Mutually Exclusive Acts Of Kindness

Two able-bodied people arrive at a closed door and need to pass through.  At the same time, each one extends a hand to open the door, insinuating on showing this kindness to the other person.  They think it is morally required to do such acts as they have the power to.  However, both of them have the power to do so here!  Who "should" open the door out of consideration?  No one should in that no one could have to.  This might be a very trivial example on one level, but it is of vital importance that it cannot be true that both people, or either of them, should by default try to perform this act of kindness.

Pragmatically, person A and person B would both remain at a standstill if each strives to do what they allegedly should.  Neither individual would be able to get anywhere for the day, much less in their life at large.  Pragmatism has nothing to do with making something good, though.  For instance, it does not matter if using physical force to persuade someone to reveal information is situationally useful—although the victim might say anything to convince the torturers to stop, with no way to automatically verify it, posing its own problem for both abstract epistemology and mere pragmatism.  If torture or a given form of torture is immoral, circumstances and actual usefulness could never legitimize it.

The inconvenience of both people in the example of the door being unable to get anywhere if they simultaneously, relentlessly try to perform an act of kindness for the other is not why they cannot be obligated to both show respect or consideration by opening the door for each other.  But, if doing what is morally right requires that someone else not act as they should, then, well, it simply cannot be morally correct after all.  Only one of them can open the door.  It does not follow, of course, that cruelty and behaviors driven by sheer disregard for others are valid.  The necessary truth of the matter is just that certain acts of kindness cannot be obligatory because only one of the multiple parties involved would then be righteous, meaning one person must err for the other to be in the right.  This entails a contradiction, and contradictions cannot be true.

It is logically impossible for this idea about morality to be true no matter what, because it is contradictory at its very heart, contradictory towards itself and in turn ultimately towards the laws of logic which are inherently true.  Kindness has been touted about as if it has a status that literally cannot be the case.  Submission is similar.  While there are all sorts of asinine but popular concepts about one-sided submission in, say, marriage that are false for separate reasons, total, unflinching submission in a matter from both directions is likewise impossible.  If both wills are in total alignment, there is no genuine submission.  If each will is different, then there are situations in which it is logically impossible for both people to submit.

This sort of approach to kindness and submission are objectively erroneous not only because no one's subjective whims are authoritative, but also because both parties (like spouses) cannot both do what is supposedly "ethical" in this case.  Thus, it cannot be ethically mandatory, though perhaps trying to benefit the other person can be good in a wholly optional sense.  There are many other possible scenarios that exemplify the point, like the fact that an employer cannot show a kindness by allowing a worker to leave early without a loss of pay if the employee is to go above and beyond and do as much as they can for their employer during a shift.

Far more than the lower sort of practical problem with mandatory two-way kindness in such circumstances, there is an intrinsic logical problem with the idea that kindness is a duty of all people wherever they have the power to show it.  Some actions which are kind or that express submission can indeed be ethically mandatory.  This does not contradict logical axioms or any other necessary truth.  Even so, acts of kindness and submission cannot always be obligatory from two different directions at the same time.  As simultaneously simple as it is, it is an inflexible logical fact that doing something which inevitably involves another person being unable to behave as they should already cannot be ethically correct.  Logic renders many forms of kindness entirely optional at best.  And if someone does not morally have to do such a thing—if it is untrue that they should—then, short of irrational or wicked motives, they cannot be in the wrong for abstaining.

As Long As The Money Does Not Go To Workers

Why might it sometimes appear as if a company will part with money as long as it goes to anything but to pay increases for workers, or particularly to those at the lower levels of the organization?  Extreme (and unmerited) executive compensation and bonuses or donations for the sake of superficial public relations are just two things money can be far more likely to be directed towards than employee raises across the board, even if there is absolutely plenty to spare and the workers are not currently paid livable or fair wages.  Not even making and overtly celebrating record profits stops certain companies from acting like there is just not enough to pay employees more, although the leadership is content to inflate prices because times are allegedly "tough" for corporate executives and their profits.

Spending large amounts on meals with clients, useless or relatively trivial "perks" that do not involve monetary benefit for the employees, and on paying legal fines (and even a fine of $12,000,000 would not be severe for a major corporation like Google that makes hundreds of billions a year) seems to be prioritized by various companies in the cases of the former two and accepted in the case of the latter.  It really is more probable that a typical company might be willing to spend more money as long as it does not go to the workers, without whom there would not be a business at all or at least a business functioning beyond a far more limited scope [1].

Desperate workers, workers who need their job to survive, are certainly ideal for an organization bent on maximal exploitation.  The employee who needs to keep their job because they are too exhausted to look for work elsewhere or too financially unstable to dare to defy their employer has little they can do to resist genuine workplace oppression; as long as their predicament is not their own fault due to reckless or emotionalistic overspending, it really is solely the fault of materialistic or power-drunk employers and management that they are made to economically struggle when there is more than enough money to pay employees livable amounts (or better!) while still seeing vast profit go to members of the upper hierarchy.

