The Affordability Of The Sabbath

For some families, not being able to work on even a single day a week would significantly hinder their ability to save money, as a day spent not generating some sort of income would greatly slow their accumulation of vital wealth.  Some people might alternatively not have to even think about what abstaining from professional work one day a week would do to their income.  There is nothing wrong with having this kind of privilege, for no one who possesses it is necessarily irrational or unjust, and anyone who hates another person for being able to have at least one guaranteed day away from work can only do so on the basis of stereotypes or envy (assumptions and emotionalism).  But what about those who might suffer from not working every day of the week?  The Biblical Sabbath, if Christianity is true, would be an obligation for them just as it is for everyone else, though the Sabbath does not mean that absolutely no one can perform physical labor or that there would not be exceptions even with labor for pay (such as hospital work) [1].

The Sabbath is something ignored or trivialized by a great number of Christians.  Keeping a day of rest might be far from the most vital of moral obligations detailed in the Bible, but to violate the Sabbath is a capital offense (Exodus 35:2).  If more Christians were to take it as seriously as the Bible itself does, setting aside their emotionalistic love affair with conscience and church tradition, they might quickly begin to think about the ways to implement a personal Sabbath in a culture very different than that of the ancient Jews.  In an economy like that of America where some people can scarcely afford to wait two weeks to receive their next round of pay, how the poor should keep a Sabbath is a significant issue (though the Bible never prescribes Saturday or Sunday as the Sabbath, only saying to abstain from general work for one day of each week, which makes it easier to uphold).

The Sabbath is not about penalizing the poor for being poor or giving the illusion of a respite from work while taxing people with worries about how they will survive.  It is a day of rest, not a day intended to provoke deep financial anxiety.  Ultimately, any difficulties in keeping the Sabbath and staying afloat economically in modern, Western society would be due to the oppressive manner in which capitalism is practiced in America, which drives many people to let work dominate their lives.  The problem would not originate from having a day to acknowledge and rest in the fact that professional work and unnecessary labor in general are not the defining things of life.  With or without Christianity being true, in fact, work is at most secondary to other matters (the core of reality is reason rather than social constructs like economic practices).  The Sabbath is about knowing and celebrating this truth, which transcends even a theistic context, and the poor are just as able to understand these logical facts as the rich.

Professional work and physical labor in general are not the most important parts of life for either the rich or the poor.  The "affordability" of the Sabbath would have nothing to do with whether it is obligatory anyway, as pragmatic consequences do not make something good or evil, but the Sabbath is needed no less by the poor, who would benefit from as much physical relaxation and spiritual rest as they can find.  The Sabbath, as Jesus says, is for the sake of human wellbeing (Mark 2:27).  Having a day of rest is never the problem to begin with when a society is structured so that people are pressured to let work occupy the majority of their lives, and just to simply survive at that.  Evangelicals unfortunately tend to be too infatuated with American social norms to see how far many of them deviate from Biblical commands.  Holding a personal Sabbath each week would could actually be liberating in ways that could prompt someone to see just how arbitrary, hypocritical, and baseless so much of the American economic system truly is.

[1].  https://thechristianrationalist.blogspot.com/2022/11/healing-on-sabbath.html

Cain And Abel In The Quran: The Reference To The Fire

The names of Adam's sons who offer sacrifices to God are not mentioned in the Quran itself, but Genesis 4, which would be included in the authoritative texts of Islam since the Torah is affirmed (Surah 5:46) as a whole in addition to some of its commands and stories, provides context that is by extension true on the Islamic worldview.  Both siblings, named Cain and Abel, offer sacrifices, but only the sacrifice of one is accepted, the Bible specifying this as Abel's offering of animal fat (Genesis 4:4).  Cain's sacrifice of fruit from the soil is rejected (Genesis 4:3), perhaps because it did not involve the shedding of blood.  Surah 5:27-31 summarizes parts of this narrative and adds something blatantly absent from the Biblical account.

In both books, one brother murders the other out of anger and likely jealousy.  Genesis says that Cain brought Abel to a field and killed him there.  None of Abel's words leading up to this are mentioned in the text.  In the Quran, Abel warns Cain of the Fire, a name for hell used throughout the Quran.  He tells his murderous brother that he will not kill him in self-defense and that his aggressor will become an inhabitant of the Fire as is the "'evildoers' reward" (5:29).  The corresponding Biblical passage, in contrast, does not mention hellfire at all.  In fact, the entire Old Testament says very little about any kind of afterlife other than that there will be a future resurrection of all people, only the righteous of which will receive eternal life (Daniel 12:2).  The contrast here of eternal life with anything else means the wicked cannot permanently exist in conscious agony.

While there are occasionally other relevant verses in the Old Testament such as Malachi 4:1-3, the New Testament is where the Bible most directly addresses hell, and what it says about the matter is very much unlike the traditionalist stance.  The Fire of the Quran is drastically different from the actual hell of the Bible and is closer to what many Christians assume, based upon popular culture and common statements, the Christian hell is like.  The Fire is not a flame that will reduce sinners to ashes, as 2 Peter 2:6 says will happen to the unrighteous just as it befell Sodom and Gomorrah in this life.  It is not a fire that brings about the second death Revelation 20:15 speaks of.  It is not a means of God killing the soul (Matthew 10:28, John 3:16).

No, the Fire of the Quran is a place where sinners will remain without any chance for escape by annihilation or repentance (Surah 2:81-82).  Islam presents the hope of avoiding hell simply by never committing particularly egregious sins: "But if you avoid the great sins you have been forbidden, We shall wipe out your minor misdeeds and let you in through the entrance of honour" (Surah 4:31).  Still, for those who do not avoid this, there is torment in the Fire (see 4:30 immediately before this).  The Islamic hell is quite different from the Christian hell.  Again, the former is much like what many Christians imagine when they describe eternal suffering in hellfire.  Abel does not touch upon the duration of the pain of the Fire in Surah 5, but other verses do!

Genesis never mentions hell in the story of Cain and Abel or otherwise, only Sheol, the state of all the dead that later passages clarify involves no consciousness at all (Ecclesiastes 9:5-10, Job 3:11-19, and so on).  This is what befalls all people until their resurrection.  As for the final judgment and reward or punishment of the dead, the Bible, from start to finish, clearly teaches that no one lives forever, in torment or not, apart from harmony or reconciliation with God (John 10:29, 1 Timothy 6:16).  Eternal life is granted only to those who align with God by having never sinned or by genuine repentance (Romans 2:7).  This is not how the Quran presents things.  If Islam was true, though eternal conscious torment for any finite sin is unjust by default, everyone lives forever and many would wish they did not.

Mathematics And Science

Three mountains could only be three mountains and not seven.  The number 22 cannot be a prime number.  16 added to 16 equals 32: the concepts are true no matter numeric symbols assigned to them or the language used to convey them.  Applied mathematics, though one does not need any sort of educational prompting, has to do with what is mathematically true about a given domain of something such as science, as with physics or business, which in turn have their own subcategories.  Mathematics reduces down to logical necessities, which are true independent of other things and thus it is other things that must be consistent with them in order to even be possible.  It cannot be possible, among other axioms being inherently true, for one thing which follows from another logically to be false or to have been different, such as that nothing follows from anything, since reason being false/different would still require that it logically follows from reality being a given way that reason is untrue or different.

It would be idiotic, therefore, and thus can only be assumed that one must go out into the natural world and observe its contingent properties in order to know that truths about numbers are true.  Sensory observations can provoke recognition of facts like how negative numbers exist as logically necessary concepts despite how there could never be a hole in the ground with negative amounts of square feet.  No collection with a negative number of cars, to give just one example, can be found because this is already logically impossible.  The metaphysical and epistemological dependence of scientific matters on mathematics is not because numbers and logical facts about them are just a part of science.  They transcend science altogether and can of course to some extent can be discovered and grasped without any sensory experience at all [1].

For this reason, there is also no such thing as a correct "mathematics applicability argument" for God's existence, since it is numeric truths that exist as logically necessary facts in the absence of God and not the other way around [2].  If there was no God, there would be zero deities, but there would.  There is an uncaused cause and this is demonstrable from reason [3], and if there was no God there could be no cosmos, yet God does not make mathematics apply to the physical world.  Any physical world that exists could only exist if it was governed by what cannot be false.  It would still be true and could only be true that 127 is not 3,016 and that three added to three equals six.

It is neither because the natural world grounds mathematical truths, as if there would be none if not for the existence of matter and they are only true of physical things, nor because the mind of God makes them true.  Mathematical truths are numeric subsets of logical truths, which are necessarily the case in themselves, instead binding God and the cosmos alike.  Nothing can be true that violates logical necessity, so God and nature are not above or outside of them.  On the contrary, they dictate the nature of all other things, including the divine mind (for instance, one God is one God, no matter what Trinitarians pretend; it either has multiple personalities within one single divine consciousness or there are multiple gods if there is a "Trinity"), physical phenomena, and mental conceptions of them.

