A Hypothetical Offer Of Redemption To Satan

By saying that Satan will be thrown into the lake of fire (Revelation 20:10), where the Bible teaches that he, like humans (Ezekiel 18:4, 2 Peter 2:6), will be removed from existence if Ezekiel 28:11-19 is indeed speaking of him and not some other unnamed demon, Revelation does not say that there will not be a genuine offer of mercy to Satan.  It would be strange for a deity who wants every human to become saved (2 Peter 3:9) to intentionally refuse even the willingness to allow Satan to repent if only he, too, was willing.  If Yahweh does extend such an opportunity for reconciliation, there is no logical necessity in the devil accepting it, and Revelation 20 indeed does say that Satan will wind up in Gehenna along with the rest of the wicked.

No, the "tormented day and night forever and ever" part appears to be extreme poetic exaggeration or intentional mistranslation in light of how Ezekiel 28:11-19 appears to refer to Satan and says that he will be burned to death by fire, like wicked and unrepentant humans after their resurrection (Matthew 10:28, Revelation 20:15).  Justice for demons is ultimately the same as justice for humans because morality can only be rooted in God's nature, which in the case of Christianity is Yahweh's nature, and he does not change (Malachi 3:6).  Again, however, the Bible describing the fate of Satan is not the same as detailing everything that might lead up to it.  So much is left ambiguous or unmentioned that it is not even apparent if Satan was the guardian cherub of Ezekiel 28 before his rebellion.

As a creation of God, and yes, one that in some way bears his image just as humans do, Satan's annihilation from existence is a tragic but necessary consequence without repentance.  Yahweh is so bent towards mercy that he permits his own Son to suffer things unjust no matter who the victim is [1] in order to reconcile repentant people back to himself, and there is no inherent logical or Biblical reason (not that everything, including Biblical doctrines, is not governed by the laws of logic) why he would not be open to Satan's redemption any less than he would be towards human redemption.  Being the supposed first sinner--precious little is actually stated in the Bible about Satan's history--would not automatically exempt a repentant demon from divine forgiveness any more than being the first human sinner would lock someone into a destiny of destruction.

There is still the plain prediction that the devil will be placed inside the lake of fire that is the second death, God's way of purging sin from existence while meting out justice (Romans 6:23).  Any additional chance for repentance by Satan is by default to go unheeded by the devil because of this alone.  This does not require that there is no longing for his redemption by God or no utter willingness to accept him back.  It would only by necessity entail that any opportunity, with or without Yahweh's explicit verbal invitation, is squandered until the time of Satan's judgment has arrived.  The demon's irrationality as manifested by his arrogance and unrepentance would then mean that, as with other fallen beings, the deserved outcome is annihilation.

[1].  https://thechristianrationalist.blogspot.com/2023/04/the-real-punishment-we-biblically.html

Biblical Freedom

People in general, by yielding to cultural conditioning or their own irrationalistic assumptions (all assumptions are baseless because they all involve belief apart from logical proof), actually think the Bible teaches that eternal torture is just [1] and that things such as profanity, nudity, mere drug use, sexual attraction, and more are wicked.  Deuteronomy 4:2 says not to add or subtract from divine commands because there could be no other moral authority but God: anything that is not contrary to his nature is permissible, and conscience is absolutely irrelevant and meaningless.  So much of what is implied or directly taught to people about Christianity is utterly different from its real doctrines, moral and otherwise.  Much of what it prescribes is opposed by Christians and much of what it does not condemn is shunned by them.

To give just some examples, the Biblical God absolutely does not care if you scream "God fucking damnit" [2] from the rooftops, actively avoid the superficial pleasantries confused for legitimate love of humankind, violate legal speed limit laws [3], eagerly go right up to the line separating just and unjust aggression, masturbate to many people of the opposite gender (even while married [4]), own firearms, have multiple spouses, recreationally listen to exclusively secular music, abstain from church attendance, drink alcohol, and more.  Yahweh does not care about having deeply intimate opposite gender friendships, playing violent video games, being interested in dark subjects, or being involved with public nudity.  None of these things are Biblically sinful.

There are motivations or contexts that could make individual expressions of these acts irrational or sinful, but as for the acts themselves, they are all very blatantly nonsinful or even good on their own.  To launch into just some aspects of the aforementioned issues, speed limits are meaningless social constructs.  Aggression itself is not irrational or unloving.  Firearm ownership can be used to celebrate defense of human life (Exodus 22:2-3) or to facilitate hunting animals for survival.  Church is neither necessary as prompting to dwell on philosophical truths and Biblical doctrines in particular or to initially discover them, and it is absolutely not prescribed in the Bible.  Nudity is the natural state of the human body (Genesis 2:25), God's chief physical creation which he called very good (Genesis 1:31).

Could any of these things be approached with irrational beliefs or intentions?  Could they all be handled in a way that is sinful?  Yes, but the fact that one could mishandle something is very different from how one could otherwise engage in or not participate in a given nonsinful thing.  Something cannot be mishandled if it is itself evil.  Alcohol is not problematic whatsoever; drunkenness and alcoholism are.  Opposite gender friendships are not evil or morally dangerous and might have no romantic or sexual components at all; casual sex with the opposite gender and stereotyping one's friends on the basis of gender are sinful.

Numerous Christians, out of a fear of a hell that is itself an extreme distortion of the Biblical hell, or perhaps out of another kind of personal stupidity or willingness to submit to social constructs, perpetuate these legalistic ideas.  Other than superficial similarities like murder (Exodus 21:12-14) and adultery (Deuteronomy 22:22) being sinful, literally almost nothing about what the typical Christian or non-Christian thinks is Biblical morality actually is, and even then, they are almost always just assuming based upon misreadings or hearsay.  True Biblical morality would shock many with its much larger boundaries of freedom than most would dare to entertain left to themselves.

[1].  https://thechristianrationalist.blogspot.com/2023/04/the-real-punishment-we-biblically.html

[2].  https://thechristianrationalist.blogspot.com/2022/06/the-offense-of-blasphemy.html

[3].  https://thechristianrationalist.blogspot.com/2022/03/an-especially-arbitrary-class-of-laws.html

[4].  https://thechristianrationalist.blogspot.com/2022/10/a-way-to-nonsinfully-act-on.html

The Quran On Nudity In Eden

Right after detailing the Quranic version of Satan's betrayal of God, Surah 7 says that Iblis, called Satan after being banished for his arrogance, turns his attention to trying to drive humans away from Allah's path.  As with the Biblical story of human creation, the first people are in a state of divinely approved nudity and are told not to eat from a tree (7:19).  Satan wants to expose the humans' nakedness (7:20) as a sort of retaliation against God for what he perceives as "unjust" treatment, nudity being something that Adam and Eve are not fully aware of until after their sin in both the Quran and Bible.  Once they eat from the tree, they assemble leaves to cover themselves (7:22).

Allah soon says that he has given the descendants of Adam garments as clothing is compared with the superior "covering" of righteousness.  It is symbolic of something greater than itself here and is contrasted with uprightness or "God-consciousness" (7:26).  Now, nudity would not be evil if clothing is just a situational, non-literal representation of moral uprightness.  Surah 7:28 afterward condemns "disgraceful deeds" yet does not list nudity as a sinful thing.  In fact, it does not give immediate examples at all.  Also, verse 31 says to dress well whenever you are at worship, but, again, does not call a mere lack of clothing in other contexts sexual or sinful or equate either sexuality or sensuality with sin by default.

As for what the Quran says about Satan's actions in trying to bring the "nakedness" of the first humans to their attention, the fallen angel never strips them of their garments despite the wording of Surah 7:27, and could not have, since the first humans were already created naked and remained in this state according to the Quran itself; Satan convinces them to give up their moral innocence in the Quran's story by disobeying Allah, which has nothing inherently to do with being clothed or naked.  They were naked beforehand as Allah created them and what is good is not altered into something evil just by humanity entering a morally fallen condition.

This Quranic story somewhat mirrors the more famous (in the West) version in Genesis, a book of the Bible that is supposedly affirmed by the Quran itself along with the other books of the Torah (Surah 2:53 and 5:46, for instance), which adds additional layers to why Surah 7 would not mean nudity is or became intrinsically evil unless the Quran contradicts the Torah.  The Genesis creation and fall account does not teach that nudity (2:25) is sexual or that sexuality or nonsexual nudity are evil.  These things are very good (1:31), as the rest of God's physical (including the human body) and nonphysical creations (the capacity for sexual feelings) are.  Mosaic Law does not condemn nudity either (Deuteronomy 4:2 applies here as well), and this is the single most concentrated, plain moral revelation of Yahweh in the Torah and the entire rest of the Bible.

As Yahweh is equated with the Islamic Allah by the Quran over and over, though the two different versions of the uncaused cause have contradictory qualities, this adds additional context to how Surah 7's telling of the original human sin does not mean that the naked body is immoral.  The stories of humans making clothes for themselves and being clothed or allowed clothes by God does not mean that God in either case prescribed clothing as morally mandatory.  No, he created people without clothing!  The Quran is in this way not anti-body in a passage that many might imagine would reek of prudery.  This is something it shares with the Bible when it comes to the more elaborate description of Eden and the introduction of human sin in Genesis.  Any condemnation of nudity in the Quran would have to come from other verses.

