videos of the opposite gender harms one's relationships with the other gender, like almost all arguments against erotic media itself, commits the slippery slope fallacy while treating sexuality as something to be feared and shunned.  It is not sexuality itself that is destructive, degrading, or objectifying, and it is thus not erotic media, the depiction of sexual imagery for the purpose of arousal, that is responsible for any of such outcomes.  Individual people, as is always the case, are capable of misusing an innocent thing for selfish or harmful ends, even to the point of forgetting that friends of the opposite gender have more than one dimension.


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

[2].  https://thechristianrationalist.blogspot.com/2018/09/masturbating-to-mental-imagery.html

Negative Numbers

Negative numbers and decimals share something in common other than being related to numbers.  For the most part, they have no connection to foundational logical truths or physical objects.  There are concepts that are governed by reason, as all things are, which do not represent necessary truths or aspects of the material world because they can only exist as concepts that have no impact on anything else.  Logic dictates what does and does not follow from them, but they do not ultimately concern anything beyond themselves.

These numbers are not like natural numbers in that there is no such thing as 13.67 rocks, though there can be 13 rocks or 14 rocks in a given place.  Similarly, there cannot be such a thing as -7 rocks in the physical world--physical objects can only have positive quantities.  No one will ever find a negative number of fish in the ocean or trees on a plot of land; there can be zero fish or trees, but no one even needs to search for a negative number of animals or objects because such a thing is logically impossible.

As long as a person is aware of the concept of negative numbers, or even of decimals, they can deduce all of this without any sensory input at all.  Now, it is very unlikely that anyone would ever realize or need to come to the notion of negative numbers outside of a socially constructed educational context.  There is simply no immediate philosophical reason someone would have for thinking of these initial concepts on their own unless they had the explicit goal of thinking of ideas that cannot be true in reality (unlike the concepts directly tied to the laws of logic), like the idea of an infinite past.

Negative numbers only exist on a purely conceptual plane, having no relevance to anything about reality other than themselves.  They neither illuminate anything about the core nature of logic nor reveal new logical truths about the external world.  In other words, they represent a self-contained part of mathematics that is only within the realm of concepts that can be conceived of without any further consequence.  Such numbers are not a part of reality in any way beyond this.  Some mathematicians might believe otherwise, but they are simply indulging in irrational metaphysics.

Game Review--Borderlands 2: Game Of The Year Edition (Switch)

"Once upon a time, four Vault Hunters changed Pandora forever.  But their time has passed -- thanks to Handsome Jack, Pandora needs a new hero.  I know that hero is you."
--Angel, Borderlands 2

"Did you know littering in Opportunity is punishable by death?  If not, you also oughtta know complaining about Opportunity's laws is considered verbal littering."
--Handsome Jack, Borderlands 2


Borderlands 2 towers above its predecessor in almost every way, with its far greater emphasis on worldbuilding, comedy, and parodies of everything from Star Wars to Game of Thrones to Se7en to The Hunger Games to Transformers to The Lion King.  The philosophical side of the series is also finally put on better display.  Borderlands 2 builds on the first game's promising but often undeveloped references to issues like artificial intelligence and corporate greed, but it also expands the scope to far more immediately pressing philosophical issues like general ethics and foundational epistemology (in some cases)--all while evolving the mechanics of the gameplay to make them deeper.  The Switch's Game of the Year Edition also includes an extensive set of DLC missions and locations that far outnumber those in the first game!

Production Values

As is usually the case with sequels to older games, there is a distinct improvement in the colors, details, and size of the world, the best of the visual effects transcending the comparatively dull aesthetic of the original game.  Even more integral to the plot and worldbuilding is the enormous increase in dialogue.  Not only do more NPCs speak regularly, but the character one chooses to play as also makes comments for the first time in the Borderlands series.  The more thorough dialogue is what most contributes to the comedy themes that span philosophy, pop culture, and self-referential statements.  The expanded scope of the dialogue is one of the primary production decisions that establishes just how far the series has come from its severely underdeveloped starting point.

Gameplay

All of the basic features of the gameplay in the original Borderlands return: co-op is an option throughout the entire game, players obtain randomized loot they can sell or equip, and subsequent playthroughs carry over all previous items while granting access to superior weapons.  The first few missions are short, like those of the initial game.  Other than this, the mechanics and structure of Borderlands 2 have matured.  There are far more weapons, and some of the weapon subtypes (categorized by the companies that make them) have new features.  Tediore firearms are thrown like grenades when reloaded, for instance.

Unlike in the preceding game, dying triggers a refill of all nearby enemies' health bars, meaning that bosses cannot be slowly defeated across multiple respawns at New-U stations.  The bosses are far more diverse this time as well, whereas only a handful of bosses were blatantly distinct before.  Some of the best villains are not bosses, though.  The characterization of various allies and villains alike gives more depth to the quests taken on their behalf.  Not all of those quests are easy, but a higher level cap, a more extensive skill tree, and a larger amount of DLC content provide plenty of opportunities to improve one's characters.

The passive weapon class upgrades of the first Borderlands are nowhere to be seen, but completing optional in-game achievements like killing certain numbers of enemies with a specific weapon class or finding Vault symbols in different locations now awards Badass Tokens after enough challenges are finished.  Badass Tokens can be used to obtain special enhancements that apply to every character one plays with on the same Switch profile, though they can also be toggled on and off at will for those who prefer to play without them.  Similar challenges were in the first Borderlands, but completing them did not unlock points, Tokens, or upgrades of any kind (though they did provide XP).

Story

Some spoilers are below.