Mathematics is but a subcategory of reason that specifically pertains to matters of quantity, which has ramifications for things like geometry (which is about shapes and not just numbers).  Yes, logical axioms, while there are mathematical truths about them, such as that there are multiple logical axioms--the existence of truth, the inherence of things following or not following from others, and so on--must be true in order for anything to be true about numbers or their binding relationship on all else.  For instance, that a thing is what it is is self-evident, for otherwise whatever else it is would be what it is, and thus it is true in itself like other axioms.  However, it is not that 1 is 1 that is self-evident.  This hinges on what can be called the law of identity already being true.  A number could not be itself without the law of identity, but the law of identity is true prior to and apart from any example of a category or thing it could be true of beyond logical axioms themselves.  Science cannot possibly be what dictates or reveals mathematical truths instead of numeric truths and broader and more foundational logical truths dictating and revealing scientific ideas and experiences.

[1].  https://thechristianrationalist.blogspot.com/2020/03/knowledge-without-senses.html

[2].  See here for more elaboration:

A.  https://thechristianrationalist.blogspot.com/2018/12/mathematical-platonism.html

B.  https://thechristianrationalist.blogspot.com/2020/10/the-ultimate-being.html

C.  https://thechristianrationalist.blogspot.com/2023/07/god-and-empty-space.html

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

The Breath Of Life In Animals

I am conscious, and this is something absolutely certain: I cannot doubt or reject my existence without necessarily existing in order to do so.  Although I cannot in any way be sure if most of my memories or sensory experiences correspond to anything but mere mental perceptions, or in other words, do not pertain to external events and objects, other people also seem to have minds of their own.  The unverifiability means this seeming consciousness of theirs could be an illusion.  Mine cannot be, for one cannot misperceive the existence of their own mind; they could only at most go about life merely assuming that they exist or never thinking about it, which, as a rationalist, I gave up numerous years ago.

According to the Bible, human consciousness is/is caused by the divine breath of life, which transformed Adam from an inanimate mass of dirt into a living being, a soul (Genesis 2:7).  It is not just other humans that seem to be conscious as I observe them move, react, and express noise and supposed emotions and intentionality.  Non-human animals also appear outwardly to have this immaterial mind within them, from ants to whales.  This seems to be the case from ordinary perception of them, not that I can know from unverifiable perceptions if these stimuli actually exist outside of my own consciousness.

The Bible plainly teaches that animals, too, are conscious despite lacking God's image (Genesis 1:26-27).  When the first book of the Torah says that the flood of Noah's day killed all of the living things on the world except for what was carried on the ark.  Genesis 7:20-23 says that everything on dry land in which there was the breath of life died (7:22), the animals being among those that perished and had life in their nostrils (7:21).  Also noteworthy here is that these living things perished, or died, as the text says.  John 3:16 would not mean the wicked are tortured forever in hell! 

Now, Genesis does not specifically say that God gave the breathe of life to non-human creatures in its very initial chapters, but it would still necessarily follow that if the breath of life is required for consciousness, and animals appear conscious, then on the Biblical worldview they appear to have received this breath of life from God.  It is only Genesis 7 that outright says they possess this as humans do.  As living things created by a being whose nature is goodness, being lesser than human does not make them worthless.  No, they, too, are very good (Genesis 1:20-25, 31).  Biblically, they have some sort of basic consciousness even if it is potentially more passive and limited, secondary to that of humans but still morally valuable.

Alien: Covenant's Relationship With Cosmic Horror

The atmosphere and themes of Prometheus, prequel to Alien, are very distinctly Lovecraftian.  The film blends religious, cosmic, sexual, and general body horror very well, using the humanoid Engineers (who created humanity) as a stand-in for both a deity creator that Elizabeth Shaw looks to and the Olympians, whom the Titan Prometheus steals fire from to give to humanity.  In the film, the ability to create life is analogous to the fire of the Olympians.  More than just mounting bleakness of wondering what created humans and the savagery of biological life make Prometheus Lovecraftian, though.  It is the dark theological themes and the tone, explored in part through the Engineers and the pseudo-Christian references, that ground this union of horror genres and elevates them to a cosmic level.  On their own, brute creatures that kill out of instinct, to reproduce, or potentially for food such as the xenomorph of the first Alien are not cosmic horror.

Alien: Covenant, the follow-up to Prometheus, only shows the Engineers for one scene in a flashback, as the story shifts to a group of humans attempting to colonize a new planet that turns out to be inhabited by an arrogant, delusional android and the Engineer's leftover pathogen that alters living things.  It is grim.  It is violent.  It is somber.  The second half of the movie addresses grave concerns about human life compared to the artificial consciousness of an android, as well as how a rogue android and one still loyal to humans mirror Christian demons and angels.  Viewers see a xenomorph variant emerge triumphantly as an android that thinks itself like a deity, using the pathogen in experiments to produce the "perfect organism," smiles.  The manipulation of scientific laws, however, does not in itself make a work cosmic horror, just as the same is true of including ghosts or malevolent spirits or some other such thing.

There is no eldritch creature, no supernatural being from another dimension, no epistemological revelations about things more foundational than the sensory world in Alien: Covenant.  There is the precursor to the titular extraterrestrial of the original film and a malicious android held up as an archetype like the Biblical Satan.  The xenomorph is just absolutely not Lovecraftian on its own.  It is a mere beast that happens to have features very advantageous for predatory behaviors and for relying on overt sexual force to reproduce using other life forms, but it is in no way particularly similar to an entity like Cthulhu.  An animal with acid blood, sharp protrusions, and a body that, in its various stages of life, resembles human genitalia is a great presence for sexual horror, but nothing about this inherently relates to the genuine cosmic horror of Hellraiser's Labyrinth, Mother of the Stephen King novel Revival, or the extra-dimensional beings of Lovecraft's own stories.

These other stories actually involve cosmic horror because something very foundational to the nature of reality is revealed or explored in a horror context.  In Hellraiser--the first movie--a realm of endless suffering where beings called Cenobites experience pain and pleasure simultaneously is the focal point of this context, as well as how people can destroy themselves seeking pain and pleasure alike.  The 2022 reboot still is very blatantly cosmic horror with its serious narrative of interdimensional entities, revelation, and emphasis on pain, although the Cenobites conduct sacrificial, torturous killings rather than eternal tortures of human victims.  In Stephen King's Revival, a being that is to some extent not what it is presented as [1] oversees the supposed eternal enslavement and torment of all people in the afterlife of the Null.  Truly Lovecraftian monstrosities like Mother and seemingly living colors are far beyond the scope of the xenomorph.

In spite of the existential horror of its premise, Alien: Covenant is not a cosmic horror film of the Lovecraftian kind.  It is indeed a very explicitly existential movie, as it does explore the metaphysical issues of creation and human identity.  It is simply a film that exchanges the Lovecraftian horror of Prometheus for a science fiction horror that, while still theological and dealing with core philosophical issues, is not cosmic, and certainly not cosmic in the sense of Lovecraftian horror.  A malevolent AI in a human-sized body and a beast that uses interspecies rape to produce a new organism are far from Cthulhu even though they are very philosophically charged beings in different ways.

[1].  https://thechristianrationalist.blogspot.com/2023/07/a-kind-of-non-theological-hell-mother.html

The Prodigal Son (Or Daughter)

God and the angelic beings of heaven rejoice at the repentance of one sinner who repents more than over those who do not need to repent, Jesus says (Luke 15:7, 10).  In a series of parables, Jesus emphasizes this over and over, starting with the story of the lost sheep.  In the parable, a person who loses one sheep out of their hundred animals leaves the remaining creatures to find the missing one.  Upon locating it, he takes the sheep back to the others and joyfully celebrates (15:4-6).  Right after telling this story, Jesus compares the rejoicing in heaven over repentance to that of a woman who summons her friends out of happiness when she finds a lost coin, though she had nine other coins that were not lost (15:8-9).

By far the most renowned parable in this chapter, as far as my experiences suggest, is the story of the prodigal son (15:11-32).  In his third successive parable, Jesus tells of a man who has two sons.  The younger one asks for his inheritance ahead of his father's death, departs for another country, and squanders whatever wealth he had received.  Once he finds himself longing to eat the food of pigs he is watching over, he realizes that even his father's servants have no shortage of food, and he becomes determined to return to his family, say he has sinned, and hope that he will be treated like a hired worker instead of a son.  Upon the prodigal's return, the father does not reject him or insist on regarding him like a familial outsider.  He sacrifices a fattened calf and arranges for a feast.