Such is the nature of an inherently exploitative workplace system like that of American capitalism (and any other such variation).  All the more illogical is that some who perpetuate the present state of the typical American workplace--yes, not even widespread oppression necessitates that every company practices this--identify as Christians and yet would ignore or even be hostile towards the command of Yahweh to pay workers before sunset the same day as their labor (Leviticus 19:13, Deuteronomy 24:14-15).  Yes, Biblical workers' rights go beyond what many secular people, whose moral philosophy (if they really believe it) could only be rooted in subjective conscience or arbitrary cultural norms or some other invalid/assumed things, would adhere to.

Again, revenue could go to showing gratuitous "appreciation" for clients or paying for enormous lawsuits that perhaps nonetheless barely make a dent in the sheer profit generated by the company.  The actual workers are the ones trampled in spite of being a foundational part of the operations.  This phenomenon likely often reduces down to employers either viewing employees as horrid leeches that parasitically require compensation (in contrast with consumers, who are at least superficially catered to respectfully in order to extract money from them) or to hoping to keep them in a state of financial desperation to distract them from thoughts of "insubordination" or resigning.

[1].  https://thechristianrationalist.blogspot.com/2023/02/power-in-business-part-2-employees.html

Genesis 9:4-6 And Violence Before The Flood

We are told very little about the exact evils practiced by humans in the antediluvian world (before the flood of Genesis).  First, the immorality of the era is described without specifics other than that the masses were totally corrupt to the point of being constantly devoted only to evil and bringing God to regret creating humans (Genesis 6:5-9).  Then, Genesis 6:11-13 adds that widespread or extreme violence was prominent.  Some potential clues as to particular sins of the time in this category are found in Genesis 9, however.  After Noah exits the ark with his family, God condemns the acts of eating blood and murder (in this context, illicit killing of one human by another) in verses 4 and 6 respectively.  In the immediate context, he also reveals the moral duty for the remaining humans to increase in number after such a cataclysm (9:1, 7) and more subtly reveals the justice of capital punishment for murder (9:6), which would would make implementing it obligatory.

Many people hear about the sin of murder one way or another, even if the precise boundaries of what constitutes murder are not acknowledged with regularity.  Not all killing is murder, for murder is only the illicit killing of a person, which excludes killing in self-defense proportionate to the threat (Exodus 22:2-3), capital punishment for applicable sins (including that authorized in Genesis 9:6 for murder), and some forms of warfare which are the equivalent to self-defense or capital punishment on a larger scale as it is (Deuteronomy 9:4-6, 20:10-15 [1]).  Before Genesis 9, basic murder has already been explicitly condemned in Genesis 4.  What about eating blood?  Unlike simply killing a human, eating blood is always evil, except for something like the incidental ingesting of one's own blood from an internal oral wound.  Actively consuming blood, whether of a clean or unclean animal, is a major depravity censured repeatedly throughout the Torah (such as in Leviticus 17, 19, Deuteronomy 12, 15).

This is what Genesis 9:4-6 specifically says about eating blood and murder:

Genesis 9:4-6—"'But you must not eat meat that has its lifeblood still in it.  And for your lifeblood I will surely demand an accounting.  I will demand an accounting from every animal.  And from each human being, too, I will demand an accounting for the life of another human being.  Whoever sheds human blood, by humans shall their blood be shed; for in the image of God has God made mankind.'"

Perhaps eating animal flesh with its blood was one of the prominent sins which led to the flood, and perhaps some of this flesh was cut away and consumed while the animals were still living as some insist.  Since illicit violence is the broad category of evil said to specifically define the age before the flood in Genesis 6:11-13, eating the flesh of a living creature could certainly be among the sins of violence commonplace among humanity at the time.  It is almost inevitable that murder would be among the violent sins directed from one person to another, though of course violence can be far more diverse and far more severe than mere murder.  Other violent sins are addressed in the Law, the greatest concentration of these miscellaneous sins receiving attention in Exodus 21.

Irrespective of how normalized it might have been to consume blood with animal meat, eat the flesh of a living animal, or murder other people prior to the flood of Genesis, wicked behaviors towards both humans and animals are condemned at a very broad level through two hyper-specific examples in the account of Genesis 9.  The right treatment of both humans and non-human animals (humans are animals too!), while entailing far more than abstaining from murder and eating animal blood according to the precise doctrines of the Bible and their logical ramifications, is really a subcategory of obligatory submission to God, whom all initial living things on Earth were created by (Genesis 1-2) and to whom all things on Earth belong (Psalm 24:1).

