Movie Review--Terminator: Genysis

"It's the first tactical time weapon.  Skynet just used it."

--John Connor, Terminator: Genysis

Not everything in Terminator: Genysis is awful.  The opening scenes set in the post-Judgment Day future actually have great effects for once, J. K. Simmons is amazing in his comedic (and dramatic) delivery, the acid trap is a great way to defeat a terminator, and the revisiting of key scenes from the original Terminator with time travel-related changes are a way to infuse nostalgia with novelty.  The faults of Genysis, though it would have certainly benefitted from a darker atmosphere and more violent action sequences, are also not there because of its PG-13 rating.  Acting from certain main characters that is extremely mediocre is one of the deficiencies that holds it back.  Indeed, it is the primary one.  Another weakness, depending on the execution, is that little is done to change the basic plot structure of the events, something Terminator has struggled with since the excellent Judgment Day served as a sequel to the first entry.

Production Values

The effects are at least sufficient to revisit machine designs from across the other films, including the classic terminator models without artificial skin and the liquid metal design introduced in the second movie.  There is not any enormous flaw in the general quality of the special effects.  Where there is a lack of effort or quality is some of the acting.  Emilia Clarke and Jai Courtney are not at their best here, but Clarke is more often the better performer of the two in her scenes where she shows greater intensity than the often subdued performance of Courtney.  Jai Courtney is a mostly bland Kyle Reese just middling enough to not drag the film to absolutely abysmal levels, though he certainly does not help it reach incredible heights either.  The returning Arnold Schwarzenegger shows flashes of what would be a very humorous but still dramatic role in Dark Fate, yet is also not enough even at his most robotic or sarcastic to elevate Genysis.  The best performances are actually for secondary characters.  One of them only shows up for maybe three or four brief scenes at most: Dayo Okeniyi as the son of corporate inventor Miles Dyson from Terminator 2 is very well cast and does great with extremely limited screentime.  J. K. Simmons, who gets more scenes than Okeniyi, is incredible, as usual, giving some of the most fittingly comedic lines of the entire film while his character has a crucial role in the plot.

Story

Some spoilers are below.

John Connor has almost led the human resistance against Skynet to victory over the oppressive AI, but on the eve of defeat, Skynet uses a time travel device to send a terminator back in time to kill Sarah Connor, as is seen in 1984 in the original film.  John's close friend Kyle Reese volunteers to be sent back to save her.  However, Sarah is not oblivious to terminator activity and time travel as he expected.  She has prepared for his arrival.  Kyle begins experiencing memories from what seems like another life, another version of himself, and these memories tell him that "Genysis is Skynet."  After time traveling again, this time with Sarah, he sees how Genysis is poised to dominate humanity in a different guise.

Intellectual Content

Genysis features the usual Terminator trappings of artificial intelligence, time and sequential causality, and the potential for people in power to pioneer the technology that destroys them.  In some moments, it does apply its concepts like a misanthropic AI in different ways, like having Skynet's Judgment Day come about from a cloud software that connects an enormous amount of human technology rather than from the military like in Terminator 3.  Very early on, before Genysis has been introduced as a reclothed Skynet, Kyle Reese asks John Connor how he can predict the future so well.  John responds, "No one can see the future, Reese."  Where Genysis goes with John is not all that related to this early line, but the movie does very, very lightly touch upon John's role as a prophet in a science fiction context, receiving his information about the future not from God or an angel, but from his mother's words before Skynet razed the planet.  This reboot just does almost nothing with any of these promising ideas other than very quickly utilize them to move the story ahead.

Conclusion

Better acting from some key cast members would have worked wonders for Genysis.  It did make Terminator lore much more convoluted, and it did forgo the R rating yet again as did Salvation, but these are things that can be done well.  They are thus not the sole reason or sometimes a reason at all for a film falling short of whatever potential its premise and execution had.  A Terminator movie set in the modern day (at the time of its release) with a different incarnation of Skynet with its own name is not a bad direction to take the franchise--Dark Fate does these same things and is a very good film in its own right.  What both Genysis and Dark Fate fail to do even with their somewhat unique narratives is take the series in a direction that does not retread the general elements of almost every movie in the franchise.  Salvation at least showed the Skynet-dominated future Earth and thus something different that did not betray the series (execution was its downfall).  Genysis would have been better either way if only Jai Courtney gave a superior performance, and this would also be true if Emilia Clarke did the same.

Content:

 1.  Violence:  In PG-13 form, the physical fights of Terminator as a franchise are not graphic in any way even as machines pummel each other.

 2.  Profanity:  "Fuck" and "shit" are used, the former only once.

 3.  Nudity:  A naked man is seen briefly from behind.

Misleading Colloquial Language

In very casual or intentionally philosophical discussion alike (everything is philosophical, but not everything is equally foundational/abstract and many people never realize everything is philosophical), there are numerous words or phrases that people might be accustomed to hearing, yet they are ultimately very irrelevant to the actual ideas being conveyed.  Words mean whatever is intended by them and needlessly incompetent communication is still incompetent communication and utterly pointless.  There are various forms this can take, all of them able to be understood for what they are, identified, and avoided for maximum linguistic clarity.

For less overtly philosophical phrases, take "sleeping with" someone as an example.  Sex could occur right before or after someone is literally asleep, but it is absolutely not the same as actually sleeping next to or in the same room as someone else.  It is a very misleading phrase.  Yes, some people have heard it enough that they can tell the probable intention behind the words in a given context, and yes, all language is ultimately arbitrarily assigned to concepts, but there is such a thing as unnecessary levels of ambiguity or outright asinine phrasing, and to believe that "sleeping with" is a strong substitute to describe "having sex with" is irrational.  Prudery might convince someone to use a different phrase than the direct, accurate one out of submission to cultural norms--or someone might actually be stupid enough to think that there is no linguistic inaccuracy here.

For a more science-oriented example, what of when people say that sugar rots teeth?  In actuality, according to what is ultimately hearsay and mere sensory perceptions (but still affiliated with the relevant evidence/paradigm), it is not sugar that destroys teeth.  It is bacteria, Streptococci mutans and sobrinus, that feed on sugar left on the enamel.  They produce an acid, and it is this that breaks down the enamel, not the sugar itself.  To say that sugar is causally to blame according to what the evidence suggests is misleading, yet some people still do it all the time.  This phrase is not even a euphemism for something else like "sleeping with" is for having sex.  It is just a misrepresentative description!

For something more abstract and important than euphemisms or health science, there is the way that some people misuse phrases like "necessary truths" in reference to logical axioms or other logical necessities.  Evangelical apologists, for instance, might say that logical truths are necessary truths, but their acknowledgement of this is often dependent purely on reactions to the impossibilities of relativism and not true knowledge of reason.  If this was not the case, they would not insist that God created everything, including truths that are correct by inherent necessity (and thus do not and cannot depend on anything else since there are intrinsically true).  They would also not think that the laws of logic are in any way made to be true by God when God's existence has to be consistent with axioms to even be possible, much less necessary.

Be they euphemisms, inaccurate summaries, or very confused but explicitly metaphysical statements, misleading language is very commonly and unthinkingly employed by plenty of non-rationalists on a very regular basis.  Logic and the concepts it governs are objective, while all words are mere arbitrary, mental/social constructs.  There is no word that could not have been assigned to a different concept than what it is popularly associated with.  There is still a difference between knowingly using words that conflict with conventional meanings (or using misleading words sarcastically) and using misleading language without even realizing how imprecise or unfitting it really is.

Irrationalistic Positivity

Desperate to feel content or positive about themselves, some irrationalists choose to believe in whatever strikes them as positive.  Instead of rejecting sexism or racism because they are irrational whether or not morality and thus justice of any kind exists, for example, they might reject them because it makes them feel bad to be on the receiving end or because they feel distraught upon seeing them directed towards someone else.  Rather than consider the logical possibility of a hellish afterlife and actually evaluate things like logical necessity, the evidence for or against specific religions, or what religious texts actually say about hell (the Biblical hell is not what many people think [1]), they might reject the objective logical possibility of a theological or non-theological hell because it hurts their self-esteem or terrifies them.

Nothing about reality changes because of any being's feelings other than the feelings themselves.  Not even God's will or preferences or undiluted power can change logical necessities, such as that he is dependent on logical truths for the very possibility and necessity of his existence as the uncaused cause.  This is the case for the uncaused cause, and it is of course the case for humanity.  The irrationalist masses either passively go through their lives without realizing this or quickly fleeing, to the greatest extent that they can, from the thought of anything that disturbs their self-esteem or emotional sense of positivity.  This is why so many people are emotionally fragile at the thought or mention of almost anything deeper than arbitrary whims or practical affairs.