Neither Universalist Nor Evangelical Concepts Of Salvation

There is no universalist salvation in Biblical philosophy.  Yes, every knee will bow to God and to Christ (Philippians 2:10-11), but for some, this could be right before they receive their punishment of torment and eventual annihilation in the lake of fire, which brings about the second death that kills the body and the soul (Revelation 20:11-15, Matthew 10:28, 2 Peter 2:6).  Yes, God wishes for every sinner to repent (2 Peter 3:9), but it does not follow that everyone will be saved.  This is God's hope and not something that he forces upon people.  As Jesus says, the vast majority of humans travel down the road that leads to destruction (Matthew 7:13-14)--many reach this destination of annihilation, of cessation of existence as a spirit and exclusion from eternal life (Ezekiel 18:4, John 3:16).

Aside from the very obvious prediction of Christ that the masses choose not to turn back on the road to this annihilation, those who sin will die unless they turn from death to life, as Ezekiel (18:4) and Paul (Romans 6:23) teach.  This is what sinners deserve.  There is eternal life for those who commit to Yahweh in repentance and permanent death, not eternal conscious torment, for those who choose errors, apathy, and egoism all the way to the end.  The Bible is very clear that there is no universal salvation, though there might be "second" chances for the wicked between their resurrection and their annihilation to choose reason, God, and eternal life over preferences, the self, and endless nonexistence.  A deity who wants everyone to be saved would indeed be likely to extend offer this out of either justice or mercy.

Not everyone has the same exposure to Christianity, and although aspects of Christianity like the existence of an uncaused cause (Genesis 1:1) and mind-body dualism (James 2:26, Matthew 10:28) are true by logical necessity and thus knowable regardless of whether other aspects are, things like Yahweh's moral nature, the sacrificial death and resurrection of Christ, and more are not self-evident necessary truths.  One cannot just know from immediate self-verification that they are true as is the case with logical axioms, accessible to all people because they are omnipresent and true by necessity, underpinning, governing, and transcending all other things.  One cannot know anything here from pure reason (without experiential prompting) beyond the logical possibility of the uncaused cause having a moral nature or a willingness to save sinners, as well as what would follow from these ideas if true, by living sheltered from Christianity in a remote region or certain eras of time.

John 14:6 does say that no one comes to the Father, or Yahweh, except through Christ, and Acts 4:12 emphasizes that there is no other name for a being under heaven (though Jesus had at this point ascended to heaven, for his life, he was away from it) by which people are saved.  It is not logically impossible, nevertheless, even if these verses are true for people to still be saved without knowing the probable historicity of Christ or specifically committing to him, though his death would still be what enables these willing seekers of truth, morality, and God to be reconciled to Yahweh.  They would long to be on the right side of morality if only they knew what it was, or they would be genuinely submissive to the uncaused cause even if they had greatly sinned; they simply do not have access to the evidence for Christianity or to the Bible itself.

Of course, a rational person would never commit to Christianity apart from evidence and would never believe in it while under their human epistemological limitations.  They would still be capable of knowing there is an uncaused cause, knowing that moral obligations are logically possible, and wishing to do what is right despite not knowing what those obligations would be.  In Revelation 7:9-10, John mentions a massive group of people from every tribe, nation, and language worshipping God, and in a literal sense, this is only possible if someone from every individual society, no matter their geographical location or presence in history, was saved regardless of if they died before Christ or never heard of Yahweh or Jesus.  This, especially in conjunction with every other point listed here, makes it very probable that a second chance after death is waiting for many if Christianity is true.  Biblical salvation is indeed certainly not universalist, as it is not eventually received by everyone or forced upon them all, and it does not have to be in order for salvation to come from commitment to the uncaused cause rather than specifically hearing of and pledging oneself to Jesus.

Biblical salvation is also certainly not received as evangelicals think, for they believe that absolutely nothing we can do is what triggers salvation even though they also think that one must turn to God and commit to him, which is a mental act we must perform (the more irrationalistic believe that one must believe the unprovable in order to be saved, which is both irrational and unbiblical).  Moreover, it is likely that there will be at least a final, clearer offer of redemption from Yahweh and/or Jesus after the resurrection for those who never heard of them, never directly received their revelation, and, most importantly, would commit to any truths but withheld commitment because they had no access to the evidence for Christianity (this last group would almost certainly be very small).  At least some epistemological limitations could be removed and there could thus be be little to none of the epistemological ambiguity about the existence of morality and the exact God's will  lives on Earth.  How else could there actually be representatives of every cultural group in heaven unless John is exaggerating immensely?

Misperceived Intensity In Conversation

Raising your voice even slightly, showing ferocity or passion even if it is not rooted in emotionalism, or adding profanity (regardless of tone!) makes some people uncomfortable, and they might go so far as to assume that a rationalist is the one being emotionalistic and they are the rational one!  For whatever reason, some of these people are more prone to make this assumption if they are reading text, such as an email or a website comment, that has no accompanying body language or facial expressions.  Yes, this absence does mean a sometimes significant amount of communication context is missing, but it absolutely is always irrational to assume.  It is not as if it is not possible to be sarcastic, dry, or even emotionally neutral when using intense words anyway.

In fact, it would be logically possible for a rationalist to use a harsh tone or to intersperse profanity into confrontational dialogue just because they know what does not follow from it, even as they realize that their conversational partners might be stupid enough to immediately, thoughtlessly assume that they are hostile when they are not or are emotionalistic when they are hostile.  It would not even have to be the case that they are trying to deceive anyone.  They would be just being themselves without being irrational, and the error of making assumptions always is the fault of the one making them.  Short of literal mind control, no being could make another being believe, say, or otherwise do anything at all.  I simply cannot know what lurks behind other people's tone, and if they are the same kind of being I am, neither can they with me.

I do not know what other people are feeling no matter how they move their limbs, what words they choose, or how they use eye contact or any other such thing.  If what they are saying is true and knowable, whether that communic is in-person or digital, they might still be emotionalistic in some way, though I cannot see if this is the case from mere outward observations.  What I can know with absolute certainty from direct rationalistic introspection is if I feel or do not feel a certain way, or if I am not allowing it to affect my epistemological and metaphysical stances.  One can be extremely aggressive, in truth, without being emotionalistic at all, either in that they hold their beliefs on the basis of feelings or in the sense that they are hoping for someone to be wrong so they can have a legitimate target for ideological anger.

Wanting people to be in error so one could be harsh with them--harsh, but not hypocritical, cruel, and so on--is irrational.  Still, being genuinely harsh to the point of shocking the more timid, peace-oriented, or idiotic people of the world is not irrational, nor is it even Biblically sinful.  No, the person who is unprepared to confront (Matthew 10:34), mock (Psalm 2:4-6), divorce (Exodus 21:9-11, Deuteronomy 24:1-4, for example), or kill (Exodus 21:16, for instance) for the sake of reason and morality is ultimately, even if they do so out of non-emotionalistic mercy, unprepared for life amidst irrationalists.  Non-obligatory harshness is not required, though its absence complicates life in its own ways.  Life with staunch non-rationalists can be brutally difficult either way.

Libertarianism And Business

Basic libertarianism, even if some non-theonomist libertarians fixate on this, is not about protecting corporations from government regulations.  It is about having a government that is no larger or more involved than it should be, as in having no unjust or unnecessary laws (and an unnecessary law is either unjust since it is not obligatory or would just parrot another law).  The mere existence of everything from small businesses to megacorporations is compatible with these tenets, but that neither means there are no laws relevant to business or that all forms of libertarianism are about preserving and enhancing corporate interests.

On the contrary, consistent libertarianism is only about not allowing a government to do the irrational deed of creating laws that deviate from reason and morality and thus exercising tyranny over a population.  Many laws would disappear that are now in place if America or many other nations became libertarian, especially Biblical theonomists, endorsing a worldview that partially entails libertarianism.  Some of these laws would have to do with business and some would not.

What would not change is that all of Mosaic Law (or other moral obligations if Christianity is false but moralistic theism is still true) would still be binding over all corporate figures, from the highest owners and executives to the front-facing workers.  There would be no workplace exploitation when it comes to compensation, deception, vengeance, or abuse of a verbal, physical, or sexual kind.  There would be no discrimination on the basis of gender, race, family descent, nationality, or age in accordance with how all people bear God's image.  All of this, while not primarily or strictly about business, is applicable there in a company of any size and any industry.

Christian libertarianism aside, which is a thoroughly Biblical doctrine, there is no link between actual, base libertarianism and allowing corporate corruption to flourish in the absence of government regulation.  Not only would some parts of Mosaic Law be very directly relevant to how businesses operate, but that is also simply not what the concept of libertarianism is about.  The nonexistence of many legal commands that people are used to, from arbitrary traffic laws to some impacting the business world, is not about letting anyone get away with evil.  It is about honoring freedom wherever there is no obligation and ensuring true, undiluted justice is imposed in alignment with reason and morality.

Pain Caused Without Irrationality And Sin

Non-rationalists bring or could bring a great deal of pain on themselves from believing in false or unproven things, some of it deserved, such as existential depression or anxiety from clinging to assumptions and errors.  As deep and personal as this can be, they cannot deserve to have happiness and peace in denying or misunderstanding the only thing that cannot be false: the truths of reason.  Rationalism aligns one with reality but does not necessarily avoid pain.  It can, though it might not.  Someone who knows the fundamental necessity of logical axioms, perfectly avoids assumptions, does what is or (according to evidences for Christianity) seems to be morally correct, and wants to know and delight in truth can still suffer immensely.