Everything I have mentioned thus far other than what some say about eating meat from an animal that is still alive can be demonstrated from logic and texts in the Bible.  But one could never tell from the wording of the Bible what depths some people go to in their asinine misinterpretation.  Somehow, Rabbinic Judaism, a philosophy based on the contrived traditions of Rabbis, twists such a basic passage as Genesis 9:4-6 to use as a false pillar of a heavily racist form of moral relativism called the Noahide Laws, but the nature of the command in Genesis 9:4 regarding the consumption of blood is bizarrely misunderstood in isolation.  Adherents of Rabbinic Judaism might say this command is really about not eating the flesh from a living animal, but no such thing is mentioned.  This stance hinges on how cutting apart a living animal and immediately eating its flesh with the blood does involve a violation of Genesis 9:4.  However, consuming blood could take many forms, all of which are evil; that is what Genesis 9:4 is about.  Eating raw meat with blood from a still-living creature is in fact worse than "merely" eating blood!  Because it combines the intrinsic sin of eating blood with the further sin of needlessly inflicting physical harm on a conscious being, though, it is not referenced in the verse at hand.

An obvious distortion of the broader type of sin the verse does condemn, with eating the bloody flesh of a living animal being only one way to eat the blood of a creature, this tradition is yet another example of how Rabbinic philosophy is at odds with the Old Testament and with reason itself.  All the same, eating blood is one of the handful of prohibitions specified after Noah and his family depart the ark.  There clearly is moral revelation provided to the survivors of the flood in Genesis 9, but it is neither said to be exhaustive nor to be in any way pertinent to the nationality or ancestry of a person as with the idiotic Noahide Laws as proposed by Rabbinic Judaism.  Supposedly, God prescribed only seven things to Noah and his descendants after the flood, with nothing else being morally binding on them.  Where the Rabbinic distortions of Biblical Judaism err far more gravely than confusing eating blood for eating/removing meat from a living animal is in treating eating blood as one of only seven sins or part of seven categories of sin that are evil when Gentiles engage in them, things like murder, theft, eating blood, blasphemy, and idolatry.

These and the others out of the seven are not the only obligations of Gentiles as according the Rabbinic idea of the "Noahide Laws".  Separate from the logical impossibility of cultural/ancestral ethical relativism, Genesis 9:1 and 7 already prescribe a situational obligation to Gentile figures that is completely outside of Rabbinic Judaism's contrived Noahide Laws; it is also true that very few of these seven things are mentioned in Genesis 9.  God says nothing to Noah about theft, blasphemy, or most of these seven moral issues that fools say are all that is binding on all people according to Genesis.  The Old Testament also never says in Genesis 9 or elsewhere that anything outside of the seven supposed duties/rights to be honored by Gentiles apply only to Jews (including anything having to do with issues like vows, slavery, torture, poverty, widows, and more except as they pertain to the likes of murder or theft), as opposed to humans.  

Additionally, the Old Testament gives multiple examples of Gentile sins outside the alleged seven obligations of the Noahide Laws (Genesis 6:11-13, Leviticus 20:6 and 9 with 23, Deuteronomy 18:9-12, Ezekiel 16:49-50, 25:12-17, Amos 2:1-3, and so on).  It even separately speaks of general morality, often with no examples, as universally applicable to all people where being a Jew or Gentile makes no difference in one's capacity to act or abstain (such as honoring one's parents or making restitution for theft), because what is obligatory and wicked has to do with the nature of the action or thought, not the identity of the one respectively doing or thinking it (Deuteronomy 9:4-6, Ezekiel 5:5-7, Ecclesiastes 12:14, 2 Kings 21:1-11, etc.).  All of this is in accordance with what logic necessitates about ethics if there is good and evil: race is irrelevant to the ethics of an action that by nature can be done to or by anyone.

Accordingly, far more violent deeds are evil for everyone on actual Judeo-Christianity.  The unjust violence of humanity that incurred divine wrath as expressed by the flood could have and almost certainly would have entailed far more than just outright murder and eating flesh from a living animal.  Of course, eating blood from a dead animal is in no way a violent act on its own, as the violent part would have been the treatment or killing of the animal beforehand.  Aside from the unspecified forms of violence in Genesis 6 that clearly do not limit the sins in question to murder, a host of other violent acts are condemned with great specificity.  Striking someone with a stone or other object in a quarrel, with the blow not resulting in either the victim's death or permanent injury, is but one example (Exodus 21:18-19).  Striking one's father or mother for any reason other than self-defense or participation in Biblically legitimate capital punishment like communal stoning is another (Exodus 21:15).  These, too, would logically and Biblically have to be evil when done to or by Gentiles in addition to Jews.  As terrible as murder and eating blood are, especially if the blood is consumed while the animal remains alive to seemingly experience pain and terror, a great many other sins of violence would have probably marked the antediluvian epoch as humans long before the formation of Israel grieved God so much that he regretted creating humanity.

[1].  https://thechristianrationalist.blogspot.com/2024/05/the-torah-on-treatment-of-wartime-male.html

The Day Of The Lord

Many times across the Old and New Testament, something called the "day of the Lord" is brought up in an eschatological context.  The eventual destruction of the old universe by fire as mentioned in 2 Peter 3 in connection with the day of the Lord, for example, is plainly a futurist event according to the Bible.  So too is the elevation of Jerusalem, the mass submission to Mosaic Law, and the absence of warfare as described in Isaiah 2:1-5, which is all said to take place in the last days.  Though these prophecies do not have the phrase day of the Lord, they are said to occur in the last days, and shortly after, Isaiah 2 mentions extreme upheaval of the world from God using language like "in that day" (2:17), which is related to the wording found elsewhere referring to the day of the Lord.