Anything from the inherent necessity of logical axioms--which cannot be willed away or nullified no matter how much someone wishes they could be--to the destructive capacity of humans and more is likely to be disregarded, denied, or unrecognized by such people.  They do not strive for and cultivate an attitude of positivity that is not shaped by contradictory beliefs, emotionalism, or assumptions of any kind.  Their positivity is irrationalistic in full.  Whatever satisfies them in the moment or seems best to them at keeping unwanted thoughts at bay is what they will not just want, but also embrace.  It is not the desire for positivity that leads them to these errors, of course.  Unwillingness to discover and believe in reality, wholly governed by the laws of logic, shackles them to delusions.

Irrationalistic positivity is rampant, yes.  One can see it on display every time someone remains voluntarily oblivious to even the most accessible of philosophical truths and depth (and all obliviousness to the foundations of reality, logical axioms and one's own consciousness on an epistemological level, is voluntary) even when pressed in conversation.  One can see it every time someone says an idea is not conducive to their mental health and believes it is false or avoids the issue of its veracity altogether to salvage their mental health.  Peace and self-esteem are undeserved whenever they stand on fallacies and errors, but this, too, would be offensive or emotionally hurtful to adherents of irrationalistic positivity.

Having, enjoying, and monitoring one's emotions does not lead to irrationalism unless someone willingly, avoidably believes in something false or assumed, or ignores something they know/would otherwise know is true for emotional respite.  A basis for positivity, though, can be found on an objective and subjective level in the inherent truths of reason and the epistemological liberation of rationalism that connects one with these metaphysical necessities.  One does not have to flee from reason to find refuge in the only truths that cannot have been any other way and in deep emotional pleasure because of these truths, as well as one's knowledge of them.  Positivity is not necessarily irrational although many motivations for it are by default philosophically erroneous.

[1].  https://thechristianrationalist.blogspot.com/2017/02/the-truth-of-annihilationism.html

What Is Isaiah 33:14's Everlasting Burning?

Out of context and read with the pathetic philosophical errors of assumptions in mind, there are a small handful of Biblical verses that might seem to say that eternal suffering awaits all of God's enemies, which is everyone who sins and does not repent or commit to Christ.  Isaiah 33:13-14 is one of these, containing a brief mention of everlasting burning: "'Who of us can dwell with the consuming fire?  Who of us can dwell with everlasting burning?"  This burning is equated with divine wrath on evil.  This much is affirmed by the text earlier in verses 10-12.  Moreover, it is the sinners who should be terrified (33:13).  With other passages clarifying what hell and God's final punishment for evil as a whole really is, and the latter is not eternal agony, Isaiah 33 itself does not teach eternal conscious torment of any kind despite the word fire being similar to how Jesus talks of hell in the gospels.

Which of the sinners can dwell with everlasting burning?  No one!  Not only does Isaiah 33 not actually say anything that contradicts the blatant annihilationism of numerous, very direct verses throughout the Bible saying that God will punish evildoers with death of the mind, but the rhetorical implication after the comparison of humans to chaff and straw (33:11-12) is that fallen people simply cannot eternally exist with the everlasting burning of God's power consuming them.  The wrath of the God who will kill body and soul (Matthew 10:28)--in justice, not out of mercy--is not something mortal humans can outlast, and thus their bodies will be reduced to mere ashes as their consciousness is forever exiled to nonexistence (2 Peter 2:6).  They will perish, eternally left without another resurrection, the final condition of their mind being as if they had never come into existence (John 3:16).

Yes, just two verses before verse 14, much like the parable of the sowers in Matthew 13 where Jesus compares weeds that are burned to the wicked at the end of the age, Isaiah says the unrighteous of whom he speaks will be burned like thornbushes, which do not burn indefinitely on Earth, nor do the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah that are an example of what will befall the unrighteous (again, 2 Peter 2:6).  In the eschatological day of the Lord, repeatedly referenced in scattered details, the wicked are described as stubble that will burn to ashes (Malachi 4:1-3), and not "'a root or branch will be left to them.'"  There is no everlasting burning of these sinners here, and the other passages that explicitly call the fate of the wicked death of the soul (Ezekiel 18:4), separation from an omnipresent deity (2 Thessalonians 1:6-10), and the second death (Revelation 20:15), some of these passages specifically mentioning the lake of fire or its alternative name hell (Matthew 10:28), are consistent with even some of the more vague or overlooked Old Testament passages about cosmic justice.

What everlasting burning could there be for sinners when their destiny is to be burned up, to ashes, never again to partake in the blessings of conscious life with its nonsinful pleasures that are far more in number than what legalists of all centuries realized?  Even though the fires of hell itself might last forever (Matthew 18:8), it would not logically follow that everything or even that anything thrown inside will also last forever, and the Bible already specifies that this is not the case for all except possibly some demonic beings and the like (Revelation 20:10).  Since even passages like Ezekiel 28:11-19, though it might speak of a different demon than Satan, predict that even beings like at least one major corrupt cherub will be burned to nonexistence, Revelation 20:10 might be figuratively exaggerating--something that it nonetheless does not do with the fate of collective unsaved humanity (Revelation 20:11-15).

If eternal conscious torment is unjust, then the only logically possible way for it to exist is if it at the whims of some amoral being and not at the whims of the moral nature of the uncaused cause, if it has one as the Bible teaches.  If morality exists at all, then at least this much is unjust for the general humans the Bible says will not receive it, as it would involve the greatest kind of suffering for an endless duration despite all sins being finite in scope and time, and yet if eternal conscious torment is inherently unjust, it would be the same for the most malevolent, arrogant demon.  The lake of fire is not an afterlife at all for the demons who are punished there without first undergoing a biological death; for humans, the lake of fire, though it could exist eternally rather than the people inside it, is not an afterlife without end.  People in the grip of traditionalist assumptions and fallacies, in many cases, would have to ignore the dire and often logically impossible ramifications of their misconception of Yahweh's justice in order to not live in extreme terror for themselves and others.  Who really could bear truly everlasting burning if even a much less severe fate is a cosmic horror?

Naboth's Vineyard

There is no such thing as evidence of a crime that could not be misleading or in some way an illusion, even if all the evidence of the senses and hearsay (testimony) pointed towards one possibility being true/probable.  Apart from the genuine logical possibility of almost all sensory perceptions being distorted or otherwise inaccurate, technological recordings like those of cameras or audio tapes (through either glitches or sabotage), testimony from people (through either happenstance misremembering or intentional lying), and physical disturbances at a geographical location (due to planted evidence or uncontrollable factors like weather) could all in one way or another suggest that something which did not happen did or vice versa.

If evidence was logical proof--something which follows necessarily from another truth that is both true and demonstrable through the laws of logic--it would not need evidence to be amassed, and it would not even be possible for the evidence to be falsified or misperceived.  Categorically, this is by necessity not the case with such information taken perceived by the senses, and every individual example of evidence that a person, say, committed murder or theft falls short of absolute certainty in establishing guilt or innocence.  This is the human epistemological condition, like it or not.  It is not that the Biblical requirement of two or three witnesses minimum for all criminal punishments (Numbers 35:30, Deuteronomy 17:6, 19:15) is an intrinsic marker of guilt.

Certainly, for men or women to be witnesses to begin with, they would have had to see the event in question.  False witnesses are not genuine witnesses because they lie concerning either the event itself happening or the nature of what occurred.  Other than the fact that in saying that people to be executed have to have carried out particular acts (like those of Exodus 22:18-20) or that the requirement of multiple witnesses would already necessitate that they must not be lying, Exodus 23:1 says to not falsely accuse someone, and Exodus 23:7 says to have nothing to do with a false charge and to not execute or by extension otherwise punish innocent people.  In fact, testifying against someone in an intentionally dishonest manner deserves the punishment the accused person would have Biblically received (Deuteronomy 19:16-21).

Witnesses can be in error due to memory flaws or malicious intentions, the latter of which the aforementioned verses acknowledge as it is.  It is not that two or three witnesses cannot be wrong, but that punishing someone without at least this number of witnesses/evidences is always immoral according to Yahweh.  Jezebel, queen of Israel, relies on the former truth in 1 Kings 21.  Here, when her husband Ahab is troubled because a vineyard owner named Naboth refuses to sell his vineyard to the king, she arranges to have two false witnesses publicly accuse the man of cursing God and the king, at least one of these beings a capital sin (Exodus 22:28, Leviticus 24:16).  On the testimony of these two liars, Naboth is killed, and thus Jezebel obtains the vineyard as she told Ahab she would.  Of course, in the New Testament, the corrupt Sanhedrin musters false witnesses against Jesus (Matthew 26:59-60).

