Ruler Worship

The Torah is plain about certain involvement with pagan religions deserving death.  Along with sacrificing to any god other than Yahweh (Exodus 22:20) or engaging in human sacrifice to a god like Molech more particularly (Leviticus 20:1-5), worshipping any real or nonexistent being (or part of the natural world) other than Yahweh is prescribed execution (Deuteronomy 17:2-7).  In fact, simply enticing someone else to worship other gods deserves the death penalty (Deuteronomy 13:6-10) even if the act is not carried out.  While not everything associated with every pagan religion is particularly fastened to capital punishment--someone who casually but stupidly identifies with pagan philosophy but does not actually worship or sacrifice to any other gods has not done such things--key acts are.

Since all allegedly self-affirmed divine rulers, living or dead, who are worshipped would be other "gods" besides Yahweh, though they are not deities at all if they are but humans, they would deserve to be killed for their cosmic treachery in acting like they are an uncaused cause or something closer to one.  Physical idols would not even have to be part of these practices.  They all would deserve to be killed for this alone, not to mention any of the murder, abduction, rape, adultery, or unbiblical torture they engaged in, all of which are their own capital sins.  Other than pretending to be above or ungoverned by the necessary laws of logic, there could be no greater arrogance than that or a lesser being considering itself divine.

Every pharaoh, emperor, monarch, and other human figure who has encouraged ruler worship or demanded this kind of reverence would by necessity deserve to die in light of this.  They would have enticed someone else to worship something other than Yahweh, or in some instances gone as far as to demand this unmerited reverence under the threat of death or torture.  As such, every single person who has ever decreed such a thing would Biblically deserve to be prematurely put to death.  They would not have to murder or abuse people in certain ways to coerce worship in order for this to be justice on the Christian worldview.  As foreign to some moderners as it might be, ruler worship is attested to in the historical record.

Xerxes of Persia might not have thought himself a literal god as presented in the film 300, but there are other cases of analogous delusion.  The imperial cult of Rome, for instance, pertained to the supposed deification of Caesars, and eventually their families, after death.  Caligula, according to Seutonius, is the first emperor of Rome to have called for worship while he was still alive.  This same sort of behavior is present on a smaller scale whenever a charismatic cult leader expects to be treated like a divinity.  Jim Jones, the leader of Peoples Temple who manipulated over 900 people at Jonestown in Guyana to commit suicide or be involuntarily injected with cyanide in 1978, would be an example of this.  He stated or implied that he himself was God to exert control over his followers.

It is not just that ruler worship is deeply erroneous if someone is not truly the embodied uncaused cause, from which all contingent things came directly or indirectly (such as if God created another being that created the universe with its own power).  If there is such a thing as reverence owed to any being, a queen or king could not deserve the same regard as the uncaused cause itself, no matter how much it would gratify their pathetic egos.  Mosaic Law does not have to specifically mention ruler worship by these words to condemn its adherents to death along with any person who called for worship of mortals, including that of their own self.  Anyone who sacrifices to other gods must be killed, and the same is the case with those who worship other gods/goddesses in additional ways or so much as entice people to do the same.  Coercing this would be necessity have to also deserve death.

Recalling A Sensory Experience

With imagination of the visualization kind, a mental image is summoned that might resemble something one has already observed--it could also pertain to something logically possible that one has never seen (including things that will never be visually seen either because of limited experiences or nonexistence, though logical possibility is a prerequisite to imagine something).  With memory, one can recall additional factors like the temperature or taste of food that go beyond the scope of a mere mental image.  The two can be used in unison.  After all, even visualizing what a building or a book seen days ago looked like is a matter of memory.

The imitation conjured up by one's mind, nonetheless, is very likely not as direct or intense on any level as the sensory experience itself, where it seems that the object is physically there separate from and independent of one's consciousness.  With imagination and memory, one is just thinking about a once-perceived environment, item, or creature rather than perceiving what appears to be an outward object.  Thinking about an article of clothing does not involve feeling its texture on one's skin, even if one visualizes it distinctly, just as merely recalling a person's face does not make it seem that the person is right before you.