They might even suffer because of other people like them in these regards.  For instance, one person's natural but permissible intensity of personality might intimidate someone else who has not sinned.  People can hurt each other despite doing nothing irrational or evil at all, and these things can create deep, lasting pains.  Neither party has believed, done, or said anything out of assumptions, malice, selfishness, moral apathy, hypocrisy, intentional negligence, or cruelty.  Suffering is possible even when it comes only from people being their authentic selves in rationalistic, morally permissible ways.  Yes, communication and transparency can help avoid or soften such trials, but this kind of pain could be experienced by anyone in the presence of other people.

Wherever this pain has sprung up, it can be addressed: the fact that both people are rational and morally upright is all that they need to never once believe or do anything erroneous.  They can distinguish between their own subjective perceptions and preferences and logical necessities or probabilistic evidences.  None of them are trying to err, nor are they actually doing so, and their worldviews and resolve can carry them through any personal difficulties that arise from subjectivity.  It is only on the level of personality and desire that people can hurt each other in this amoral manner.  In this case, neither person is a slave to irrationality or immorality, and neither hopes to escape through retreating away from dwelling on reality.

Each party would have to communicate and earnestly strive to heal the troubles that have surfaced between them.  In an amoral sense, they might ask for forgiveness of a sort.  There might be tears and apologies and regret although no one involved has done anything wrong or betrayed reason to the slightest extent.  They would desire a positive, unburdened relationship so much that they might even be willing to voluntarily give up some of their own nonsinful tendencies which are on their own free to be enjoyed or pursued at will.  Stupidity and evil are not the only causes of pain, yet it is possible to overcome psychological pain of all kinds through intentionality and openness.

A Grand Concern For Having Children

Out of all the possible legitimate reasons, as long as someone is free of assumptions and emotionalism, for someone to want to not have children, some get more attention than others: economic difficulty, career development, an unsafe living area, a spouse who does not want a child, mental or physical health conditions, and so on.  Factors like the financial freedom to have a child and be able to give it a comfortable upbringing have become even more overtly recognized even by non-rationalists (not that they can know even this without discovering the intrinsic truths of logical axioms and then making no assumptions).  Increasingly inaccessible economic footing prompts this.

An even more serious, grand factor is beyond the scope of money, earthly comfort, spousal or personal preference, and so on.  While there is a great amount of evidence that Christianity is true, and thus that the Christian afterlife of annihilation in hell or eternal life in New Jerusalem after one's resurrection is true, there is no way for a being with my human limitations to know if there is an afterlife or, if one exists, which of the many logically possible afterlives it is.  There are many afterlives that do not contradict logical axioms which would be dull or horrible, and there is no way to know with absolute certainty beforehand--or even while in the afterlife as long as one's epistemological limitations remain--what the afterlife is like, or if there is one.

For a parent who loves their child, given that they had thought of such logical possibilities, the idea of their offspring suffering in eternal, amoral misery (for eternal torment is unjust, at least for humans) or being crushed by existential terror just at the unknowability of the afterlife while in this life would be of great concern.  The Christian afterlife is not morally terrible either way or of the utmost severity at its worst, no matter how much someone might not subjectively feel otherwise; either a person exists without pain or sadness in a blissful state of eternal life (Revelation 21:1-4), right with or restored to God and free to do all nonsinful things, or he or she will suffer justly and be eradicated from existence on both a mental and bodily level, the body burned to ashes (2 Peter 2:6) as the soul no longer exists to experience torment (Ezekiel 18:4, John 3:16, Matthew 10:28).

There is still a cosmic horror to the annihilationist hell, the real hell of Biblical philosophy, as well as to the everlasting forfeiture of knowledge, joy, peace, and pleasure, and yet this fate is morally good.  The numerous human inhabitants will not exist forever and receive banishment from existence for their unrepentant betrayals of or ideological apathy towards reality.  The real terror comes from it being possible that despite all the evidence for this dual set of afterlives, that evidence is only an illusion, and there is an afterlife objectively worse than oblivion or the Biblical ones.  A rationalistic parent would at least understand the weight of this if they were to think of it, even if they had never previously discovered these truths, and the relevance to bringing a child into the world would be obvious.

Yes, it might be one of the least considered factors, but the logical possibility of different kinds of afterlives is a grand concern for introducing new children to human life.  If the afterlife is something negative that they consciously choose, if it is something they head towards totally thoughtlessly but still because of their own beliefs or actions, or if it is an unavoidable, eternal (and thus non-moral) experience of misery, then it is a far more significant, relevant thing when it comes to having kids than economics or health.  Evangelicals who irrationalistically misunderstand the Biblical hell as one of eternal conscious torment and still rush to have as many kids as they can produce, recalling that the Bible says most humans will walk towards the destruction (annihilation, not perpetual torture) of hell (Matthew 7:13-14), are examples of people who totally disregard the real stakes of their own unbiblical philosophy of justice and the afterlife.

The Morality Of Sacrificing Oneself For Others

No one is morally required to sacrifice their convenience to hold the door open for an able-bodied person behind them, to sacrifice their life for someone else's in a natural disaster or wartime conflict, or to sacrifice their moral freedom for the sake of another person's preferences.  These could all be loving acts that reflect a concern for the fellow people made in God's image, yes.  They are nonetheless not moral necessities (Deuteronomy 4:2) like executing kidnappers (Exodus 21:16), avoiding unnecessary labor on the Sabbath (Exodus 35:2), loving God wholeheartedly (Deuteronomy 6:5), or abstaining from lies (Leviticus 19:11).  The ramifications are massive.

Spanning everything from a civilian rescuing others in dangerous situations to a mother giving up her life (in lethal circumstances) to better ensure a safe pregnancy for her baby, there are many scenarios where sacrifice is good on the Christian worldview, since to selflessly prioritize others over oneself in this way is to do something that honors the value of each person (Genesis 1:26-27).  At the same time, there is no selfishness in refraining from doing any of this.  One cannot be selfish without disregarding a logical truth or caring more about one's own personal preferences than moral obligations.

What about Jesus, some people might think?  The sacrifice of Christ's life, a voluntary and good thing (John 10:11-15), is an act of mercy rather than justice, so there is no error of any kind in never choosing the former over the latter.  No, the crucifixion of anyone is never justice, but an abomination (Deuteronomy 25:1-3), yet dying for others is also not a right anyone can legitimately demand.  While someone can freely offer his or her life for someone else's, it cannot be obligatory because this being the default would be unjust even in the case of Christological sacrificial atonement (Deuteronomy 24:16).  Without the voluntary aspect, the death of Jesus would have been evil for God to approve of even aside from the unjust forms of torture that led to it, an impossible thing since only God's nature grounds morality at all to start with.

Jesus absolutely did not have to die on behalf of fallen beings.  Perhaps there would have been no salvation for them, but mercy is never obligatory.  By nature, it can only be shown when true justice is both deserved and withheld either out of love, out of pity, or out of hope for repentance on the wrongdoer's part.  It is logically impossible for mercy to be anything more than this.  Thus, since the death of Christ was something that occurred because of divine mercy and sacrificial willingness to redeem beings that deserve annihilation (Ezekiel 18:4), of course no one should be like Christ in this regard.  It is a mere permissible option should they desire it.

We are not required to imitate Christ in this regard, as noble as it is to voluntarily perform such good but non-obligatory feats (Deuteronomy 4:2).  Avoiding the unnecessary endangerment of human life is mandatory (Leviticus 19:16); giving up one's own life or wellbeing to ensure the survival of other people is by no means something one should do, only something one is free to do if there is genuine sincerity in it.  What all people would be obligated to do is to treat others, including themselves, justly and to be utterly prepared at every moment to sacrifice their convenience to fulfill the actual duties to reason, God, other people, animals, and the environment.  There is no obligation to give up one's life, hence why it cannot be sinful to abstain from this.

Unemployment In America

The absolute strictest sense of the word unemployed simply refers to a person who is not professionally employed, lacking a job.  At the same time, an elderly retiree is not the conventional type of "unemployed" person, though they do not have a job of any kind as someone who has retired.  The American government's definition of unemployment--although words are arbitrary constructs and objective concepts and necessary truths about them, which words are assigned to, are what really matters--goes further than this sort of clarification, in the context of an equation where unemployment is calculated by dividing the number of "unemployed" people by the total number of employed and unemployed people (the labor force) and multiplying the results by 100.

This definition treats people as unemployed only if they are taking active steps to find or secure a job or have done so within the previous four weeks.  Since this definition excludes people who had last searched for work outside of this timeline, who need jobs but have given up their pursuit out of despair, or who are employed but do not receive enough hours to get by (making them insufficiently employed), it is woefully erroneous in some ways and also does not account for economic issues for the employed.  It is not only that it is not as complete or precise as it could be, like Plato's description of a human as a featherless biped.  The definition is outright logically incorrect because of what it treats as irrelevant.