The Bible gives examples of how two or three witnesses might not at all be honest and mandates specific penalties for such lying men and women--as an aside, it absolutely does not require male witnesses as the Jewish historian Josephus conflated with its teachings in Antiquities of the Jews.  It is logically possible for two or three (or more) witnesses to collude ahead of time and plant illusory physical evidence in addition to constructing a unified but false story.  This is what happened with the people Jezebel had come forward against Naboth in a very orchestrated manner.  Some people might think that other evidence or modern methods of securing evidence are less susceptible to being misleading.  Nonetheless, fingerprints and genetic evidence can be planted; as mentioned, technological records can glitch or be edited.

There is no such thing as evidence that proves a person is guilty with no possibility of illusion.  Thus, only an irrationalistic fool, though acting as if evidence is valid does not require believing that it is, actually thinks that either witness testimony or some other evidence proves innocence or guilt.  It never logically follows from anything humans have epistemological access to that witnesses or records themselves are presenting the truth about an event.  The absence of witnesses, physical (including genetic) evidence, and recordings or documentation does not mean someone did not commit a crime.  The presence of witnesses and the other kinds of evidence does not mean someone did commit it.  Mere perception and evidence proves nothing except that evidence is being perceived.  Nothing prescribed in Mosaic Law contradicts this even as minimum threshold of evidence is demanded.

The Concept Of City-States

Today, nation-states dominate much of the global political landscape.  Within these countries, there are various cities, one of them often serving as a capital, with geographical borders, along with relative linguistic and cultural norms shared by the collective, distinguishing one nation-state from another.  One country might be capitalist and another socialist.  One might be led by a monarchy and another by a democratic republic.  One might be marked by military strength and another by economic strength.  Here, the word state refers to more than just individual districts within a single nation, as with contemporary America or Brazil, but to a governing body that often happens to be over more than one city.

The city-state model differs in scope.  Each city is its own sovereign, albeit smaller-scale, nation of sorts, with its own ruler, army, and potentially religion.  Among the ancient Greek city-states, for example, adherence to worship of the Olympians was shared, yet different cities might emphasize their own preferred Olympian, as with how Athens focused on Athena--though the Olympians are very obviously not uncaused causes even in the context of their own stories, so they cannot truly be gods or goddesses.  They are just created superhuman beings even on ancient Greek paganism that had loyal regional devotees.  The historical record suggests many city-states in and outside of Greece.

Athens and Sparta are especially renowned among the former Greek city-states from the classical era, the two of them fighting against Persia as allies.  Ur and Uruk of Mesopotamia, the region between the Tigris and Euphrates rivers in what would now be termed the Middle-East, are earlier examples on the alleged historical timeline (for no historical events or scenarios like this can be logically proven, only probabilistically evidenced), and the Minoan civilization on the island of Crete might have also had its own city-states.  As relatively rare as it might be today, and as alien as it might be to many people, this type of political structure is not foreign to what evidence points to concerning ancient cultures.

The logical possibility of a nation-state ruling effectively aside, though the Biblical scope of government is strictly limited to enforcing the laws that correspond to God's moral nature (Deuteronomy 4:5-8), a city-state would be objectively more likely to be managed in a manner that benefits its populace quickly and directly.  With less territory to maintain, the government's resources could be utilized very pragmatically when the entire state is only bound to the one city itself.  Transitioning from nation-states to city-states would enable the easier governance of local areas by people who are actually in or from the exact region they preside over.

It is not that nation-states cannot rule efficiently and consistently in a Biblical way across broader geographical distances.  They could.  At the same time, the larger the region a nation-state covers (or city-state, though a city-state would very likely be smaller than many nation-states), the more potential difficulties might arise for everything from communication to mobilization.  A city-state, in plenty of cases, would naturally lend itself to a government that is not riddled with bloat and disjointed branches, certainly to a far greater extent than a nation that contains numerous cities.

The delusions of emotionalistic patriotism, the variant many patriots hold to, would nonetheless deter many people from ever endorsing the dissolution of their nation-states into (likely) far more effective city-based governments where there is no federal or overarching government.  The allure of tradition and the fallacious pursuit of familiarity for familiarity's sake would probably make such a thing very unpopular.  Still, alignment with reason and morality and all that they entail is all that makes a government valid, not emotion-based allegiance or arbitrary human norms.  As for interactive benefits, individual cities could still aid each other through trade, disaster relief, charity, and so on, and, more importantly, true justice could still be achieved.  There is hardly the same degree of challenge in pragmatism here as there is in implementing almost anything in the nation-state.

David Hume's Enquiry And Causality (Part Three)

Thus far in the examined excerpts from David Hume's An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding, he has touched on how empirical correlations are not as clear as many people assume, and also on how physical phenomena, particularly the effects of their seeming causes, cannot be proven beforehand.  Without experiential prompting, there would be nothing to suggest that rain would feel wet or that dark clouds signal an incoming storm, for none of these things must be connected with the other by logical necessity.  In the following quote, he uses snow as an example of something that did and does not have to possess the qualities associated with it due to experience:

"That there are no demonstrative arguments in the case, seems evident; since it implies no contradiction, that the course of nature may change, and that an object, seemingly like those which we have experienced, may be attended with different or contrary effects.  May I not clearly and distinctly conceive, that a body, falling from the clouds, and which, in all other respects, resembles snow, has yet the taste of salt or feeling of fire?" (22)

As Hume points out, there is nothing logically impossible, though he asininely conflates subjective imagination with objective logical necessities, about snow having a different feel or taste than it does when a person touches or tastes it.  Trees besides evergreens could have flourished in the winter months and decayed in the summer instead of what we see.  In the same way, for it too is logically possible, recalled or present experiences prove nothing about future events.  It could come about that tomorrow, snow will burn on contact wherever it is felt in the world.  None of this can ever be proven false by reason ahead of time since there is no contradiction in them, though the completely wrong conclusion would be that experience grants absolute certainty and/or connects us with the core of reality while reason does not, or that reason is secondary to experience rather than experience hinging on reason metaphysically and epistemologically in full.  Hume holds to the utter opposite of what is by logical necessity the case independent of and in relevance to some of the very truths he arbitrarily brushes up against:

"And though none but a fool or a madman will ever pretend to dispute the authority of experience, or to reject that great guide of human life, it may surely be allowed a philosopher to have so much curiosity at least, as to examine the principle of human nature, which gives this mighty authority to experience . . ." (23)

All of this is demonstrably false except for the philosopher's ability to examine all things.  Only a fool believes in that which cannot be proven, and it cannot be proven that experience, except for the introspective experiences within one's mind (the mere presence of thoughts and the basic existence of sensory perceptions) as well as a very particular kind of sensory contact with the external world [1], in any way reflects anything other than one's mind.  It is only due to reason that one can even know that one's own mind exists, for it is logically necessary that any experience at all means a being exists as a consciousness.  Reason, in turn, is true in itself.  Its falsity requires its veracity both metaphysically and epistemologically!  It can only be true that there is no logical truth, for instance, if this too is logical true.  It can only be the case that nothing necessarily follows from anything else if it follows logically from the nature of reality that logic is false, an impossible thing.

Hume neglects all of this and pretends as if experience proves more than that there is an experiencer undergoing particular mental experiences at that moment regarding the visual world, yet he is correct that prolonged, repeated sensory exposure to a phenomena makes it more probable that this correlation/event will persist into the future:

"It is only after a long course of uniform experiments in any kind, that we attain a firm reliance and security with regard to a particular event." (23)

The person who only hears about alleged experiments conducted miles away in privacy, of course, would still not have access to as direct of evidence as we can humanly attain that electrons can be shared by atoms in covalent bonding, among other things.  Some people do not realize that the majority of scientific information they are given is sheer hearsay on the level of epistemology, and still this does not mean it  is false as long as it is logically possible, which disproves something without sensory experiments altogether.  No typical person can tell from walking on the ground that it is supposedly comprised of various miniscule particles like neutrons and protons of that these two would break down into still smaller quarks; nothing about observing the moon in the sky with the mere eye would hint at it being inhabited or uninhabited by extraterrestrial life.

By hearing or reading about these subjects, a person can know that a given thing is supposedly true and that other people claim it is so, but in no way do they even have the thoroughly fallible evidence of direct sensory experience.  Even then, most sensory experiences could be purely illusory in the sense that they do not connect with any material world, as they exist as mental experiences either way.  The mind is required to perceive nature in the repeat observation Hume speaks of, while the mind itself cannot be an illusion since it is required to doubt, recognize, or experience an illusion!  One's own consciousness cannot be rejected as if it does not exist or epistemologically doubted without it already existing so that rejection and doubt can occur.  Someone born without senses or who loses their senses would still have their mind and could still grasp the intrinsic truths of reason that do not depend on the mind or anything else for their veracity.  Hume has so many things entirely backwards.