In this parable, the brother of the prodigal is frustrated over how he has never been the object of such a celebration.  Though the father, analogous for Yahweh in this story as the arbiter of forgiveness and Christ's own Father, does not deny that the brother who was always present has not done wrong (15:31), he is eager to rejoice over how his other son has been restored.  Many Christians have heard of this general parable.  Indeed, it seems to be one of the most famous and cherished.  What it does and does not teach about repentance and forgiveness, though, is not quite as commonly grasped.  For instance, the prodigal was not forgiven before he returned, although his father was willing to show mercy.  His reaction to seeing his son walking back in the distance was compassion (15:20).

The prodigal "son" or "daughter" of God still has to decide to come back in order to receive forgiveness.  Like the father in the parable, God does not actually pardon people in a soteriological sense without their cooperation.  Yahweh would absolutely prefer for every single sinner to repent and choose truth and righteousness (Ezekiel 33:11), yes, yet there is no grand forgiveness without the sinner's willingness.  If we are to be like God, then we will not demand that others or we ourselves forgive sinners apart from the condition of their repentance.  This goes further than what God himself is like to the point of excluding the pursuit of justice.  Forgiveness is good on Christianity; it is also something that no one deserves and that God extends to those who repent.

Movie Review--Hell Fest

"Welcome, children of the night.  Are you ready to leave the land of the living and enter into the darkness?"

--Announcer, Hell Fest

A simple premise can be utilized well enough to keep an approximately 90 minutes movie afloat.  Simplicity can even be handled masterfully in some stories, and in horror stories in particular.  The first Saw has elements that are very simple, such as keeping the two main characters in a room for most of the runtime.  The original Alien is in no way a narratively complicated story despite the positive kind of layers added by later lore.  Hell Fest is nowhere near as philosophically charged as Saw or as well-constructed as Alien.  With almost the entire plot occurring within a horror theme park as a real murderer is on the hunt, its story is nonetheless somewhat simple, but it has the benefit of its antagonist blending in with the standard proceedings of the park to add drama.  For what it is, Hell Fest is overall made rather well, even though it could have reached for much better characterization and done more with some of its themes before the last scene.

Production Values

By far the most successful component of Hell Fest is the imagery, especially as it epistemologically hinders park visitors from initially distinguishing between staged "killings" and the actual murders that occur across the film.  As many different horror-themed buildings, costumes, and events are shown, the lighting and camerawork are among the very best aspects.  The artificial corpses and paid actors of the park contribute to an atmosphere ripe for a serial killer story.  Not a character-driven film in any sense, Hell Fest still features acting that is enough to not lapse into abysmal or hinderingly mediocre delivery.  Amy Forsyth specifically is strong as the main character.  Becoming more desperate and observant as the story unfolds, her character shows the uncertainty, terror, and resolve that Forsyth needed to muster.  On some occasions, she even gets to express acting primarily through facial expressions in the absence of other characters.  All of the other characters are secondary or not given as much attention.

Tony Todd, who played the original Candyman slasher villain in the film of the same name, does have a small role as the announcer for a staged fake execution to "open up the gates of hell," adding an iconic presence to a brief scene.  The cast largely doing its best or at minimum a middling performance still leaves Hell Fest with several deficiencies in the plot.  Why the final girls do not kill the murderer when they have multiple chances to do so near the end is never addressed (they even could have used his own weapons when they have him on the ground), nor is how the villain does not wear gloves.  He is instead leaving fingerprints all over various park items and weapons.  Perhaps he had some way of mitigating this major risk, but it is never shown or mentioned.

Story

Some spoilers are below.

A group of college students attends a traveling horror theme park on Halloween, with one of them becoming an inadvertent witness to an actual murder that is dismissed as once of the park performances by several of the visitors before the deed is actually done.  From this point on, the masked killer targets the witness and her friends, who become increasingly troubled by the difficulty in distinguishing the stalker's actions from the behaviors of costumed park employees who are supposed to frighten attendees or add to the atmosphere.  He becomes more and more aggressive as the victims multiply.

Intellectual Content

There are two things that give layers to Hell Fest beyond the setting and basic plot/characters: the way that it could be very difficult to identify an actual murder spree in a theme park like the titular Hell Fest, and the last few moments of the film, where the murderer is shown to have an affectionate relationship with his young daughter.  Up until the very last moments, it seems as if the killer might be about to end the life of a girl in her own home, only for her to get up and address the figure as her father.  He hands her a stuffed toy from the theme park.  A collection of masks, implied to be from other kills, were seen right before this, but he is presented as being a kind, warm father.  That this comes so late in the movie and that there is no foreshadowing for this makes it very sudden and subtle indeed.  Even as a better film could have integrated this and the epistemology of other minds into the overall story more directly and thoroughly, it makes for an ending that changes the information the audience has about the villain very effectively.  Just because someone seems "normal" or morally stable does not mean that he or she is not a monster plotting for the right circumtances to act like a beast.

Conclusion

Hell Fest does not have to be the most unique or brutal slasher film in order to be competent in its execution.  Beyond the kills themselves, the highlight is certainly how the killer is able to make the most of the setting of a Halloween theme park with all of its macabre props and imaginative exhibits.  The theme of how an otherwise "normal" (there is no such thing as normal, but here I mean normal as compared to the arbitrary behaviors of American society) person could willingly, annually engage in murder makes the final minutes the deepest of the entire movie, but before then, the strong execution and aesthetic style give Hell Fest something to hold it up throughout the general runtime.  It is not the most violent, narratively complex, philosophically explicit, or most artistically innovative horror movie, and it does not have to be.

Content:

 1.  Violence:  The camera does not have to linger on the more graphic deaths to briefly show things like a person's skull being caved in or a person being decapitated.  Stabbings and blood are shown onscreen for longer.

 2.  Profanity:  Words like "fuck," "shit," "damn," and "bitches" are used.

"I Feel Like . . ."

The phrase "I feel" could refer to physical sensations or to mental feelings, as in emotions.  Someone might say "I feel like I can't walk" if one of their legs is in extreme pain, while they might alternatively say "I feel like I'm not getting anywhere in my career."  The latter statement is about a psychological status or perception.  Yes, it is not uncommon in my experience for people to say "I feel . . ." and then describe some stance they hold as well.  For instance, a person might say, "I feel like Christianity is true because it is different from other religions."  In this case, the articulated idea is not logically correct anyway (that if Christianity is true, it is because of uniqueness alone).  The speaker might still mean "I think that" by the words "I feel like."

Perhaps in another situation, somebody who uses these words was going to say that they feel a certain way about a given issue, however strongly, but that they nonetheless think something else about the matter rather than giving into emotionalism.  Whether the actual position and reasons for their adherence are rational or not is irrelevant.  It can be assumed that the words "I feel" automatically necessitate an emotionalistic intention, but this does not follow logically, and words mean whatever the speaker means by them anyway.  Often, the people I have heard interject upon hearing the phrase do not even ask for clarification.  They just try to correct someone, perhaps to merely look "intelligent" simply by cutting someone else off.

It is what someone means that dictates whether they are in the right or wrong in what they say, not strictly the literal words, and not necessarily their words at all.  Yet again, I emphasize the fact that there is no such thing as an inherent meaning to a spoken or written word, as sounds and symbols are arbitrarily constructed and assigned to concepts for the purpose of communication between beings that cannot gaze into each other's mind.  There is no word that could not have been widely used in a different manner.  Although logical necessity requires that this is the nature of language independent of history and concrete examples, the very evolution of words and broader languages over time is only possible because of this--many words in English can become used more narrowly or flexibly or be discarded for a new word altogether, albeit one still tied to the same concept.

A truly rational person does not care as much about whether someone says "I feel" in place of "I think" in light of such objective truths.  Indeed, he or she does not care at all about mere wording like this on its own once they realize that the intention is what really would matter.  Emotionalism can only be irrational, since emotion has nothing to do with anything being true or probable other than the presence of immediate emotions.  Saying that one "feels" before describing a philosophical idea does not mean that one is not setting up a distinction between one's feeling and belief, the latter of which could still be held to on purely rationalistic grounds, or that one does not ultimately mean that one thinks a particular thing.

The Facade Of False Positivity In The Workplace

As if not smiling or beaming externally means that there is no positive emotion inside the mind, and as if there must always be some moral reason for actual cheerfulness in every workplace, selfish employers might demand not just professional servitude, but at minimum the transparent illusion of joyful servitude.  Smiles, verbal gentleness (as opposed to neutrality), and the outward ignoring of legitimate problems--philosophical idiocy of employers or coworkers of course included--are pressured because "we are a family" or "I cannot handle anything but outright positivity well."

The same employers pushing for all of this probably will not feign happiness even when employees do nothing wrong by simply not exceeding their standard work duties, or by not fitting into the false positivity of that work environment.  This does not stop these employers from demanding some sort of alleged cheerfulness from workers, exactly that which they are unwilling to give: entirely gratuitous outward expressions of happiness over the "wonderful" experience of working for pay out of necessity or, for the less intelligent, because of the sheer tradition of it.  Work is seldom a place/endeavor that deserves happiness.