Now, no one can prove the idea that what the sense of sight (or others such as hearing) relays is not ultimately an illusion, only existing as a mental construct rather than anything external and physical, because there is nothing logically impossible about this kind of extreme hallucination; it is consistent with logical axioms for almost nothing experienced by the senses to be reflective of external material phenomena, and it does not follow from perceiving something that it is there outside of one's mind, the existence of which, contrarily to external matter, any perception at all metaphysically requires and epistemologically proves (though this is still proven due to logical necessity, not apart from reliance on reason).

One could never tell the difference between a vibrant but hallucinated visual experience of this sort and everyday perception of an external object because they would seem identical.  Yet, no one can prove the alternative--that it really is not there physically outside of the mind--because it does not follow from the possibility of most sensory experiences being mental illusions that they actually are.  I have senses as well as a mind that can think in the absence of the senses, including in a way that incorporates memories of things I seem to have viewed in the past.  Either way, the mental experience of perceiving what appears to be external and material can be known with absolute certainty.  It is only whether or not most particular stimuli are purely mental (and therefore not true stimuli) that cannot be demonstrates due to human limitations.

Only the existence of some kind of body my mind resides in and the existence of some kind of material stimuli outside of my physical shell, though the appearance, texture, and so on of this broader external world is unknowable, can be proven as far as the presence of matter goes [1].  How is one to tell the distinction between whether one is just imagining a painting or a location, among other things, through recollection and mental imagery rather than gazing upon it in a given moment?  It would be impossible to prove that a sensory experience like this connects or does not connect to actual external stimuli comprised of matter.  What we are left with, besides the capacity to discover objective logical possibilities, along with what does or does not follow from them, is the mere probabilistic evidence of basic sensory experiences.

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

Language And Texts: The Original Interpretation Versus Original Intention

As irrelevant as it plainly is, for it is an appeal to a historically probabilistic (and that is if they made no assumptions about the evidence, such as by avoiding all appeals to contemporary historians instead of primary sources) interpretation of a people group instead of the words themselves, many people will look to what certain people reportedly said about ancient texts instead of the texts themselves for interpretation.  In fact, many habitually look to secondary sources for clarity while neglecting primary sources, perhaps while also believing erroneously that things are only true or knowable by words in defiance of reason's intrinsic, self-necessitated veracity.  It is true by logical necessity that the only words a non-telepathic/non-omniscient being could know the meaning of with absolute certainty are their own, but this is seldom grasped, and while one cannot know the intentions behind another person's text with absolute certainty, one cannot know if there is evidence that a text says something apart from the document itself.

When considering the words of others, many people make assumptions, particularly with certain religious and historical documents.  It is not uncommon for non-rationalists to look to something other than a text, like a contemporary scholar or a secondary source from long ago (but not reason, which is neither any physical text nor the minds that produce or receive it!), to interpret it.  With the Bible, they might think that whatever the ancient Jews or early Christians believed must represent the actual philosophical ideas articulated in its words.  It is one thing to consult outside evidences for historical/sociological things unexplained in the text itself, though many scholars rely on sheer hearsay and tradition when doing this, yet this is not where they stop with this, nor do they do even this without making assumptions.

It is another thing to confuse interpretation of the original receptors for what is objectively the meaning that is/was behind the words.  It is not the interpretation of whoever first received the words of something like the Torah, the New Testament, the Quran, or the American Constitution that metaphysically determines or epistemologically reveals their meaning.  Subsequent collective interpretations within a community are likewise irrelevant.  This does not follow logically, for it is about perception and potentially false belief instead of the text, and it is thus an obvious non sequitur.  Only a fool would ever be led astray by such blatant red herrings.  Secondarily, there is historical evidence for a variety of interpretations on the part of, for example, ancient Jews and early Christians, so although appeals to authority and consensus already have no validity, so even on the level of historical interpretation, there is often only an imagined consensus.

