Marital Happiness In Deuteronomy 24:5

Immediately following a general summary of divorce allowances (with passages like Exodus 21:9-11 supplementing this, Deuteronomy 24 addresses marital happiness.  Indeed, it is an obligation to seek this!  Verse five says that a man who has recently married should not be sent off to war or have other duties given to him for a year, the reason being so that he can spend time at home and bring happiness to his new wife.  This could encompass sexual and nonsexual happiness, for whatever is not sinful is what people are free to pursue.  Anything that brings the couple delight and intimacy is permissible as long as it entails no false philosophical stance/motivation or actual sin (Deuteronomy 4:2).  Wives and by extension women as a whole are certainly not regarded in Mosaic Law as less than full persons who do not have their own right to whatever joy or happiness they can find in life through anything outside of sin.

Women's happiness in general and that of wives in particular is not some neglected thing or afterthought to the happiness of men in Biblical ethics.  As equal bearers of the divine image (Genesis 1:26-27) they are full persons, with their own desires and wills when it comes to sexuality (1 Corinthians 7:2-5) and otherwise.  Exodus 21:9-11 says women (and by logical extension men) have marital rights, the neglect of which is grounds for divorce, and Paul describes marital duties as belonging to both husbands and wives in 1 Corinthians 7:3, as anyone who reads Genesis 1-2 and Mosaic Law without assumptions could realize well before the New Testament.  The duty of seeking marital happiness for one's spouse is absolutely not for men towards their wives alone.

Men's fulfillment in this way would be vital as well.  Eve was created as both an equal to Adam and to complete him (Genesis 2:18).  Pseudo-egalitarians in the church often prioritize women over men by endorsing stereotypes of the latter but not the former or by ignoring the humanity of or discrimination against men in contemporary times or throughout recorded history.  Men, as people who bear God's image (Genesis 5:1-2), would be no less capable or deserving of happiness than women in marriage, as long as that happiness is not derived from assumptions, emotionalism, egoism, or other errors or sins.  Moreover, women can also be assigned the same community or military responsibilities as men and this is not denied by the Bible, either in the sense of it being called immoral or logically impossible.  There is logical equivalence that is not scripturally denied.  The Bible directly and indirectly says a great deal about the obvious freedom women have for these matters alongside men.

Women are allowed to work outside of the home (Proverbs 31:14-18, 24 and Deuteronomy 4:2 yet again), so it is not true whatsoever that they could not be tasked with professional milestones or public services.  They are of course permitted to be soldiers themselves or to lead soldiers of either gender, such as with Deborah the prophetess in Judges 4 (and again, as is so often the case, Deuteronomy 4:2 and Genesis 1:26-27 are relevant as well).  Since they have the same status as men before God as fellow image-bearers and in light of logical necessity, and they are metaphysically capable of the same attentiveness to fostering marital flourishing as men, new wives would have the same obligation of Deuteronomy 24:5.  Their marriage is likewise to take priority over public/military service for at least a year after its commencement so that they can bring happiness to their husbands as their husbands do the same for them.  After all, the noble wife of Proverbs 31:12 is commended for bringing food to her husband rather than harm.

Happiness of a sort is certainly a goal of Biblical marriage--happiness in the truth, in one's standing before God, and in one's relationship which should be founded on such things.  To be satisfied, fulfilled, and enamored with one's spouse is a grand thing when there is no irrationalism present.  Emotionalistic happiness, on the contrary, is asinine and potentially fleeting.  Not only is it invalid by default because it is irrational, but it could also fluctuate from moment to moment or day to day.  A romantic relationship, marital or not, between emotionalistic participants could disintegrate, lacking the qualities needed for even a pragmatically successful marriage, much less a rationalistic one devoted to mutual submission to reason and righteousness.  Besides the ideological and moral validity of the proper kind of marital happiness, a rationalistic couple is able to enjoy a deeper unity, bliss, and fulfillment than those unlike them.

Movie Review--Hostile

"You told me you don't believe in God, but do you believe in fate?"

--Jack, Hostile

Hostile is all the better for allowing its character drama to overshadow even its most spectacular science fiction horror elements.  Some of the most artistically powerful scenes have nothing to do with the roaming reapers of its post-apocalyptic wasteland.  As superbly shot and executed as the scenes with creatures are, it is the kindness shown to a drug addict in the pre-apocalypse world and the personal drama that stands out as the strongest pillar.  Though there are unfortunate highly irrationalistic elements in the core relationship of the movie, here is a romantic partnership that is in no way undeveloped or generally shallow, though it is only shown in a handful of scenes.  Indeed, for the most part, it is one of the very best cinematic relationships a person could find thanks to its sincerity, optimism, and eventual tragedy, all in a new director's debut movie.  In an apocalyptic film that so expertly handles its creature and present day struggle for survival, such excellent flashback sequences have to be very strong to meet or exceed the former.  Hostile accomplishes something truly noteworthy.

Production Values

The camera moves around the outside of an RV as Juliette fights and eventually kills the creature within, instead of showing rapid cuts of the struggle occurring on the inside.  When the reaper, a humanoid creature, appears at Juliette's upside down vehicle at night, only its emaciated-looking, prolonged legs and arms are seen, with its torso and head situated above the camera's cutoff point.  Later, the being is shown more directly, but in the faint lighting of a glow stick at night.  Not only is the creature design phenomenal in itself, but the cinematography rises to meet that same quality.  It only helps that Hostile is not coasting from jumpscare to jumpscare.  Even when the reaper is shown, it is subtlety and directness without cheap jolts that dominate the screen.  Lead actress Brittany Ashworth still manages to give a performance worthy of such a story along with Gregory Fitoussi.  The two of them, although it is Ashworth who has the most scenes, have such a personal chemistry as Juliette and Jack that the entire movie could have been about their pre-apocalypse love story and it would have been no less a masterpiece.

Story

Some spoilers are below.

Juliette traverses a desert landscape in the aftermath of a seeming apocalypse that has left cars and boats stranded in the sands.  She enters a building to search for resources, but a creature above the ceiling begins to snarl at her, and during the trip back to her small community, her vehicle overturns, leaving her unconscious until night has fallen.  Her leg broken and her gun thrown outside the flipped car, she prepares to withstand the reapers, hostile animals of the post-apocalyptic landscape.  Her mind revisits memories of her relationship with a man named Jack before the world went to hell, detailing how she met him, how they became romantically entangled, how they had and lost a child, and what happened to them the night that a chemical attack implicitly created the reapers.