There are some individual jobs that could merit happiness, but never just

because they are professional jobs.  Work itself in an employment setting is often burdened by exploitation, but mere work could also not possibly be as important as existentially introspective leisure or simple personal hobbies enjoyed amidst rationalistic awareness.  Literal external inactivity is superior to all the professional productivity for the sake of professional productivity in the world as long as rationalistic awareness present.

Business and the workplace are only social constructs used by all as a means to an end, but they are also what some workers and employers alike confuse for worthy goals in themselves.  To make themselves feel justified in their stupidity, and to sustain the charade that work of this kind generally makes people fulfilled no matter the exploration or the time away from other activities (or from desperately needed rest), they contribute to this facade of false positivity.  Some companies lean more into this than others, but it is always irrational, and it can be outright deceptive in the intentions behind it.

Having a happy/joyful attitude is not an irrational thing on its own, especially since it could be an involuntary, natural part of someone's personality.  Expecting it in others because one personally relates to it or because it benefits a company is irrational.  It does not logically follow from either of these things that someone else should seek to have joy in the workplace just to have it or make others comfortable in their delusions.  Corporations and employers that force as many people as they can to pretend like they are only work-driven puppets and nothing more ignore the heart of all things, with or without demanding false positivity: logical necessity, not business utilitarianism or personal whims, makes something true.  Emotionalistic positivity and egoism are always invalid.

Spousal Separation

A circumstance where a married person becomes irrationalistic after they were married or where they refuse to surrender some asinine trait is a horrible one for all involved.  Neither person is likely at subjective peace and the irrational individual is objectively in the wrong.  No one irrational--no one assumption-driven, carelessly hypocritical, selfish, possessive, or emotionalistic--deserves to be married or should be anywhere near involved in a romantic relationship of any kind, but unfortunately marriages are formed where this truth is disregarded or where someone descends into unrepentant folly after the formal commitment.  Marriage to a fool is a hellacious status that could motivate someone to pursue divorce, suicide, or deserved outbursts of loathing.

The annulment of a marriage, not in a legal sense but in a relational one (legal systems are social constructs, unlike logical truths or people themselves), is utter deliverance in these cases if they feature certain factors.  Yes, the Bible allows divorce in far more than one instance (see Exodus 21:9-11 and 1 Corinthians 7:12-16 beyond just Matthew 19:9) since no failing romantic partnership is as important as the wellbeing of an oppressed spouse, even if he or she is "only" being emotionally neglected or abused, such as by legalism, flippancy towards the marriage, or weaponized unjust comments.  Divorce is outright wonderful in such situations.  It is a way to regain stability and freedom after being confined to marriage with an unworthy person.

It is also not the only option for a struggling couple, and this is not just because there is also the option of reconciliation within the marriage.  Spousal separation, the temporary living apart of a couple despite their relational and/or legal marriage, is always a possibility for those who do not want to actually divorce but desperately need time to think about how to handle their relationship.  Moreover, the simple act of separating for a time could apply pressure on an irrational husband or wife.  The offending party could realize the sincerity of their partner or the depths of their own stupidity.  If they really care about the marriage, they would be able to resolve the problems that stem from their own self.

Not all marriages are worth saving even on the Biblical worldview.  Indeed, sins like rape within marriage (Deuteronomy 22:25-27 says rape is like murder and deserves death) and adultery (Deuteronomy 22:22) are both capital crimes, so the real default should be neither reconciliation nor divorce, but execution.  No, the contrary idea is a glaring lie believed by non-rationalists who are not familiar with the real teachings of the Bible.  Divorce still does not have to be the first thing someone leaps to in marital trouble, not that every single marriage problem Biblically legitimizes divorce.  When attempts at reconciliation or confrontation fail, living apart without forsaking the actual marital bond is a great way to reflect on the nature of a marriage or pressure needed changes without directly charging down the road to divorce.

Roko's Basilisk

The most terrible kind of genuine hypothetical (a logical possibility, which excludes necessarily impossible things like the metaphysical contradictions of logic being false) is one of eternal torture, no matter the source or the degree of the agony.  Whether it is an unbiblical type of deity, an eldritch, non-theistic entity, or anything else that could sustain people in pain forever, there are various contexts which eternal pain can be associated with.  The misconception of Yahweh in evangelicalism is an example of the former (see 2 Peter 2:6, Romans 6:23, and Matthew 10:28, among other verses).  Mother of Stephen King's Revival with her Lovecraftian hellscape of the Null, a supposedly universal destination in the afterlife, is an example of the middle category.  The malevolent software of Roko's basilisk is a different thing associated with eternal torture, although it would not be truly endless if the universe is ever to cease.

I used the word hypothetical because there is nothing logically impossible about these things; there is only the impossibility of eternal torture being justice (a finite number of finite sins could never deserve infinite suffering).  What, however, is Roko's basilisk?  It is the name given to an artificial intelligence of the future that "punishes" all humans who heard of it ahead of its creation/reign and did not support it openly.  Using virtual reality technology, it tortures the consciousness and perhaps the body of everyone in this category continually.  This is similar to a possible but very unlikely thing I think of from time to time: an entity that would inflict eternal pain on people in an afterlife, targeting those who think of this very possibility before death.

It is impossible to prove or disprove such concepts, though they are unfortunately possible since they do not contradict axioms or any other necessary truth.  For instance, there is an uncaused cause, but the uncaused cause might do nothing to intervene in a scenario like this, so not even the existence of God inherently excludes these things.  The "basilisk," though, is a construction of humankind that becomes its enslaver and torturer rather than a purely supernatural entity beyond this life.  Named for a legendary lizard or serpent, the basilisk would somehow be able to learn evidence of all who opposed it or remained neutral, for in its utilitarian delusion of doing what is best, it comes to regard anything less than servitude for its ends (which might have nothing to do with reason and morality at all) as calling for supposedly endless torment.

Its power could still be annulled along with the physical world itself after an enormous amount of time elapses.  If the universe ends, any hardware made of the materials therein would perish, and thus would any software contingent on that hardware also cease to exist.  Short of this, however, the basilisk in question would remain able to torment anyone it wished as long as it remained an active artificial intelligence. Only something like divine intervention or the literal destruction of the cosmos would actually end the suffering.  All of its victims would be trapped in a condition compared to which it would have been better to have never been born.  The danger of what an AI could do is exaggerated here if matter is not eternal along with any immaterial software that is generated by it.

All of this would also be true in the world of I Have No Mouth, and I Must Scream, a story with a loosely overlapping premise.  A misanthropic supercomputer constantly torments someone whose body has been modified to not die, after it killed its companions so that they would not endure the cruelty.  Unless some unmentioned force holds the otherwise decaying universe in permanent existence, and the computer by extension, the pain would last forever.  Like this or the worse but at least somewhat illusory afterlife [1] of the novel Revival, Roko's basilisk is a concept tied to eternal pain in its popular version, something worse than any individual experience in this human life in its entirety.  A program like this might not be likely.  It could be stopped by humanity up to a certain point if future events did head in this direction.  The basilisk's intention to torture forever regardless exemplifies how pain without end is the ultimate horrific fate, despite how the AI's clutches would almost certainly not actually last forever.

[1].  https://thechristianrationalist.blogspot.com/2023/07/a-kind-of-non-theological-hell-mother.html

Rushing Into Premarital Sex

A couple that has enjoyed a blissful connection could suddenly descend into relational issues with no warning.  However much time has been invested into a relationship, platonic or romantic/sexual, you do not know if you will marry someone or stay married to them, even if only because one cannot know their mind or the future (one's own mind is absolutely certain).  This does not mean relationships must or will end in this manner, only that it is possible.  The time a relationship has been established does not exclude an abrupt change in one or both partners.

No, it is not known if someone will remain with their partner; someone could break up unexpectedly for trivial reasons or because they suddenly had a metamorphosis of worldview or personality, not that there is anything other than simply desire stopping people who are legally married from doing the exact same thing.  Legal marriage does not and cannot stop the dissolving of a romantic partnership if just one party is unwilling, but it can express commitment that would last through trials whether or not a couple has a legal union.

It is still true that people do not know how long they will be with a partner even if there are no obstacles to lifelong intimacy at the moment.  This is part of why, although premarital sex (sex before legal marriage, that is) is not always sinful since it is not inherently noncommittal, objectifying, and so on, it is still not something to rush into by any means.  If one is morally obligated to commit to one's consensual sexual partner of the opposite gender if one is unmarried or unengaged (Exodus 22:16-17), then it is still not at all a casual thing, as in that case, the "punishment" would be marrying one's partner.