No, it is whatever is intended by all words, spoken or written, that dictates their linguistic meaning.  One can only know the true meaning of one's own words, for there are no epistemological barriers on the part of a rationalist to directly knowing what they mean by something.  As constructs that are not logically necessary truths nor scientific laws of nature nor the same thing as thoughts, words are contrived by people for the sake of communication or subjective interest.  They have no innate definitions that are not personally or socially created, for these only consist of other words, though the ideas behind them are either true or false independent of psychological constructs.  While one cannot know what other minds mean by their words, broader context can offer fallible clues, but this does not mean that the original audiences understood any of this correctly.  The ideas behind an original speaker or writer's intentions are the meaning of a text.  What any audience then or now believes is not relevant on any level.

The Example Of Dark Oxygen: Logical Possibility And Scientific Phenomena

Named "dark oxygen" after the darkness of the ocean zone where it is reportedly being produced (this would be in the abyssopelagic region beneath even the bathypelagic zone's 4,000 meter power boundary), oxygen has been documented that would not be derived from the photosynthesis of everything from enormous land-based trees to masses of phytoplankton in the seas.  There is no sunlight this far below the water's surface, as it stops penetrating past 1,000 meters, and thus there is nothing to trigger photosynthesis in order to pave the way for aerobic organisms.  Seawater electrolysis would divide the water into hydrogen and oxygen.  Would this have ramifications for what is scientifically probable/plausible, in light of the contingent laws of nature we observe, regarding the origin of life?  Yes.

Still, no, it should not surprise anyone (if they are thoroughly rational) that oxygen could be produced from means other than photosynthesis, from sources that are not living things.  This is not even strictly because a person would have already been speculating based on precursor contemporary investigation.  While it might defy personal expectations (or assumptions if they went further than expecting it), or be far removed from someone's surface-dwelling experiences or the scientific concepts familiar to them, dark oxygen, like all scientific and broader concepts, is not ultimately possible or impossible in light of what is observed empirically or reportedly observed by scientists far from one's residence.

Such a thing as dark oxygen, like many other scientific and other metaphysical events or entities, does not contradict logical axioms, and so, since it is consistent with them, is capable of being true; in other words, it is logically possible.  A ramification is that even if it is/was not true that there is oxygen created in the lightless depths of the ocean apart from photosynthetic phenomena, it still could have been the case that the natural world was this way.  A person is not likely to think of concepts like those of supernovas or quantum teleportation or radioactive decay or dark oxygen apart from some sort of experiential prompting (spurred by direct sensory experience or hearsay), but experience and the physical world perceived do not dictate logical possibility.  Consistency with logical necessities does.  In this sense, no one has a basis to be surprised that the likes of dark oxygen are possible.

Perhaps a given individual is surprised upon hearing that nonliving things are empirically supposed to produce oxygen because sensory and hearsay evidence--remember, absolutely no one can know if their visual sense is accurate or not and they certainly cannot know what is happening on the ocean floor because of what someone else tells them [1]--previously supported the idea of only certain living things producing oxygen.  This is not irrational because it does not require that anyone made assumptions or believed anything contrary to logical necessity and to what is suggested by available yet always fallible scientific evidence (the two are not the same [2]!).  They did not assume, and they made no errors of any kind.

It would be possible for someone to think about the concept of dark oxygen ahead of time and realize that it is logically possible, whatever the current scientific paradigm is.  As improbable as this is and utterly philosophically unnecessary as it would be ahead of time, it could be done, yet a person is not irrational whatsoever for not thinking of dark oxygen before some sort of claimed scientific evidence is brought forth for it.  Whether they think about it with or without a particular kind of sensory promoting, however, it is within everyone's reach to see that the objective logical possibility of any scientific matter is intrinsically dictated by consistency with logical axioms, which cannot be false, and other necessary truths.  Seeming outlandish or surprising due to experiential unfamiliarity has nothing to do with this one way or another.