The selectively narrow scope is incredibly misleading.  Even if all of the reported statistics are otherwise true, which as any rationalistic person can easily know is unverifiable at best (due to hearsay, extrapolation of one sample size to the whole, and so on) [1], the calculated unemployment rate still does not necessarily reflect the actual number of people who are unemployed in the sense of hoping for or agonizing over a hypothetical job.  The ones who have not actively sought out work within what is ultimately an arbitrary timeline of four weeks prior might still want work on some level or truly need it.  All the same, they are kept out of the calculation.

Someone discouraged by a lack of success and consequently has not directly submitted applications for the last 40 days or done any other such thing, yet still is available for and open to future employment, is excluded from consideration.  The worse the job market, the more severely this exclusion can misrepresent the situation.  A higher number of people who have current jobs and a lower number of people "seeking" work according to the way characterized in the calculation in no way entail together that the job market is flourishing.  The unemployment rate according to U.S. federal statistics, aside from all the epistemological issues that statistics such as this have at a minimum, could decrease and the nation's workers or aspiring workers could still be in awful shape.

Again, the manner in which this equation is extraordinarily incomplete makes it erroneous in one sense.  The unemployment rate, though even a genuine unemployment rate of 0% would still not mean that workers are not financially struggling, nonetheless could be used by politicians of any party to make their ideas sound more appealing.  Someone in office can reference the calculated rate as if it reflects well on them, when in reality, even if every variable is exactly what they claim it is, there are so many factors left out of the unemployment rate that it is useless on its own for evidencing the real economic health of the nation.  I will emphasize once more that all of this is on top of the inherent epistemological problems with statistics such as these.  Accurate or not in a given case, the unemployment rate as presented by the American government at a minimum neglects vital aspects of financial stability within the country.

[1].  https://thechristianrationalist.blogspot.com/2018/01/the-unreliability-of-statistics.html

The Potential Irrelevance Of Morality To An Afterlife

So many seem to think that if there is an afterlife, it could only be about the moral reward or punishment for how people have lived before biological death.  Also, what they envision as the contents of the afterlife are very narrow spectrums of what what is logically possible, aka what does not contradict logical axioms, the only things that are inherently true.  Dying, entering nonexistence or unconsciousness until a time of resurrection (like the Biblical Sheol of Ecclesiastes 9), and then experiencing conscious existence again would entail an afterlife, but this is not the typical example of the concept in my country, and the eschatological context of what follows is heavily moralistic.  Reincarnation, whether guided by God or unguided, is another such thing, though this is contrary to Biblical doctrines, unlike soul sleep/annihilation before resurrection.  Then there are the many blissful or harsh afterlives that do not contradict logical axioms and yet have nothing to do with morality.

The truth is that if there is an afterlife, it might have nothing to do with morality; likewise, if morality exists, it would be possible for it to have nothing to do with the hypothetical existence a person could have after the death of their body.  Morality could exist and human souls still die with the body, their consciousness fading into permanent nonexistence at the moment of death, something that is not contradicted by the fact that there is an uncaused cause despise the idiotic faith of many religious people or the denial of atheists.  Morality could exist and whatever afterlife might await me might also just not be determined by my rationality or righteousness in life.  This is a far more serious reason to be terrified than mental nonexistence, which is something that involves no consciousness and thus no capacity for pain: we have no way of knowing if there is an afterlife, how much it would vary from person to person, or what beings would actually make it so.

Some of the most objectively dreadful but still logically possible afterlives in fiction rely on this fact, that it is not every sort of existence after death that would be about how morally upright someone is.  It is only in the context of very specific things being true that this would be the case.  God's existence does not mean God has a moral nature, and even if he does, some other being could still redirect souls to itself or some hellish realm, and I do not mean the Gehenna of the Bible where sinners die (Matthew 10:28, Ezekiel 18:4, 2 Peter 2:6, Revelation 20:15).  I mean a hellish dimension that could involve eternal suffering or the worst kinds of evil acts.  God exists [1], but, moreover, the uncaused cause might be unaware of or apathetic towards what happens to people after death, and everyone or most people experience an afterlife of amoral bliss whether they become disembodied consciousnesses or are given new bodies to inhabit.

This is unlikely, since it is very evidentially probable that Christianity is true and the Bible does not teach these unconventional afterlives, but that does not mean they contradict axioms and thus are false by inherent necessity. They do not; there is nothing about them that is contrary to necessary truths.  As such, they either are true or could have been true.  Again, there is far more to be frightened of with this than the eternal nonexistence some expect, as if they know what does or does not await after death.  Many afterlives are possible.  Some people merely get so caught up in the most renowned religious or most culturally prominent entertainment-related afterlives to ever discover these things.  If everyone has an afterlife of some kind, how involved God is, if there is an afterlife for animals, if it is very different for different people, and if it is connected to one's deeds in life are all unknowable with my limitations.  I know if many logical possibilities.  I do not know what will be the case.

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

Game Review--Aragami 2 (Switch)

"You will not get your humanity back.  You will never die and reincarnate again.  Slaves of infinite time, you will now live to see how everything you love withers away.  New nations will emerge and subdue you.  New peoples will burn forests down, will dry rivers out and will poison the land.  And you will be the witnesses of that suffering forever."

--Tsubuyaku, Aragami 2

Aragami 2 tells a story of a fictional Japanese land consumed by political instability and death, one in which resides a group of resurrected people called Aragami struggles to regain their deteriorating memories and protect themselves from invasion.  As a stealth game, it is severely hindered.  Unfortunately, this is no Prince of Persia: The Two Thrones with its stealth mechanics and is far from the best heights of Assassin's Creed.  Objectively horrible controls (at least in contrast with the smoothness of standard button-action assignment), extremely subpar graphics, common frame rate drops, a high amount of repetition, and a very disjointed and underdeveloped narrative/mission system hold it back severely.  What could have been a deeply emotional and sobering exploration of how memory relates to personal identity, how suffering can harden sensitive people, and how living "forever" on this Earth could be terrifying, complete with diverse acrobatics and fighting maneuvers, takes quite a while to build up to anything less than abysmal to barely mediocre.

Production Values

What a shitshow Aragami 2's graphics and performance are on the Switch!  Choppy walking animations from approaching enemies, very pixelated outlines, and flames or textures that do not appear until you are rather close serve as consistent reminders.  On some occasions, the game froze and triggered an error screen.  On others, I could still play, but the game ran so slowly that only a few frames at a time would elapse, so that I was unable to to efficiently do almost anything in combat or climbing until I moved to a different arbitrary area.  Less severely than such awful extremes, the game does slow down sometimes when there appear to be no reason at all, in light of the very few enemies onscreen and lack of active combat.  Running slowly is just an ordinary part of the game.  There is also the way that the game skipped a major cutscene in one mission, which consequently had very abrupt in-level transitions.  The inhabitants of the hub village suddenly started talking as if an important character was gone, but this was never depicted.  Less important but still very bizarre is how the game tracks time in your player file even when you suspend the software by heading to the Switch menu and turn off the screen.  Thus, it recorded me as having more than 300 hours when I had in actuality only played for closer to 25.

Gameplay

As an Aragami, you can choose open confrontation or slower, stealthy elimination of enemies.  In fact, you do not have to kill anyone at all, either opting to avoid them as much as possible (you can complete levels without being seen) or to knock them out.  Unconscious and dead bodies left out in the open will trigger heightened alertness if a patrolling enemy notices them.  Hiding the bodies by placing them in tall grass is one way to resolve this; you can also lure guards to the edge of the grass and then more discretely kill them or render them unconscious, pulling them inside the vegetation.  Being spotted can actually be dangerous for reasons other than enemy AI competency: the camera can automatically lock onto an enemy so that you have to press on the right analog stick to freely view the environment again and flee if overwhelmed.  Also, a highly bizarre control scheme means that you cannot start sprinting without holding the dash button and not letting it go.  You cannot simply break into a sprint.

Looking past the technical issues and atrocious control design, Aragami 2 still fails to do almost anything with its promising mechanics for a while.  The very few killing moves are extremely repetitive hours in, and changing the protagonist's base wardrobe does absolutely fucking nothing to alter the combat style or even any player attributes.  The limited variety in missions is another negative factor; you go back and forth between a hub location and miscellaneous regions where you have to kill certain figures, inspect/collect objects, eavesdrop, or retrieve a character.  However, to the game's mild credit, some of the shadow powers that can gradually be unlocked as you level up make it much less stagnant and slow-paced.  By assassinating an enemy, for instance, you can eventually trigger a simultaneous assassination of another nearby enemy using a shadow construct, and this works even when two enemies have spotted you and are charging at you if you stun one, such as with an amnesia dart, and then kill it.  The other still sees you, yet they are subjected to this double assassination anyway.  Another power allows you to turn invisible for a time until you attack or are attacked.

Story

Some spoilers are below.

A warrior finds himself returned to life as an Aragami, suffering a curse that will eventually transform him and others like him into a different kind of being, one without their individual memories of their past self and life.  The dissociation from their default personality and memory worsens until they would eventually become stone.  Using the village of Kakurega as a launching point, the revived warrior helps protect peasants from two rival factions attempting to seize more power.