Intellectual Content

Even when it only shows people hinting at their worldviews (which are themselves quite irrationalistic in one way or another) or engaging in acts of love for each other, there is sincerity and psychological depth in Hostile, which spills over into a very realistic sort of brokenness in Juliette.  A drug addict, she randomly meets a man named Jack who shows great interest in her as a person, insisting that God or fate brought them together.  This much is only really addressed in two scenes, one closer to the beginning and one closer to the end.  "I have my reasons," he says of his vaguely described theism, to which she replies "I have mine" about her atheism or agnosticism.  While they do not share the same professed philosophical stances and are thus fools for romantically committing to each other, their affection is at least sincere.  Hostile does an unusually good job of portraying how romantic partnerships can be so very deep in one sense while being pointless, superficial, and unworthy in another more foundational sense.  There are other factors that complicate the relationship: Jack does allow Juliette into his apartment and then lock her inside against her will in order to give her the chance to resist obtaining more drugs, an act of borderline kidnapping although he never abducted her to bring her there, but he otherwise shows her a level of kindness that is almost unheard of in most relationships.  Here is someone who uses his inherited wealth, love of art, and patience to genuinely help a fellow person in whom romantic interest blossoms, and the most thematically powerful scenes are those pertaining to Juliette's status and changes as a character when she meets a genuinely kind, selfless person--though someone who is kind for the happenstance, fallacious reasons that non-rationalists live by.

Conclusion

I have only seen Meander and Hostile out of all the films of Mathieu Turi, but he is plainly trying to explore grand ideas and very human characters across his filmography, which is far more than is true of many filmmakers, including some with far more cultural visibility, popularity, and financial success.  In Hostile, like in Meander, the story dwells on the broken lead character as she has to cope with the trials of a science fiction setting.  Turi's lead characters are so realistic in their pain and so layered in their performances that they do not even need to verbalize a great many things in order to be highly fleshed-out, as what they do say, what they do, and even their expressions say enough to catapult them ahead of the more common leads found in movies.  May he get chance after chance to continue creating art!

Content:

 1.  Violence:  Blood is shown launching into windows, and a bone is seen protruding from a broken leg.  A person's skull is crushed by the foot of a reaper.

 2.  Profanity:  "Fuck," "shit," "bastard," and "bitch" are used.

No Better Than One's Worldview

No one is any better than their worldview, its alignment with reality, and whether or not they have only assumed it to be true, no matter how pleasant, kind, or subjectively likeable they are outwardly.  It is only reality and how much a person cares about reality that would make people great, for if truth does not matter, nothing can.  Reason is inherently true and could not have been false no matter what else is, and if truth has moral value, then of course it is by necessity the case that anyone who loves it and purposefully aligns with it is superior to those who do not.  Those who dismiss reality are unworthy of it.  For those who do not intentionally seek to know it, they are stupid and pathetic to the extent that they are irrationalistic and refuse to embrace rationalistic truths and knowledge of them.  Most people are indeed irrationalistic, but there is something very crucial that does not follow from this.

This does not mean that worldviews that are the height of irrationality mean their adherents are worthless, for even the only worldviews that contain the most foundational of errors and contradictions still would depend on logical axioms and other truths, hence why self-refuting philosophies are self-refuting, because they contradict themselves and what cannot not be true.  That is why some worldviews contradict logical axioms, because they rely on the very things they would require the non-truth of.  If a philosophy would require the nonexistence of any necessary truths or contradict any fact, it either contradicts the only truths that could not have been any other way or it contradicts itself, which is still a subcategory of contradicting logical axioms.  Nothing can be true or exist if it truly is contrary to reality, with the very core of reality being logical axioms that govern all things and reveal all knowledge.

Even relativism and anti-realism still entail that objective, absolute truth exists, even though they simultaneously deny this--that is precisely why they are intrinsically false, because logical axioms are intrinsically true independent of all other things.  The necessary truths of reason, which start with the handful of axioms that nothing is more fundamental than, mean that at least the laws of logic are not untrue, and there are multiple facets and ramifications of this alone.  Only an utter fool would think these contradictions are true, though many of them would not even partially realize left to themselves that they are clinging to that which is in itself impossible.  They are no more rational or morally superior than their own beliefs, so if their beliefs are false or assumed, they are deviating from reason, the heart of all things, and cannot possibly be the equals of rationalists.

Since even the ideas that are inherently false via self-contradiction (which is really a contradiction of the only self-necessary truths that could possibly exist, logical axioms) cannot totally escape aligning with a sliver of reality--for instance, relativism denies objective truth even as it would be objectively true if it was correct--people who hold to them likewise cannot totally escape the whole of reality, for they are relying on logically necessary truths even if they do not realize it or want this to be the case.  However, since some worldviews cannot possibly be true even if the laws of nature, moral obligations, and character of the uncaused cause were different than they are now, for strictly logical truths are immutable and true by self-necessity, the people who assume they are true or embrace them despite knowing their invalidity are no better than the erroneous philosophical ideas they are stupid enough to believe.

The Human Construct Of Clothing (Part Two)

In calling clothing a human construct, I do not mean that no other animals "wear" or could wear anything.  Though very different from robes or pants, a hermit crab dons shells left behind by marine snails.  Decorator crabs attach objects or other organisms to themselves, even if this is more analogous to human jewelry like bracelets or necklaces than actual clothing.  There might be some form of alien race that wears clothing moreso like we do.  There is simply no evidence for them.  Humans are still the only observed/reported creature to create and wear such diverse materials for such a broad range of purposes, like safety from temperature and the signification of political power [1].  The substances that form clothing are found in nature or crafted from natural resources, yet clothes themselves are constructs of individuals and societies.

Human clothing is a human construct, although God is said to have fashioned primitive garments for the first humans of Eden in Genesis 3.  This does not mean all later clothing was created by God as opposed to the initial universe which yields the materials to make them.  Neither does it prescribe clothing, as the naked body itself, like admiration of it, is never condemned and thus objectively nonsinful according to the Bible (Deuteronomy 4:2).  Connected with the death of an animal for atonement of sorts, the clothing of Eden conveys God's mercy.  The humans had disregarded their obligation to the only ultimate source of life (1 Timothy 6:16) and deserves to perish (Ezekiel 18:4, Romans 6:23), and in covering their bodies once the sense of shame overcame them, God shows how he is willing to cover their sin.

A subjective sense of shame, which is not necessarily present in all people towards their names bodies or those of others and which can be eliminated, does not make something objectively immoral.  Preference and perception are irrelevant.  After all, in Christianity, God made humans naked (Genesis 2:25), and his creation is very good (Genesis 1:31).  Women give birth to more generations of humans naked (Ecclesiastes 5:15).  Why people wear clothing is strictly a practical, individualistic, or cultural matter.  However, a common reason cited by many American Christians as to why we wear clothing is both false by necessity and reductionistically in denial of other motivations: they think that the body, especially genitalia, is sexual and needs to be covered to prevent sexual sins.  This is logically false since there is no metaphysical connection between the mere body or any kind of material covering for it and sexuality.  All of these connections, even for something like lingerie, are behaviorally situational, subjectively perceived, or on the level of intention and not the physical body or its attire.

Whether due to default personality, having the correct philosophical stances on the nature of clothing, or having adjusted to perceiving sensual clothing on the body or the total lack of it, it is not as if everyone will experience a sensual--but not strictly or necessarily sexual--attraction towards the human body, clothed or not.  Clothing is not universally worn to allegedly keep sexual attraction at bay, not that any amount or lack of clothing accomplishes this or that material ever has a sexual quality to it (it can only be used or perceived this way, like the body itself, but it is all nonsexual).  First of all, there is nothing sexual about it even if it is perceived sexually, which has nothing to do with its objective nature.  Second, clothing can be worn with the intention of inspiring sexual interest, despite not even lingerie being sexual in itself [2].  Third, there are still many other possible reasons to where clothing that have nothing to do even with sensuality or sexuality (which are not the same things!) on the level of intentions.