[1].  https://thechristianrationalist.blogspot.com/2022/04/surrounded-by-hearsay.html

[2].  https://thechristianrationalist.blogspot.com/2021/10/a-shared-epistemological-barrier-in.html

The Apostle's Creed

Non-rationalists love to think they can have fallacious "shortcuts" to knowledge, such as racial stereotypes that supposedly dictate how a white or black person will act or hearsay about a historical event they did not witness.  True knowledge, that of absolute certainty derived from the necessary truths of logic, is foreign to them, but that woll accept almost anything else as long as they are subjectively persuaded (such as with cumulative but still hearsay evidence in a court case) or find something personally appealing about it (like their conscience feeling as if something is immoral).  With consensus-based ideas about morality or religious metaphysics, some non-rationalists think they have other shortcuts to "knowledge" of a given theology like Christianity in the form of whatever their pastor claims, whatever they have heard the majority of times from other Christians, or what is consistent with broader church tradition.

Whatever some figure says about the Bible, is what they believe Christianity to be.  This could pertain to someone living or dead.  If the early church believed it, then it must be Biblical, they might think, whether or not this is actually the case--and even separate from the objective fact that agreement or tradition is not what makes something true, someone had to first discover a given Biblical teaching, so it is nothing but irrational to focus on whether something is already historically "approved" or has been previously put forth by a popular figure.  Take the Apostle's Creed, the seeming earliest of the creeds.  Now, it is blatantly erroneous in its reference to Jesus descending into hell--no one is or will be in hell according to the Bible until the wicked are resurrected (Revelation 20:10-15), and the dead are unconscious or nonexistent in Sheol until this revival (Ecclesiastes 9:5-10).  The only thing that Jesus perhaps descended into is what Peter calls Tartarus to speak to imprisoned demonic beings (compare 1 Peter 3:18-20, which might be referencing him conversing with spirits after his resurrection, with 2 Peter 2:4 and Jude 1:6).  

Aside from this obvious Biblical error in the Apostle's Creed, it is an accurate but very loose, incomplete summary of Christianity.  It still says nothing about the specifics of Biblical morality, far more important than salvation without which there could be no sin and thus no redemption, instead touching upon the unspecified forgiveness of sins.  It leaves out details about cosmic justice of annihilation in hell and the nature of eternal life with God, the gift received through reconciliation to Yahweh.  Had this creed addressed any of these things, however, and when it comes to what it does happen to accurately address, one absolutely cannot know anything about Christianity from this, as opposed to what someone identifying as a Christian claimed at some point when creating the Creed.  Anyone at all who looks to the Apostle's Creed (or any other extra-Biblical statement) instead of the Bible itself has no idea what the fuck Christianity actually entails and, even if the creed overlapped with all of the vital parts of Christianity in full, it is the Bible one would have to assess free of all assumptions.

The present and historic church has believed many plainly unbiblical ideas that are often embraced due to the familiarity of tradition, that asinine ideological basis that Jesus condemned over and over (such as in Matthew 15:1-12).  As common as it is for people to insist otherwise, no one Biblically goes to heaven or hell upon biological death before their bodily resurrection (Job 3:11-19, Daniel 12:2, 13), and heaven and hell are not what many people have heard.  Heaven, where God's dwelling place resides, is brought to Earth through New Jerusalem (Revelation 21-22) and hell is a place where the wicked are ultimately exterminated (Matthew 10:28, 2 Peter 2:6, John 3:16).  Contrary to another miscellaneous concept falsely associated with Christianity, the Bible does not condemn homosexual feelings, only interpersonal actions like intercourse (Leviticus 18:22, 20:10).  Moreover, Jesus does not nullify Mosaic Law to prescribe new, evolved obligations that are contrary to Mosaic Law or higher than Yahweh's complete moral revelation (Matthew 5:17-19).  Conventional Trinitarianism is absolute nonsense logically and even Biblically (Matthew 24:36).  There are numerous other key examples that could be given of things misunderstood by likely the majority of contemporary or historical "adherents" of Christianity.