Intellectual Content

The story is unfortunately only there to provide opportunities to go outside the hub village to kill, eavesdrop, rescue, or kidnap.  However, at the very end, despite characters starting to say certain complete falsities for the first time because of this, such as that not even eternity lasts forever (when eternity would by nature last forever), the game finally delves into deeper territory with its reveal that a character has been living in pain for far longer than a normal lifespan.  He curses the Aragami to never die, saying that their souls will be returned to them without their full humanity and that they will live to experience all the pain of enduring on as other things they love fade.  It is at this point that talk surfaces of how all things allegedly end and that every end is a new beginning, which would then mean that this cycle never ends, rendering the initial idea false.  Now, the inherently true laws of logic could not cease or change, and empty space cannot, so there are at least two things that cannot not exist and that cannot change [1].  On many levels, these concepts regarding finality and time and cessation of existence are objectively false.  In spite of the many philosophical flaws put forth, at least the game does at last begin to acknowledge the crushing weight of "eternal" life in a world of decay and loss.  It is just to the game's detriment that it takes so long for them to be more sincerely explored.

As for other subjects the characters mishandle, one character says their enemies should not be treated justly, when justice is exactly what people should be treated with, since it is literally what people deserve.  More related to the base story is how a member of an enemy group talks about a slave as if she deserves whatever harsh treatment her master feels like directing towards her.  Of all the issues the story directly touches on, only that of slavery continually comes up again and again, save for a very superficial acknowledgement of how memory is a core part of a person.  This slave girl is a resurrected former human in the process of becoming a different type of being, an aragami, yes; however, her master treats her like she by default has no moral rights (not legal, but moral) and like she exists for his own whims, a subjectivist error that is false whether or not morality exists, since his preference does not make something good or evil or amoral either way.  He works her until she cannot stand, and as the barebones plot unfolds, slave labor becomes increasingly pivotal to the plot.  You encounter slaves in some levels that are in some way mind controlled by fire so that they ignore the player character completely and work no matter what happens around them.  Since it is both very important and regularly misunderstood by fools, I will highlight the enormous contrasts between this form of slavery and the Biblical kind.

Biblical slavery requires that all male and female slaves/servants be given at least one day free from labor for every six days of work, and their own rejuvenation is emphasized as a major reason for this (Exodus 20:8-10, 23:12, Deuteronomy 5:12-15), and they are exempt from all agricultural labor in the Sabbath year, where they eat along with everyone else from what the land provides (Leviticus 25:1-6).  Other human rights specifically emphasized as being possessed by male and female slaves on Judeo-Christianity include the right to not be killed by their owners (Exodus 21:20-21; contrast with Deuteronomy 25:1-3, as corporal punishment itself is not the issue if there was applicable wrongdoing) or allowed to die through neglect (Exodus 21:28-32), to go free for physical abuse that does not result in death (Exodus 21:26-27), to go free every seven years by default with generous material supplies unless they want to stay with their masters/mistresses (Exodus 21:1-6, Deuteronomy 15:12-17; Leviticus 19:33-34), and to be included in general meals and religious worship (Deuteronomy 12:11-12, 17-18, 16:9-11, 13-15).  Also, slaves are not to be returned to their masters if they flee (Deuteronomy 23:15-16).

Conclusion

Aragami 2, on the Switch at the least, is mostly a display of wasted potential to the point that it can be almost unplayable due to performance problems.  A shallow story, stymied controls, and, in spite of the slowdown and freezing as if this was not the case, sometimes awful graphics render the title abysmal even aside from the extreme repetition early on.  The game is almost nothing but a concoction of minimally developed elements.  Later on, expanded powers do alleviate one of its most immediate problems, but not enough of Aragami 2 is polished or strong on its own to come anywhere near artistic greatness, except for some of the themes at the very end of the game--which are butchered by the presentation of obviously logically impossible ideas as if they are deep or in any way valid.

Content:

 1.  Violence:  Killing enemies does draw blood that can stain the landscape, especially when you stealthily kill an enemy on a tower.  Corpses do not disappear like in many games, but rather stay wherever they are left.

 2.  Profanity:  The word "damn" occasionally comes up in subtitles.

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

Sexual Compatibility

Sex is not the only way to either sexually connect with a romantic partner or gauge if they are actually a great personal fit when it comes to sexuality.  Anything not condemned outside of lasting commitment is permissible (Deuteronomy 4:2) even to men and women who are spending their first days together as dating partners, and it is rational and pragmatic to genuinely find out as much as is possible if they are truly compatible sexually.  This goes far beyond one partner being open to or gravitating towards polyamorous marriage, which the Bible very blatantly does allow (Exodus 21:9-11, for example), and the other disliking that idea very personally.

A great many things about their individual sexual desires, the intensity of their sexualities, and so on need to at least be addressed in conversation, if not directly by action.  Frequency of sexual interaction, the types of sexual interaction, and the individualistic attraction from or towards each partner are all factors that a couple can explore over time before actually deciding to live together as husband and wife.  There are ways to explore their sexualities and the interpersonal connection they can behaviorally enjoy without actually having casual sex, and without having sex at all.

No matter how much they anticipate it and hope to have sex together one day, they can do all of this without any sort of preemptive decision to commit and without coming close to giving in to noncommittal sex.  It is indeed only sex outside of or not aimed at commitment that is the moral problem (Exodus 22:16-17), and thus a multitude of sexual acts can be shared between them ahead of time to determine how sexually compatible they really are.  Words can illuminate part of their affinity for each other; sexual touch of various kinds can clarify more.

An asexual and someone who wants to have sex twice each day or almost constantly engage in smaller sexual acts, for example, would be mismatched unless one or the other was perfectly willing to forgo their natural inclination for the sake of their partner.  Perhaps one of them expects to be able to cooperate until they start experimenting.  A person who is deeply sexually attracted to their partner might be a poor match for their significant other if the latter is scarcely attracted to them.  Someone who prefers sex and someone who prefers mutual masturbation or other forms of sexual stimulation involving both people, again, would have to yield to each other or just find a more compatible partner.

There is nothing wrong about waiting until marriage--legal or otherwise--to discover some of these things, but anyone who is willing to do nonsinful acts with their partner beforehand could have a much better probabilistic awareness of if they really are a good fit.  A marriage is not to be terminated unless one party actively sins, after all (Exodus 21:10-11 is relevant to this as well, as are Exodus 21:26-27, Deuteronomy 24:1-4, Matthew 19:9, and 1 Corinthians 7:12-16).  Intentionally refusing to discuss or even engage in sexual exploration short of sex that is outside of mutual, permanent commitment can put people at a disadvantage while transitioning to marriage or initially dating.  It is Biblically true that no one needs to deprive themself of this opportunity.

A Clarification About Probability And Events

If I have a one-in-six chance of rolling a five on an ordinary six-sided die, as there are six sides and only one of them has a three, it does not follow that if I roll the die six times, I will roll each side one time.  The same side could be rolled on each attempt, or one of them could be repeated a single time while the rest besides three appear once, leaving three unrolled.  The one-in-six probability has nothing to do with what will actually happen in this very narrow regard.  It just means that there is a much higher probability, with odds of five to one, of rolling a number other than a three.

Similarly, if a given car battery has a one-in-ten chance of starting when the key is turned in the ignition, a 10% chance, it is not necessarily true that it will start once for every 10 attempts and will not for the other nine times.  This just means it is 10% likely that it will start with a given try.  For example, the battery might start three consecutive times, or it might start only once in 17 attempts (or any other such number).  Probability of this sort is about likelihood, not about a guaranteed occurrence rate for a specific event out of a certain number of opportunities.

Of course, the probability of a given event in light of other factors is not the only kind of probability.  It is very probable that the stimuli my sense of sight perceives around me really are there, but there is no way to prove this, or else it would not be epistemologically probable, but absolutely certain.  There is still no particular verifiable percentage level of probability that a table I am looking at really exists outside of my consciousness, as it could be visually hallucinated.  Both options are logically possible and neither can be demonstrated by any person.

The probability here is not one of flipping a coin or knowing that dice with a certain number of sides have a certain fixed probability, if all factors remain constant, of landing on one side.  With a coin, there are only two sides to land on, so for an individual toss, there is no reason that an unweighted coin that is not tampered with would land on one side or the other, making the odds 50/50.  With my visual perception being accurate, there are also only two basic metaphysical possibilities in that the stimuli are strictly mental perceptions (they exist, but purely as mental imagery) or external and physical things perceived by my mind, but only one of them has evidence in its favor (albeit what could be entirely illusory evidence).

A host of epistemological limitations prevent knowledge of whether or not my sense of sight is accurate from being even close to attainable.  There is evidence, which is not logical proof, in favor of one genuine possibility (whatever does not contradict logical axioms and other necessary truths is possible) and no evidence for the other.  It is not so with the probability of a two-sided coin landing on heads or tails with the qualifications I already acknowledged.  There is no necessity in the coin landing on heads exactly 50% of the time, or in it going back and forth each time.  Probability of events is about the fixed likelihood of something happening in light of other necessary or contingent factors on each specific occasion and not anything more.