Making and wearing clothing is, as far as seems to be the case, a human construct even if other animals occasionally have loosely similar practices and even if God made the very first human clothes.  What is objectively true and knowable is that the nature of clothing is inherently nonsexual.  It is just fabric or other materials, and a body is just a body.  Some types of clothing are inherently sensual but still nonsexual.  None of them can only be used or regarded sexually.  Perception and tradition is not truth, so it feeling like something is sexual does not make it so.  Not even lingerie, literally made and worn with a usually sexual intention, is sexual itself.  It is just fabric.  Sexual repression, the goal of the legalistic Christians who oppose the body and of many secular people as well, is far from the only possible motivation behind clothing.  It is just an irrelevant one.  Environmental protection, fitting in with marketing trends, personal appeal, and more can all be reasons why people wear anything at all.

[1].  https://thechristianrationalist.blogspot.com/2023/11/the-human-construct-of-clothing-part-one.html

[2].  https://thechristianrationalist.blogspot.com/2018/08/lingerie-is-not-sexual.html

For The Sake Of 10 Righteous People

The Yahweh of the Old Testament and the Father of the New Testament are one and the same.  Jesus does not introduce mercy into Biblical narratives for the first time, and neither he nor the Father is devoid of wrath throughout the stories and prophecies of the New Testament.  Amidst judgment itself, the morality of which all personal or collective emotions and preferences are irrelevant to, there is still mercy in some of the more controversial Biblical accounts of the Old Testament.  An example is the events leading to the annihilation of Sodom and Gomorrah, which conservatives might pretend was mostly or exclusively over homosexual behaviors and liberals might pretend had nothing to do with them.  

As an aside, the Bible does not teach that Sodom and Gomorrah continually burn and I have yet to hear any reports of an endless fire raging in the Middle East to the present day!  This destruction of the city and the deaths of its inhabitants in fire and sulfur (Genesis 18:24-25) are said by Peter to be an example of what the wicked will receive (2 Peter 2:6), which perfectly matches what the Bible teaches from start to finish about how fallen humanity is to perish forever unless eternal life is secured through repentance and commitment to God (John 3:16).  Before the destruction actually comes in the narrative, though, there is an exchange between Abraham and the (at the least) angelic mouthpieces of God that touches upon divine mercy--and death on Earth and in hell is the justice rather than a mercy.  A negotiation on behalf of the city takes place once angelic visitors tell Abraham that they will investigate if the land is as vile as they have heard.

Abraham acknowledges that justice is not killing the righteous and the wicked as if they are all alike (Genesis 18:22), with God initially promising to spare the entire city of Sodom if only 50 righteous people live there (18:26).  This is not enough to ease Abraham: he asks for 45 good people to be enough, and he is promised that 45 righteous people will ensure the population of the city is left alive (18:28).  Eventually, Abraham begins substracting 10 people at a time until he requests that a mere 10 people who are righteous be a reason for mercy towards Sodom (18:32-33).  The angelic beings move on to the city and are urged by Lot to spend the night in his home.  After a very threatening encounter with a group of men who want to have sex with the newcomers, in which the potential rapists are struck with blindness, the angels ask Lot to warn his family or friends to escape (19:12-14).

Lot and his daughters, who later rape Lot (19:30-36) and thus deserve to die themselves (Deuteronomy 22:25-27), are escorted to safety out of mercy when Lot himself hesitates to depart (Genesis 19:16).  Because they are told to leave rather than stay to avoid the impending catastrophe (19:12-13), not even 10 righteous people Abraham pleaded for lived in the city, and its annihilation was not to be averted.  In spite of this, that God expressed a willingness to spare the entire city for the sake of just 10 righteous individuals shows a mercy that so many assume is only found in the New Testament.  Yahweh is merciful in the Old Testament over and over; there is also great judgment that occurs or is at least discussed in the New Testament, with nothing about Yahweh's moral nature or the resulting obligations of justice for humans changing (Malachi 3:6).

In the first death or the second--which is the permanent end of the mind as the resurrected body of the wicked is burned to ashes--Yahweh does not find pleasure in the wicked perishing even as it is what they deserve.  According to Ezekiel 33:11, "'As surely as I live, declares the Sovereign Lord, I take no pleasure in the death of the wicked, but rather that they turn from their ways and live.'"  The God whose nature grounds morality itself prefers for the wicked to be restored to him rather than to be lost to him in this life and then eventually cease to exist in the second death (Matthew 10:28, Revelation 20:11-15).  The inhabitants of Sodom and Gomorrah are examples of those who receive the first death and the second, according to Genesis and 2 Peter, and yet Yahweh is not elated at their demise.  Even as the ultimate fate for the wicked in the first and second life is death, God would go so far as to spare the wicked for the sake of the righteous, as the prelude to the cities' destruction emphasizes.  The Old Testament teaches divine mercy indeed.

Conservative News Media

Conservative news media reports are mere hearsay epistemologically--and this is true of literally all news broadcasts reporting for any current event--and the most vocal supporters have an obsession with conspiracy theories that became more mainstream in the madness of the 2020 election and the aftermath.  Whether it is the outrage over the ostensibly "stolen election" of that year (though democracy, as a system that is about agreement and not truth of any kind, is necessarily invalid) or some other such thing, conservatives and some prominent ideas associated with their media are far from a rare, quiet blemish on society.

As they watch media like Fox News or the Daily Wire, some of these people believe and loudly assert that it is "the media" that is ruining America or discriminating against them by silencing conservatives or ignoring conservative ideology.  With regard to the latter charges, any non-rationalist deserves to be discriminated against in the sense of being singled out and opposed, if not ridiculed and hated, and conservatives are all non-rationalists since tradition is not what makes a philosophy true (or conscience or other things besides reason that conservatives tend to ultimately appeal to).  Also, how the fuck could "the media" be silencing conservatives if the likes of Fox News, a major media organization with billions of revenue a quarter, are not exactly unpopular and unsuccessful financially or otherwise?

In some communities/cities, yes, certain news or publication groups might be more or less popular no matter how asinine the philosophical ideas promoted therein are.  Although liberal philosophy has its own demonstrably false or plainly assumed tenets just like conservatism, this does not mean conservative notions should be accepted or shared.  Only what is true and demonstrably has justification for belief, and many things typical people believe, from "ordinary" people to professionals, is assumed at best.  In either case, as long as something like Fox News has a sizeable audience and such a cultural foothold, it would not possibly be true that conservatism is not strongly represented in news media.

Even if they are asserting some contradiction, assumption, or emotionalistically-motivated acknowledgement of a truth, conservatives these days frequently pretend like there is or could possibly be a moral right to believe and say anything one wants to--except for the hypocrites who believe whatever strikes them as subjectively persuasive or emotionally appealing is fine, and not what liberals might hold to for the same irrationalistic reasons.  As such, they think that their news or publishing organizations, the same ones that are ignored when they talk about "the media," have the moral freedom to say anything, no matter how irrational, slanderous, malicious, or selfish it is.