If something like the Apostle's Creed is accurate, then it is the book it appeals to that dictates if the creed is accurate.  If it is not accurate, it is irrelevant anyway.  Even so, its accuracy in representing Biblical Christianity (whether the ideas behind the words are actually true is another issue) could never be known from the creed itself.  One would have to read the Bible, which renders appeals to tradition, including creeds, pointless either way when it comes to learning the real philosophical doctrines of Christianity.  Only a fool thinks they can discover what the Quran says by looking to the Hadiths, collections of statements from scholars, and the same is true with the Bible and the creeds, no matter how historically entrenched they are in some people's beliefs about Christianity.  Churchgoers and general Christians who think pastors or creeds or any such thing are necessary to know Christianity are imbeciles.

Logic, people.  It is very fucking helpful.

Game Review--Aztech Forgotten Gods (Switch)

"What you did yesterday in the cavern ended my slumber, and now my consciousness is bound to yours."

--Tez, Aztech Forgotten Gods

Aztech: Forgotten Gods relies quite heavily on its one undiluted strength at first, which is hardly enough to prop up the majority of the game--until the last third finally becomes deeper and more creative.  As unique as the geographical focus on a never-conquered Aztech empire is, even moreso because of the hyper-futuristic society envisioned, Forgotten Gods is hardly a triumph of a game on any level besides this aspect of novelty until closer to the end.  It is downright barebones or awful otherwise.  Even a "New World" never conquered by European colonization or a world in which this colonization never happened at all anywhere else is barely explored.  I acknowledge that this is an indie game with a narrow budget, but a futuristic Tenochtitlan could be handled so much better.  There is also almost no attack variety and flying around with the gauntlet Lightkeeper can be unnecessarily difficult to control.  However, one of the boss confrontations, to be explored more later below, is so philosophically charged, so artistically clever, and so personally crucial for protagonist Achtli that it greatly transcends the usual abysmal or mediocre quality of the themes, writing, and narrative execution.  The game improves here onward.

Production Values

In general, the poor quality of the visual restrictions and issues in the game inversely match the high potential its setting has for aesthetic brilliance.  Achtli's hair sometimes phases through her torso and outfit with its protrusions (unless you optionally customize it to a sufficiently small size), or her feet disappear into massive bosses during close-up melee attacks.  Worse than this, the character models for some noncritical NPCs are atrocious.  Particularly noticeable compared to Achtli's face, theirs has no depth, as they simply have a flat face with little markings indicating the eyes, nose, and mouth!  Sometimes the photo mode accessed from the pause menu still helps screenshots appear smoother.

The lack of voice acting is not a problem by itself, especially for an indie game, but there is no budgetary excuse for the asinine dialogue that makes its way into the story.  Achtli actually calls one of the early bosses "Lord Flaming Turd" of all things.  And then there are the numerous logical fallacies espoused by all sorts of characters in the game, including the protagonists, that no one challenges because they are presented as if the player is expected to agree with them.  Now, artistic excellence is still possible even when a work is riddled with philosophical errors in its proposed worldview(s), but there is seldom excellence in the dialogue content or delivery to at least balance this stupidity.  A major exception is during the second to last boss encounter to obtain energy to free Nantsin, Achtli's mother.  Regarding Nantsin (spoiler!), she ends up sacrificing her life for humankind, an end that even now relatively few female characters receive.  A fictional woman who sacrifices her life for people at large rather than for her child or romantic partner is still a rarity, and this is one way Forgotten Gods does positively stand out.