A new Vault Hunter wakes up on the planet Pandora, meeting a Claptrap unit and an artificial intelligence named Angel who guide the newcomer towards Sanctuary, a haven for those oppressed by the Hyperion Corporation.  Led by the sadistic and egoistic Handsome Jack, Hyperion searches for a Vault that might be larger than the one located in the first Borderlands game at the finale of the main story.  Handsome Jack seized power of Hyperion in events addressed very thoroughly in The Pre-Sequel.  Sanctuary's resistance movement achieves victories, some of which backfire, but some of them provide a possible way to stop Jack from summoning an ancient, monstrous being called the Warrior.

Intellectual Content

The host of philosophical jokes or comments touch on everything from individualistic psychology to the idiocy of people who claim to "know" a divine figure spoke to them in a dream to the possibility of an AI revolt.  Some of the comments characters make about various issues are downright incomplete or asinine, such as Claptrap's claim that humor reduces down to subverting expectations (repetitive or expected things can be comedic) and a late man's assertion in a side quest that only one's mind can be known with absolute certainty (logic, the existence of the present moment, the existence of space, and the existence of some sort of physical body for one's mind can all be known, with numerous truths about each also being provable), while others are rather close to rationalistic truths.  On Pandora, force and humor are the two main ways characters establish themselves, so the latter category of acknowledged truths is mentioned by seeming happenstance more than out of genuine intelligence and concern for truth.  Philosophy is still an integral part of many jokes!

Conclusion

Borderlands 2 is the game that transitions the series from one holding potential to one marked by excellence.  Before this sequel, the franchise was merely a mixture of promising ideas without any sort of justifying narrative or lore.  With this release, Borderlands became one of the deepest and most replayable series of the past 20 years.  Returning characters have more personality; the new villain has a far stronger set of motivations; the missions have more prominent and more culturally significant instances of humor.  The depth of the world expands to the point that not a single aspect of the first game's lore stands above that of the second.  With all of the expansive, diverse DLC campaigns and side quests, the Game of the year Edition on the Switch is the best way to play Borderlands 2 on a handheld device (the only other handheld platform it is on is the PlayStation Vita), and it would even be a great way to play the game for traditional console players who have played it before without thoroughly scouring its depths.

Content:

 1.  Violence:  Blood and mild gore is shown when non-machine enemies are shot or killed.

 2.  Profanity:  Words like "damn," "bitch," and "bastard" are used.

The Neglect Of Male Beauty

In plenty of entertainment, romantic relationships, and events in everyday life, the male body is emphasized less than the female body and may even be described as if it is a humorous, repulsive thing.  Western culture clearly fixates on the female body as if it is useful for little other than receiving sexual appreciation from men and simultaneously ignores the male body to a large extent.  The examples of this are on full display in the world of media, but they can also be observed in everyday reactions between random women and other women, random men and other men, and random men and women.

If the camera lingers over someone's body in order to emphasize its sensuality, the body probably belongs to a woman (and this is not degrading unless the motive is to degrade her!).  If a random person publicly compliments someone else's appearance, the recipient of the compliment is probably a woman.  If someone jokes about how "unpresentable" someone else's body is in a film or in daily life, that body usually belongs to a man.  The female body is regularly elevated on a pedestal in entertainment and in other aspects of culture as the opposite is done to the male body.

There are not male and female psychological needs.  There are human needs that men and women both experience regarding how they want their bodies to be perceived by others.  Many women want to be seen as more than their aesthetic appeal, and many men want to have their bodies recognized for their sensuality and aesthetic potential.  As prudery becomes less mainstream in Western culture (despite all of its retreats, it is still very much alive in the West) and more people become comfortable with sharing their true selves as gender stereotypes are rejected, these two facts will be embraced more widely than they already are in some circles.

The same aesthetic perceptions are not shared by all people, but even if they were not dictated by subjective or cultural factors, it would still be fallacious to believe that men and women possess differing levels of physical beauty or sex appeal based on gender.  Different individuals, some being men and some being women, might be more objectively beautiful than others (not that subjective aesthetic perceptions can ever establish what makes something physically beautiful, if objective beauty exists at all), but this has nothing to do with perceptions of beauty, personal preferences, or a person's gender [1].

This does not mean that female nudity and the female body in general need to be celebrated less, although there are many people who need to realize that there is nothing sexual about the female body, clothed or unclothed--and that the female body is not more sensual than the male body.  It means that both the male and female body need to be recognized as nonsexual and sensual if individuals and cultures are to have a right understanding of the matter.  Open appreciation of the male or female body does not have to pretend like one is more aesthetically perfect than the other.

[1].  https://thechristianrationalist.blogspot.com/2016/12/the-beauty-of-both-genders.html

A Rationalistic Society

A rationalistic society would scarcely resemble the ideological wasteland filled with philosophical assumptions leading in every direction that Western culture ultimately reduces down to.  Western society is sometimes called rationalistic because of the philosophically erroneous on scientific progress [1], but reason is distinct from, beyond, and above science, so rationalism and science are in no way identical.  A culture immersed in rationalism would look very different than what many elements of contemporary Western life and philosophy look like.

A rationalistic society would not be one of scientism, relativism, or tolerance, and it would be composed of many individual rationalists who all look to reason itself instead of cultural norms and popular concepts (of course, there would still be conversations about philosophy that might help guide some of them towards certain truths, but even then they would look to reason instead of merely accepting the claims of others).  In this regard, it is simply a society where the number of rationalists is exponentially increased and where consistent rationalists are not in the minority.  It would also be a cauldron of forces that would orient otherwise irrational people towards rationality.