It is logically impossible, and very clearly so if one is actually willing to discover this, for people to have a right to believe and in turn say anything they want.  If truth has no moral value, if there is no such thing as morality, no one would have a right to anything even though logical truths are still inherently true, supremely foundational, and supremely abstract in themselves.  If morality exists, since everything is governed by logical axioms, truth itself would be morally meaningful, and thus to believe assumptions or to make false claims would be immoral, meaning no one could have a right to say whatever they wish unless they only say things which are rational and just.  Conservatives, like any liberals that happen to disagree with these necessary truths, have no legitimacy to hide behind here.

What A Merciful Attitude Does Not Mean

In my case as an individual, turning towards mercy in dealings with general humanity [1] was accompanied by the vanishing of intense but nonsinful, non-emotionalistic anger and hatred.  With regard to all but fellow rationalists, young children, and the mentally disabled, I might once again choose to be largely unmerciful, which is not the same thing as being unjust, unloving, or cruel (cruelty being unjust on the Christian worldview), and there could be nothing wrong with this.  It is likely, though, that this will not happen, and for as long as it does not, mercy does not conflict with other aspects of my personality.  The same would be true of the personalities of similar people.  Yes, many people only appear to like mercy because it personally appeals to them or benefits them, so they are insincerely, irrationally merciful, but mercy does not require that one give up plenty of other potential characteristics.

Being merciful does not exclude being a firm, intense, or even rationalistically hateful person.  It means that one chooses to not punitively treat people as they deserve, or, since just punishments are for governing bodies to enact (though only governments in alignment with divine obligations and penalties are just, not those which act on whims on traditions or emotions), that one would wish to spare people the likes of deserved flogging or fining or execution if they had the power to do so.  In order to be legitimate, mercy cannot be chosen emotionalistically or on the basis of any assumptions, such as belief in the false idea that mercy could possibly be morally mandatory (as opposed to just morally good), but even in its purest forms, it can be accompanied by righteous fury or hatred.

All the same, a desire to show mercy could be accompanied only by love, sadness, and hope for the sake of others.  To express mercy, someone abstains from imposing or wanting justice to be done to someone (which is not what strikes someone as subjectively good or personally appealing), not in the sense of being opposed to justice, but in that of wanting for people to be spared whatever penalty they truly deserve.  Just as justice can be sought with love of the truth and of other people without any hatred of even a legitimate kind beside it, mercy can be sought without any wrath or loathing mingled with it.  A commitment to displaying mercy, which is still at its most potent or beneficial in selective cases even though I now, for once, gravitate towards it, can be maintained no matter how one feels, yes, and it is also true that one could desire it in the midst of just love or sadness.

To be merciful, someone who shifts to mercy--which, again, is only valid when done without assumptions or emotionalism--from a prior tendency towards permissible aggression does not have to shed anything else but a lack of mercy.  Other feelings like anger or hatred might or might not disappear with this change of habit.  They do not have to unless they are the misdirected forms of those feelings rooted in ideological errors or an unwillingness to live in light of the truth (such as choosing to encourage internal anger over amoral deeds or hating someone for their gender or age).  However, in such a case, they should be resisted whether or not one pursues mercy since they are themselves illicit.  Even in actual injustices, which abstaining from mercy is by nature distinct from because mercy is undeserved, mere intensity, passion, ire, and hatred are not inherently problematic themselves.  It is why one has those mental states, how one acts on those things, and what one intends to do irrespective of feelings that would matter.  This does not change if one adopts a merciful attitude.

[1].  https://thechristianrationalist.blogspot.com/2023/05/a-personal-turn-towards-mercy.html

Necessary Truths In Fiction

There is a simple but deep reason why scientific inaccuracies can be portrayed or otherwise integrated into fiction but logical impossibilities cannot: the former is a happenstance, contingent thing that even in everyday life could have been different than it is (in any logically possible way), while the latter contradicts logical axioms and thus cannot be true even in fictional stories.  Necessary truths such as how something that follows from another cannot be false or how it is impossible for there to be nothing that is true (then this would be true, making it true in itself by default) could not have been different or cannot be altered no matter how God, humanity, the natural world, or any other thing that does or could exist behaves.

It could have been the case or could become the case that we perceive fire to exude freezing effects on objects, for example.  It could have been true that when I see electrical phenomena, I would see the result of protons, rather than electrons, producing lightning-like manifestations that are often green in color instead of bluish.  Entire animals could have not existed (at least as far as perceptions suggest) and other creatures foreign to all of Earth's history could have inhabited the planet instead.  None of these things conflict with the inherent truths of logical axioms and other logical necessities, and thus they are possible; whatever is not true that is still possible could become or could have been true.

In any storytelling medium--video games, films, television shows, books, or even still images--these and legions of other logical possibilities are explored even if the storytellers do not understand these truths.  However, having characters or text incorrectly claim that a logical impossibility as opposed to an alternate scientific or historical possibility is true is the closest that fictional entertainment can come to this.  A character could say that nothing is absolutely certain, that God does not exist (at least as a basic uncaused cause), that time is an illusion, or that logic is not inherently true, among other things, and they could not be right even in fictional versions of reality.  A director or author could intend for their work to convey such an idea, though a logical necessity, as a necessary truth, is not escapable even in fiction.

If a character says time is going backwards, at most events are being reversed and they have made assumptions.  Time cannot go backwards.  One moment still leads to the next as a once-future moment becomes present and then slips into the past.  If a character makes the supremely asinine statement that nothing is true or nothing is truly knowable, moreover, logical axioms remain both things intrinsically.  The character or creator of the story must rely on reason to assert these contradictions because reason is still true in itself.  Because it is true by necessity and self-evident, reason cannot be false or anything short of intrinsic, universal, and all-dictating in even the most scientifically foreign stories.  What cannot be untrue cannot be rendered so even in the most bizarre products of storytelling.

Looking To The Animal Kingdom

Enamored selectively and emotionalistically by animals, some people think that the other creatures we share the world with have some obvious, verifiable, universal moral lesson to prompt us to dwell on such things--and it is not even obvious if anything is morally good or evil (this cannot be proven, but it is logically possible, and even probable because of evidence for Christianity).  One example I have encountered is a certain kind of person who makes dogs sound morally superior to humans, as if they would by default all be kind and loyal if it was not for humans feeding and caring for them, and as if humans all inevitably act out of malice and selfishness.  Singling out some animals out of all of them to praise or imitate, assuming that the way things are in the world is the way they should be (and assuming that morality exists at all in addition to this), and assuming that non-human animal lifestyles match what the proponent would always prefer them to be are some of the errors here.  