Gameplay

Most of the fighting is entirely skippable outside of the mandatory boss fights.  In fact, Forgotten Gods is structured so that it mostly provides scripted dialogue followed by boss confrontations followed by dialogue, which is then followed by another boss fight.  There is more: the very repetitive and minimalist combat is usually limited to only two options!  A standard punch tied to the Y button and a heavier, charged strike tied to the X button constitute the basic offensive abilities.  Occasionally, you have to visit a specific building to acquire new moves or traverse the unlively map, and as you fly around, you can encounter spots with a handful of hovering enemies that can be easily dispatched.

These fights pose the only combat in the game outside of the boss battles and optional timed challenges, taking place mid-flight.  At least there is some variety in the visual appearance of these "deities", as well as some of their locations.  In one, you have to navigate a maze of doorways multiple times over to reach each stage of the fight.  In another, you come into contact with light and dark energy to break opposing sides of the boss's protective barrier.  You can purchase new outfits, hairstyles, and passive/active enhancements for Achtli with two respective currencies that are rather easy to obtain, but other than this and finding scattered historical inscriptions and special pursuit or combat trials, there is almost nothing to do beyond completing the highly straightforward story objectives.

Story

Some spoilers are below.

Depressed by the absence of her dead father, Achtli assists her mother with investigating an ancient relic that turns out to be a technologically advanced gauntlet capable of levitation and great offensive abilities.  Interacting with an energy core in subterranean ruins seems to awaken a set of monstrous beings in Tenochtitlan, as well as telepathically bond Achtli to the Aztech "god" Tez, the Feathered Serpent.  This enigmatic being says the bond is involuntary and that it will assist her.  When her mom gets trapped behind a barrier in the ruins, Achtli retrieves energy from the cores of the miscellaneous aggressive Aztech "deities" that have been dismissed as myths by moderners, hoping to reroute the energy to deactivate the barrier.  As each core is depowered, the protagonist sees visions of what would appear to be past events each time she uses Lightkeeper to absorb energy from the spheres, which is clarified more by information her friend Tepo finds about the distant past.

Intellectual Content

At first, there is precious little abstract depth to anything about the game.  Human and "divine" characters say extraordinarily fallacious things, such as when Tez assumes that Achitli's individual lack of rationality reflects on the entire species, or else he would have no reason to ask her if all humans are so stupid just because she is.  The initial thematic superficiality combined with what starts as highly minimal storytelling effort severely hinders the game, though a rationalistic person could find the characters entertaining.  "Assumptions can lead us down a sketchy path", Nantsin says--and then she makes assumptions by positing obvious epistemological fallacies such as the idea that a signal from inside a structure must mean one of the giant pseudo-deities is inside, rather than being the product of faulty equipment or an inaccurate sensory perception!  The director of an enigmatic organization at one point promotes utilitarianism, yet he contradicts this worldview by later opposing the sacrifice of a small number of humans to keep the gods appeased, as it comes to light that they appear to require human biomass as sustenance.  Eventually, the miscellaneous back and forth fallacies of the characters relent as the focus is placed on such revelations about the nature of these gods.

Yes, most of these supposed gods (any created/contingent being cannot be a deity) are rather hostile to humanity.  Tepo finds evidence that the Feathered Serpent, the first member of the Aztech pantheon to come to our planet, traveled the world fighting ancient warriors, who assigned it different names in different regions; it is supposed to have been the inspiration for Jormungandr in Norse mythology and the Hydra in Greek mythology.  He uses the word organism when speaking of this first Aztech "god" to arrive on Earth, clearly presenting it as an extraterrestrial life form rather than a true deity.  Of course, any being other than a literal uncaused cause is not a deity, however superhuman they might be (incredible strength, prolonged lifespan, immortality, supernatural abilities).  Tez does, however, have a telepathic link to Achtli that clearly transcends the metaphysical separation of their material bodies.  The issue of whether he has an origin is never directly clarified although it is strongly implied by calling him an organism that he was born somewhere else in the universe.  Either way, plot twists about the more sinister activities of the gods in the ancient past serve as a progressively relevant way to introduce genuine aspects of Aztech mythology.