Amos 5:18 emphasizes that there is much to dread about that day, saying "Woe to those who long for the day of the Lord!"  This "day," though it becomes clear from the many references to it throughout both testaments that it is very likely not at all a single day, will be like a person fleeing from a lion only to meet a bear (5:19).  It is called a day of darkness and not one of light.  Similar in its description of utter apocalyptic devastation and yet far more elaborate, Isaiah 24 says there will come a time when humans are scarce in the world (24:6, 13), punished by God to the point of near-extinction for their moral violations (24:5) [1].

During this period, Isaiah says that the planet is split up and vehemently shaken so that the land reels like a drunkard and sways like a "hut in the wind" (24:19-20).  It will be the same for masters or mistresses and their servants, for buyers and sellers, and for priests and the common people (24:2).  No one escapes the severity on the basis of their economic class.  However, not absolutely everything about the day of the Lord is said to be negative; 2 Peter 3:10-13, for instance, says that following the destruction of the cosmos by fire—not with water because God promised to never use a deluge to kill sinners on such a mass scale again (Genesis 9:8-17, 2 Peter 3:5-7)—will come the new heavens and new earth that Isaiah 65 and Revelation 21-22 speak of.  Depending on which group a person falls into, that of the punished wicked or the righteous, the day of the Lord and its aftermath could be either thoroughly dreadful or joyful.

For those referenced in Isaiah 2:10-17, it will be a disaster, one that compels them to flee to caves and caverns to escape what seems to be an earthquake initiated by Yahweh.  For those who experience the actual Biblical rapture at the Second Coming [2], from that point onward, it would be a glorious, liberating thing—not that it will be easy for followers of Yahweh and Christ up until that moment.  However, at least one passage seemingly frames the day of the Lord, which is not necessarily any singular day, as continuing even after the Second Coming, describing the wicked as being burned to ashes (Malachi 4:1-3).  As an eschatological event, these verses would correspond to the wicked literally being burned to ashes in Gehenna, or the lake or fire, also called hell (Matthew 10:28, 2 Peter 2:6, and so on), which is after the resurrection, which is itself after the Second Coming.  

Are there any indicators said to precede this day of the Lord?  The occasional verse does speak of events that occur ahead of this period.  Malachi 4:5 says that Elijah will be sent by God before the day of the Lord, adding that this day is great and dreadful, so this prophecy pertains to eschatology in that its contents are fulfilled first (though the gospels teach in verses like Matthew 17:11-13 that, in one sense at a minimum, John the Baptist was Elijah).  Likewise, Joel 2:31 describes the sun as turning to darkness and the moon to blood before the coming of the "great and dreadful" day of the Lord.  Again, the Old Testament stresses that it will be dreadful, for the wicked, at least, though not without some sort of prophetic buildup.

While I address why this verse from Joel is distinctly eschatological despite the text saying this, like the sending of Elijah, will arrive "before" the day of the Lord in a later article, Joel does not contain the only warning about the general subject that is incredibly dire.  In their emotionalistic frenzy to welcome the events of Biblical eschatology (although they make many assumptions and errors, such as that discussed here [2]), some who identify as Christians overlook the clear cautionary statements about longing for many portions of the last days.  Despite how many people who call themselves Christians are just deluding themselves anyway because they do not represent Christianity at all with their theistic irrationalism, gender complementarianism, anti-theonomy, and so forth, perhaps they assume that they would not be among those suffering if they were truly going to live in the eschatological future.  If only it was so simple!

[1].  https://thechristianrationalist.blogspot.com/2018/05/the-old-covenant.html

[2].  https://thechristianrationalist.blogspot.com/2024/04/the-rapture.html

The Popular Misconception Of One Divided By Three

Divide one by three using a calculator, and it shows 0.333, with the number three repeating on and on.  However, 0.333 multiplied by three equals 0.999, and even the same calculator should get this much right.  This has compelled some to think that logic is not inherently true because contradictory things can be true at once, such as one being equivalent to 0.999.  They might also conclude that one divided by three must really be 0.333... (the ellipses here signify an infinitely repeating decimal).  There are other errors someone could believe about this issue.  One divided by three does not equal 2.777 or 5, for instance.  It is just that these or other examples are not the predominantly accepted delusion on the matter.  The truth is both extremely basic and extremely important.  This specific matter is not especially philosophically central on its own, but the truth of logic is supremely foundational, and since nothing can actually contradict logic and still be true, as I have repeatedly fixated on, the popular misconception is pivotal.