Many people do think about how savage animals can be and imagine them to exhibit a moral ideal that has itself already been merely assumed.  Female praying mantises might eat their partners after sex, much like how female black widow spiders cannibalize their male partners after copulation--they are called widow spiders because of the reported eating of their partners, though males have been alleged to eat their mates as well.  Sand tiger shark egg babies in the mother's oviducts also eat each other.  Male dolphins can engage in group rape of females (no, this does not mean female creatures cannot or do not rape males!).  Shrike birds impale their prey, such as mice or insects, on sharp, pointed objects to kill or store the bodies for consumption, using protrusions like branches to accomplish this.

Emerald wasps, a kind of parasitoid wasp, subdue roaches using a venom to override ordinary neurological/phenomenological responses and lay eggs so that the larvae eat the "zombified," submissive roach.  Tarantula hawks do something similar with tarantulas, bringing them to a burrow and laying an egg on the body of the spider.  The arachnid becomes food for the larva.  No, it is not just humans that have the capacity for brutality.  Some other animals rely on such acts to literally continue their species.  Humans do not need to, but morality is not about what is helpful or pragmatic except by happenstance overlap.  It is what should be done out of obligation no matter the consequences.  Maybe it is morally mandatory to be casually, constantly brutal, but no amount of animal patterns prove this.  Besides these and other errors, people who think looking to the animal kingdom for moral epistemology is correct do not even really want humans to carry out plenty of things they would find.

Which of these animals are we to supposedly emulate?  Are we to have nonconsensual sex, kill the offspring of other people, and eat our siblings?  There are many different organisms with wildy diverse behaviors, and yet even if there was only one other observed species and every individual member of it was benevolent, nothing about the existence or nature of morality could be known from this, and not just because the senses do not prove anything (with one exception [1]) except that the perceptions are being experienced.  This would tell us how we perceive another animal to act.  It would not reveal anything about how we should live or if there is such a thing at all.  However, a person who already feels as if something is morally good and sees it in the natural world, they might fallaciously believe they have found epistemological proof that some activities are metaphysically valuable instead of just useful for a certain end that might or might not be moral.

Just as it does not logically follow from having a reaction of conscience to something like stealing that it really is wrong, it does not follow from the way a random animal behaves that there is such a thing as moral duty and that this exact set of actions is what that duty consists of.  Now, the Bible does mention some animals as displaying characteristics some people would be good or pragmatic to in turn display.  Proverbs 6:6-8 uses ants as an example of productive beings in contrast to someone so lazy that poverty might appear to them like a thief.  These traits can be good in humans, but are not always obligatory, and animals are never the metaphysical grounding of morality.  God is.  Whether or not Christianity is true, theistic moralism, whatever the obligations therein are, is the only possibly valid moral framework.  If the uncaused cause has no moral nature, nothing is good or evil; whatever it's moral nature consists of it it has one is good.  Animal behaviors could neither metaphysically dictate morality nor epistemologically reveal it.

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

Game Review--Castlevania: Lords Of Shadow - Mirror Of Fate HD (Xbox 360)

"You are an abomination upon this earth.  I know who and what you are, and this day I claim vengeance.  For my mother's murder."

--Trevor Belmont, Castlevania: Lords of Shadow - Mirror of Fate HD

Mirror of Fate combines the side-scrolling style of traditional Castlevania games with the aesthetic and lore of the Lords of Shadow reboot.  As a self-contained story told out of sequence that spans three generations of Belmonts, it is more consistently somber and more narratively creative than its follow-up Lords of Shadow 2, despite the drastic simplicity of the first act with both story and gameplay.  The more direct and tragic overall narrative makes its plot points some of the strongest in the entire reboot franchise.  First released on the 3DS, Mirror of Fate's HD version brought it to a generation of non-portable consoles with enhanced graphics and a boss rush mode.

Production Values

On a larger screen, Mirror of Fate does look like an older handheld game magnified for standard consoles.  What looked excellent on the 3DS is sometimes only passable for an HD version of an aging game on the Xbox 360 (though I played this on an Xbox One, it is a 360 title).  Very quick loading times and a strong art style do help the visuals and general performance.  Even more than this, Richard Madden, Robert Carlyle, and more do phenomenal with their voice acting, something that at its best was one of the best parts of the first Lords of Shadow.  Some of the most authentically emotional moments in this alternate canon of Castlevania are found here in this once handheld-only game.

Gameplay

Overall, Gabriel, Simon, Alucard, and Trevor play very similarly, the latter three, whom are played after the brief prologue, share the same move set and experience point progress.  Each has their own unique versions of ranged or magic attacks, but the overall functionality is the same.  They all have their whips or combat crosses and they all can perform the same unlockable combos--unlocking them as one character literally makes them available for the others.  The more elaborate puzzles types that truly translate well from the third-person Lords of Shadow games to the side-scrolling format start with Alucard, however.

As Simon, Alucard, and Trevor, there is also the option of leaving up to 50 notes on the map to not only make places to return to, but which abilities are needed to acquire them through custom messages.  It nonetheless does not require anything more than basic backtracking and item use to find the collectible upgrades and bestiary entries   the actual exploration is by far secondary to the story and not especially developed compared to the genre's best examples.

Story

Some spoilers are below.

The game starts with Simon Belmont seeking to kill Dracula for the death of his parents, traveling through the castle to confront the figure who has devastated the land.  Once he reaches Dracula, the game shifts to Alucard, Simon's father Trevor resurrected as a vampire.  Trevor had ventured out to slay Dracula knowing that he is supposed to be the son of this once-human being, and he had set out to avenge the killing of his mother (though Gabriel was wearing the Devil Mask and was not in his normal state of mind when he killed Marie).  Presented in reverse, the story grows more tragic as the conflict within Dracula and the supposedly fated nature of Belmont lives are revealed.

Intellectual Content

Mirror of Fate does not mean into its pseudo-Christian theism as much as the prior and following game, yet it is consistent with them.  For example, the very unbiblical afterlife of disembodied ghosts returns from the first Lords of Shadow as early as when Simon gains the spirit of Belnades as an ally, though the Biblical doctrine of what follows death is unconsciousness (Ecclesiastes 9:5-10) until resurrection (Daniel 12:2) to eternal life or permanent annihilation (John 3:16).  What the game does do better is emphasize the tragic, allegedly unavoidable "fate" of these Belmont generations as they grapple with the darkness Dracula has unleashed.  More than some parts of Lords of Shadow 2, the game even uses the finale of Trevor's act to show just how conflicted Dracula really is as God's chosen one who has descended into evil by exemplifying his remaining love if his family.

Conclusion

With each act of the game, Mirror of Fate offers an increasingly substantial story that grows more personal for the characters.  As a spin-off of the Lords of Shadow series, it has a far more focused plot than usual.  As a Metroidvania, it is very minimalistic compared to something like Metroid Dread, but the aesthetic and the story are what the game really stands on.  By the time it ends, some of the simplicity of the story has given way to greater thematic and emotional complexity, and Lords of Shadow 2 is set up well, as jumbled as some of the follow-up turned out to be, by this side-scrolling game.  At its best, the combat is a 2.5D version of the classic God of War style and the story is atmospheric and potent.  Mirror of Fate HD is a strong title when it comes to its key pillars that could have been elevated even more by more complex mechanics and exploration.