Worthy of special note is Mictlantecuhtli's (the Lord of Mictlan) sensory manipulations, which plunge Achtli into a perceived maze that the "god" calls Mictlan (an Aztech afterlife realm) before he says he is only showing her constructs of her own mind.  He is the only god you scarcely fight, as overcoming him is more about navigating a thematically perfect setting for the protagonist to finally shed her sense of guilt over her father's death, which was not her fault.  From this point onward, the game is far more philosophically oriented and embraces its concepts and themes more thoroughly.  For instance, in this segment, Achtli finds what truly appears to be her father's spirit, but he implies he is only experiencing an afterlife because his daughter is standing on magic artifact that can temporarily fulfill desires.  The only beings that seem to potentially have a sustained afterlife are those whose life energy is stored in the spherical cores Achtli interacts with--since the gods required human life force to sustain their own lives, that energy was stored in the cores Achtli engages with throughout the story.  Not all of Aztech mythology is supposed to be true even in the game, it would seem!

Conclusion

Highly unbalanced but eventually far weightier than it starts out, Forgotten Gods does have aspects of genuine depth and success as philosophical art, but the road to these things is a very difficult one.  Repetitive or unpolished animations and almost no quality worldbuilding and characterization before the final third of the game severely hinders the game.  Stay all the way through, and you will find a game that does significantly improve.  A more expensive and developed game would have handled the setting and Aztech pseudo-pantheon (remember, they are not actual gods!) better while providing at least some combat variety past a couple of melee attacks combined with a very inconvenient ranged attack.  The last third of Forgotten Gods does not undo the extreme flaws of the preceding parts, but it does elevate the title dramatically.

Content:

 1.  Violence:  Lightkeeper's powerful blows draw no blood since the enemies are pseudo-deities or other non-human foes.

 Profanity:  Achtli or other characters use words like "damn", "shit", "bastard/s", and "bitch".

Confession To God

To repent, one does not necessarily need to announce one's repentance or particular sins to other people, for it is the turning of an individual away from sin, which is an inner change of heart.  Genuine, thorough repentance consistently clung to will lead to an avoidance of irrationality and other sin, or else a person only insincerely, incompletely, repented or merely pretended to.  Confession to ecclesiastical figures or to the person, if applicable, who one has sinned against can be entirely unnecessary.  What is the determining factor here?

Numbers 5:5-7 says every man and woman who wrongs another is to confess their sin and make restitution when this is the attached penalty in God's laws, yet not all sins against other people are prescribed monetary restitution as their just punishment (examples of sins that do receive this punishment can be found in Exodus 21:18-19 and 22:5-7).  If restitution is required, a sin has been committed, and even the giving of the restitution is an acknowledgement that a person has erred and is at least wanting to outwardly make things right.  Confession here is commanded by Numbers 5, seemingly to the victim.

Crucially, this would mean that even if restitution to the victimized party (such as with petty theft) along with confession of the sin to their face is necessary, not all sins would need to be confessed to the victim in this way for their to be justice enacted or repentance on the part of the sinner.  Not all sins are crimes, and not all criminal sins are penalized with restitution and thus the implied or explicit confession connected to it.  1 John 1:9 also says to confess our sins to receive divine forgiveness, but it does not say to mention every sin to other humans, only to confess the sin.  It is to God that confession and repentance must primarily or sometimes exclusively be directed.

After his adultery with Bathsheba, David says in Psalm 51:4 that he has sinned against God and God alone.  On an ultimate, literal level, of course his sin was not strictly against God: he enticed Bathsheba to participate in a capital sin (Deuteronomy 22:22) and he behaved wrongly towards her and her husband (by having him killed and not just by committing adultery with his wife).  However, nothing could be morally erroneous unless God has a moral nature and a given deed deviates from that nature; otherwise it is only at most subjectively disliked or pragmatically harmful, not immoral.  David is right in that his sin, like all sin, is against God first and foremost even if it is committed with or against another person.