Even people without any philosophical initiative, those who would never gravitate towards philosophy out of subjective interest or its all-encompassing importance, could be pressured and manipulated into embracing rationalism to some extent.  If someone is intellectually weak enough to let others decide their worldview, a rationalistic society would simply redirect their ideological path towards rational conclusions.  The person being molded by society would not be choosing a rational worldview for sound reasons, but others could avert an even worse outcome.

Perhaps they would wake from their apathy or unintelligence and reason out familiar and new truths themselves, but, even if this never happened, at least the damage they could inflict on their culture would be minimized.  There would not be scores of individuals blindly following dozens of non-rationalistic ideas at the prompting of conflicting cultural forces.  Instead, there would be an overarching rationalistic tendency in the culture that philosophically competent individuals would endorse out of their own genuine rationality and that many philosophically incompetent individuals would support or resign themselves to simply because their culture says to.

Observing and talking to others generally reveals immense evidence that almost no one is a rationalist, and social conditioning is very often an unintentional but chief factor.  It would be ideal for every individual person to become a rationalist on their own, of course, and only when a person either becomes a rationalist strictly due to their own initiative or deconstructs and analyzes every culturally popular idea they have assumed to be true can they have a sound worldview.  Short of this extremely unlikely scenario, the rationalistic people in a given society can still exert an influence over those who intentionally outsource their worldview formation to others or fail to construct a valid worldview out of sheer laziness.


[1].  https://thechristianrationalist.blogspot.com/2019/12/how-western-culture-overestimates.html

The Social Focus Of Marriage

Logically and Biblically speaking, marriage is about individual people committing to each other out of genuine willingness after rational reflection.  Anything less is shallow, insincere, or dangerous for the health of the relationship.  While this is far from the most controversial logical or Biblical fact about marriage, what follows from it may not be acknowledged even by those who discover the former.  An authentic marriage is about the parties involved mutually choosing each other for the other partner's sake, not for the sake of appeasing those outside of the relationship.

There can be social benefits that marriage brings, of course, but, given that two people are both rational and morally equal, marriage is at its core an individualistic relationship.  A marriage can exist without those outside of it and can even exist apart from a community context, as a marriage relationship is not about legal standing or public recognition, but it cannot exist without the partners who have come together.  It is by definition about the union of partners before it is about anyone outside of the marriage at all.  Despite this, there is no shortage of outsiders who act as if their arbitrary perceptions and expectations should guide how couples carry themselves or whether they remain together in the first place.

The basic concept of marriage is not about pleasing or benefitting the families of either partner.  In fact, the satisfaction of either partner's family is not only far from the center of marriage, but it is also totally irrelevant to the concept of marriage in itself.  Some people will certainly hope they have not offended their family in choosing a specific marriage partner, and there is nothing inherently asinine about this.  Treating family affairs as if they are anything more than an optional and sometimes pleasant afterthought only honored out of subjective preference or sheer pragmatism (in the case of partners trying to escape severely dysfunctional families) is where the error begins.

There is nothing in the Bible holding that marriage is first and foremost about one's biological family.  More importantly, there is nothing about marriage from which it logically follows that a marriage is about family members outside of the relationship whatsoever.  Their wishes can be safely disregarded in many cases, as the only things a rational marriage is built on other than mutual affection or willingness is reason and shared moral priorities.  A parent's or sibling's approval is a red herring to whether a marriage is based on rationality.

Philosophy In Television (Part 1): The Purge

"The truth is the only thing more powerful than this regime.  Demand the truth . . . no matter the cost."

--Esme Carmona, The Purge (season two, episode 10)

The basic premise of The Purge franchise has a high amount of philosophical and storytelling potential, so it was only fitting that the movies spawned a show set in the same universe.  The worldbuilding skyrockets in season two, but both seasons inevitably bring up the moral issues of having an annual "holiday" where all crimes except attacks on government members and those using specific weapons are legal for a full 12 hours.  While it becomes clear partway through the show (and likely through the movies, although I have yet to view any of them) that the American political party called the New Founding Fathers are using the Purge as a way to manipulate lower class members into killing each other to revitalize the economy and supposedly reduce crime rates, there are far more important issues than classism that come up.

One of the most obvious is the nature of moral obligations themselves.  Characters repeatedly attempt to dismiss moral objections to their behaviors by insisting what they did was perfectly legal, as if the having a law against something makes it immoral or not having a law against something makes it morally permissible.  Unsurprisingly, many of them switch between clinging to legality or moral ideas as it becomes convenient for them.  For example, thief Ryan Grant from season two uses this exact defense on occasion, only for it to be revealed that he left his job as a police officer years before for moral reasons, not legal reasons.  The only way that this would not entail ideological insincerity is if he was only appealing to the law in his words in order to hopefully appease someone stupid enough to believe that legality defines morality, but it is never said that this was the case.

Another thing that shapes how certain characters regard the moral nature of the annual Purge is the fallacious idea that there is "science" behind the psychological benefits of the Purge.  Confusing fallible sensory evidence of people's brain activity for logical proof, another character from the second season tries to build a case against the New Founding Father party's claim that the Purge reduces violent urges for the rest of the year.  Of course, a more collectively intelligent culture would scoff at the belief that science is in any way relevant to whether something is right or wrong or that anything other than valid moral concepts (illuminated by reason) should determine laws, but the New Founding Fathers regard a Dr. Drew Adams's brain activity research on addiction to violence as worth suppressing through killing.