Because calculators reach 3.333 upon dividing one by three and arrive at 9.999 upon multiplying 9.999 by three, some people actually think that one and 9.999 are the same, or that math can deviate from the laws of logic.  Whatever the reason, there would be a logical reason why logic is false, so this is an intrinsic impossibility.  And 0.333 is a third of 0.999, not of 1.  Many people might assume that if a calculator presents an answer, it must be correct.  This is just a less overtly recognized form of an appeal to authority.  In truth, the only authority that has intrinsic correctness is logical axioms (even other necessary truths ultimately stem from them), with all other things being authoritative only to the extent that they concur with pure logical necessity or possibility.  A calculator is just a machine that might misrepresent the abstract truths of mathematics, which are themselves grounded strictly in logic.  With dividing one by three, these machines simply display the numeric symbols for a loose approximation that cannot possibly be correct.

It turns out that anyone who believes the somewhat popular idea that one divided by three amounts to a number that does not equal one when multiplied by three is wrong because the idea must be false.  Also, it could not have been any other way.  One divided into three could not possibly be 0.333, and so on, because the latter number added to itself three times (the same outcome as the number multiplied by three) logically has to be 9.999, with the decimal nine repeating infinitely.  Erroneous calculator solutions cannot falsify reason itself, and accurate calculator solutions are not a valid epistemological basis for believing anything—except that the calculator has arrived at a given number!  As an aside, logic is not primarily about numbers, though it necessitates certain truths about numbers.

No matter what, relying on calculators for anything more than the pragmatic purpose of facilitating the likes of academic work or professional calculations with a seemingly high probability of veracity is irrational.  Unless you mentally go through every single step in the calculation while looking to objective logic and making no assumptions, you would never know if a calculator (or another person, an AI, etc.) is right in any instance.  Reason alone can reveal this because reason alone grounds necessary truths, including those about numbers.  Not even memorizing an equation or the output with a given set of starting numbers means someone knows the truth of the matter.  One has to directly, actively grasp the logical necessity of why a specific number results.

Though the subject is so simple, the idiotic controversy over the real nature of one divided by three pertains to the very heart of all truth because if the popular misconception is true, then logical axioms would be false.  But logic cannot be false, because then there would be a logical reason why this is the case, which requires that reason is true either way.  One thing that follows from another cannot be anything but true, for instance, or else it would follow from the nature of reality that one thing which follows necessarily from another is untrue; or, it would follow from the nature of reality that nothing follows from anything—while these are two truths, they are both rooted in the same singular axiom that one thing which follows from another must be true because anything contrary still requires this to be so, and this is the case entirely independent of more specific examples of the axiom applying to something besides itself.  And if something contradicts any such self-necessary, self-evident truth, of which there are very few, it is automatically impossible.  One and 0.999, with the nine repeating, are not the same number, and, inevitably, 0.333 multiplied by three does not become one.

The Parapet Of Deuteronomy 22:8

When one builds a new house, as Deuteronomy 22:8 says, one is to install a parapet along the rooftop to ensure that no one falls from such a height to their end, a parapet being a railing or barrier of sorts that protrudes upward from the edge.  Found in the midst of miscellaneous laws pertaining to everything from how to regard lost property to the treatment of animals to clothing, this lone verse makes a very explicit, specific command about honoring human life, whether that life belongs to a family member or a visitor.

This also provides an indicator within Mosaic Law that the homes of the Israelites at the general time of the revelation would have had walkable roofs, something uncommon on the residential houses of America, which tend to have slanted roofs with shingles, often made of asphalt, which are accessible mostly by external ladders.  Since many American homes would not have flat or otherwise walkable roofing, this obligation could not be applicable to such houses.  The Bible is not prescribing flat roofs: it says to have parapets on roofs when relevant.

The command is analogous to how the instructions on the treatment of servants or how to respond to their abuse (such as in Exodus 21:26-27 and Deuteronomy 23:15-16) do not mean people must have servants.  These apply if someone has them.  Since the parapet command is about preventing the gratuitous deaths of someone else, a person living alone in isolation with a flat roof would also be exempt from the primarily emphasized part of the obligation to protect human life (of course, unless someone deserves to die).  However, it nonetheless is aimed at the preservation of lives bearing the divine image.

Where it is applicable, this moral duty concerns a particular way to express a broader obligation mentioned in Leviticus 19:16.  "Do not endanger your neighbor's life," this verse says.  Deuteronomy 22:8 says that to not add a parapet to the roof of a dwelling place would bring the guilt of bloodshed on someone if another person was to fall and die.  Similarly, minor to severe injuries from a fall that do not lead to death would be the fault of whoever did not take necessary measures beforehand.  As for lethal incidents, while someone would not have actively committed murder if they were to disregard this, they would still have sinned by not taking this prescribed precaution ahead of time when constructing their house.  See Exodus 21:28-32 in constrast with Genesis 9:6 and Exodus 21:12-14 on how negligence leading to human death is scarcely treated with lesser severity than premeditated murder.