What Leviticus Says About Disability

A particular excerpt from Leviticus 21 mentions an exception to the sons of Aaron who are permitted to participate in the giving of food offerings to Yahweh: a man who is physically disabled.  Not all disabilities are outwardly evident or have to do with the body, but the kinds described in this chapter are.  Does the Torah disregard or dehumanize the disabled here?  I myself would be unable to perform the food offering, though my physical disability is one that I can forget about because it is so relatively minor.  There is nonetheless nothing oppressive in this case.  The passage says enough to indicate what it does not directly or by logical extension require, and there is more to the Bible on the ethics of how to treat the disabled than this.  Here is the passage:

Leviticus 21:16-23--"The Lord said to Moses, 'Say to Aaron: "For the generations to come none of your descendants who has a defect may come near to offer the food of his God.  No man who has any defect may come near: no man who is blind or lame, disfigured or deformed; no man with a crippled foot or hand, or who is a hunchback or a dwarf, or who has any eye defect, or who has festering or running sores or damaged testicles.  No descendant of Aaron the priest who has any defect is to come near to present the food offerings to the Lord.  He has a defect; he must not come near to offer the food of his God.  He may eat the most holy food of his God, as well as the holy food; yet because of his defect, he must not go near the curtain or approach the altar, and so desecrate my sanctuary.  I am the Lord, who makes them holy."'"

From these verses alone, several vital points are clarified.  First, the scope is rather limited, pertaining to nothing more than the offering of devoted food to God and the related act of approaching a specific curtain and altar.  This is not matter from which it follows by logical necessity that the deformed Levite man must be tossed aside or keep himself away from all Levitical activity.  Moreover, the passage itself explicitly permits them to still eat from the offerings to Yahweh, which are allowed to the priests.  All that it actually forbids is the very precise action of giving food offerings to God or approaching the curtain or altar to do so.  The ideas behind this passage are quite far from dehumanizing the disabled or prescribing any sort of systematic segregation, barring from professional labor, or interaction with the full-bodied.

In the very same book of Leviticus, though, there is a verse which condemns mistreatment of the disabled, providing two non-exhaustive examples similar to what Exodus 21:26-27 does with the physical abuse of male and female slaves which entitles them to emancipation.  In fact, reading through the book in chronological sequence would take one to the verse prohibiting the oppression of the disabled before one arrives at Leviticus 21:16-23, which I again emphasize is strictly about the Levitical priesthood and has nothing to do with treatment of the disabled in a broader sense.  Also, among the declarations in Deuteronomy 27 about how people who commit miscellaneous sins are cursed, other examples being dishonoring one's father or mother (27:16), bestiality (27:21), and killing an innocent person for a bribe (27:25), there is a similar statement in favor of the rights of the disabled.

Leviticus 19:14--"'"Do not curse the deaf or put a stumbling block in front of the blind, but fear your God.  I am the Lord."'"

Deuteronomy 27:18--"'Cursed is anyone who leads the blind astray on the road.'  Then all the people shall say, 'Amen!'"

The Bible clearly does not in any way teach that disabled men and women are subhuman, unworthy of a spiritual relationship with God, or deserving of societal exclusion or neglect.  On the contrary, Mosaic Law affirms their humanity and calls anyone who would take advantage of them cursed.  The restrictions of Leviticus 21 are exclusively for the administration of specific priestly obligations that parallel how the animals to be sacrificed were also to, with some exceptions (Leviticus 22:23), be entirely unblemished (Leviticus 1:3, 10, 3:1, 6, 4:1, Deuteronomy 15:21, 17:1, and so on).  All people are still made in the image of God on Judeo-Christianity (Genesis 1:26-27, 5:1-2), whatever their bodily status, be they sons of Aaron from distant generations or the mute, blind, or quadriplegic men and women of today.

Not Choosing To Be Human

One of several reasons why discrimination like sexism is unjust and would be irrational even if there is no such thing as morality is that a person belongs to a gender or race without their wishes making it so.  Other reasons include the fact that it does not logically follow from having a certain kind of genitalia or skin color that one has intellectual or moral traits.  What one person, moreover, believes or does only pertains to them as individuals, not everyone else from their demographics.  If something if morally good or bad, it is the nature of the act/intention itself (as it relates to God's nature) that dictates whether it is evil, not the doer's gender, race, age, or nationality.  These are all separate but relevant reasons why the likes of sexism and racism is by logical necessity irrational and, if moral obligations exist, unjust in all of its forms.

It is still a major factor, though, that a person cannot will their gender or race or age to change, though the last of these three specific examples does change as time elapses.  Any of these multiple logical truths about gender (or race) and its irrelevance to worldview, human rights, talents, and personality already disproves the entirety of all possible sexism against men or women.  It is only being human and an individual that would be relevant to a person's philosophical standing or personality traits except where they yield to cultural idiocy.  Unless there is some sort of unprovable existence before one is conceived and this pre-conception consciousness that can choose to live as a human, however, there is nothing about being human that is voluntary either.

If it is irrational and unjust to treat, say, a man or a Hispanic person better or worse because of a factor they cannot will away, then how would it be any different to treat humans as better than other creatures simply because they are human?  None of these factors seem to be capable of being initially chosen, though an unverifiable, unfalsifiable pre-conception conscious existence would of course allow for such a choice.  Not even Christianity, which is far more "strange" in some ways than many Christians seem to understand (a tree that grants eternal life and a donkey that speaks are just two examples even aside from its very heavily nuanced metaphysics and epistemology), teaches or suggests this kind of existence.

Whether humanity or any type of being has moral value, of course, depends on whether there really are moral rights, which cannot exist without moral obligations, which cannot exist without a deity with a moral nature--the existence of the uncaused cause is not enough.  God exists as an uncaused cause regardless of the veracity of any specific religion, but if this being has no moral nature, then no human can have value (not that the uncaused cause having a moral nature means it must be a moral nature that is favorable to humanity).  If humans do not have value, they might not have chosen this status or their very existence as humans, but their gender or race would not change the amorality of reality.  Likewise, if humans do have value, then gender or race would not be a factor because they, for the reasons listed before, could not have anything to do with rationalistic ability or moral character.

The contrast between not choosing to be human and not choosing to be of a certain gender or race or nationality or physical appearance is a significant one when it comes to this issue.  It is a very precise irony that could take a lot of time and effort to realize, but it is connected with some of the most important philosophical facts about moral metaphysics (whether or not morality exists as opposed to moral feelings or preferences).  The seeming inability to choose to be human does not mean that it is logically impossible for humans to have moral value.  Gender, race, and more are objectively irrelevant to the only characteristics that would be morally good or vile in the first place, so this does not contradict the truth that not choosing one's gender or race is itself irrelevant to whether humans are valuable at all.  It is still human value or meaninglessness that would make all people have a baseline moral significance or no existential value whatsoever.

Quantum Physics And Consciousness

A scientific obsession of this era is the causal relationship between quantum physics, which deals with subatomic matter, and various aspects of macroscopic physics, including biology, which is the subset of physics dealing with living matter.  Phenomenology is a different matter, for it is about consciousness--something that, whether it gives metaphysical rise to matter or the other way around, is objectively nonphysical [1].  This does not logically necessitate any such thing as an afterlife of unembodied consciousness after biological death, but it is true that consciousness, one of the only things that is self-evident (to deny or even doubt that one is conscious can only be done if one is already conscious to do so), is demonstrably immaterial.  It thus cannot be identical to the physical brain and extended nervous system.

All the same, in accordance with the broader fixation of this age, some people try to discover or provide alleged support for all sorts of ideas about the relationship between the particles, energy, and interactions of quantum physics and the nature of consciousness.  Logical necessity allows a being making no assumptions to realize that they exist as a consciousness, that consciousness is immaterial, that it still metaphysically and epistemologically depends on logical axioms, and so on, but many who explore the issue are not rationalists.  Even if they knew all of these other things, for any assumptions prevent true knowledge and one cannot know anything at all without starting with self-necessity of logical axioms, they still might overlook that scientific investigation will never prove that other minds exist, that the external world gives rise to matter, and much more.  At most, they can speculate based on hearsay or unprovable inferences about quantum physics.

Perfect correlation of two events over many years does not prove there is a casual connection; perhaps some other unrecognized or unverifiable thing is truly the cause of the effect.  How, though, would someone observe the quantum realm through their experience of everyday macroscopic life?  They could not!  Not even the seeming dependence of human consciousness on the presence of neural matter proves anything more than that this appears to be so.  Although there is no way to prove this is true beyond the perception-based evidence one is restricted to--for instance, one can see other creatures that appear to have their own consciousness die and realize that it appears like certain alignments of matter produce nonphysical consciousness, which seemingly perishes and leaves an inanimate body behind--it really does nevertheless seem as if matter creates the immaterial mind of humans and other animals.

If certain arrangements of matter that form a nervous system produce consciousness, the seat of perception, then immaterial consciousness would be derived from matter in accordance with popular emergent naturalist philosophy regarding this particular existent [2].  This would be how science could hypothetically lead to a means of resurrecting people's minds and not just their bodies [3].  If quantum particles exist, and they contribute to the formation of atoms, which together comprise molecules, which if massed together into a brain  somehow are correlated with the sustained existence of consciousness, then this is the general connection between quantum physics and the mind.  Whatever the exact particle-to-particle chain of composition, this would be the units of matter that constitute the larger neural substance from which consciousness is causally derived.