It is very fucking clear that robbery, assault, kidnapping, and rape are objectively harmful or intrusive acts, so it is not as if studies about the impact of the Purge on survivors is necessary to understand logical truths about the nature of violence.  Moreover, the way the Purge affects someone's emotions and desires is a purely subjective matter, making Dr. Adams's alleged data that the Purge makes people become addicted to violence all throughout the year irrelevant to its morality.  If murder and rape are morally wrong, it has nothing to do with how it affects people's feelings about them.  Since the only philosophically authoritative laws are consistent with each other and morality, this is also irrelevant to whether something should be criminalized or legalized.

Moreover, the part of the Purge announcement that specifically mentions murder when stating that all crimes are legal for 12 hours--other than particularly asinine and arbitrary exceptions like using certain kinds of weaponry, of all things--plays off of the pathetic idea that murder is inherently more harmful than actions like rape and most forms of torture.  Why else would it need to be clarified that ending someone's life, even with minimal or no pain, is included in the list of crimes that become "legal" for a time, as opposed to something with far more potential to cause pain, like rape or extended torture?  Indeed, even when murders are especially heinous, it is always because of some factor other than the mere case that someone was killed.

Still, murder itself merits a special analysis here because of how some people define it.  Sometimes the word for murder is defined as "unlawful" killing rather than "illicit" killing.  This, of course, would imply that any killing at all, no matter the method or person on the receiving end, is morally valid--or at least morally permissible--as long as it is not strictly illegal.  It is concepts that words stand on, however, not the other way around.  The moral concept of murder as illicit killing, if true, means that an absence of a legal system or the presence of a legal system that does not criminalize murder cannot make murder valid.  If murder is objectively wrong, law is irrelevant.  If there is no such thing as objective morality, then law can have no moral authority anyway, and thus any appeal to law is useless in either case.

Murder is among a far broader spectrum of predatory acts shown or discussed in the TV series for The Purge, but it is also at the heart of the show's themes and story.  The Purge portrays just one of many examples of what could hypothetically happen if enough individuals in a society pursue blind patriotism, fulfilment of personal desires, and the conflation of legality and morality.  A nation of hypocrites and gratuitous carnage is all that fictional America has to show thanks to the Purge holiday, other than money from lip service to the supposed "right" to inflict any cruelty on others once a year.  The inflexible nature of any actual moral obligations cannot be changed by having a legal system take a stance for or against it.  The immorality of an action and its deserved legal punishment are not matters of preference: evil is either real or not, but social norms are meaningless either way.

The Epistemology Of Calculators

Everyday objects like calculators, whether those on smartphones or devices created primarily/solely for mathematical calculations, are far more related to explicitly philosophical truths and issues than many people seem to realize.  The use of a calculator is mainly reserved for more complicated mathematical problems that the typical person cannot or does not want to solve in their own minds.  After all, there are numerous math problems that many individuals have probably never specifically thought about or that they would almost never have a need to focus on.

For example, a random person would probably not know what 20,759 multiplied by 8,031 equals even though they are at least somewhat aware that it is not 120 or 5,000.  They would also likely be aware that a number such as 16 trillion is too high.  However, they would almost certainly not be familiar with the exact number that results--which means they could not simply look at a calculator after multiplying those factors and be aware of the actual product.  If pressed, many people would likely push back against this, but it is sound all the same!

They might rightly acknowledge that the calculator is accurate unless it is defective or sabotaged, but then they merely assume it is not malfunctioning unless they refrain from believing that which they cannot prove.  It is not that this is even a particularly devastating assumption in that it dictates much about how one lives, but it is nonetheless a practical example of how epistemological validity is often completely sidestepped in daily life.  One assumption can easily be accompanied by another, and none are justified in the first place.

Unless someone knows the exact number that multiplying the two factors leads to, they do not truly know if the calculator is accurate--unless they are using it to calculate comparatively simple mathematical operations like adding three and five.  Even using a calculator to perform the addition of one and one and seeing the correct numerical symbols would not prove that other calculations are also accurate, however.  In other words, a person can only know a calculator is accurate if they solve for a number they already know.

That such a basic, seemingly overlooked part of life for so many people is ultimately adrift in uncertainty might be difficult for some to confront or accept.  All the same, belief that calculators have some other kind of epistemological status is inherently flawed.  By necessity, any other position is borne only from ignorance or stupidity.  No one needs to fret over this fact every time they use a calculator for a mathematical calculation they cannot pinpoint on their own, but the truth of the matter can never be validly denied.

Fear Of Online Sexual Expression

There is nothing to fear about exploring sexuality through rationalism and introspection, but there is much to fear about hedonism and prudery.  Both have the power to plunge a person and the society around them into a hellscape of fallacies, contradictions, and destructive psychological tendencies and behaviors.  Neither can deliver individuals or cultures from false ideas and incomplete truths.  Evangelicals are quick to acknowledge the destructiveness of hedonism, even if their arguments might be unsound, but they generally fight to preserve the influence of prudery.  In turn, the support of prudery directly leads to an evangelical anxiety over the internet and the fact that it can be used to share sexual content.

The internet offers a significant range of educational material and material intended for erotic stimulation, otherwise called erotic media.  Sexual legalism would have people shun these materials even when they do not contradict Biblical obligations [1], even to the point of disallowing children from having access to the internet altogether, except perhaps when there is strict adult supervision.  Just as evangelicals might resort to arbitrary condemnations of profanity out of "concern" for children, they might try to make others feel guilty if they do not shield teenagers or those of an even younger age from having access to the internet due to prudery and fear.