Content:

 1.  Violence:  Blood and gore are fairly prevalent, such as when a boss has its body cut in half after having its hands removed.

 2.  Nudity:  There are what appear to be nude corpses in background in a portion of Alucard's part of the game.  Later on, a group of witches wearing only masks and a covering for their genitalia summon the Daemon Lord, though there is nothing sexual about either of these examples.

 3.  Sexuality:  At the final part of Simon's act, a succubus and several female companions engage in lesbian interactions.

Epistemology In The Afterlife

There is more than just the epistemology of the afterlife, of which possibilities, probabilities, and perceptions are all that can be known by humans in this life.  There would also be epistemology in the afterlife if there is an afterlife at all.  If my mind is to survive my biological death in one way or another, whatever the experience would be like or where it would take place, it is true by necessity that one of two possibilities would be the case: either at least some of my epistemological limitations would be shed like a person removing clothing, whether I like what I would discover on the other side or not, or none of my epistemological limitations would disappear at all.  It appears that the former is far more popular to think about than the latter.

Whether there is any kind of conscious existence after bodily death is an enormous philosophical issue with ramifications so weighty, one way or another, that it is asinine that more people are not desperate to dwell on the issue even if it pains them.  However, for those who do think about what would or would not logically follow from various ideas about the afterlife, which versions of an afterlife do not contradict logical axioms (and thus are possible), and how one cannot know in this life if there is another to come, a crucial thing is practically always left unspoken or perhaps unreflected upon.  Would someone in the afterlife even know if they are in an afterlife?

It would be logically possible, should my consciousness or my mind-body unity persist after biological death (either through an eventual resurrection of the body as in Christian theology or through a replacement body that is provided for me), that I would still retain my epistemological limitations in an afterlife just as I have them in this life.  Now, if I gaze at a door or a screen or a plant, I do not know that it exists, only that I am perceiving it in my mind and thus it seems like it exists; the same could be true of my epistemological status if I was to die and find myself gazing at a heavenly city or some sort of unexpected dimension.  

Just as I cannot know strictly from having memories if the recalled events actually happened, I might not be able to know such things in an afterlife.  There are strong suggestions that more perception-based evidences or perhaps total epistemological clarity will be granted in the eternal life of the righteous according to Christianity (1 Corinthians 13:12), but not even the truly immense evidence for Christianity means one can know ahead of time if there is an afterlife or exactly which logically possible scenario it would be like.  There is no logical necessity in the removal of the limitations that prevent certain things from being known beyond perceptions in a post-mortem conscious existence, and that could be terrifying to think about now or then.

The Man Of Lawlessness

In the context of describing prerequisites to the eschatological "day of the Lord," Paul makes it clear in 2 Thessalonians 2:1-4 that a "man of lawlessness" will first appear and set himself up against God and the moral values rooted in God's nature.  This is not the only time the New Testament mentions such a person.  The title man of lawlessness is not the most commonly recognized one, but this matches the figure termed the antichrist that John predicts in multiple books.  Revelation, in actuality, is not the first one that refers to this abomination of a being, and it does not call him by his most popular name.

1 John 2:18 clearly references a supreme, singular antichrist to come even as it acknowledges that there have been many antichrists already as early as the first century AD.  Just as 2 Thessalonians 2 plainly promises a specific "man of lawlessness" who would at least in his disregard for God, morality, and Christ parallel the singular antichrist, 1 John 2, like Revelation 13 by the same apostle, predicts a specific being who would stand against God.  An eventual antichrist is a blatant part of Biblical doctrine and eschatology.  In a rush to identify a person they will likely never see, some forget that there are many antichrists; focusing on how there are many antichrists, some trivialize the eschatological role of the ultimate antichrist who has not yet reigned.

As for John's description of what makes someone a general antichrist, 1 John 2:22 states that denying that Jesus is the Christ is what grants someone this status.  Rationalistic skepticism of Christ's divinity, it is vital to realize, is not denial of it as a genuine logical possibility.  This is a rational uncertainty due to the inability of humans to know anything beyond logical possibilities or perception-based evidences in some cases--even as it is absolutely knowable that no unknown truth can contradict logical axioms and other necessary truths.  Coming to Christ does not require the irrationality of believing that one can know if one's memories, sensory perceptions, and other such subjective perceptions of fallible evidences are accurate.  It only requires a devotion to reason, acknowledgment of the historical and other evidences for Christianity, and a sincere repentance and commitment to the logical possibilities the evidence points to.

What Paul calls the man of lawlessness would deny this outright or would not care.  He certainly appears to be synonymous with the beast out of the sea in Revelation 13, for both are said to be defeated by Christ upon his return (2 Thessalonians 2:8, Revelation 19:11-20).  Paul's title for him reveals key characteristics on its own, though.  To ignore or actively violate the moral obligations revealed in Yahweh's laws is to be lawless in the Biblical sense (see 1 John 3:4, though this verse is not necessary to logically prove the necessity of such a thing).  The idea of lawlessness here has nothing to do with trampling on or mocking the meaningless, asinine social constructs of mere humans who think that their preferences are anything more than just that.  Human conventions and desires are not moral obligations, just things that non-rationalists cling to in their delusions.  

This man of lawlessness betrays reason, justice, and the God who grounds justice (reason is true in itself, apart from contingent things grounded in God).  The man of lawlessness that Paul speaks of was and is a future figure, as the world we see is not New Jerusalem after the Second Coming by any means, yet, as John touches upon, this individual would have things in common with other lesser antichrists who have been in the world since the very lifetime of Jesus.  The antichrist has yet to come.  As that time draws nearer, though it may be many millennia away, one can already see examples of forerunners that reflect some of the same egoistic, antichrist beliefs or intentions.

The American Tipping System

Tipping is so normal, so engrained in certain industries, that it might be overlooked as a very serious manifestation of workplace exploitation.  Like with any concept, there are people who go to the left and right of the truth (ironically, in this case the words left and right are also political terms associated with fallacious philosophies!).  There is the notion that tipping is inherently for the good of workers and then there is the notion that tipping could not be anything but the enslavement of the working class.  The truth is that neither of these ideas is the case, and, as small as it is compared to certain other philosophical issues, American-style tipping and its broader economic system are not irrelevant to rationalistic philosophy (nothing is) or to Biblical ethics--the connection to the latter being that any ideology or practice which prioritizes profit over humans made in God's image is an abomination on Christianity.

Optional tips would indeed be a great way to boost income if the context was different than the present American norm.  As a main or significant source of income, tips are random, having more to do with the willingness or ability of customers to part with money beyond what they have already spent than they do with the worker's time or aptitude--and more importantly, the general tipping system is popularized almost exclusively so that employers do not actually strive to provide livable compensation for their workers.  By pressuring or allowing customers to be responsible for whether or not the workers, in some cases, earn anything above minimum wage, selfish and neglectful employers can take a disproportionate amount of revenue for themselves.