It is still not true that all organisms that are likely conscious have nervous systems as extensive as that of humans, or any nervous system at all.  For many oceanic life forms, the nervous system is quite different from that of humans so that creatures like jellyfish, starfishes, urchins, and corals lack brains.  Sea sponges appear to be conscious and yet reportedly have no neurons at all [4].  If this is the case, then consciousnesses living in this universe do not always stem from nervous systems, despite how they could still hinge on some sort of body.  However, for humans or any other creature down to the sea slug, if matter in a given configuration, like that of  a primate brain, sparks immaterial consciousness, then consciousness has a material cause despite being inherently immaterial itself.  In turn, if matter reduces down to subatomic units like quarks, then yes, this is how quantum physics is involved in consciousness.

[1].  For just some of my many posts detailing this, see the following:

A.  https://thechristianrationalist.blogspot.com/2021/11/the-consequences-of-denying-substance.html

B.  https://thechristianrationalist.blogspot.com/2024/02/conflating-mind-and-body.html

[2].  https://thechristianrationalist.blogspot.com/2018/03/what-is-emergent-naturalism.html

[3].  https://thechristianrationalist.blogspot.com/2020/09/a-hypothetical-method-of-scientific.html

[4].  https://thechristianrationalist.blogspot.com/2023/12/the-sea-sponge.html

The King Of The Angels: Satan In Lords Of Shadow

It is very common for entertainment inspired by Christian philosophy, like the video games Darksiders or Agony, to egregiously distort Biblical concepts--unless they truly were intended only to be inspired very loosely by the source material.  The Lords of Shadow games in the rebooted Castlevania series feature lore very heavily borrowed from Christianity--but it is more the common cultural misrepresentations, like eternal conscious torment, that are emphasized.  Some abnormally accurate Biblical ideas or things logically consistent with the Bible, though they are not often recognized as such, still get included at times.  Some have to do with Satan.

In the first game, the presence of this cosmic demon is a revelation that comes at the end, when Lucifer shows himself to Gabriel Belmont as the schemer behind the necromancer Zobek's own manipulation and the plan to assemble the God Mask (this being something Gabriel wants to resurrect his wife Marie).  The second game very abruptly states that Satan is returning for revenge on Gabriel and Zobek for the finale of the original game.  The in-between events of Mirror of Fate do not involve the appearance or coming of Satan, instead focusing on the reign of Dracula and the attempts of his lineage to kill him.  From Satan's initial manifestation to his seemingly literal death at the end of Lords of Shadow 2, some of his moments are much closer to the real Biblical teachings than many might think.

There are at first few or no hints that Satan is behind the events of the first Lords of Shadow.  Baba Yaga of the first game vaguely calls her master the King of the Angels, and yet she does not specify who exactly this being is.  It is probable that this is an allusion to Satan, as not only is he a fallen angel, but it is also the case that some of the only other candidates for this title are God or Christ themselves, who are not exactly presented as being aligned with the witches of the Lords of Shadow franchise even though the Brotherhood of Light ironically uses magic in violation of Exodus 22:18.  Satan does eventually appear, seemingly the entity Baba Yaga hinted at, and declares himself God's equal or superior.  Asserting that he is a victim of divine injustice, he fights Gabriel.

The Belmont warrior insists that God loves even Lucifer to the point that he is willing to offer total forgiveness if Satan will go back to him.  Unsurprisingly, he refuses, but he is pummeled by Gabriel to the point of retreating away from Earth.  Later cutscenes portray the devil of the Lords of Shadow games as if he is the malevolent ruler of hell, incorporating the incredible cultural and artistic misconception (if it is meant to match the real Biblical doctrine, that is).  Satan is who hell was created to punish (Matthew 25:41).  It is not a realm where he is free to do as he wishes or eternally mistreat the resurrected human wicked sentenced to hell (an experience that ends in their annihilation according to many verses, including Matthew 10:28 and 2 Peter 2:6).  The just penalty for sin is not to do whatever you want or to be mistreated by demons!

When he finally comes back to Earth at the end of the second game, riding the Leviathan to destroy the planet and the human lives within it, Satan enters another fight with Gabriel Belmont, this time as Dracula.  The power of Dracula is what deterred Lucifer from returning sooner.  Only Alucard putting his vampiric father to sleep for centuries made it seem as if Gabriel really had died.  This confrontation does not end with Satan being sent back to hell, which is itself an unbiblical idea as it is because he is not in hell until well after the return of Christ (see Revelation 20).  It ends with the death of Satan, just not at God's hands as, if Satan is the demon in reference, Ezekiel 28:11-19 culminates with.  However, Lucifer by all appearances really is killed as is said to happen to the unsaved in hell (Ezekiel 18:4, Revelation 20:15).

Despite all of the occasional talk of eternal torment in hell in the Lords of Shadow games, the demise of Satan here is in an indirect way much closer to the actual stances of Biblical philosophy than plenty inside and outside the church imagine.  I have scheduled a separate post for this very year to address the nuance of the Biblical stance on Satan's defeat as opposed to how entertainment has presented it--this will touch on annihilationism as opposed to eternal torture and the possibility, or even the very high likelihood, of Yahweh at some point offering salvation to even the devil and simply being rejected yet again (2 Peter 3:9).  Lords of Shadow parallels or is consistent with what the Bible really says and does not say about Satan.

A Ramification Of Full Preterism

Full preterism entails that all Biblical prophecies, those about the Second Coming of Christ and beyond included, have already happened before or with the destruction of the Second Jewish Temple (the ruins of which are pictured below) by the Romans in 70 AD.  Was there a last trumpet call, a gathering of living and dead righteous individuals (the first resurrection of the dead), and a return of Christ in the First Roman-Jewish War?  While there is nothing in the historical record to suggest that any such things happened in an invisible, mystical sense (for that is what preterism would require), and while the Second Coming of the Bible, followed by resurrection and judgment, has plainly not occurred, let us focus on a particular ramification of full preterism.  Revelation 21-22's words about New Jerusalem being the final abode of the righteous/saved could not be figurative without John 14:2-3 also being figurative, as Jesus speaks of his Father's house that he will prepare for his disciples.

This would mean Jesus would have to have been highly misleading outside the context of a parable.  Both Revelation and the gospel of John describe a physical dwelling for followers of Yahweh after Christ's return.  Jesus says in John 14:2-3 that he will leave the world, prepare a place for Christians, return, and only then will his "sheep" (John 10) be with him.  This is consistent with the teaching of soul sleep throughout the Bible: humans are not by default in some conscious state between death (James 2:26) and their bodily resurrection (Daniel 12:2), the latter being an eschatological event.  They are totally unperceiving, knowing not even self-evident things like logical axioms and their own existence since they know nothing (Ecclesiastes 9:5-10).  Revelation 21-22 does not touch on soul sleep, as the resurrection and judgment of the dead has already occurred (20:11-15), but it does describe a magnificent city where nations come and go and where the righteous thrive.

If Revelation 21-22's details about New Jerusalem, which in context is unveiled after the wicked are cast into hell to be killed (Matthew 10:28, 2 Peter 2:6, Revelation 20:15), are figurative and do not have to do with a literal future state, then John 14:2-3 is also not literal.  The two passages speak of the same kind of thing.  Clearly, Revelation goes into far more detail than Jesus does in a mere handful of verses, who said only that this other dimension has many rooms, is the domain of the Father, and will be the residence of his followers after his return.  There is no mention here of the walls, (in a terrestrial sense) precious materials, light, or gates that John references.  The tree of life is said to be here only in Revelation as well.  Of all the events addressed in Revelation, everything from the fate of Satan in verse 10 of chapter 20 onward is far more direct.  New Jerusalem is described as a city with very specific features, not as something blatantly figurative or more bizarre like a woman clothed with the sun, moon, and stars (as in Revelation 12).

Did Jesus lie or give a very misleading summary of New Jerusalem?  If full preterism is true, he absolutely did if the Bible accurately represents him, though full preterism also very blatantly contradicts the idea that Jesus has a single return and not multiple returns (a flaw shared with the concept of the pre-tribulation rapture), as well as the idea of Jesus returning very visibly (Acts 1:9-11, Matthew 24:30-31) to resurrect the Christian dead and bring the living to himself at a trumpet blast (1 Thessalonians 4:13-18, 1 Corinthians 15:50-54, and again, Matthew 24:31).  According to the Bible, if there is not yet a resurrection of the righteous dead, then there has not yet been a Second Coming.  If there has not yet been a Second Coming, then Jesus could not have "returned" in 70 AD.  The Second Coming, the real rapture (which occurs at Christ's direct, one-time return), and the eventual reveal of New Jerusalem are presented as literal.  Since they are addressed in passages outside of Revelation, it cannot even be the case that Revelation is too strange to ascertain these doctrines!

The Small Business Excuse

Small businesses can be great sources of innovation, community engagement, and workplace experience, and by no means are their founders or leaders ever oppressive because of the nature of small businesses themselves rather than their own nature as individuals.  They could still impose workplace exploitation on workers as those with the highest position(s) assume that the small scope of the business calls for rationalistic, moral, and financial lenience in reacting to them.  This small business excuse is logically invalid because it does not follow from a business being small that it can do whatever its owner/managers wish while still having philosophical legitimacy, and because as easy as it is for much larger companies to get away with workplace oppression, small businesses can be intentionally or unintentionally guilty of the same hypocrisies, arrogance, incompetence, and sheer stupidity as the more sizeable corporations that more often get negative attention.