One of the final false refuges of evangelical legalists when it comes to this matter is the insistence that erotic media and open sexual expression in general, even of the kind they would otherwise admit is Biblically permissible, is harmful to children.  This is often meant in a sense far broader than just meaning that erotic media featuring children is evil, and basing the condemnation of an entire subset of art and entertainment for the sake of how it could be abused would only be a slippery slope fallacy that leaves them ideologically defenseless.  What is often meant is that sexual material of practically any kind is harmful for children because it is sexual material!

On a Christian worldview, such a position inherently contradicts other aspects of Biblical theology.  God himself intentionally gave humans sexual urges, feelings, and physiology, and the fact that children and teenagers can become very deeply aware of this should not frighten any Christian adult.  If something isn't dangerous or sinful, there is no reason whatsoever to shield children from it, as it would not be dangerous or sinful for them either.  A child's individual intellectual, spiritual, and emotional development dictate when they are prepared to learn or handle specific truths.  It is not as if God created human sexuality only for it to be morally reprehensible for children to experience curiosity about it!

Adolescents and adults alike can express themselves sexually and appreciate the sexual expression of others by means of internet usage.  There is no greater tool other than reason and introspection for the person who seeks to explore their own sexuality as thoroughly as they can, and there is no logical or Biblical basis for discouraging those beneath 18 years of age from taking advantage of the opportunities to use the internet as an aid for sexual self-examination, with or without masturbation.  Age means nothing.  Individual maturity and concern for truth is what both children and adults need in order to understand sexuality to the fullest extent possible, and understanding themselves is part of that goal.

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

Movie Review--Glory

"We will offer pride and dignity to those who have known only degradation."
--Frederick Douglas, Glory


Despite its deep impact on American history, the Civil War is overlooked in mainstream cinema in favor of World War II, the conflict that has eclipsed practically all other wars in entertainment.  The small number of Civil War movies helps the high quality of its best examples stand out all the more.  Among these is Glory, centering on the 54th Massachusetts, the first black regiment to fight for the Union.  The challenges, triumphs, and nuances of forming the first black regiment that fought for the Union Army in the Civil War are the heart of the film.  In fact, the first large action sequence comes almost 80 minutes in precisely because the characters and themes come first.  Lincoln's own racist ideas and the casual sexism against both genders that marked the day are left in the background of the film, secondary to the immediate racism that plagues even some whites and blacks in the Union army.


Production Values

Thanks to the subject matter and time at which it was made, Glory requires little more than practical effects and strong performances.  The movie delivers on both fronts.  The practical effects reflect the status of cinema at the time while also allowing characterization and a stark look into significant themes to take the lead.  Glory is acted very well, with even the supporting cast giving excellent performances.  Morgan Freeman, Matthew Broderick, Cary Elwes, and Denzel Washington have the primary roles, each one contributing to the tangle of personalities that forms the 54th Massachusetts.  Without sincere acting, the movie would have very little to keep it afloat, but there is not even a weak link to be found.


Story

Some spoilers are below.

Union colonel Robert Gould Shaw is given the chance to lead the first African American regiment in Lincoln's army, the 54th Massachusetts.  Even though liberating the slaves is an objective of the Union, even some Northern soldiers harbor attitudes towards blacks that resemble those of the Confederacy, forcing the 54th to deal with racism against them from inside their own army.  Colonel Shaw proves to be committed to racial egalitarianism despite the cultural forces around him, and the regiment slowly develops to a state of combat readiness.


Intellectual Content

While even Lincoln himself serves as an example of how someone can do what is just without consistently caring about truth and justice (with his racism against blacks), the 54th Massachusetts finds an ally in its colonel in a sea of prejudice within the Union Army, of all places.  The mistreatment the regiment experiences within the army supposedly trying to end the slavery of their fellow African Americans holds the complexities of racial justice to light in ways that modern films almost always tend to avoid or mishandled.  Glory never flinches from showing that a faction fighting to end one type of racial injustice can help perpetuate others and that a person of any skin color can be racist towards other people of any skin color--even their own.

One black recruit talks mockingly to another African American who, according to him, talks like white people--as if anyone's speech patterns and word choices are determined by their race, as opposed to individualistic and cultural factors!  A fellow member of the regiment later chastises him for his own racism against whites, while Robert refuses his own pay when it is revealed that his black regiment will be paid $10 a month instead of the $13 promised to them and paid to white Union soldiers.  It is through deeds like this that Robert shows his resolve to treat blacks and whites equally when even the army fighting for the end of Confederate racial slavery is guilty of racism.

Sometimes Robert's equal treatment of whites and blacks means putting some of his soldiers in situations that might be emotionally traumatic, such as when he has a black deserter flogged with a whip despite the objections of a white soldier--racial equality does mean the death of double standards for any race, of course, even when empathy or affection is the motivator.  However, he stands out as a white who is consistent in his racial egalitarianism to the point of winning over what seems to be his entire regiment, a group of soldiers that collectively demonstrates how blacks are no less capable of discipline and military competence than whites.  So integral and well handled is the issue of racism that the film as a whole is one of the best movies about the matter in all of cinema.


Conclusion

Glory, with its unique approach to exploring the social and philosophical conflicts that split a nation in two, shows how there is far more to cinematically depict from the Civil War than battles like Gettysburg.  Racism and its role in sparking the war provides enough material for stories to focus on it even though it is often pushed to the side in other films that also tackle the same period of time.  Indeed, there is far more to the Civil War than even its most decisive and renowned battles.  The primary reasons why the war began in the first place are worth emphasizing just as much, if not more than the events themselves.


Content:
 1.  Violence:  Several scenes show soldiers shooting and stabbing each other without using graphic imagery of dismemberment.
 2.  Profanity:  "Bastard" is heard multiple times.  "Shit" is also used.