If the base wages were livable at least at 40 hours' worth of pay, tipping would neither be something workers depend on nor something customers might feel trapped into offering.  Yes, even in the current tipping system, tips could sometimes work very much in the happenstance favor of certain employees, but they are not guaranteed to receive tips of any amount or any tips at all, and many employers still use them as a supposed excuse to underpay workers and pass on part of their own role to their customers.  Tipping as a secondary, bonus form of compensation is not exploitative at all; the standard tipping system in America exploits both workers and, to some extent, those who are paying for a meal or service as it is.

Businesses like restaurants do not have to be structured in this way.  As things that people create, businesses can be structured to enrich those at the top at the cost of rationality, moral correctness, and sometimes even greater efficiency, or they can be structured so that the owners, managers, employees, and consumers all benefit.  As with business itself, tipping is not problematic because it is not itself what is predatory.  Fierce leftists tend to be too stupid to realize this even as conservatives are often too emotionalistically attached to the status quo to realize how the current tipping system contributes to Biblically unjust business priorities.

One of many ways that workplace norms genuinely do oppress workers in contemporary America, the very culturally visible approach to tipping is no equivalent substitute for livable base pay.  It is at the same time only one of multiple ways that tips could be incorporated into compensation, so it is not the option of providing workers in service jobs with tips that is exploitative.  Only when it is something a selfish, irrationalistic business leader uses to sidestep paying their workers well does tipping become a harmful thing.  Perhaps one day it will be something that collective American workers look to for a performance-based "bonus" of sorts instead of a primary part of income they are desperate for.

Homosexuality In Entertainment

To merely exist as a person with homosexual feelings is not what the Bible condemns in verses like Leviticus 20:13 or Romans 1:26-27.  Similarly, it is not sinful to be born into a predisposition towards feelings of sadism because it is beliefs and actions that make someone righteous or vile.  Emotions and desires that someone cannot choose are not only involuntary, but they also do not have to be expressed in irrationalistic beliefs or emotionalistic actions.  While the intentions of someone's heart are of great moral significance (Matthew 15:18-19)--and this is true irrespective of the Bible since anything that is morally good should have the interest and allegiance of someone's mind--just having desires that a person restrains or does not choose is never an instance of sin.

Now, the general portrayal of homosexual behavior, including positive portrayal, has indeed become more and more prominent.  There are numerous incredible stories that stand very tall on their philosophical and artistic merits (though artistic truths and concepts are but a subcategory of philosophy) that do feature dialogue in favor of homosexual behaviors or onscreen depictions of them.  Though many of these inclusions are motivated according to their storytellers as an invitation to or celebration of people with a homosexual orientation, associated with the belief that homosexual activities are morally permissible or good, the portrayals themselves are not sinful to watch.

First, it is true that homosexuals are also people, as are heterosexuals, and if people have worth simply because of their humanity, then even homosexuals do to, regardless of their behaviors.  This follows by logical necessity from the idea that all people bear God's image (Genesis 1:26-27).  Moreover, it is not as if homosexual interactions are the worst of interpersonal sins, or even the worst of sexual sins, though homosexual intercourse is a capital sin.  There is also the fact that, according to what the Bible does and does not say, it follows that it is even nonsinful for homosexuals to masturbate to thoughts or images of people of the same gender, as this is not a homosexual deed [1].  It is the physical act of performing sexual deeds with other people of the same gender, especially homosexual versions of intercourse, that the Bible condemns.  With all of this said, there is also the fact that if it is evil to view a sin like homosexual interactions onscreen, then the same would have to be true of many other things.

Murderer and kidnapping and sorcery are portrayed onscreen, and, yes, there are some evangelicals who legalistically oppose anything that features or emphasizes these acts as well.  As with the way that The Lord of the Rings and Harry Potter are hypocritically treated by many Christians, this is often a very selective, inconsistent condemnation of some things.  The Bible says to kill all who practice sorcery (Exodus 22:18, which by logical extension would apply to male sorcerers as well), yet Tolkien's story that is very loosely modeled on Christian theology has some of its wizards as protagonists, as servants of Eru Iluvatar.  In this universe, Eru's (God's) moral nature might be such that sorcery is not immoral unless it is used for selfish or malevolent ends, but it is still sorcery, and yet many Christians do not object to The Lord of the Rings and even admire it.

For sorcery or other sins, does the Bible say it is contrary to God's nature to read about, witness, or, in the case of video games, interact with evil beings and their actions?  Not only does it not say this even as Deuteronomy 4:2 says not to add to God's moral revelation (for it is complete, and conscience and tradition are objectively irrelevant to moral metaphysics), but it would be sinful to read the Bible by the Bible's own philosophy if it did!  The Bible contains accounts of everything from theft to deception, murder, abduction, sorcery, blasphemy, and even some of the worst tortures mentioned in the historical record in the New Testament (Roman crucifixion, one of the most Biblically unjust legal penalties of all time).  Heterosexual sins are among these reported immoralities, such as adultery and even rape, and unfortunately, even rape is not always condemned as harshly by Christians as the basic nonsinful experience of homosexual desires.

What is true of reading or viewing these deeds would also be true of homosexuality in cinema, television, gaming, and literature.  Additionally, there is the fact that a morally perfect, omniscient/omnipresent deity would see all sorts of immoral deeds, homosexual behaviors (between people) included.  Sin is what deviates from God's nature, and God himself cannot deviate from his own nature!  Evangelicals affirm omnipresence while believing in concepts that contradict it (another such case being their simultaneous belief in the ideas that hell is separation from God, that God is omnipresent, and that all the unsaved suffer in hell forever).  A homosexual orientation is not the sin, and seeing homosexual characters or behaviors in entertainment is not itself sinful either.  This is not a philosophy of liberal emotionalism that is adhered to only out of conflicted sympathy for homosexuals.  It is the rationalistic truth about Biblical doctrines on the matter.

[1].  https://thechristianrationalist.blogspot.com/2022/09/handling-homosexual-orientation.html

Therapy And Introspection

Almost the whole of one's sensory experiences might be just that, subjective mental experiences that do not have anything to do with the real appearance of environments and objects, or with whether many of them even exist at all.  One's mind, on the other hand, cannot not exist as long as any perception occurs, for to perceive even an illusion requires a consciousness to do the perceiving.  Whatever thoughts, feelings, or sensory perceptions one has, these too are directly knowable because they exist within one's verifiable mind.  It is only due to the objective truth and knowability of the laws of logic that even introspection is certain, but it is indeed infallibly certain as long as one makes no assumptions and intentionally looks to logic.

With the increasing mainstream popularity of therapy, it has also become more popular to imply or outright believe that without therapy, there is no ability to know one's own mental states.  Is a person clinging to the same fallacies and attitudes of someone who harmed them?  There are people who might pretend like discussions with a therapist are necessary to identify this hypocrisy.  Is a person overcome with anger or sadness?  This, too, is knowable from introspection, as one would merely need to look within one's own mind (in a rationalistic context) to know if these emotions or attitudes are present.  It is not that therapists and therapy cannot be helpful, but that they are absolutely irrelevant to the true metaphysics and epistemology of one's consciousness.