An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding.  Hume, David.  Indiana: Hackett Publishing Company, 1993.  Print.

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

Pagan And Christian Polytheism

The true Biblical Trinitarianism, if one calls it that at all, is not that Yahweh, Jesus, and the Holy Spirit are all manifestations of the same being that still somehow have their own independent wills and roles.  It is not the case that the Bible teaches that the "Trinity" is just one being revealing itself in different ways either.  The first of these is logically impossible unless God actually had three different personalities within the same overall mind, like a human with dissociative identity disorder (once called multiple personality disorder).  This is not what most Trinitarians affirm, at least when pressed.  As for the second, standard Trinitarianism entails that Yahweh, Jesus, and the Holy Spirit are distinct, yet that they are still somehow the same being.  This is not the same as one being manifesting itself in different ways as if the other two members of the Trinity are momentary constructs of the first.

However, evangelical/traditional Trinitarianism is logically impossible.  This is not Biblical, but God could be just one being presenting a front of sorts with two alter egos or there would have to be three separate metaphysical entities, unless the Holy Spirit is only an expression of the others' power, in which case there would be two.  There could also be multiple divine beings, which is what the Bible actually teaches.  What is impossible whether or not Christianity is true, since it is a logical contradiction, is the version of "three in one" that is popularly held to by many Christians who are desperate to gratuitously oppose polytheism for its allegedly inevitable pagan nature.  Jesus is not the Father and repeatedly differentiates himself from him.  He says God is good and not himself in Mark 10:17-20, says that he did not know the exact time of his return though the Father did in Matthew 24:36-41, and submits his will to Yahweh's in the Garden of Gethsemane in Luke 22:39-44.

The Bible is not at all reluctant to clarify that they are different beings, and other New Testament authors do the same simply by referring to them independently in the same sentences--not even evangelicals can reference the Trinity without speaking in contradictory ways.  This is not the same as pagan polytheism although it is indeed a form of polytheism all the same.  While the Olympians of Greek mythology, for example, are created beings with differing dominions and conflicting attitudes that are still erroneously called gods or goddesses, even if Jesus was created by Yahweh as some verses suggest (after all, he is called God's begotten son more than once), he is a being in unity with the Father (John 10:30).  Biblical Christianity is polytheistic, but its kind is scarcely like that of the Greco-Roman pantheons.

Yahweh and Jesus created the universe together according to the Bible (John 1:1-3) and have the same purpose for humanity: that of moral betterment to the point of perfection and that of punishing sin with the cosmic justice of the second death.  Whether or not Jesus was created, the two are still separate beings with divine power, with the Son deriving his power from the Father if he was truly begotten.  However, they are one in intention and moral character either way (again, see John 10:30), the Father giving the Son his approval for the latter's righteousness and sacrificial commitment to human salvation.  Christian polytheism is actually a very core doctrine of Biblical philosophy in the sense of being very foundational to its teachings.  Jesus cannot have his own existence and will if he is the same as the Father.

Non-Biological Family

The only relationships one could not will away or spontaneously dissolve at any time are the connections one has on a biological level with family members.  Yes, a person could turn their backs on family whether or not it is just to do so, but the family tie would remain.  With friendships and romantic relationships (the latter being a thriving friendship itself when it is handled correctly), there is always a voluntary element, something that makes them more fundamental to social expression and something more life-giving than just family bonds alone.  These relationships are selected and nurtured with intentionality.

Family that is chosen, either the non-biological family of close, rationalistic, friendships with philosophical equals or a rationalistic romantic partner (with a compatible personality) that might receive lifelong commitment, is always greater in significance than the people to whom one has involuntary, happenstance, mere biological ties.  That is, this is true unless one's literal family is worthy of the same kind of personal devotion.  One can certainly be friends with biological family members and, unless they have done something to deserve being ignored or unless one is willing to show mercy towards their failings, this is a good thing to pursue.  Unfortunately, many family relationships are not this positive, though they could be or could have been.

Investing in quality friendships and romantic/marital relationships is by default higher than investing in natural, biological family relationships simply because they involve siblings or parents.  For parents, there is a responsibility to take care of their children while they need it, but if they become or remain irrationalists as they physically mature, then their children, too, are not as worthy of attachment and personal love as intellectual, moral, and relational equals united in rationality and mutuality.  Biological family members are not enemies or inferior because they are family, just not special in any way as a human or an individual.

Seeking out and actively prioritizing friendships or the bond with a significant other, if they are chosen on valid grounds, that is, is the ultimate form of building human relationships.  Friendships can be shared between siblings, parents and their children, and extended family, of course, so this does not exclude family members, who could wind up being excellent people worth investing in relationally.  That these friendships within family are chosen is what makes them superior, more genuine, more personal, more stable.  Voluntary, mutual relationships can always have what mere biological ties do apart from the blood relationship; they also can have so much more depth and expansiveness.  Non-biological "family" is often the very best kind.

The Logically And Biblically Egalitarian Nature Of Engagement

One does not even have to look outside the Torah itself to find overt acknowledgement of the fact that if a woman is engaged to a man, the man is engaged to the women, and in light of the metaphysical equality of Genesis 1:26-27 (and 5:1-2) and the non sequitur and contradictory nature of the alternative, of course there is no difference in the sexual morality of an engaged man having sex with a woman outside of the relationship and the opposite that is mentioned in Deuteronomy 22:23-24.  As I will tackle below, the identical nature of engagement in both directions is true by logical necessity and thus the Bible would have to be consistent with this for it to even be possibly true.  It is just that it does from start (Genesis 2:23-24) to finish affirm that the status of engagement and the marriage to follow is egalitarian.

In the words of Deuteronomy 20:7, men were/are pledged to women just like the other way around.  No, the Torah does not demand male soldiers or prohibit women from direct military service here or elsewhere (see also Deuteronomy 4:2 and 12:32), but it does say that any male soldier who is engaged but not married can be excused from fighting; after the legal marriage arrives, spouses are furthermore not to be given military service or other major public tasks for a year so that they can bring happiness to their new wife, or by logical extension husband (Deuteronomy 24:5).  The statements in Deuteronomy 20:1-9 are not prescriptive whatsoever of any gender stereotypes or roles.  Song of Songs 6:3 likewise says, in the words of the woman who loves and is loved, that she is her beloved's and he is hers.  There is no sexist ownership in one direction or the other hinted at here and no such thing taught in the Torah, though the two do belong to each other on one level.

1 Corinthians 7:36 also addresses men who are engaged to marry women, while 7:1-5 very clearly teaches that in marriage, there is mutual obligation to submit and pursue only consensual interpersonal sexual acts.  It says the husband and wife "own" each other.  This is written by Paul, who says over and over, contrary to the church's conventional anti-theonomy, that Mosaic Law is righteous and enduring in its perfect, universally obligatory status (Acts 24:14, Romans 7:7, 12, 1 Corinthians 9:7-12, 2 Corinthians 13:1, 1 Timothy 1:8-11, 5:17-21).  Just as Jesus and other New Testament figures affirm it (Matthew 5:7-19, 15:1-20, Mark 7:1-13, Luke 16:16-17, Hebrews 2:2), so does Paul, and yet God does not change (Malachi 3:6, James 1:17).  What the New Testament teaches about the egalitarian nature of marriage (see also Ephesians 5:21) and by extension engagement is exactly what the Old Testament directly or indirectly teaches.  It is not that the Torah is sexist and the New Testament corrects or upholds this!

The Bible would not have to explicitly say that engagement is two-sided, however, for it to teach this (Genesis 1:26-27, one of the most important parts of the entire Bible, is of course relevant) or for it to be consistent with the fact that engagement is two-sided in itself.  Obviously, this is true by logical necessity even if a person or culture thinks that engagement and marriage are one-sided statuses.  For marital engagement to occur, two people must be engaged to each other, not just one to the other.  If one of them, regardless of gender, becomes pledged to the other, the same could only be true in the inverse direction.  The very nature of engagement is in this sense gender egalitarian no matter what falsities someone might hold to, even a person who is himself or herself engaged.  For the Bible to be logically possible, much less true, it would have to be consistent with these facts that as logical necessities are true independent of cultural recognition, Biblical acknowledgement, or subjective feelings and preferences.

Now, the Bible is consistent with them, and not just because it openly teaches that men are pledged/married to or belong to women no less than the other way around.  It would not have to directly state this for its doctrines to be consistent with these logical necessities (what a fool and insect someone is who thinks that a text has to directly say something to be consistent with it!).  In fact, it would have to plainly say otherwise for a passage like Deuteronomy 22:23-24 to be sexist in its treatment of marital engagement and the ethics of an engaged person having sex with someone they are not married/engaged to.  In the absence of any teaching that in itself--not as it seems to come across to a reader, but in the concepts it is actually putting forth--is articulated in a manner such as "It is sin for a man to rape someone, but not for a woman", even with no other textual context, logical equivalence by default would mean that the Bible is already egalitarian there.  What it directly says about marriage and engagement before legally finalized marriage is simply gender egalitarian as well.