Mathematical Truths

Everyone must utilize at least some awareness of mathematical truths to function on a practical level, as well as to function on an abstract level where quantities of any kind are involved.  Anyone who sees multiple rocks, vehicles, trees, or any other material object and recognizes the distinction between one item and another that belong in the same broad category grasps basic mathematical facts to some extent.  One can understand some foundational truths about addition or numeric sequences, to name a handful of examples, without having a developed understanding of what follows from the more foundational aspects of arithmetic, but there are far more explicitly metaphysical truths that can be reasoned out by reflecting on the nature of numbers.

Numbers are neither physical objects nor mere linguistic symbols.  Mathematical truths confine physical objects, hence why nine trees will always be nine trees and not six or any other number, and numbers can be assigned words or symbols meant to refer to them.  Thus, physical matter and language still have connections to mathematics despite math transcending them both.  There is also the further, more foundational connection of all things being governed by the truths of logic: logical truths preside over every aspect of reality, including numbers, languages, and material objects.  Equating these three with each other due to a misunderstanding of their connections is still a blatant error.

Because it pertains to the numeric applications of logic, mathematics deals with a particular subset of necessary truths--logic itself is all-encompassing, far broader than numbers alone could possibly be.  Without logic, numbers could not have any conceptual relationship with each other or any sort of inherent truth that forces itself on the material world.  Other than math, however, there is still an enormous amount of logical truths that can be known even if not all of them are known by a single person.  There is nonetheless no aspect of reality that is exempt from truths about numbers because mathematical truths, like all logical truths, cannot be false.

Mathematical truths are not happenstance, contingent constructs of perception or matter.  Even if no minds existed to grasp them and no matter existed to physically reflect them, numerical concepts would still be true and would thus still exist.  Numbers and the relationships between them are not arbitrary or dependent on things that could have been some other way.  It follows that numbers, understood properly, can be used to refute solipsism, strict naturalism, the idea that the uncaused cause (God) created everything in existence (here is a separate post addressing the necessary existence of mathematical truths in a theistic context [1]), and any other philosophy that ultimately contradicts the truth that mathematical facts, as well as any logical fact, exist without reference to matter, minds, or time.

[1].  https://thechristianrationalist.blogspot.com/2018/10/refuting-mathematics-applicability.html

The Slippery Slope Fallacy

Other than looking to the nature of an act or personal or shared feelings about it, looking to the outcome of an action is the only major option for someone deciding how to live.  Emotional perceptions and preferences can be almost immediately ruled out as soon as a person seriously considers which options have any sort of logically possible relationship to any moral obligations that might not exist.  Even those who do not become moral relativists might still become utilitarians even after ruling out emotions as a basis of moral guidance, despite the many fallacies inherent in utilitarianism's emphasis on the results of actions.

The belief that the outcome of a certain action dictates its moral nature is just a variation of what might be embraced on the grounds of slippery slope fallacies, objections to behaviors or attitudes based on what they might or might not lead to.  Of course, it is not logically invalid to realize and admit that certain things could result from prior circumstances or events!  This is not the fallacy; believing or insisting that an act or stance is negative because of what it might lead to is fallacious.  If an idea is not untrue or an act is not immoral, then all possible consequences or reactions to the idea/act have no relevance in establishing the nature of the thing itself.  Supposing that the final step in a series of events or decisions determines the moral nature of the first step is purely fallacious utilitarian thinking.

This applies to absolutely anything that a person could inquire about, for the disconnect between the premises and conclusions of slippery slope fallacies never disappear when the topic changes.  The emotional concern around a subject has no bearing on this.  The social controversy around a subject has no relevance.  All that matters is the nature of the idea, action, or decision which might lead to an outcome that some people will subjectively desire and that some people will subjectively fear.  Even an innocent or harmless thing could be feared, hated, or mismanaged, no matter its nature or consequences.

It does not matter if nuclear weapons can destroy the earth, if alcohol can reduce someone to a drunken stupor, or if masturbation can overtake someone's thoughts at almost all times.  None of these things--or anything else whatsoever--can be legitimately objected to based on some possible outcome, no matter how probable that outcome is.  Either an idea conforms to reality or does not, but the actions of its proponents have nothing to do with the matter.  Either a course of action is morally wrong or morally permissible, but what it might lead to does not dictate the nature of the action.

Slippery slopes are inherently fallacious when used as "justifications" for any moral position.  They have no place in moral reflection and discussion except as examples of irrational ideas about moral reasoning.  Irrationalistic communities gravitate towards utilitarian claims about consequences because it is easier to fear things that might not happen at all than it is to consistently reject non sequitur scare tactics.  That is all that slippery slope fallacies can ever amount to, even when an entire group of people feels overwhelmed by discomfort at possible futures that do not reveal the nature of any first step.

Autonomy In Childhood Worldview Development

Some kinds of autonomy will likely be instilled in children after a period of guidance or education, such as autonomy in performing everyday tasks of practicality like cooking.  This type of autonomy may even be built up over many years.  Sound parental suggestion is particularly helpful in such cases, as the specifics of cooking a given meal are not self-evident whatsoever.  However, reason is self-evident, and looking to parents as epistemological authorities (or anyone else) is contrary to reason in that reason grounds knowledge, not the words of other people.  This does not mean parents have no responsibilities when it comes to the philosophical development of their sons and daughters; it means they play an optional, unecessary, supporting role at most.