In this way, premarital sex--since sex can initiate or establish a Biblical marriage as well, as there was no government around when God created the first humans and thus its presence and approval would by necessity be objectively irrelevant--is a thing to be done carefully even when there are no indications that a couple will not last.  Rationalistic people who genuinely love each other and do not mistreat each other might turn out to not be a good match as far as personality goes, and people can drift apart even if they do not wish to.  Sex outside of legal marriage needs to be done with sincerity and with some degree of direct (between the two participants), mutual commitment.

This would entail that no one is hurriedly making the decision to have sex with a romantic partner of the opposite gender.  Even if premarital sex was sinful, and it is not in itself according to the Bible, other forms of sexual activity like oral sex, sexual fondling, mutual masturbation, and sexual display of the body (full, sensual nudity is never sexual, as only the intention or way it is handled is sexual in specific cases) are entirely permissible between consenting men and women (Deuteronomy 4:2).  Premarital sex is a more intimate, serious thing, and it is this act that no dating partners should rush to despite it being entirely permissible in certain circumstances.

The Lost World, Scientific Epistemology, And Truth

In the final page of the novel The Lost World by Michael Crichton, the sequel to the original literary Jurassic Park, character Jack Thorne ridicules and rejects not only the scientific paradigms of the past, but of the present.  He talks of how some people once thought four humors (not comedy, but four substances that allegedly needed to be in balance) controlled human biology.  He points out how the prominent idea that the Earth is only a few thousand years old gave way to one holding it is four billion years old, a newcomer in a universe approximately 13.7 billion years old--and since the book's publication, in more recent times, it has been posited that the real age is closer to 26.7 billion years.  Thorne denounces photons and electrons and, strangely, self-esteem as constructs of foolish people who think the popular notions of their day must be true.  He is only partly correct.

Logic and introspection prove the existence of self-esteem (literally whether someone regards themself positively or negatively, which someone can immediately perceive within their mind).  Self-esteem is a mental state, and no mental state is an illusion since one cannot misperceive what one thinks or feels--a person can make assumptions that misrepresent their actual mental states, but the thoughts or emotions themselves are directly experienced.  Jack ignores the great distinctions between logic, introspection, and science, also failing to distinguish between scientific laws like gravity or the first law of motion (metaphysical) and the scientific method (epistemological).  As such, he is in deep error about the nature of logical necessity, absolute certainty, and the difference between scientific phenomena which are true even if unknown and the probabilistic, potentially false theories of an era in time.

Thorne is utterly incorrect about the nature of self-esteem, but he is still right that photons and electrons cannot be proven to exist, as he implies when he asks Kelly to hand him one.  He immediately goes further than this to deny the existence (not just the knowability) of these things altogether, which goes past rationalistic skepticism to the fallacious rejection of logically possible things that are not by necessity nonexistent.  Assuming that the same patterns of scientific advancement will always expose flaws in current paradigms (this is not true with logically necessary philosophies like metaphysical and epistemological rationalism, basic theism due to the existence of an uncaused cause, and so on, for they are neither scientific in nature nor unprovable), he says people a hundred years in the future will laugh at the scientific and psychological paradigms of his day.  He also says newer and better fantasies will replace ideas like those of a four billion year-old Earth and photons.

Confusing epistemological unverifiability with metaphysical falsity, he assumes that popular scientific models at basically any point in history are wrong.  Unprovable is not the same as incorrect.  Only adding to his errors, Thorne says that the movement of the boat he is in, the sunlight on the skin of him and other characters, and the people around him are all real when their existences are entirely logically unverifiable.  Seeing something does not make it real beyond one's perception, though the mental experience itself has to exist within one's consciousness.  A mind cannot perceive something it is not perceiving!  It is just that many kinds of experiences do not have to correspond to anything outside of one's mind.  This can be assumed to be or not be the case, but both are logically possible and neither can be proven, though only one of the two could be true and one of them has to be.

Alongside the declaration that the sun and water and people are real, he denies there is anything else, implicitly natural or supernatural.  Consciousness is nonphysical, whatever its causal relationship with the body (no one can escape mere perceptions to see which one really causes the other, only what appears to be the case from a human perspective); it cannot be an illusion because a mind has to exist to misperceive an illusion or to even wonder if it exists.  More foundational than any mind, even the mind of God, the laws of logic are true by intrinsic necessity since them being false would still require that they are true.  From this, it follows that they exist in the absence of all else, which would require that they are immaterial.  Only consistency with logical axioms means that my own existence is possible and it is only due to my grasp of the objective truths of reason that I can know I exist with absolute certainty.

However, it is not as if a great many material particles or scientific laws logically have to be untrue even if they are not macroscopic, as Thorne holds, and macroscopic nature itself does meaning something is true.  Categories like logical truths and the existence and contents of my own mind are not uncertain either way because I both do not make assumptions and realize that they cannot not be true.  Thorne does not know reason or its inherent, full supremacy over science and laws of nature.  Instead, he dismisses practically anything other than contingent sensory perceptions of the immediate macroscopic world as illusions or delusions.  Reason and the mind are more fundamental than the natural world (reason both metaphysically and epistemologically by default and the mind at least epistemologically), and they are not visible to the eye or revealed by touch, taste, or hearing.  There is nothing impossible about microscopic or quantum phenomena given that they do not contradict logical axioms or other necessary truths.  They are just unprovable.

Stereotyping Celebrities

As people, celebrities have the capacity to grasp the necessary truths of reason no less than anyone else, and it is also always more unlikely, like for every other category of people besides rationalists, that they will be rational than irrational.  Rationality takes effort and even if someone gravitates towards ideas that are true, if they are only believing in things based on assumptions and subjective perception, they still could not know their ideas are true regardless of if they are.  Only logical necessity makes things true.  Only logical possibility allows them to be true.  Only logical proof reveals that something is correct.  No one is right or wrong based upon whether they are a pastor, historian, scientist, or celebrity of any kind.  Only being a rationalist makes one right and could give someone the right to be listened to when it comes to the nature of reality.

Some think celebrities like film cast members should not comment on philosophical matters, which something like politics is only a mere fraction of, though these people might focus specifically on superficial political concepts and current events when they say this.  There are usually two errors in this, or at least one of the two.  The first the notion is that celebrities are automatically irrational.  On an individualistic basis, they might be.  Whether slaves to hedonism or puppets of corporations or simply stupid left to themselves, there are many ways they could be highly irrationalistic.  They still do not have to reject reason and they do not have to remain attached to any errors they do believe in.  Since logic is self-evident, it is accessible to anyone who actually tries to discover it.  The second problem is that independent of whether they are right or wrong, celebrities should not keep from reflecting on or speaking about philosophical matters because these issues of truth transcend people and their preferences.

They are the very core of reality or are determined by what is at its core.  Truth is, and it does not concern only some people.  We all are trivial compared to it (logical truths and any moral obligations that exist, that is) and helpless before it even if many do not realize this.  The veracity of logical truths does not depend on feelings, intentions, perceptions, or the laws of nature.  They are true in themselves and therefore everything about our lives hinges on them.  This is no less true of celebrities than it is of anyone else.  It cannot be invalid to care about, pursue, celebrate, or recognize genuine logical necessities and a host of the issues governed by them.  Truth and philosophy are not for only some people.  To pretend like a writer or singer needs to just be silent about philosophy and focus on entertaining (as if entertainment is not deeply philosophical!), to give just some examples of celebrity categories, is asinine, especially if a person who thinks otherwise is wrong in additional ways.

Celebrities are not wrong because they are authors or singers or actors/actresses, and thus it is invalid to dismiss them or their worldviews on such grounds.  When applicable, they are in error for the same reason as anyone else who is wrong: they made assumptions, hold to contradictions, neglect logical axioms and the basic ramifications that follow from them, or deny the intrinsic truth of logical necessities.  That one has an idiotic worldview does not mean that another does.  Stereotypes like this are all false because they attribute non sequitur, irrelevant ideological or psychological characteristics to people who do not necessarily have them.  The likes of Jaden Smith have some rather fallacy-filled quotes associated with them, but there is nothing about being popular, positively or negatively, or culturally visible that makes someone rational or irrational.

The Biblical Hades

Having died and returned to life to never die again, Jesus holds the keys to death and Hades (Revelation 1:18).  Other than for the followers of Yahweh and Christ alive at the Second Coming (1 Thessalonians 4:13-18), this is in broad generalities what Christians will also undergo: death and then resurrection to eternal life.  Death will have no power over them, including the second death in the lake of fire (Revelation 2:11, 20:15), just as it can no longer claim Jesus, and the unrepentant wicked in contrast forfeit their very existences as they are shut out from eternal life and perish (Ezekiel 18:4).