The Consumption Of Pig

Like the requirement of only eating underwater creatures having both fins and scales in Leviticus 11:9-12 (which excludes animals like octopi, crawfish, sharks, and lobsters), the requirement of only eating land-based creatures that both have cloven (also called split) hooves and chew their cud is put forth in Leviticus 11:2-7.  It is both of these factors that must be present for a creature that walks the land to be morally suitable for eating by Biblical standards.  An animal such as a cow or giraffe would meet both requirements because their hooves are split and they regurgitate food to their mouths to be rechewed.  The pig does not have both characteristics at once.  It only has one of them.

Leviticus 11:7 does use a pig as an example of a prohibited beast that has split hooves but does not chew its cud, but pork is commonly singled out by many people who do not eat the kosher diet, or have Biblical familiarity with it, as at least one thing they might have heard is forbidden (they might not have actually even read the Bible on this matter at all and be thinking only of cultural hearsay).  A pig is listed as a creature that has a cloven hoof but does not chew its cud, yes.  It is not the only animal that does not meet both requirements for land-based animals.  Leviticus 11:4-6 uses camels, hyraxes, and rabbits as examples of forbidden land animals right before mentioning pigs, though they are examples of animals that inversely chew their cud without having split hooves.

Being the only creature specified as not chewing its cud despite the split hooves is noteworthy in one sense.  For pigs to be the only animals that many appear people recognize as non-kosher, at least according to whatever hearsay they have encountered, shows how unfamiliar the masses are with something that Jesus never actually repeals [1].  Many seem to ignore the dietary laws of Leviticus 11 and Deuteronomy 14 as if they are irrelevant to their lives, but the Bible does not ever say that God's nature and his stemming commands changed on the issue of food, and it is really more that they are inconvenienced by something contrary to human traditions.  Altering everyday food habits is more than plenty of Christians seem willing to do.

Still, there is nothing specifically about pig flesh that is representative of the whole of the Torah's dietary laws.  Pork might be referenced as if it is one of the most obvious of the non-kosher food examples, and it is certainly one of the most culturally acknowledged in some circles.  In a country like modern America, it is also far more popular of a food than the likes of jellyfish, camel, dog, and so on, though all of the latter are also non-kosher animals.  In some cases it could be the case that certain people think mostly or only of pork when thinking of the dietary laws because they are reacting to their culture without making assumptions.  In others, it is assumptions about the criteria for kosher food, or disinterest in its ongoing obligatory nature in Christian theology, that is behind this trend.

[1].  https://thechristianrationalist.blogspot.com/2023/09/that-which-defiles.html

Movie Review--X-Men: Dark Phoenix

"What happened to you in space was not a solar flare, and it was not an accident.  It was drawn to you."

--Vuk, X-Men: Dark Phoenix

What heights First Class, Days of Future Past, Logan, and the Deadpool films climbed to!  The best of the X-Men films are indeed among the best of the entire superhero genre and in turn among the best films of the last 15 years.  Continuing the wide variation in quality that marks this Fox franchise, Dark Phoenix does not even begin to rival the greatness of its predecessors.  For the second attempt at adapting the Dark Phoenix story in the same live-action X-Men continuity to not amount to anything more than what resulted is an enormous failure.  Is everything in Dark Phoenix abysmal?  No, and certain elements are even very well-done, but they are islands of triumph in an ocean of wasted opportunity.  Not even Jessica Chastain, Michael Fassbender, a fairly spectacular action sequence, and a promising set of extraterrestrial villains save this film.

Production Values

As early as the space shuttle rescue scene, the visuals are rather good for a film this mixed overall.  These shots of outer space are the best in the entire movie along with those alongside Vuk's explanation of the Phoenix Force, though the finale also has its own bursts of rather excellent camerawork and effects. Jean feeding her cosmic power into Vuk shortly before the credits is especially stellar.  As Jean Grey, the titular Dark Phoenix, Sophie Turner gets her chance to be the leading character in an X-Men ensemble movie, and she does her best to emote as the plot calls for it.  Fittingly, she has one of the best characters here, and she also sometimes contributes to great shots; her eye turning gold when in her father's house and her holding back Magneto's metal railing are framed well.  Jessica Chastain, on the contrary, has a much more emotionally reserved role.  Despite doing well at portraying Vuk's coldness, she is not used for almost anything else except providing plot-necessary information to Jean Grey.  James McAvoy and Michael Fassbender are wonderful--but when is Michael Fassbender not fucking amazing?  On the less utilized side of the cast, Jennifer Lawrence and Evan Peters (American Horror Story) are only shadows of their former selves in Days of Future Past.  Without them actually giving poor performances, their roles do not get the same level of focus and development as they did before.

Story

Some spoilers are below.

The mutant named Jean Grey accidentally led to a fatal car accident when she was a young girl as her mutant ability first triggered, after which she was recruited by Charles Xavier.  Charles is called by the president of America many years later to rescue astronauts, and the ensuing extraction mission exposes Jean Grey to a solar flare that unexpectedly does not kill her even when the shuttle around her vanishes, leaving her in outer space without protective gear.  She not only survives, but she also begins displaying signs of heightened powers.  One consequence is that mental barriers Xavier, as a telepath, placed in her consciousness to suppress the memory of the accident disappear.  Meanwhile, the survivors of an alien civilization have come to Earth pursuing the same cosmic power that Jean contacted, and their leader Vuk tries to make an ally of Jean.

Intellectual Content

This is one of the areas where Dark Phoenix most significantly declines from the franchise's former glory.  Some of the past X-Men movies were rather philosophically inclined in very outwardly explicit ways, like Day of Future Past and Logan.  Here, Xavier's closet utilitarianism is briefly explored as other characters confront him for using people as a means to an end, and the D'Bari leader Vuk brings up some of the metaphysics of the energy force that gives Jean Grey her Phoenix powers, but these and other issues, either newly introduced or carried over from before, are never thoroughly addressed.  Like the fellow mutants Xavier initially uses as "benevolent" pawns, Dark Phoenix uses these subjects as a means to the end of telling a story it does not even properly navigate.

Conclusion

Dark Phoenix is neither the second coming of Suicide Squad some people treat it as nor a great movie.  It commits a terrible cinematic sin: it is aggressively mediocre, so mixed or middling in quality that it does not even embrace being a bad film.  It hovers in the same limbo as many other movies that squander genuine potential and yet have some successful aspects, though perhaps only unintentionally successful.  Lacking the clever humor of Deadpool 2, the somber depths of Logan, the incredible characterization of Days of Future Past, and the historical grounding of First Class, Dark Phoenix offers little to nothing to replace them.  Some of the acting is strong, yes.  Some of the visuals are grand, yes.  Flashes of the layered characters occasionally come through.  Additionally, the climactic fight is generally choreographed and executed well.  This film just needed to be and could have been so much more than mediocre.

Content:

 1.  Violence:  One of the more violent scenes shows Mystique as she is impaled with blood around her wounds.  Later, mutants fight the D'Bari in a bloodless clash that still involves a great deal of physical force.

 2.  Profanity:  The infrequent profanity includes words like "shit."

The Limited Power Of Sex To Heal Marriages

Sexual expression in the context of marriage cannot heal any problems except for those strictly pertaining to sexual deprivation.  Certainly, it could help in conjunction with other measures--having sex in the context of lasting, loving romantic commitment is literally the only Biblical distinction between a marriage and any other human relationship--but neither having sex nor having a child will stabilize a couple whose problems are more penetrating, more multifaceted, more serpentine than this.  If only the potential trials of marriage were this simple!

It is true that almost no one is a rationalist and that no non-rationalist can select a spouse well.  At best, they choose on the basis of assumptions or ignorance.  A focus on one attribute to the exclusion of others, silence on major philosophical and personality matters, unwillingness to be fully transparent or to discuss every issue, and relational coldness are lethal for marriages, and yet in one way or another so many can easily slip into these pitfalls while dating.  It is possible for these things to befall someone after they are already married as well, contrary to what all evidence pointed to.

It would be wonderfully helpful if all it took to resolve intentional or incidental relationship problems was having sex.  Yes, sex can express and deepen nonsexual bonds, and this is a life-giving truth.  It still does not rescue people from a plethora of a avoidable conflicts, avoidable by rationality and communication or avoidable by having never continued a romantic partnership, or prevent the possibility of new ones arising.  Anyone who looks to sex with their husband or wife for deliverance is shackled to delusion and perhaps even more woes to come.