It is the intentional avoidance of autonomous discovery or revisiting of philosophical truths that is the issue, for no one needs books or the internet or conversations, including those with therapists, to realize or focus on a great many things.  The emphasis on therapy even where it is objectively unnecessary has made it popular to deny this truth, though it is not only true that rationalistic introspection is already within the reach of every willing person, but it is also makes self-awareness far more empowering and accessible.  You can have immediate, assumption-free, financially costless access to the entirety of your emotions, desires, memories, and general perception if only you do not choose to flee from this in one way or another.

Yes, some people might be able to better focus on a certain aspect of their mind with conversational prompting, not that a therapist is specifically required for this anyway.  It is not irrational to have this disposition as long as one does not refuse or neglect that introspection, which is itself only absolutely certain because the laws of logic it relies on (as all things do) is absolutely certain, is not ultimately about social interaction of any kind.  It is about one's own mind looking within itself and seeing that which cannot be an illusion: the very metaphysical existence of one's mind and all of its immediate contents can be known and examined at any time without the need for any guidance or prompting from others.

Game Review--Castlevania: Lords Of Shadow (Xbox 360)

"We have been deserted by God.  Creatures from the void come to claim the souls of men, to wipe mankind from the face of the Earth."

--Gabriel Belmont, Castlevania: Lords of Shadow

Castlevania: Lord's of Shadow succeeds at being a very on-rails, level-based version of the classic God of War style, but the often brief nature of the levels limits its storytelling focus.  Here, pseudo-Christian theology and elements of ancient Greek paganism are mixed along with puzzles, magic, and combat using a whip-like weapon, most of which once again is similar to older God of War games.  Due largely to usually brief levels in varied environments, the storytelling smoothness very much suffers at times (the aforementioned series Lords of Shadow partially imitates did not have this problem).  The lore could have been better developed, and ideas presented as if they are Christian contradict much of actual Christian theology, especially with the afterlife and an implied idea about the morality of magic, but the game had promise to launch a sequel better than itself.

Production Values

Of all the weaknesses of Lords of Shadow, the art style and overall visual integrity are not among them.  Fantasy creatures, characters like Gabriel Belmont, and the environments themselves hold up very well for a game more than 10 years old from two console generations ago.  The sometimes random plot is not hindered by the visuals.  Neither is its execution weakened by the voice acting up until the overly theatrical scene before the final boss, as random as the story itself can be.  Patrick Stewart by far exhibits the best voice acting of the game as narrator Zobek, Robert Carlyle offering effective but not as intense or nuanced of a vocal performance.  Stewart even gets to echo a famous statement from Star Trek, which he starred in, when he says that the needs of the many now outweigh the needs of the few.  One thing about the audio besides the voice acting does generally limit the nature of the game: the music is extremely repetitive across many levels.

Gameplay

Other than the smaller, separated levels with their own closing screens, much of the game itself is very similar to God of War.  The primary weapon is like a whip, which in its function resembles the Blades of Chaos Kratos wields.  While it is divided into light and shadow categories, there is magic (there is irony in people who claim to serve the Christian deity using magic at all when sorcery is a capital sin according to Exodus 22:18 and more, much less shadow magic).  Puzzles and minor platforming are scattered among many levels, just like in the older God of War games.  In fact, some of the puzzles are elaborate--though there is a system that gives hints at the forfeiture of whatever experience points solving the puzzle without aid would have earned.

The balance between fighting and solving puzzles, and very diverse puzzles at that, is maintained constantly, with combat being a somewhat more common element.  Unresponsive or rigid controls sometimes sabotage fluid platforming or attacks.  More than just the controls, the combat itself can be very tough, though this can depend on how many upgrades a person has collected or purchased or how often they evade.  A few bosses are especially brutal unless you get into the specific rhythm of dodging or blocking their strikes.  A great variety thankfully marks the bosses: there is a giant golem, a crow witch, Baba Yaga, the titular Lords of Shadow, and more.  Some of these confrontations merge platforming and offensive attacks very well in prolonged, multi-stage showdowns.

Story

Some spoilers are below.

After a seeming spell isolates humanity and its conscious dead from God and heaven, Gabriel Belmont is tasked by the Brotherhood of Light with visiting the Lake of Oblivion to end the curse.  He briefly converses with his recently killed wife Marie, whose spirit prompts him onward.  Gabriel finds aid in Zobek, a fellow associate of the Brotherhood of Light, and struggles with his own heightening aggression and desperation as he tries to kill the Lords of Shadow one by one to assemble the God Mask, an item which could reportedly allow him to resurrect his wife.

Intellectual Content

Beyond the rather varied and frequent puzzles, the game naturally leans into heavily theological issues that bizarrely deviate from actual Christian philosophy.  A version of the Christian deity is supposed to be the uncaused cause of this universe--I say a version because the metaphysics of the afterlife and the ethics of magic (though this could be that the characters are simply hypocrites) are treated very differently than how the Bible handles them.  One of Gabriel's driving motivations is to be reunited with the spirit of his dead wife Maria, who sometimes appears to him and communicates using audible words.  Not only does the Bible not teach that human souls can manifest at will across Earth after their bodily deaths, and not only does the Bible teach that no one is in heaven or hell right now unlike what the characters say, but it also teaches that the dead are completely unconscious, if they exist at all before their resurrection (Ecclesiastes 9:5-10, for instance).

The Greek pseudo-deity Pan is shown repeatedly, or some sort of satyr-like being that resembles Pan from Greek mythology.  There are also fairies that can be used in fights to slow enemies down.  Pan, called an old god, is actually said to be in submission to God in the bestiary entry of his "Silver Warrior" form.  Other than an uncaused cause, no being of any supernatural power is actually a god or goddess no matter what they are called, and the existence of the uncaused cause or the Christian Yahweh in particular and superhuman beings that fall short of Yahweh are not logically contradictory.  They would not be truly a god, but a superhuman, supernatural entity that falls short of the uncaused cause's past-eternality, grounding of moral obligation, and potential for extreme power that goes right up to the maximum of what is logically possible (power over everything except to change logical necessities).

Conclusion

The 3DS spinoff Mirror of Fate did a much better job of reflecting conventional "Metroidvania" exploration, but the original Lords of Shadow gets plenty right.  A strong art style, promising and philosophically unique lore, and generally competent gameplay elevate the game.  It is an artistic travesty that the lore is revealed in a plot that is so random that it provides a negative context for the environmental diversity in the levels.  Exploration is minimized, though puzzles are plentiful and sometimes constructed well.  Lords of Shadow could have been much, much worse, and not even its very laughable approach to "Christianity" (which is unbiblical not for the reasons that many evangelicals might think, such as the presence of Pan, which is consistent with Yahweh as long as only the latter is the uncaused cause) hinders the game's strengths as a pseudo-Christian type of God of War.

Content:

 1.  Violence:  The often whip-style combat attacks and finishing moves lead to plenty of blood with slashes and impalings.

 2.  Profanity:  "Bitch," "bastard," and "damn" are used.

 3.  Nudity:  A naked female pixie/fairy is seen in one level.  It is only partial nudity in the same way exposing one's hand or shoulder is partial nudity, but the breasts of a female, humanoid, demonic creature Claire summons are visible.