Human lives are valuable enough if Christianity is true that it is immoral to not take the precise measure of Deuteronomy 22:8 to prolong them.  The verse is still unique in that, though there are multiple commands in the Torah about protecting innocent lives or lives in general, this very particular way to avert potential deaths is singled out as mandatory.  Simply not treating others with malice that leads to direct, unjust bodily harm or death is insufficient.  One might not be capable of preventing all accidents that could end lives suddenly and without any trace of murderous deeds or intentions, and still this, when applicable as previously addressed, is within the power of everyone constructing the kind of home that could support rooftop foot traffic or any equivalent structure.

Game Review—Subnautica (Switch)

"It is common for those accustomed to synthetic foods to be repulsed by eating an animal carcass.  Remember that humans survived this way for millennia.  You can too."

—PDA Voice

The Minecraft-inspired underwater survival/exploration game Subnautica has serious performance issues on the Switch platform, at least, as will be addressed in greater detail.  Besides this, the game is largely not just superb.  It is legitimately perfect in much of its execution.  All while using a Fabricator machine to prepare food and water from extraterrestrial fish and other resources, players traverse the waters of a world with a disastrous past that slowly comes to light.  At first, the player has few options.  With time and diligence, the player can craft gear allowing for longer dives, underwater bases with a wide variety of features, and vehicles that permit exploration to the uttermost reaches of the areas that yield resources and plot advancement.  However, with greater depths and meticulous exploration comes exposure to Leviathan class predators, which provide horror to a game with an otherwise often peaceful or enigmatic tone.  For those wanting a less tense experience, creative mode and staying in the safer parts of the game in the story mode allow you to focus on customizing bases in a similar vein to how one might expand or personalize a home in Animal Crossing.

Production Values

The graphics are on the better side of middling.  Color schemes tied to particular locations, like the orange-red of the molten depths or the blues, reds, and purples of the initial area, excellently distinguish between "biomes" and serve as visual indicators of what resources to expect from them.  Darkness is also used to great effect as a way to enhance the mystery or vulnerability as one passes through certain new areas—or familiar ones where a Leviathan class predator has been encountered, like the Reaper seen latching onto my vehicle in the second screenshot from the top.  Oh, there are even larger animals than Reapers!  Creature animations and the appearance of vehicles like the Cyclops submarine range from mediocre to great, with vehicle exteriors being among the best of the game's visual feats.  But, though perhaps it runs better on other consoles, the Switch version of Subnautica is very hit or miss with its performance.

Multiple times, the game crashed.  The first time was right after I tried to save; you must manually save because there is no autosave function.  Then, after the game crashed for the first time and I had restarted it, a PDA I had just acquired had disappeared from its position without its text appearing in my PDA's files, with no indication as to whether this glitch would impact my ability to trigger the next story-related messages.  Subsequent crashes did occur but did not impact my progress.  And as strange as it is, sometimes the game allowed me to pin three crafting recipes to the HUD, and sometimes it allowed me to pin more like six.  This seems to be because the size of the circle indicating the recipe changed to the point os f becoming much more massive than in other cases.  For this reason, the size of pinned recipes differs between some screenshots.

Gameplay

Though the world might seem incredibly vast and multifaceted at first, and it is, you can progress fairly quickly if you try to, especially if you are already familiar with the basic mechanics and locations.  The player uses the little they initially have available to build more extensive things as they are able.  For example, you can use copper samples and acid mushrooms from the starting area to craft batteries, which can in turn be combined with another material to create larger power cells for vehicles like the small submersible called the Seamoth.  Both power sources can eventually be charged inside of a base thanks to an expanding arsenal of crafting recipes.  Exploration of random new areas is vital for obtaining miscellaneous items and upgrades, especially for things like the Seamoth or the Prawn Suit (an exoskeleton that can go the furthest distance below the surface when fully upgraded).  Gradually, you can amass quite the blueprint and resource collection through intentionality or happenstance.  Certain blueprints and crafting items are only found far below the surface, so exploring as deep as possible for your oxygen levels or current vehicle is essential.

The first of the vehicles you can climb inside is the Seamoth.  However, two upgrades in, your Seamoth can only descend safely to 500 meters before the pressure causes damage.  The Cyclops can reach 500 meters from the beginning.  Since the Cyclops already has built-in storage lockers and you can fabricate additional fixtures inside it, the vessel can serve as a mobile base with defensive capabilities.  However, it is extremely slow, difficult to maneuver properly in narrow passageways or general ascents and descents, and in almost constant need of having its six power cells swapped for replacements.  It is not a simple or quick matter to pilot it from one end of the map to another.  Besides the carrying capacity and how it can be outfitted with food and hydration-producing machines, the most significant benefit of the Cyclops despite its severe inconveniences is its diving depth.  Whereas the Seamoth has a starting maximum depth of 300 meters and an enhanced maximum of 900 meters with two upgrades, the Cyclops depth capacity climbs to 1,300 meters with only two of the three upgrades.  Using this submarine is hence one of the only ways to access certain parts of the game!  The Prawn Suit, however, starts with the capacity to go 900 meters down.