God never demands confession to other people, in general or to specific individuals, for all sins against them by default, whether to a class of priests/pastors, to close Christian friends, or to the wronged person (this is only in the aforementioned relevant cases).  He would be the one that confession is owed to.  What, also, of someone who has sinned against another person who has since died or who cannot be contacted?  Though he or she has become repentant, would they be sinning by not having the opportunity to confess to the offended party, even if the latter never realized they had been mistreated?  No!  Confession to God is morally mandatory.  To people, it is sometimes a supererogatory thing, or good but not obligatory.

For-Profit Healthcare

It is not always workers alone that a predatory industry exploits.  Sometimes it is the clients, those who pay for the product or service.  To seek some sort of financial reward in exchange for providing professional aid is unproblematic in itself.  This would also apply to those with high positions or more prestigious roles, no matter the industry.  Everyone from executives to mechanics to academic consultants to doctors would not be irrational or unjust to forsake their profession if it was not for the compensation or other benefits they receive in exchange for their work.  If the pursuit of monetary profit is prioritized at the expense of caring first and foremost about reason and moral obligations, this is where the egoistic stupidity appears.

The healthcare industry of some countries, America included, has a reputation for frequently, intentionally taking advantage of its clients in one way or another.  While there is nothing inherently predatory about simply having investors to which a company is accountable, the American for-profit healthcare industry is so often a den of deception, greed, or financial burden that some people are terrified at the thought of ever calling an ambulance--not because of whatever condition the emergency personnel are being called for, but because of the monetary cost.  Nonprofit organizations, including hospitals, still need revenue or donations for expenses like electrical power and paying employees, but the goal of a genuine nonprofit group is not to amass and needlessly hoard wealth, hence why they are granted tax exemptions.  For-profit healthcare organizations might be on the leash of demanding, selfish investors who only ultimately prioritize their own economic benefit.

For those groups willing to exploit the sick or injured, probably in addition to their own medical workers, there are many avenues available to them.  Medications could have the prices increased or set at an initially extreme number for no reason other than because desperate people with enough money to spend on them might still pay the extraordinarily inflated cost, most of which can be given to the investors or executives who need this surplus money the least.  Hospital bills can reach enormous heights.  Giving birth in a hospital, as opposed to one's own home, can be very costly, and doctors, hospital services, and more are not necessarily cheaper just because someone pays through insurance, though reducing client costs are the alleged purpose of this separate industry.

Yes, sometimes paying for something related to medications, doctor's appointments, or hospitals can be more expensive when using the insurance that is purchased to alleviate such costs.  It might temporarily channel revenue to those in control of organizations, but marking up prices just for the sake of greed and charging people more if they have insurance in an utterly predatory, deceptive attempt to make it seem like they are still paying less are inherently irrationalistic practices.  To do this, someone must assume that greed is morally good or at least neutral, or they must pursue gratuitous wealth at the expense of others without regard for whether they are making any philosophical errors.  Something as gratuitous and emotionalistic as greed cannot be wholeheartedly pursued as one pursues alignment with reason, not that this will deter the typical person who submits to enslavement to wealth in all likelihood.  

Doctors, their receptionists, those who produce or ship the materials to be used in hospitals and clinics, and more of course would deserve to be compensated well for their work if professional labor deserves livable pay, especially if it is specialized.  Everyone who works in the healthcare industry would deserve compensation scaled to their role, but livable for all.  Charging clients for these services is not the same as treating them as nothing more than a source of income to be tossed aside when more cannot be pried out, and so there is nothing exclusive about generating money through healthcare and not oppressing clients. As more Americans begin to notice the ways that so many of their workplaces are objectively structured, by Biblical standards, to exploit them, they also need to recognize that practices like planned obsolescence or the predatory practices more unique to the medical industry exploit those paying for goods and services as well.