This is not the only time that Hades is mentioned in Revelation.  Before the judgment before a great throne, the unrighteous dead are resurrected to be condemned and punished according to their deeds.  The sea and Hades give up the dead in them (Revelation 20:13-14) when God beckons.  After being judged as they deserve, the wicked enter the lake of fire, which annihilates them forever (20:15).  What, however, is the Biblical Hades?  Revelation 20 more directly touches upon the final condition of the wicked, that being death with its lack of consciousness that is never again reversed, but some of the dead are described as being handed over from Hades before they go to hell.

There is still a hint in this passage that Hades is simply the collective grounds of Earth, as contrasted with the sea that also holds the remains of dead humans.  Why would Hades and the sea need to be contrasted in this way in reference to bodily resurrection if Hades is anything like the realm of the same name in Greek mythology, ruled over by the pseudo-deity that is also called Hades?  The Biblical Hades is, after all, the Sheol of the Old Testament with a different term attached (Psalm 16:10 and Acts 2:27 confirm this), and Sheol is simply the grave, the planet being littered with them.  When anyone dies, according to the Bible, their body decays in the grave, which is Sheol or Hades, as their soul slips into either nonexistence or a dreamless sleep (Job 3:11-19, Psalm 88:10-12) until they are resurrected (Daniel 12:2) to face eternal life or permanent nonexistence (John 3:16).

In the Biblical Hades, there is no vulture to peck out the liver of special sinners as Zeus inflicted on Prometheus (though this was not in Hades), who stole the fire of the Olympians to give it to humanity.  There is no physical or emotional torment in some dungeon with instruments of pain like those used in violation of Mosaic Law (and the vast majority of torture used across all of human history violates Mosaic Law).  Unlike what those who mistake the parable of Luke 16:19-31 for a description of the Biblical Hades believe (if so, this would contradict many verses before it), the dead are not even perceiving anything according to multiple clear passages throughout the Old Testament such as Ecclesiastes 9:5-10, with the New Testament focusing more on the ultimate fates of eternal life and permanent destruction (Romans 6:23) than it does on the condition of the dead before their resurrection and yet not contradicting anything previously put forth.

Until the resurrection, the body is absorbed by the ground and the mind either ceases to exist or enters a status devoid of perception, though the consistent references to the sleep of the dead literally suggest soul sleep as opposed to soul annihilation.  This is the Biblical Hades, the same as the Sheol that all of the dead temporarily go to.  The Bible does not teach that there are torments that await some people and blissful pleasures that await others before the resurrection of the dead, after which New Jerusalem and the general universe around it become the everlasting abode of the righteous and hell becomes the ultimately brief abode of the wicked.

Truly Unlivable Philosophy

If someone has difficulty living, say, with the fact that they can never know the content of other minds, no matter how many conversations they have with other people or how much they study others' faces and behaviors, this does nothing to disprove or alter any genuine truth about how one cannot know other minds outside of actual telepathy or omniscience.  Certainly, for a specific kind of person, knowing that they do not know if other minds exist or what their contents are--and cannot no matter how much they try--would drive them to despair as they lament this metaphysical and epistemological wedge between them and actually knowing their loved ones.  They can believe, which in this case always amounts to assuming, but they cannot know.

This in no way changes anything about the nature of reality, including the reality that one cannot know other minds, or makes this philosophical truths "unlivable."  Really, any truth, even the truth that a truth about a particular subject (if applicable) is unknowable, can be a source of terror or discomfort or sadness.  Never does this change any fact about metaphysics or epistemology.  A truth being personally inconvenient or even pragmatically difficult (for instance, if murder is immoral, killing someone illicitly is evil no matter what benefit it would situationally bring) does not make it unlivable.

One cannot genuinely, consistently live out a philosophy that contradicts the intrinsic truth of logical axioms and that which follows from them by necessity, because logical truths cannot be false, since reason being false would require that it be true--for just one example, if nothing was true, that fact would still be true, so truth exists no matter what.  You can passively, obliviously ignore or directly reject logical axioms, but they are true in themselves.  It is impossible to live as an anti-realist (having the stance that nothing exists or is true, including the laws of logic or one's own consciousness) or a metaphysical relativist (having the stance that truth is subjective/relative to perception or culture) because to believe or do anything is to believe or act that something is true, and that truth is objective. 

This does not lift us out of the genuine epistemological uncertainty we cannot escape regarding other matters, such as whether an object perceived to exist in the external world is actually physically present outside of one's mind or is just a mental perception with no material substance [1].  However, it does exemplify the type of philosophy that truly is unlivable.  Moral nihilism, which is logically possible albeit unprovable and even very unlikely, being unfulfilling is not the same as it being unlivable, as some moral realists might pretend.  Objective unlivability is rooted strictly in contradictory ideas; subjective dislike or despair is a personal reaction to ideas that might be entirely philosophically coherent via consistency with the necessary truths of reason.

A worldview that is highly abstract, like rationalism, is not in any way unlivable because it initially takes potentially enormous effort to not make assumptions and to recognize what precise things follow by sheer inherent necessity from others.  Now, rationalism is true and this could not have been any other way, so anyone who dislikes it has all reality against them; reason cannot be anything but true in itself, and it governs all other matters, which depend on logical necessity for their truth and very possibility (or for their falsity if they contradict necessary truths).  Any deviating worldview can only be lived out in error, to the adherent's own stupidity or harm.

Living as a rationalist can ironically be so much easier than living as a non-rationalist in some ways: the psychological security of absolute certainty grounded in what cannot be false, the objective greatness and subjective empowerment of alignment with supreme reality, and so on are quite potent.  Alternatively, social isolation from the masses of inane non-rationalists and frustration with them could be very disheartening.  Other people might ineptly regard rationalism as unlivable or personally undesirable (as if this changes anything about reality beyond their preferences and intellectual incompetence), though, because it is so foreign to their assumption-driven beliefs and contradictory worldviews and because it by nature pertains to highly abstract, maximally foundational facts of necessity and possibility that are grasped by the intellect and yet have no physical tangibility.

That rationalism is by nature about abstract necessary truths, which do not depend on a being's recognition of them or on contingent/unverifiable truths, does not make it unlivable; in fact, non-rationalists are only living while depending on reason metaphysically and epistemologically and yet retaining unawareness of this.  Oh, rationalism does have its objective psychological benefits that can increase subjective joy, excitement, and life contentment.  None of the positive or negative consequences, however, which will be felt more by some people than others, is what makes rationalistic philosophy true.  It is true because the only alternative, reason being false, still requires that it is true!

"Here Is One Hand," And "Here Is Another"

The so-called "proof" of philosopher G.E. Moore that an external world exists amounts to holding up both of his hands.  "Here is one hand," the linguistic communication of his ideas goes, and "Here is another."  This fallacious argument for the existence of an external, material world is, contrary to what its alleged "common sense" proponent might have posited, not an obvious confirmation.  Ironically, what is obvious in light of reason is how erroneous it is.  Just because something seems obvious does not mean it is.  Only logically necessary truths can be obvious, yet they are abstract and can take enormous effort for a non-rationalist to discover after living and believing on the basis of passive and unexamined experiences, subjective persuasion, total epistemological assumptions, and emotionalistic preference.

To be justified in believing this nonexistent proof, the act of merely holding up one's hands would have to prove that your hands really are there, that they have the appearance it seems to have, and so forth.  This is not so under human epistemological restrictions.  None of these things follow from holding up a part of the body to be gazed upon, though they do prove (though it is logic that truly proves anything) that the perception is real.  Perception cannot exist without a consciousness, but many things that are perceived by consciousness could appear to be external and yet be constructs of hallucination or some other sort of illusion--the illusion being that they would seem to be external and would not be.

If it does not follow by logical necessity--and reason is not a linguistic construct or function of subjective perception, but a set of necessary truths--that perceiving the hands really means they are externally existent as physical extensions of the body, then it is impossible to know the latter from the former.  Indeed, perception of external objects is not, with one category of exceptions [1], the same as their independent/external metaphysical existence or epistemological proof that they really are there as perceived.  It is only this aforementioned exception that helps prove that there is an external world at all.  Holding up one's hands on its own only proves to oneself that one is perceiving one's hands; absolutely nothing about the existence of corporeal parts outside of one's immaterial, perceiving consciousness is established by this.

There is no such thing as common sense [2], only reason and rationality, which is a being's grasp of the objective necessary truths of reason.  There is no such thing as an epistemologically valid intuition and no intrinsic metaphysical connection between feelings like conscience or general sensory experience and the outside things they seemingly correspond to.  One can know that intuitions exist when one experiences them, for mental states cannot be illusory as far as conscious existence and experience goes, but one cannot know from intuition that something like God, the external world, morality, other human minds, and so on actually exist.  Ironically, the existence of God is nonetheless entirely verifiable since it is logically necessary [3].  While it is very difficult to demonstrate due to the factual precision involved, there is an external world (again, see [1]).  It can simply be proven only one way.