As for finding your way around the world whether or not you are using a constructed vehicle, the game is designed in such a way that finding your way back to a particular point can be challenging.  Sometimes the PDA gives important information about a spot that might have ramifications for the main story.  But since there is no map screen and the PDA notification does not mark your position, you have very few options to pinpoint where you are if you have to leave the area.  There is no way to tell where the message was triggered apart from very specific means.  Unless you brought a beacon with you, have a very precise memory, or take a screenshot or video of how far you are from your crashed escape pod with the Aurora's hull in view to provide more visual context as to the direction, you will have to wander around and stumble into the same area.  However, the world is structured to incentivize random exploration with resources and fragments of equipment like the Seamoth.  Different biomes house varying resources, from copper to rubies and more, all of which have their applications for fabricating useful items.  But while exploring, the player must be careful to utilize food and water in their current inventory or remain close enough to either a Fabricator or previously prepared consumables to stave off starvation and thirst!  Cured fish and bottles of purified water are especially helpful for longer journeys away from a Fabricator.

Story

Ryley Robinson survives the crash of an Alterra Corporation starship called the Aurora into 4546B, a planet that, at least where he lands, is almost entirely covered by an ocean.  While initial scavenging efforts start near his lifepod in a shallow area because it is all he can access, he slowly acquires the means to venture further out from his pod's landing site, including below the surface.  In the process, he uncovers evidence of a past extraterrestrial species that engaged in empirical research to neutralize the threat of the Kharaa virus, which still endangers most life on the planet.  He himself becomes infected, his departure from 4546B depending on his ability to find a cure because of a weapon system meant to shoot down any vessels that try to land on or leave the planet in order to quarantine infected organisms—or lethally prevent infection.

Intellectual Content

One of the things Subnautica more directly brushes up against, though the creators probably never identified it properly, is the logical possibility of organisms that look quite different from the creatures of Earth.  Towards the end of the game, a major plot point affirms how collaboration can lead to better results than confinement or force, which pairs well with the lack of emphasis on offensive weaponry available to the player throughout the game.  Subnautica does not focus on how force or violence can legitmately solve certain problems (as with self-defense), instead focusing on how peacable interaction with a character fully revealed late in the game benefits both parties.  Yes, this aspect of the design enhances the player's vulnerability on an exotic planet, but it also fits well with the intentions of the original creators of what is now a franchise.  Not that this means their intentions are logically valid.

Detailed moreso in optional PDAs, though, the corporate hellscape of a future in which Subnautica occurs is bleak.  Corporatism reigns to the point that civilians in Alterra-controlled regions are not legally permitted to have their own weaponry with the exception of a survival knife, and even then, it is only to enable people like Ryley access to a tool almost inevitably required for resource acquisition.  Only Alterra's police force are supposed to have anything more substantial than this basic knife or its upgraded version, the thermal knife.  And at the end of the game, after the credits, Alterra does not let Ryley land the rocket he constructed from blueprints provided by the company for him to escape 4546B on a human-settled world until he pays what it claims he owes them: one trillion credits for using Alterra technology to gather resources and survive until he leaves the planet.  It is ironic for a high quality game from an indie development studio to depict the workers of future humanity as financially enslaved to interplanetary megacorporations, only for that series to be taken over by a large corporation that reportedly mishandled worker treatment out of greed.

There are other important matters that Subnautica directly or indirectly touches on, and one relevant to Judeo-Christianity is what Ryley might eat throughout his time on 4546B.  Perhaps it is due to the graphical presentation on the Switch platform, but some of the creatures that can be cooked by the Fabricator do not appear to have both fins and scales and thus seem non-kosher, and the scan information for one of them says it is a reptile, a category of animals morally unsuitable for consumption according to Leviticus 11 and Deuteronomy 14.  Of course, if there was one situation where it would be less evil or morally fine to eat unclean animals, it would be in a context of genuine survival or extreme danger to one's wellbeing.  At least the PDA voice says that the blood is drained from the corpses by the machine along with other fluids during the preparation, as eating blood is even more explicitly condemned as a universal sin (Genesis 9:4, Ezekiel 33:25).  But would general humanity care about such things in this fictional setting even if they are true?  Probably not, as a PDA file indicates that the future society the protagonist is far removed from typically regards the subject of religion, and likey by extension all philosophical issues other than whatever the likes of Alterra leadership treats as true, through the inherently erroneous framework of extreme emotionalistic pluralism.

Conclusion

Subnautica is an incredible indie title that seamlessly blends exploration, crafting, survival, and horror.  What starts with the minimally urgent process of combing through a mostly safe, shallow area (accordingly called the Safe Shallows) gives way to navigation through extraterrestrial buildings deep under the surface, with an assortment of enormous predators encountered along the way.  Few games offer both such relaxing and such tense experiences, and with absolutely no tonal imbalance.  Other than things like the glitches and somewhat subpar graphics, there really is nothing inadequate about the game.  The quality of the gameplay, environments, and plot threads that eventually come to light is so immense and unrelenting that Subnautica is literally one of the greatest video games of the past 20 years and beyond.