Parents fail to live rationally if they tolerate or ignore any irrational ideas their kids embrace.  At the same time, a child is the one actually at fault for embracing or not giving up fallacious ideas whether or not they were pushed in the right direction by their parents.  No matter how apathetic or irrational their parents were, there is never an excuse for not personally constructing an accurate worldview based on reason; parental circumstances do not make reason itself more or less accessible.  Children are not incapable of utilizing reason without inconsistencies and assumptions, and adults can seldom boast a sound worldview.  Even a young boy or girl is not automatically forced to accept an irrational concept as if it is true no matter what their parents say--or do not say.

Complaining about how a "lack of parenting" is supposedly responsible for the stupidity of certain teenagers or young adults is merely an invalid reaction.  Yes, parents are guilty of neglecting an integral aspect of their children's lives if they have no interest in at least observing where they are at and pointing them in the right direction if a child truly seems unwilling to do so on their own, but an individual person cannot be exempted from their own intellectual development when everyone can access reason to at least whatever extent is needed to understand logical axioms and their own existence, even if they never directly reflect on them.  Parents and their kids simply have different responsibilities in a child's worldview development.

Indeed, it is a child's role in their own development that is more vital, foundational, necessary, and direct than anything a parent could possibly manage.  Someone can disregard their parents' influence or ignore it altogether, but no one can escape their own mind.  As such, everyone can dissect concepts and experiences directly without looking to their parents for a great deal of philosophical matters.  No child needs to wait for the prompting of their parents!  Fathers and mothers do not therefore have a monopoly on developing the worldviews of their sons and daughters, and any other way would be less personal, secure, and oriented towards pure reason as it is.

Outward Behavioral Observations

A rationalist who truly makes no assumptions refrains from assuming either negative or positive things about others, even when directly observing them.  Assumptions have not been proven (which is not even possible in the case of some ideas) by their very nature, but sometimes assumptions about the worldviews or personalities of others are more erroneous than others.  Certain hypothetical or relatable experiences can show just how little about these aspects of a person direct observation can yield.

A person who assumes that there is an external world, a person who believes there is no external world, and a person who believes in the existence of the external world because of the only way to prove one exists [1] could all behave identically on the outside.  There is not necessarily any distinguishing factor on a behavioral level.  All three might talk to other people as if they exist, speak of items like apples and cars as if they exist, and act as if these particular objects are real.

It is impossible for anyone without the ability to literally see into the minds of others (if they exist in the first place) to know if a random person who talks about such material objects as if they can specifically be known to exist is only using language in a conventional way for the sake of practicality or if they are actually assuming the object exists because it is perceived.  Even then, it would only be because of the telepathy that the contents of the other mind could be known, not because of spoken words.

In other words, while a person's worldview inevitably dictates how they live, not every individual action is shaped by a specific overarching worldview.  Whether someone is aware of the relationship between their worldview, personal psychology, and actions or not, more practical types of behavior could easily look identical no matter who is performing them or what their motives are.  A person has immediate access to all the nuances of this relationship between their philosophy and lifestyle.

Outward behaviors do not always have any connection to someone's true worldview, and it is therefore irrational and even potentially slanderous to assume anything at all about someone's philosophical beliefs simply because they act as if the external world is exactly as it appears to them or as if language truly bridges minds in an ultimate manner.  Behaviors are intimately connected to a person's ideologies, but sometimes the specifics of this are mostly visible only to the individual carrying out the actions.


[1].  https://thechristianrationalist.blogspot.com/2018/08/matter-is-not-illusion.html

The Morality Of Owning Wealth

If one's primary concern about how wealth might influence someone is whether it will lead them to selfishness, they will be concerned simply about a person's individual priorities and motivations.  The distinction between wealth and materialism can be fully understood.  For those who equate wealth with selfishness, contrarily, there is nothing other than arbitrary lines and blind assertions that can be appealed to.  Wealth is conflated with arrogance in this position, and a person is regarded as evil and egoistic to the extent that they are wealthy.  Only one point needs to be established to topple this idea completely.

How much money is immoral to have?  One million dollars?  Two million?  Two and a half million?  Three million?  One billion?  What about other assets?  There is no specific amount of money or extended wealth (in the sense of other kinds of property) that pushes someone to selfishness or materialism.  This addresses the fact that wealth itself does not corrupt anyone, but it does not prove that there is nothing immoral about owning a certain amount of money or other indicators of material prosperity.  Having more than a specific threshold of wealth could still be morally wrong for other reasons.

However, there are no reasons to object to the holding of any specific kind or amount of wealth other than emotionalistic outrage or blind assumptions.  If a person obtained their wealth through unjust means, then there is not only a basis for opposing them, but also an obligation.  There are those who act as if it is not just wealth gathered by theft, abusive behaviors, and illicit manipulation that is evil.  They characterize any possession of wealth above an arbitrary line to signify deep moral flaws.  Wealth itself, or at least wealth that surpasses that of some other group, is regarded as problematic.

As a result of either these anti-wealth assumptions or reactions to them, many people think of either capitalism or socialism in a very hostile manner, as if one or the other is inherently oppressive.  These people begin voting in ways that reflect their asinine beliefs and petty assumptions, and the effects of their stupidity are multiplied.  Societies are shaped by their fallacious worldviews and emotionalistic impulses.  Although economics is hardly one of the most important aspects of human life in a philosophical sense, it is still important to understand the true nature of various economic systems and refute the widespread misrepresentations of them if a culture is to be founded on rationality.

Within the Christian worldview, no amount of wealth is sinful, and only someone who misrepresents the Bible insists otherwise (Deuteronomy 4:2).  There are sinful ways to acquire wealth, sinful motives behind its acquisition, sinful ways to use it, and sinful ways to regard those of any economic status, but money and material possessions are entirely amoral on their own.  It is asinine for Christians to pretend like wealth is either a mark of God's favor or something to be demonized as merely a tool of oppressors or materialistic priorities.