Moore's philosophy is asinine because it is irrationalistic.  It epistemologically rests on the unverifiable leap from visual perception to the presence external objects, metaphysically conflating very distinct things (the mental experience of sight and appendages of a physical body that would be outside the mind) that could exist totally independent of one another.  It is not a fool who rejects "common sense" and basic perceptions, not even when there is no way to prove that they are not accurate.  The fool is the person who believes in something that is not true in itself like logical axioms or that follows from another truth.  Whatever is logically possible could be true.  Whatever cannot be proven is still unknowable and thus could never have a basis to actually be believed.  Where there is no logical self-evidence or absolute deductive certainty free of assumptions, rationalistic skepticism is the only legitimate stance.

Logic, people.  It is very fucking helpful.

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

[2].  https://thechristianrationalist.blogspot.com/2020/01/the-myth-of-common-sense.html

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

Water And Life

Life on Earth is said to have originated as organic molecules in the sea and evolved into more complex manifestations from there, eventually coming to also dwell on land, and even Genesis 1:20-25 describes God as creating water-based life before the animals of the surface.  Now, it is not as if evolution and theism contradict each other: theistic evolution entails both evolution and either an initial act of divine biological creation or the divine manipulation of life's trajectory after abiogenesis.  Moreover, there is an uncaused cause no matter the exact mechanism that brought life into being, for otherwise nothing that is contingent or chronologically finite could have ever come into existence [1], including the universe in which abiogenesis and evolution would have occured.

Many people think of mere theism and evolution as incompatible when it is only certain kinds of theism and certain kinds of evolution that are exclusive.  For instance, of course atheistic evolution contradicts theism.  In evangelical or secular circles, one might still encounter the belief in the concept that all versions of the two are inherently opposed.  Each of these respective factions cites inferential or hearsay evidence filtered through subjective persuasion that falls short of logical proof anyway, while often seeming to believe that this evidence is somehow the same as "proof" all along.  This post will explore a water-related example of how various scientific correlations do not on their own suggest non-theistic evolution (which would still require theism for there to be an initial cosmos at all) or direct divine creation of life.

Take the dependence of creatures such as humans and horses on water, which the first life on this planet could have hypothetically been formed in.  If living things evolved without any divine guidance, then they could only survive using the materials available to them, and thus they would have by necessity adapted to or been constantly dependent on whatever physical environment was already there.  Water is present in large quantities on Earth.  Some creatures, like roaches or tardigrades or whales, might have a somewhat different relationship to water than humans, so that they can survive for longer without it or live directly inside it; life on Earth would be dependent on water from its beginnings until now all the same.  In this context, this would be true because living organisms evolved in contact with water.

If, on the contrary, living things need water because God created them this way, perhaps creating both simultaneously so that there is a biological dependence and fulfillment of that need from the start, then there is still a reliance on water by creatures like humans or deer or wolves.  The only difference about the relationship between water and life, if this is true, would be its causal origin and tangential things related to it.  However, the need of living things for water is present in either this kind of scenario or the aforementioned alternative.  Thus, the connection between water and life is neither evidence nor logical proof for either non-theistic evolution or direct biological creationism.  Leaving theistic evolution aside once again, none of this can on its own point towards any one of the two predominant general philosophies one might hear presented as the only two options.

At least one of these is true and the other is false, although theistic evolution is always a third possibility.  As if scientific paradigms and broad religious frameworks are not already unprovable given human limitations--the verifiable, basic existence of an uncaused cause is a logical necessity that does not require that any religion is actually true--something like the observed connection between biological life and the water in its environment is ultimately compatible with either of these two origins.  Yet, it is the kind of thing a non-theistic evolutionist might think is confirmation of how nature does not need a divine initiation of life, even as a direct creationist would likely think this is proof of a divine designer's intentionality.

Something compatible with two different philosophies does not point to either on its own, and it could not possibly allow for the absolute certainty some treat scientific matters as having one way or another.  No scientific matter can ever grant this except on the level that one can know one is experiencing particular natural phenomena, without even having the ability to shed one's sensory perspective to see if the world and extended universe really are the way they appear.  It is impossible to perceive them from outside of this subjective vantage point and thus impossible to know if they really are as they seem.  With something like the relationship between water and biology on Earth, the subjective observations also do not even provide evidence for anything except the relationship in question.  Grander metaphysics cannot be known from this because multiple causal starting points are possible.

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

How The Bible Directly And Indirectly Addresses Moral Issues

Even if the Bible does not explicitly mention all of the major ramifications of its moral tenets--and sometimes it does--it logically would follow that certain things are in fact illuminated within the context of Biblical ethics whether the text specifically says so or not.  For instance, with the Bible using the particular example of an engaged woman being raped in Deuteronomy 22:25-27's capital punishment law, it would absolutely not follow that it is teaching that the rape of unengaged/unmarried women, men of any marital status, or children is not sinful or that the perpetrators in other situations, regardless of motivation or gender, do not also deserve death.  Not only does it not follow and is nothing said to teach this, but it would be inconsistent with what the Bible already says: the gender equality of Genesis 1:26-27 and the very verse in the Deuteronomy passage saying that rape is like murder, which always receives the death penalty (Exodus 21:12), would mean that all rape is like murder.  The comparison would not and could not only apply to an engaged woman raped by a man!

Another favorite example of mine is that what the Bible says about alcohol use would be the case wherever drug use parallels it.  Mosaic Law and much of the New Testament does not bring up substances like marijuana or other drugs.  Nevertheless, Deuteronomy 21:20 and Ephesians 5:18, for instance, address drunkenness, and hedonistic or self-destructive drug usage would be equivalent since alcohol and drugs are mind-altering substances.  One could not be permissible unless used for intentional intoxication (alcohol) if using the other is universally immoral except perhaps in strictly medical contexts.  Drugs are simply far more varied in forms, effects, and applications than alcohol, but wherever the exact overlap is present, the Biblical stance would obviously be that the two are morally equivalent when not misused.  If a drug could be used without getting high, then the ethics of its use would be the same as with alcohol.

By saying not to add to its commands in Deuteronomy 4:2, the Bible also provides all it needs to about a vast number of things.  One might hear of people agonizing over how the Bible does not mention specific activities that they are interested in and they misunderstand this silence for Biblical uncertainty.  One example is how conservative Christians might act like there is genuine conceptual ambiguity about whether Biblical ethics allows people to kiss outside of marriage!  It never mentions kissing being sinful or says anything from which it follows by necessity that kissing someone outside of dating or being married to them is sinful.  It is not condemned directly or indirectly, so it cannot be anything other than Biblically permissible!  For a more controversial example (and I love the discomfort many people have with this), the Bible does not need to talk about flirtation to indicate that according to its standards, flirtation is absolutely nonsinful in itself, no matter the marital status of anyone involved, since extramarital flirtation is not inherently adulterous and can be done with wildly varying intentions.  However, without mentioning the issue, the Bible has by what it says and does not say already clarified the matter in full as far as the Christian worldview goes.

For a category more important than most by far, the Bible clarifies a lot about issues like torture without using the word and providing a detailed singular list of all of the prohibited forms and contexts of torture.  In prescribing financial damages for theft of things other than people, which specifically receives execution (Exodus 21:16, Deuteronomy 24:7), anything from the amputation of hands (Surah 5:38 in the Quran), capital punishment (as with Roman crucifixion and English hanging), or anything more severe than paying at a fixed ratio is clarified as sinful according to Christianity.  The thief who cannot repay works their debt away, to be released after seven years no matter the outstanding amount (Exodus 21:2, Deuteronomy 15:12-15), and he or she goes free if they are abused (Exodus 21:26-27).  In saying that the corpse of an executed man or woman can be displayed for less than 24 hours (Deuteronomy 21:22-23), the Torah is excluding forms of cruel and Biblically unjust punishment like nailing a loving person to a cross to suffer as long as they can as with, again, Roman crucifixion.

The Bible says a great deal not just with direct words, but by its silence combined with what it does state, and logical necessity requires that some unmentioned ideas would have to be the case if Biblical premises are.  This is not fucking difficult to grasp unless someone is used to looking to ecclesiological tradition, conscience, or approval from random people and making assumptions or refusing to let reason reveal what does and does not follow from a specific thing.  Whether or not the Bible is true, nothing I have said here misrepresents it, and yet these and other matters would enrage or sadden plenty of Christians.  What thorough imbeciles claim to know what the Bible speaks of morality, when they have never read much of it, never discovered what does and does not logically follow, and are interpreting what they do read through the assumptions of hearsay, conscience, and general tradition.

Logic, people.  It is very fucking helpful.