Sex alone does not help if one spouse threatens the other with abuse or abandonment, perhaps abandonment by suicide, if they are not given what they insist on in emotionalism and selfishness.  Sex alone will not change a lack of eagerness to communicate and invest in one's spouse.  Sex by itself does not make an irrational or apathetic suddenly care about other aspects of the relationship.  The unfortunate truth is that marital sex is of course most healing, if not exclusively healing, when there is an absence of other problems or when there is needed progress being made outside of sex.

It is a tragedy that more people are not ruthlessly communicative about worldview and personality before ever having sex or getting married to begin with.  It is a shattering thing if they then look to sex to save them from trouble that either could have been averted by other things, such as breaking up earlier on, or that will fester irrespective of sex.  As dim as it is, there is always the possibility of reconciliation, of priorities and attitudes changing, of spouses clinging to each other in truth and love even after a string of relational disasters.  They just cannot rationally expect sex to lift them out of all such trials.

Currency And The Natural World

Money is a necessary component of business transactions, as even in the absence of an established currency like the dollar, peso, or euro, minerals or animals used in exchanges are still required to have transactions at all.  The form of a currency could vary even as its economic role would not.  Regardless of its names, appearances, and exchange rates around the world, money is a major part of human civilization, yet one that is often coveted and pursued and practically worshipped as if it is the essence of the natural world.  Indeed, I have heard the literal claim that money is "how the world works," with no distinction being recognized on the other person's part between the social "world" as separate from the physical world.

Money is constructed out of natural resources for the intentions and use of humans.  It is in no way "how the world works" in any sense other than an economic one, which is already, other than logically truths about economics, nothing but a social construct.  The matter of "the world" is a prerequisite to currency, and currency only even has its pragmatic function because of human needs and desires.  Of course, nothing in the natural world or the human mind is the same as the necessary truths of logic, the space that holds matter, or the uncaused cause, which are the most foundational things of all reality.  These truths and existents transcend a physical world, with logic governing the truth of its very possibility, but even within the physical world itself, money is not what determines the existence or behaviors of particles and objects.

No, these items would be what physically constitutes money.  Certain kinds of people are so voluntarily blinded by the subjective appeal of money, the privileges and comfort associated with money, and the consumerist pursuit of possessions that they truly will overlook that even on the secondary level of physical metaphysics (though digital currencies like crypto are logically possible, they are not the same as, say, the dollar), money is not what makes the world go on.  It does not; the matter of the world is a metaphysical prerequisite to currency, not the other way around.  Without currency in the conventional sense or something physical to use as currency, like salt or cattle, there can be no business transactions, but this is not the same as the world not existing or continuing to function as it does.

Business, money, and physical possessions are in no way the core of human life or the external world, even as human life and the external world are themselves not the very heart of reality.  Those I have heard say that money is how the world works did specifically insist that money is a more fundamental part of the physical activities on Earth more than scientific phenomena, which is of course backwards.  Although plenty of people might not directly, literally believe this erroneous metaphysical framework, there are many who still act in part as if money truly is more supreme than the laws of logic, God, moral obligations, fellow humans and relationships with them, and the less important but still somewhat important natural world that allows for currency to be made in the first place.  They wonder in an irrationalistic manner at the human construct of currency as if it is more than just a construct that, in itself, is created for mere practical ends.

The Evangelical Laminin Fallacies

Similar to how John 1:1-3 says that Jesus created the universe along with Yahweh, Colossians 1:15-17 emphasizes that Christ created the universe, in addition to certain invisible existents, and helps sustain them.  Though it would be absolutely false if it went so far as to say God and/or Christ genuinely created all things, including the necessary truths of logic and God himself, the Bible makes it plain in Genesis 1 that not everything is created, God being given as a textual example, and John 1 says that Yahweh and Jesus only created contingent things, not everything.  There are other things that cannot possibly have been created to be mentioned by me yet again below, but some evangelicals think Colossians 1:17, in saying that all things are held together by/in Christ, at least partly refers to how a sometimes loosely cross-shaped protein called the laminin holds cells together.

There are many errors in this.  Laminins are not all supposed to be universally shaped like a cross, and, as I will address in more detail below, they are not quite small enough to even be the underlying unit within the currently predominant framework of physics.  Regardless, a miniscule biological structure, albeit a microscopic one, is not the same as a superhuman being like Christ, so no, even if certain things about the laminin's size and shape were true, the laminin holding cells together could not possibly be the same as Jesus metaphysically holding a broad cosmos together.  Aside from this, cells are not the entirety of the physical world or else all matter would be living, so holding cells together would not be the same as binding all material composites together, not that everything is made of matter or could hinge on God to start with [1]!

As a protein, a laminin, if atomic theory is true, would be made of molecules, which are in turn comprised of atoms, which break down into protons, neutrons, and electrons; protons and neutrons, the nucleons of the atom, would also supposedly reduce to various arrangements of quarks.  A laminin would not be the smallest or most allegedly elementary particle [2], so it would not be what physically holds matter together at a quantum scale.  A laminin is not even subatomic, after all, since it would be made of multiple atoms!  Of course, not everything is constituted of matter, such as the self-necessary laws of logic (which thus could not depend on God or Christ in any way) and the empty space that is a metaphysical prerequisite for matter [3], so no physical unit holds "all" things together except for perhaps that which is also physical.  Laminins on the current paradigm would not have this quality anyway.

Colossians 1:17, moreover, does not mean that Jesus holds God together metaphysically, and God would be another thing that exists.  If anything, as the begotten Son of God, Christ would himself be a creation of the Father, yet the laws of logic and metaphysical space exist by necessity in the absence of both; reason being false still requires that it is true, and thus it transcends biology, physics, and theism altogether.  The ideas about laminins and Biblical philosophy, as well as how this would relate to broader science and other philosophical truths so much more foundational than anything about religion or science (what fools the masses are for neglecting pure reason in favor of either, when the truth about both could only depend on reason!), that some evangelicals espouse are utterly asinine.  They misrepresent reason, the Bible, and science all at once.

[1].  https://thechristianrationalist.blogspot.com/2023/06/the-metaphysics-of-logic-and-god.html

[2].  https://thechristianrationalist.blogspot.com/2019/12/fundamental-particles.html

[3].  https://thechristianrationalist.blogspot.com/2023/07/god-and-empty-space.html

The Criteria For Animal Intelligence

In everything from casual videos to formal articles, one might hear of how allegedly intelligent dogs, octopi, dolphins, pigs, crows, orcas, and other animals are.  Since almost everyone is not a rationalist and therefore does not know what intelligence truly is, what is almost never mentioned here is that intelligence is rationality, and rationality is direct, intentional grasp of the laws of logic.  The only alternative to being rational is making assumptions or neglecting self-evident (axioms like the fact that something which follows from another thing cannot be false) or other logically necessary truths of supreme centrality.  Intelligence can be expressed outwardly using behaviors or words, but it is not actions or the use of language, all of which can be engaged in without true rationality.  A person or animal could go so far as to engage in elaborate activities without any recognition of logical axioms or even any attempts to forsake philosophical assumptions, which exclude rationality and genuine knowledge.

Hunting in coordinated packs (like with wolves or orcas), navigating environmental mazes (like with octopi), reacting to facial expressions/cues (like with dogs), and other such seeming expressions of sensory perceptions--other minds, human or animal, cannot be proven to exist [1]--can be done while a creature is still assuming things or operating on passive sensory perceptions.  What a creature passively experiences with the senses does not make it intelligent or unintelligent.  What it believes and why determine if it is intelligent, which can only be achieved to the extent that it believes in things that are demonstrably true on the basis of strict logical necessity.  The necessary truths of logical axioms are true in themselves, dictating what does and does not follow from a given thing. Since they are necessary truths, they do not depend on anything else and cannot be false, so all else must be consistent with them to even be possible.  There is no way to know other things without knowing logical axioms.

Thus, a conscious being must actively identify, realize the self-necessity of, and embrace axioms to be intelligent.  Axioms like how truth exists (if truth did not exist, this too would be true, so the alternative is impossible) can be known without relying on other things, but not the other way around.  Without knowledge of them, with axioms being absolutely certain as long as someone approaches them while making no assumptions, there is no such thing as a conscious creature being rational.  There is no exception for animals like an ant or an octopus.  It does not matter if ants use teamwork to create mounds or if crows recognize individual human faces or if various cephalopods use ink to effectively obscure their escape from predators.  To be rational (intelligent), a being has to avoid assumptions and come to the correct awareness of logical axioms.