Movie Review--Troy

"Men are haunted by the vastness of eternity.  And so we ask ourselves, will our actions echo across the centuries?  Will strangers hear our names long after we're gone and wonder who we were, how bravely we fought, how fiercely we loved?"

--Odysseus, Troy

"Before you came to Sparta, I was just a ghost."

--Helen, Troy

In excluding any direct portrayal of the polytheistic background events and Olympian deities described in The Iliad, Troy focuses instead on the actions of people who claim to serve different deities in the Greek pantheon as some of them periodically question themselves and their ideas during the Trojan War.  The human emphasis helps the strong acting and personal motivations of each take the spotlight.  This also changes the way certain key events are presented.  Rather than being effectually kidnapped by Paris after he directly participates in an Olympian beauty contest as a judge, Helen voluntarily comes with Paris away from Sparta out of sincere love for him.  No theological background is shown here.  Nevertheless, Homer's polytheistic backdrop is still included in the form of verbal references to the Olympian deities, as the characters very clearly live in societies shaped by the figures of Greek mythology.

Production Values

Troy has no need for the CGI that even other somewhat comparable films or shows like Lord of the Rings and Game of Thrones sometimes need to rely on in order to depict some of the more fantasy-oriented aspects.  The visual absence of the Olympian deities keeps the focus on practical effects and performances instead of the more explicitly theological parts of The Iliad, although various characters do reference pseudo-deities like Athena, Apollo, and Ares, aa aforementioned.  One of the onscreen events that most directly alludes to Greek mythology is an arrow to the heel of Achilles, something easily shown without elaborate CGI.  Achilles himself is portrayed as a contemplative, nuanced character by Brad Pitt in a performance matched by the emotional vulnerability of Diane Kruger's Helen and the quieter resolve of Eric Bana's Hector.  Sean Bean's role as Odysseus and Rose Byrne's role as Briseis are sometimes less prominent than that of Achilles, but their characters and performances are still vital parts of the film--and, since Odysseus goes on to make a prolonged voyage home after the Trojan War, Troy is one of the only movies where Sean Bean does not die!

Story

Some spoilers are below.

Paris, prince of Troy, brings the Greek Helen with him away from Sparta when she confesses her former aimlessness as the wife of a Greek king after the two have started an affair.  When it becomes clear that she is missing, Greek forces mobilize to attack Troy--not merely for Helen, but for the personal power of certain key figures involved.  The Greeks boast the presence of Achilles, a demigod whose combat ability surpasses that of most soldiers thanks to his lineage, yet the Trojans stand behind a massive wall that has never been breached.  The tension between the two forces sparks internal conflict within characters on both sides as they reevaluate their own standing to others and the values they have served.

Intellectual Content

The Iliad and The Odyssey were never the philosophically sound works of entertainment (for that is what they are) that some treat them as, nor are they particularly deep in an intellectual sense altogether.  As a rationalist who was surrounded by gratuitously high regard for these two works (and others) in college several years ago, I enjoy mocking the fallacious love of tradition and history that pseudo-thinkers appeal to.  Not only do they touch upon little that is truly foundational or philosophically sound except by happenstance in the first place, but there are far more culturally relevant books and works of other, more sophisticated entertainment mediums that people can discuss if they truly cannot engage in philosophy without a book to push them along.  The Iliad, what seems to be the primary source material for Troy, still does manage to brush up against some important issues despite its general philosophical incompetency or irrelevance.

Some of those issues surface in Troy, perhaps in a more obvious way because of the nature of film.  For example, contrary to Greek culture's predominant ideas at the time, Hector says that nothing about warfare is full of glory, even as other characters blatantly assume that being remembered by future generations for combat achievements is objectively meaningful.  For the sake of being remembered, warriors revel in slaughter, having no concern for the epistemological flaws of their belief.  The standard cut of Troy actually forgoes the more graphic, stylized violence of films like 300 and shows numerous characters, especially various men and women in the city of Troy itself, lament the brutalities of warfare.  Helen and Briseis particularly express regret for the needless deaths of the Trojan War, while Achilles goes so far as to wonder if he should continue living his life as it is.  Perhaps Troy's most significant themes involve this analysis of how wasteful and gratuitous many military conflicts truly are.

Conclusion

Carried by strong performances from the entire cast and writing that cuts to the heart of the stupidity and sincerity on all sides of the Trojan War as depicted in The Iliad, Troy is one of the greatest films about ancient Greece or Sparta to have been made to this day.  The spectacle of ancient warfare, the personal stakes of war, and the individual psychologies and worldviews of key characters are emphasized in ways that fit all three into a thematically, cinematically consistent whole.  The almost three hour runtime also gives each major aspect the chance to be developed in ways that the typical 90 minute length of many modern films cannot.  What so many other films accomplish to smaller degrees or by neglecting other aspects of the movie, Troy accomplishes very competently.

Content:

1.  Violence:  The battlefield brutality seen onscreen is enough to distance Troy from contemporary PG-13 movies, but it is never enough to come near the level of violence in something like Game of Thrones.  Limbs and heads are rarely severed even though bodies are directly shown as they are cut with swords.

 2.  Nudity:  Achilles and two women are seen laying naked in their tent in his introduction scene, but not in a way that exposes their genitals to the camera.  Shortly after, Paris and Helen are shown naked, though Helen's buttocks are seen and not the genitalia of either person.