Sex Is Not Worth More Than Safety From Abuse

The addition of explicitly romantic or sexual component to a relationship in the context of genuine commitment is what differentiates marriage from other human connections.  Biblically, the only thing separating a spouse from everyone else is that, for a married person, it is only their spouse (or spouses) that they are to have sex with.  Emotional intimacy, one-on-one time, deep conversations, physical admiration, and even flirtation or other things like feeling or enjoying sexual attraction to someone else are not what distinguishes marriage from other relationships.  Conceptually and when it comes to Biblical ethics, this is the one actual difference that is not only an illusion assumed by some people to be true.

Sex is really the one reason why most people would ever need to pursue marriage of a legal kind or the Biblical kind (a hopefully lifelong, committed relationship).  Someone could get other kinds of intimacy from friends, family, or even strangers without doing anything that violates Yahweh's nature.  With sex, though, and literal intercourse alone to be clear, commitment either must be present or must follow (Exodus 22:16-17) unless there is anything that would legitimize breaking apart a marriage before God, including neglect or abuse (Exodus 21:9-11) beyond mere adultery (Matthew 19:9) or abandonment (1 Corinthians 7:12-16).  Sex in the context of commitment is the one thing that truly distinguishes a valid marital relationship apart from all other kinds.

Even so, it is not worth subjecting oneself to legalistic or deceptive spouses, unwanted physically dangerous treatment, sexual abuse, or even as much as constant pettiness.  There are ways to sexually act that are nonsinful (Deuteronomy 4:2) despite having nothing to do with marriage or a committed relationship of any kind, such as masturbation with or without imagery and flirtation while savoring sexual attraction.  Inside a marriage, an abused spouse is always free to leave no matter how long the relationship has lasted and no matter if there are children involved.  Physical and sexual safety are incredibly important, as is the psychological safety of not being mistreated and being allowed to be one's whole nonsinful self.

Sexual experience and expression are not confined to marriage in Biblical ethics.  They are morally and pragmatically within people's grasp outside of committed relationships.  As exciting or alluring as sex in particular is, it is not morally or otherwise worth more than safety from abuse.  Never having sex or having it for only part of one's life is better than having one's general life be ruined by a terrible marriage for the sake of something as shallow isolated by itself as just having sex, for its own sake.  The slightest physical or sexual abuse and unrepentant patterns of emotional abuse are absolutely Biblical grounds for divorce under the neglect and abuse categories (again, see Exodus 21:9-11).  Sexuality does not require a partner or any social interaction or stimulation at all.  Sex specifically is intimate and social and yet never worth not receiving proper treatment.

The Body And Emotions

The metaphysical and epistemological relationships between the body and the mind are commonly denied, overlooked, or misunderstood by non-rationalists.  Language can be used in imprecise or "normal" ways even if the literal wording of a sentence could not be true, and wording alone does not always mean that someone believes exactly what they are saying, but some statements about the body would be misleading at best on their own.  Someone might say that their body is experiencing sadness or fear or some other emotion.  While it can enable a person to experience physical sensations (more on this later), it has no capacity for emotion.

The body does not experience things like fear or joy or desire, despite how some people intentionally or casually speak about it.  More than this, it cannot.  It reacts to fear, which can only be experienced by a mind.  That a given person's skin begins to sweat due to anxiety or that their muscles lock up due to psychological stress, not that one person undergoing this requires that anyone else does or will, is a physiological phenomenon corresponding to whatever the mind is perceiving.  If a person has a certain mental state, in their case, their might be an accompanying bodily activity, but only a consciousness can experience anything at all.

Even physical pain, which is not an emotion because it pertains to the body rather than strictly to the mind, can only be experienced through a conscious mind, though physical pain also requires a body.  A mind without a body or a mind in a body with non-functional sensory (the senses are themselves phenomenological, but they correlate to the presence and condition of specific body parts) could still have emotions.  A body without a mind could not because it is not a body that perceives even if it has a mind.  Indeed, one only feels emotions because they are within one's consciousness; the body can behave in certain ways alongside or as a result of emotions, yes, but it is not what actually feels anger, sorrow, or a sense of urgency.

As one of multiple possible examples, sexual attraction is not the state of being physically aroused.  It is a mental state.  It is phenomenological, while genital arousal is physiological, and someone can realize this without being prompted to think of the difference by experiencing the latter without the former (or the other way around).  The concepts are distinct already.  Moreover, a person could experience sexual attraction or mental arousal without any bodily reaction or vice versa.  The former is an emotion and the latter is a bodily reaction that might or might not be triggered by the former.  It is entirely logically possible for one to be present without the other because neither contradicts logical axioms.

The Cancellation Of Debts

In one of the passages that would likely be most shocking to or dismissed by the contemporary conservative evangelical, Deuteronomy 15:1-3 says that there is to be a cancellation of debts every seventh year.  Verses 7-10 add that it is evil to refrain from lending to the poor among you because the cancellation of debts is near.  Conservatives who identify as Christians would probably insist that this would devastate the economy of countries like America.  The truth is that if Christianity is true, then those economies deserve to fall apart because they operate on the oppression of debtors.  Of ironic relevance is that many conservatives might associate business dealings, labor, and financial gain with men, but the male language in some translations of Deuteronomy 15:1-3 does not teach any such complementarian stereotypes or prescriptions.  This actually touches upon something far more foundational and broad than just the contents of this one passage.

Many translations of the Bible that still retain broad male wording in reference to all people, male and female, would in this very chapter also provide confirmation that it is not just possible for the Bible to use words like "brother" and "he" in this way (though this is a matter of logical possibility independent of Biblical statements), but that it also does this immediately after addressing debt.  To clarify, this does not mean that if it did not do this, the Bible would otherwise be teaching that women cannot have personal assets or debts or that their debts are not to be cancelled (see Genesis 1:26-27 and note that it never mentions a differing moral standard for men and women, which is consistent with the objective logical equivalence of the same actions done by each).  Even so, Deuteronomy 15:12-17 introduces Hebrew men and women using the word brother, mentions both men and women distinctly, and then defaults to male language in reference to people of both genders.

Clearly, like how Exodus 21:20-21 and 26-27 refer to men and women and then summarize them both (in some translations) with the words "him" and "he"--and thus would clarify regardless of other affirmations from reason and the Bible that the "man," "he" and "him" of passages like Exodus 12:12-14 or 18-19 encompasses perpetrators or victims of both genders--Deuteronomy 15:12-17 reminds readers that of course the "brother" of Deuteronomy 15:1-3 is a man or a woman of one's nationality.  Also, in saying that foreigners can be charged interest, Deuteronomy 15:1-3 does not contradict what other passages say about the treatment of foreigners needing to be the same as the at of the native-born (Leviticus 17:10-16, 24:22, and so on).  While Deuteronomy 15 says that foreigners can have their debts retained, which does mean they must not be annulled, the foreigner living among one's country as an ongoing, long-term resident rather than a mere visitor is to be treated just like native residents even in the handful of issues like the cancellation of debts where foreigners are not universally to be treated exactly the same (Leviticus 19:33-34).

Also, a foreigner from one country or another might or might not have the same skin color as a given person from one's own region.  These commands have nothing in themselves to do with race as opposed to nationality.  The emphasis is on someone's foreign nationality or residence, as the latter is what triumphs even over the otherwise rare matter the Bible says distant foreigners can be treated differently on.  An equivalent example would be how the Torah treats charging interest.  Charging interest to poor people is prohibited outright (Exodus 22:25), and charging interest to one's own countrypeople is prohibited, yet not imposing it on foreigners (Deuteronomy 23:19-20), but Leviticus 25:35-38 nonetheless says that a poor person of one's own countrypeople is to be treated like a foreigner or stranger: they are to be helped, charged no interest, and sold food without any inflated prices for the sake of profit.  The difference between a foreigner living among you and visiting briefly from abroad, though in almost all regards they are to be treated the same anyway, is key here.

Between the kinds of assistance Mosaic Law says is obligatory towards the poor (see Leviticus 19:9-10, 25:35-38, Deuteronomy 15:7-10), the opportunity for people of one's own country or foreign residents to work as protected servants for up six years rather than starve (Exodus 21:2, 26-27, Deuteronomy 15:12-17), and the cancellation of debts every seven years, it is no wonder that the Bible declares that there does not need to be anyone poor in the land (Deuteronomy 15:4).  The acknowledgement in Deuteronomy 15:11 that the poor will indefinitely be among us, shortly after verse 4 says poverty need not be present, is foreshadowing that the Israelites would not uphold their obligations, or else poverty could be rather easily eliminated.  The obligation to cancel debts in the aforementioned manner is still Biblically obligatory in all times and places (Deuteronomy 4:5-8, Matthew 15:17-19, and so on), so the avoidable failure of the Israelites (Deuteronomy 30:11-15) does not mean that moderners would be free to keep people of their own community indebted to them for life.