There is no different "standard" of intelligence for different animals like humans and whales.  There is only intelligence, which could only be the grasp of the inherent, immutable, objective truths of logic that underpin and dictate all other things.  Just as a film director or politician can make a decision or believe in something that is itself rational even though the person himself/herself is not (for they would have to be rationalistic enough to know logical axioms for what they are and not make any assumptions about the given matter), a non-human animal, like a human, is not intelligent just because of outwardly observable behaviors, especially if they are driven by instinct instead of awareness of reason and introspection.  It takes intentional alignment with reason to be intelligent, which is more than having the mere capacity for intelligence.

[1].  For some articles where I address this, see here:

A.  https://thechristianrationalist.blogspot.com/2022/04/the-gulf-between-minds.html

B.  https://thechristianrationalist.blogspot.com/2022/01/an-unproven-hierarchy-of-consciousness.html

Exploitation In The Hiring Process

Having to submit work history in individual units in addition to submitting one's resume, the document that would already detail that very work history, is but one of many ways that, by intentional irrationality or by a more passive philosophical incompetence, the hiring process of some companies is artificially prolonged or difficult.  Such things in no way make receiving applications or conducting interviews more easy for anyone on either side of the process.  No, they are there because those in charge of hiring do not have the rationality to recognize them for what they are (or to care) or, even worse, they might be irrational and apathetic towards how they treat general applicants, hoping to find people desperate or compliant enough that they will endure all of this obliviously or knowingly.  Requiring that people provide their full work history more than once, when a digital resume already addresses this information, is not even the worst that could be done here.

Asinine practices like having multiple gratuitous rounds of interviews (I have heard of scenarios with up to seven, though there is always the possibility of having one more if interviewees will put up with it) are in place to glorify pathetic traditions or to pressure interviewees anxious or frustrated enough to accept offers that might be subpar.  These processes are especially wasteful of time and effort on everyone's part if there is already an internal candidate selected for the role and all external interviews are an illusionary formality.  However many people apply in such cases are putting their time into these interviews uncompensated, in all likelihood, though they have devoted effort for the sake a company as if they were already hired, in a sense.  Even worse than this is the possibility of a company having a candidate complete an uncompensated task to "test" them, only so that the organization can use their method or results for themselves without hiring someone.

Then there is the fact that if someone can do the job adequately, but derives no grand pleasure from the role, some employers would reject them for this alone.  Only if there is an equally talented or more skilled applicant/choice who also has passion for their field would dismissing someone for lack of passion be valid.  A lack of excitement, after all, is not a lack of skill or willingness.  Passion will only be exploited by some employers or managers anyway, another thing they can rely on to keep certain workers enthralled with their job despite a rotten company culture, inequivalent pay, and few opportunities for advancement.  Even with passion, some employers might only want enough passion for the desire to be emotionalistically blind, a shallow motivation to be harnessed by a shallow organization.

People without passion could not deserve to die for it, as passion is a subjective thing that does not necessarily reflect a person's worldview, core intentions, and competencies.  A specific kind of employer really is treating people like this is the case.  If no one hired someone who is honest enough to say that they have no incredible personal attachment to their professional life beyond the money and security it brings, those people would starve or die of dehydration unless they were freely able to live directly off of the natural world--a difficult thing for ordinary workers in countries like America.  The idea that people should long to devote their lives to professions is itself folly unless the profession is something morally valuable in itself; it is only something that is assumed by irrationalists and, more significantly, it contradicts reason since only philosophical truths could be worth living for, not careers or money or social recognition.

Why does almost anyone want to professionally work?  They want to get paid so they can easily pay for shelter, food, water, clothing, entertainment, and so on.  There is absolutely nothing other than subjective preference that would motivate a person to work beyond this.  It is not irrational or otherwise sinful to enjoy or look forward to professional opportunities, and there could be deep passion choosing behind certain jobs, but passion and skill are ultimately secondary to the real reason why jobs as a whole are created at all.  Some people need tasks completed, and some people are willing to do them in exchange for compensation of some kind in order to survive or fortify their life security; these are the driving factors behind most work.  Rationality and righteousness are the only additional things besides skill or willingness that by necessity matter in the interview process, and they are what will often be ignored in favor of idiotic cliques, superficial words, and connections with reveres figures.

True Skepticism

The skeptical position is not one of denial that something is true, but that a given thing is not known or knowable: someone who believes elementary particles or ghosts or yetis or aliens do not exist is not a skeptic regarding the respective subject although they might be stupid enough to think they are.  They are really an anti-realist with that particular thing existing or being true.  Rationalistic skepticism, moreover, is not a default skepticism of all matters.  This is idiotic in certain cases, as with logical axioms and one's own mental existence, for these are self-evident.  They can only be doubted by relying on them, so they are verifiably true independent of what else is.  Other truths can be known, when applicable, if they follow by logical necessity from something that is self-evident, or if one perceives--one can at least know that the precise perceptions exist even if their correspondence to outside factors is unverifiable in some cases.

If someone is inattentive or shows bursts of outward hyperactivity, they might say they have ADHD.  Among other things, I do not know if they are lying to me intentionally, confused about their own condition, or telling the truth.  The same is the case with any instance of physical weakness or illness with no external symptoms, though it is entirely consistent with logical axioms, and thus possible, that they are either right or wrong in their projected stance.  A skeptic of whether another person has a particular learning disability or mental disorder would not believe they do not have it.  No, they would not believe either way.  Their reason for doing so would determine the extent of their rationality.  However, given human limitations, there are many things that cannot be known by people who might passively or actively think otherwise.

A skeptic of the external world would not hold that there is no such thing as matter; he or she would think that they do not or cannot know (each would be its own form of skepticism).  A skeptic about the afterlife does not believe in scientific reductionism, immediate and permanent soul annihilation upon death, or any other such thing.  Rather, this person would believe that they do not or cannot know if there is life after biological death, much less which of all the logical possibilities it would be.  Sensory skepticism aside, I have no way of observing photons at the quantum level to see if they exist and are immaterial, and hearsay is never proof of anything but that hearsay is being proposed.  As a rationalist, since the logical possibility of either the existence of nonexistence of photons cannot be proven, I am a skeptic about such things.  This does not mean one cannot find fallible evidences in favor of something or at least know that if the hearsay is true, certain things would be entailed.

As long as it is consistent with the laws of logic, something is possible, although a concept's veracity and falsity cannot both be correct at once.  Many things are possible despite their inability to be proven or disproven, such as that electrons actually break down into some smaller particle, that the inhabitants of Earth live in a supernatural or technology-rooted simulation, that God hates all people and does not love anyone alongside this (love and hate are not always exclusive), that an alien species with the power to keep us alive for decades of torture is mobilizing against the planet now, and that Jesus did not exist in spite of the evidence suggesting otherwise.  A true skeptic would embrace true skepticism (but only rationalistic grounds, which themselves require the absolutely certain knowledge of reason, can make someone legitimate in their skepticism) and not deny the possibility or veracity of any of these things.

No intelligent skeptic has a bias against the supernatural or extraterrestrial life or undiscovered terrestrial life forms or the possibility of human historical records being either true (or false).  A rational skeptic, more importantly, does not hold to something that is merely logically possible simply because it does not follow from either axioms nor any other necessary truth stemming from them that the idea is true.  They do not have an assumed skepticism.  With select issues, someone might even be a rational skeptic only in the sense that they have not had the chance to particularly focus on a matter that is demonstrable one way or the other, yet they know that they can at least have genuine knowledge, which is always absolutely certain, that logical axioms govern the issue, that some things would or would not follow if true, and so on.  The person who thinks rational skepticism is anything else is gravely mistaken, and the person who thinks base skepticism is about anything other than a lack of personal knowledge or epistemological knowability altogether is even more wrong.

The State Of Death

The presence of consciousness is the difference between a living human body and a corpse.  The body's only foundational difference in death is that it is not animated by a mind, and it is thus inactive and lifeless.  This conceptual distinction and the logical fact that to perceive requires only an immaterial mind and not a body (even if no human minds actually exist apart from bodies, there is nothing logically impossible about an unembodied consciousness).  It does not follow that the mind does or does not depart from the body directly or at some later point after death, free of its corporeal confinement, though there would be no outward evidence for this as far as ordinary sensory experiences suggest.  Still, when someone dies, all mere evidence for their independent consciousness as a separate mind vanishes.  One can no longer see their expressions or movements.