As likely as it is that current leaders of major corporations like Amazon would be unwilling to pay workers better or universally give them better working conditions or benefits without immense outside pressure--and it is avoidable philosophical assumptions or errors, egoistic personality, or cultural conditioning that leads to selfish corporate leaders exploiting others, not simply the fact that someone holds executive positions--larger companies, including megacorporations, are the only ones that by default have the resources necessary to actually do these things easily.  Some small businesses might be able to pay their workers much better than is the norm and still make significant profits for the owners or managers, yet there could be small businesses that legitimately struggle to pay a genuinely livable wage that allows for meeting all basic needs, saving money, and some spending on "non-necessities" like entertainment and events with friends that ironically make life actually enjoyable.  If a small business cannot afford to pay people a salary or wage that is livable, though, then that business should not stay open.

Even a small business cannot deserve to remain in operation if its survival can only be ensured by underpaying or otherwise exploiting workers.  Greed, incompetence, and philosophical stupidity can characterize small businesses just like companies with more resources to spare, though of course neither is fated to lapse into these things.  Malicious or egoistic small businesses leaders might just directly pretend like their companies being small somehow legitimizes their workplace exploitation.  Benevolent but naive or outright idiotic small business leaders who are unable to pay well, in contrast, might not realize what they are doing if they hire multiple employees with low wages instead of perhaps hiring one or a handful of workers to do the tasks, but with superior pay.  There is a difference in worldview and personality here, yes, but some of the consequences are the same for workers.

Either kind of small business owner, if exploitation is indeed immoral, does not deserve to have their company last.  The "small business excuse," as I call it, is invalid by necessity in either case because the company still engages in some of the same unjust or otherwise irrational practices, still has idiotic philosophical motivations behind it, and tries to escape condemnation just by pointing out its size.  A struggling small business is not itself something to loathe.  A well-meaning small business owner/leader would not merit the same kind of hostility of a more explicitly egoistic small business owner even if both of them have some of the same idiotic ideologies, goals, or habits.  Because of this, at the same time, any small business that is not able or prepared to give its workers livable compensation is indulging in the same lunacy as the massive corporations with leaders who think their whims dictate the truth about morality, business, and people.

The bigger the company, the easier it would be to offer truly "competitive" wages, yet the easier it is for someone with power to trample on others and have their deeds and worldview concealed or avoid opposition quite stern enough to deter them.  The smaller the company, the less likely it is that a job can support multiple employees with livable pay and strong benefits, yet the easier it is to invest in a small, focused pool of workers.  Whether a small business actually sacrifices quantity of workers for quality of workers and compensation alike is decided by each individual owner/leader.  Some of them will erroneously believe in the small business excuse, using it as an illusionary shield to protect their feelings or reputation from criticism.  Others can choose, if they are rational and committed enough to do so, to take advantage of the smaller structure and size of their businesses to better invest monetarily and otherwise in a potentially lower number of workers.

Movie Review--Color Out Of Space

"It came down in the rock.  It lives in the well.  It grew down there.  Poisoning everything.  Changing everything into something like the world it came from.  Into what it knows."

--Ezra's recording, Color Out of Space

H.P. Lovecraft's story The Colour Out of Space is wonderfully adapted in a 2019 film starring Nicolas Cage of all people.  Setting up its human characters within the first 20 minutes before the titular color arrives, some of them to an unusually effective extent, Color Out of Space is a sometimes excellent cosmic horror movie with the visual flair this exact story calls for.  In a flash of purple, a strange object falls to Earth outside of a family residence, and yet Nathan Gardner has trouble recalling what color the impact projected.  A distinctively Lovecraftian tale ensues despite the absence of enormous beasts.  The city of Arkham--yes, this is actually what inspired the name of Arkham Asylum in the Batman mythos, as Lovecraftian horror can often involve a descent into insanity of a kind--is also mentioned repeatedly, a part of Lovecraft lore with an extreme impact on later storytelling far outside of cosmic horror, and it is fitting that this name would be acknowledged in recent cinema for its fictional roots.

Production Values

Opening with a unique approach to introductory credits, Color Out of Space displays its visual excellence very early on.  These credits appear and shift into the foreground or seem attached to trees as the camera rotates.  Not long after, there is a shot of the inside of a well that turns out to be showing the reflection in the water rather than showing the characters looking below from underneath them.  Before the 20 minute mark, the first of the color from outer space is seen in an explosion of purple.  The meteorite and its exotic color are later portrayed as a mixture or rapid changing of colors like purple and blue.  Cosmic horror is severely misunderstood by people who think it shows things that are logically impossible or that humans cannot understand, and there is of course no such thing as a color from an object outside of the planet that would not ultimately be a color we can find in our lives or a mixture of familiar colors.  In spite of this, the foreign nature of the color is triumphantly conveyed.  The wildness of the ending only highlights the color and its powers (though only objects can have colors, so the color seems to be emanating from an energy or even an alien consciousness) all the more.

The acting and characterization is, while secondary to atmosphere, also handled very well as a whole.  In the right role, Nicolas Cage can do far more than radiate unintentional humor or dramatically panic as he does in some of his most famous scenes.  His voice changes as the film progresses, starting with a more dramatic, lifelike vocal tone that lapses into one of his more unusual but still iconic ones as the Lovecraftian force exerts its influence on him.  He switches back and forth within the same scene on occasion.  Without being his best or most adventurous or bold role, Nathan Gardner is still one he is perfectly at home in, as the cosmic horror circumstances give Cage a new context for some of his signature style.  It would still have been better for the sake of tonal consistency to not have him lean as much into his almost self-parody levels of acting in some moments when the extraterrestrial substance alters his mind.  Besides Cage, Joely Richardson, Madeleine Arthur, Elliot Knight (from the DC show Titans), and other cast members do their part with the situational humor, gravitas, or confusion that each scene calls for.  Madeleine Arthur and Elliot Knight in particular have to carry certain scenes, including their meeting in the opening, that are of great significance to the plot, which they actually do.

Story

Some spoilers are below.

A young girl attempts a Wiccan ritual to grant several of her desires, such as the removal of her mother's cancer, which incidentally leads to her meeting a boy surveying the groundwater of the general area for a hydroelectric company.  That very night, a bizarre meteorite falls to the ground in a blaze of purple.  The youngest son of the family living on the property enters a catatonic state for a time, and soon, almost every family member begins experiencing unusual perceptions or situations.  The mother cuts off two of her fingers as she zones out.  The daughter hears garbled speech when she answers her phone.  The older of the two sons finds animals that he already fed wandering about as if they have not eaten.  A small creature also comes forth from with an insectoid body of purple, seen only by the child who went catatonic when the object first landed.  The groundwater surveyor finds evidence of contaminated water, encouraging people not to drink from it.

Intellectual Content

The events of the film do very much reflect the Lovecraftian idea that the physical world and the beings that inhabit it are ultimately quite hostile or indifferent to humans, except when it suits them to toy with people as a means to their alien ends.  In contrast with a popular misconception of Lovecraftian or general cosmic horror, the laws of logic are true by inherent necessity, but the scientific correlations of ordinary life are not.  Color Out of Space indirectly touches upon the former in that it only shows logically possible but bizarre things, with logical impossibilities being impossible even in fiction, and thus they cannot be portrayed even when people intend to because they cannot avoid logical axioms.  The movie addresses the latter much more directly, depicting a terrible spiral into what is implied to be a terraforming of sorts where the alien "color" or the potentially conscious being behind it alters both the laws of physics and the mental perceptions of the Gardner family.  The "final boy" of the story recognizes the in-narrative non-universal nature of Earth's scientific laws in the final scene, and not only does his survival mean he replaced a character that could have filled the final girl trope, but he is also a black person, someone Lovecraft himself would have despised or feared.  There is a great double irony in how this film inverts a classic horror role and honors the cosmic horror of Lovecraft while disregarding his renowned racism against black people.

Conclusion

Another cinematic accomplishment for Nicolas Cage, an actor with one of the most wild filmographies, Color Out of Space succeeds in adapting its source material yet again.  It could have sometimes actually benefitted from a less over the top performance by Cage, but even when he embraces a style reminiscent of some of his other films, he is never a bad fit for the story and for this particular adaptation of it.  As a slow burn cosmic horror narrative, the movie manages to emphasize both the otherworldly glow and invasive corruption of the meteorite that brings doom with it, all without showing the breakdown of a family quite as well as other horror films like The VVitch or Hereditary.  It also does not feature any of the more culturally recognizable Lovecraftian entities like Cthulhu, which is not a flaw, just something people craving a more conventional Lovecraft story might not prefer.  For a movie adapting a story that could be quite difficult to visually tackle, this is generally a solid offering that incorporates all of the standard subgenre trappings like distortion of perception, an extradimensional or extraterrestrial being, and a quiet start that gives way to pandemonium.

Content:

 1.  Violence:  A woman slices two of her fingers off.  The hand is shown with blood.  Mutated alpacas are shot onscreen, a scene that also shows eruptions of blood, as is a transformed human.

 2.  Profanity:  "Fuck," "damn," and "bitch" are used.

 3.  Sexuality:  A man and woman are briefly shown engaging in clothed, passionate sexual interaction.