If soul oblivion/sleep until the resurrection (Daniel 12:2) is true as the Bible plainly puts forth (Ecclesiastes 9:5-10, Job 3:11-19, Psalm 88:10-12, and more), then when it seems like the consciousness fades from the bodies of people into nonexistence or metaphysical inactivity--immaterial whether it separately exists from the body or not, as a mind and its perceptions can only be nonphysical even if they reside in a material form--this really is what is happening.  The soul is not leaving the body to go to a purely spiritual realm or inhabiting a placeholder or new body away from the dimension of our earthly lives according to the Bible.  It is impossible to know from sensory observation if other minds do or ever have existed, if the sensory perceptions as a collective correspond to the external world at all, or if other minds have gone to an immediate afterlife, but if the Biblical doctrine of soul sleep really is true, then what appears to be the case on a terrestrial, sensory level matches with what is the case on a grander metaphysical level: the consciousness of the dead has ceased to exist or is locked within an unperceiving state.

Scientific epistemology is indeed utterly secondary and therefore inferior to logic.  Reason provides absolute certainty because of its necessary truths, while sensory perceptions are involuntary experiences that, except in the very precise case of there simply being a physical body that my consciousness currently dwells in [1], are not knowable except on the level of mental experiences that might not correspond to an outside world of matter, for it does not logically follow from seeing or hearing something that it really exists as more than an immaterial hallucination.  One knows from reason that reason exists; one knows from reason that one's consciousness exists, with direct introspective experience also being accessible; one knows from reason that science is epistemologically useless except for discovering correlations and practicalities on the level of mere perception.

All the same, what would seem to be the case on the level of observing human corpses is really the case according to the Bible.  Though an immediate afterlife is logically possible, it would only be possible for there to be an afterlife of torment (as evangelicals often conceive of Sheol) that some or all of the dead instantly go to if it was an amoral afterlife, for otherwise people are tormented for longer or shorter periods based only upon the happenstance timing of the birth and death in human history, and it could not be an everlasting torment and still be proportionate to finite sins.  As irrelevant as it is to knowing logical possibilities or necessities that do not depend on matter or perception of matter, as well as to knowing the teachings of the Bible, the seeming lifelessness of a corpse would left to itself provide no evidence for or against an immediate afterlife and makes the dead truly seem dead.

The seeming causal springing of the mind from the human body--it could be the other way around, though the divine mind would sustain all matter and all minds besides its own either way--simply parallels the Biblical teaching that the soul is not conscious between death and the resurrection unless it is briefly, prematurely revived by supernatural powers, such as with the witch of Endor summoning Samuel (1 Samuel 28) or Jesus conversing with Moses and Elijah during his transfiguration (Matthew 17).  The Biblical Sheol is and was not a place of torment or paradise for anyone as creation waits for the apocalyptic return of Christ and the events that follow.  It is the grave, the physical ground or tomb that holds the body and it is also the corresponding mental nonexistence or existence in a dreamless, unthinking sleep of death.  According to this, what would seem to be the case more strictly from observing a corpse would actually be true, and death is a foreshadowing of the total nonexistence of the soul in the second death (Ezekiel 18:4, 2 Peter 2:6, Revelation 20:15).

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

Emotionalistic Patriotism

If everyone was patriotic to their country at the expense of rationalistic awareness and moral uprightness, then every person would be a fool, living for a meaningless personal love of an arbitrary geographical state in denial or ignorance of logical truths about the matter.  As associated in many minds as patriotism is with specific countries, and as much as some patriots all but worship their country while denouncing foreigners for doing the same, there is no one country or group of people that is incapable of choosing to fall into this stupidity.  Emotionalistic patriotism is always a voluntary philosophical stance, and more nations than simply the United States could be guilty of this, with the patriotism of each person being tied to them as an individual rather than decided by their country of birth or residence.

America's historic fascination with the most asinine forms of patriotism is certainly not its only possible manifestation.  It is not as if other countries cannot or have not or do not grasp for this same kind of idiotic loyalty to and approval of a country simply because its people are born there, no matter how irrational or unjust its leaders and social norms are.  The logical possibility of other countries fostering fallacious patriotism (which is knowable without historical or modern examples) aside, China, England, and more pressure their citizens to have a meaningless subjective attachment to their state or, in certain cases, force outward submission to oppressive governments, such as North Korea.  A country like China or North Korea is according to many accounts led by egoistic, irrationalist fools who demand allegiance not to reason, God, and justice, but to the whims and benefit of a ruling figure or elite at the threat of death or worse.

In the United States, while patriotism is not necessarily expressed domestically with this level of direct, casual brutality, it is strong enough in its hold on some people, particularly conservatives, that it dissuades them from criticizing their country's glaring faults or even reevaluating their pathetic faith in their happenstance homeland.  For someone like this, the only focus will be on supporting their own country in thought and deed to the extent that people from other countries are possibly regarded as inferior.  This kind of patriotism is almost inseparable from adherence to nationalism when given full devotion.  Thinking they are not being arrogant, "only patriotic," this kind of irrationalist deceives himself or herself to avoid giving up comfortable but false or assumed beliefs.

In all of these types of patriotism, the forced outward compliance with social constructs or the assumption or cultural conditioning-based allegiance reduces to the stupidity of emotionalism or relativism.  Patriotism can be misused or embraced on fallacious grounds by people of any nation, not just America or the other major political presences in contemporary global events.  Universally, if it is anything more than a subjective affection for one's homeland recognized as not being morally obligatory or a logically necessary truth, it is a terribly irrational stance to have.  American or not, no one is on the right side of reality for their irrationalism and emotionalism in a political context and beyond.

Language Is Not In The Domain Of Science

Language is not found in the natural world, which itself would exist directly or indirectly because of the uncaused cause [1], and even then, the uncaused cause and cosmos can only exist if they are logically possible--if they are consistent with or necessitated by the intrinsic truths of logical axioms.  Yes, the physical materials used to craft the parchment (animal skin) or page (wood converted into paper) on which linguistic symbols can be written would be made of matter, and thus are part of the natural world and subject to whatever laws of physics are active at the macroscopic or quantum level.  Language itself is not; language can be expressed in written form on physical substance, but it can also be used privately inside of a person's immaterial mind (though this is not necessary for thinking whatsoever [2]), and the logical necessities governing language are of course more foundational than science and language and thus transcend them [3].

Since language is not part of the cosmos, for it is something that conscious beings have to create and use, it cannot be grounded in physics or discovered through the scientific method.  Yes, how the vocal cords correlate to the production of sound used in conversation, which requires language, is a matter of science.  How the muscles in the body behave and the air from the lungs brings about the vibrations connected with the audible voice are scientific in nature (although science hinges on logical truths dictating necessity and possibility and thus is never supremely central to any aspect of reality).  How changing the way one utilizes specific muscles generates specific vocal sounds to modify spoken language is an issue of science, but language is not noise: it is a system of written or verbalized symbols that have to be arbitrarily created.

Language is not arbitrary in the sense that it is beyond reason.  Nothing can be.  If something is logically impossible, it cannot be true.  The truth about all things is governed by logic, though truths about what does and does not follow from something, metaphysical identity, and possibility and impossibility are all true independent of examples beyond the inherent reality of reason itself.  Logical axioms like how something which follows from another thing cannot be invalid, as necessary truths in themselves, have to be true pertaining to language as well as outside of it (a word is a word, which requires the law of identity's veracity, a letter is not a word, which requires the law of non-contradiction's veracity, and so on).  No, language is arbitrary in that words are individual or social constructs used to communicate information.

They are not the things being described.  The word love is not the mental state of love.  The word bacterium is not any of the many microorganisms it could be referencing.  The word reason is not the necessary truths of logic that are true in themselves apart from the creation or use of any language.  The word dust is not actual particles of dust.  Like it can refer to other things related to or beyond science, language can convey or be assigned to scientific objects, events, and laws.  However, it is not perceived out in nature or initially perceived with the senses at all.  No, it is contrived by people for the sake of communication between non-telepathic beings, and there is no inherent meaning to any sound or symbol no matter how much it might seem to be the case--the fact that people can intend different things by the same words alone requires that this is true.

Since some people think that linguistics is a social science, it is relevant that social "science" is not science.  Unless the laws of physics change, dropping a stick under identical conditions will lead to identical outcomes because scientific phenomena entail physical environments/objects behaving in specific ways.  There is no such thing with people.  Conscious beings have their own individualistic wills and personalities that can vary dramatically from person to person.  There is also no deterministic outcome with outward behaviors when different people are in the same situations as there would be with truly scientific phenomena.  Thus, even on the level of human behavior regarding language, language is not in the domain of science metaphysically or epistemologically.  Like science, it is governed by the laws of logic, but unlike scientific objects and laws, language is often a social construct (otherwise it still has to be created and amended by individuals).  The only person who thinks otherwise is highly irrational.

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

[2].  https://thechristianrationalist.blogspot.com/2021/06/thinking-using-language.html

[3].  https://thechristianrationalist.blogspot.com/2023/06/scientific-contingencies.html