Marketing To Only One Gender

An ad presenting, for instance, a shooter video game franchise as if only men would enjoy it, beyond promoting logical falsities, absolutely sows the seeds that could significantly hinder that game's sales.  By treating gender as something relevant to purchasing or enjoying a given video game, the opposite gender is at least subtly but actively discouraged from exploring the product.  This obviously diminishes the scope of the revenue and thus profits that could be gained.

Yes, there are products or services that by nature would only be relevant to one gender or the other.  Men have no physiological use for menstruation pads, and women have no need for male pattern baldness treatments.  There are products that simply are not relevant to the anatomy and physiology of specifically men or specifically women.  The vast majority of products and services, though, from footballs and violent video games to bags and pedicures, have absolutely nothing to do with gender, though people enslaved to fallacies might assume otherwise due to cultural stereotypes.

Does any of this stop ads in my country from sometimes treating gender stereotypes as if they are true?  No, but diversity in mainstream marketing has relatively blossomed: it is increasingly common as a whole to see certain entire categories of products, like video game consoles or makeup, no longer advertised as if only men or only women would ever have a personal interest in them.  As for the corporate leaders of companies that explicitly stereotype people in marketing, including but not limited to on the basis of gender, perhaps they think it would be financially risky to deviate from company tradition or the expectation of their consumer base.  Done correctly, it would not have to be anywhere near disastrous (though logical facts and morality are more important than profitability anyway).

However, some marketing is either meant to perpetuate belief in stereotypes for the sake of monetary gain or even to express sincere belief in them—while also generating an income from people who likely also believe or tolerate the stereotypes.  Of course, profits from a given example of market segmentation would not mean the underlying ideas behind why the markets were segmented are philosophically correct.  But market segmentation in such a situation certainly prevents a given product or service from generating as much revenue as it truly could garner.  Aside from all of the logically necessary truths as to why promoting or relying on stereotypes in marketing is erroneous, it simply can be terrible for business!

The same things are true of marketing to a particular race or age group: if the product isn't by logical necessity related to the color of someone's skin (such as lighter or darker-toned makeup) or age (such as clothing in an adult size), it has nothing to do with these qualities of the consumer.  And as with gender, encouraging the idiocy of racial or ageist stereotypes or merely trying to make money by appealing to them ultimately limits the revenue scope of an item or a service.  Yes, the worse aspect of this is, of course, endorsing or profiting off of untruths.  At the same time, it is also very unpragmatic as far as expanding to more markets and maximizing profits is concerned.

The Real Cosmic Horror Of Revival

The climax of Stephen King's novel Revival emphasizes how eternal life is absolutely not something pleasant or liberating on its own.  While some people might stupidly wish for any kind of afterlife over the cessation of conscious existence, this story exemplifies why mere eternal life after bodily death is not necessarily the escape from woes that it could be: the narrator sees a landscape marked by decaying structures, bathed in colors that seem "alive" (echoing Lovecraft's Color Out of Space), where ant-like creatures serve the supernatural "Old Ones" above them—Lovecraftian-style eldritch beings, the most powerful of which seems to be Mother—by tormenting humans.  The "ant-things" attack or herd people to an unknown but terrible fate in the brief glimpse of the protagonist, and Mother insists that there is only eternal torture and servitude for the human dead here.  Old and young are seen, from babies to the elderly.  The protagonist assumes that everyone comes here after death, no matter their worldview or deeds.  He is wrong about this to at least some extent, as I will get again clarify below.

The Null is still an excellent example of an afterlife that illustrates the potential of cosmic horror, horror that is rooted in something demonstrable or hypothetical (which has to be logically possible at a minimum, as the Null indeed is) about the heart of reality.  Though Revival also alludes to or is explicitly inspired by Arthur Machen's The Great God Pan and Mary Shelly's Frankenstein, it is Lovecraft's literature that homages are most thoroughly made to.  Stephen King, referencing H.P. Lovecraft by name in the narrative itself and quoting his famous words "With strange aeons even death may die" in a context far more dreadful than anything Lovecraft actually wrote [1], had the novel build up to a conclusion that has driven many readers to fear the very idea of dying, lest something remotely like this await them.  One can easily find online articles or comments expressing this.  However, some people say the ending was too bizarre to impact them as intended or that the ant imagery struck them as more comedic or disappointing.

No, the real cosmic horror of Revival is not giant ants—the beings described are not ants, but ant-like, to be more specific—which the seemingly minority detractors of the book's ending might focus on as if these creatures alone are supposed to ground the horror.  It is that there is/could be an afterlife of unrelenting suffering, one for all people, that does not even have the sheer facade of moralistic "justice" adherents to eternal torture in hell ascribe to it.  Not only is eternal torture logically incapable of being just because it inherently punishes people more than their finite sins could ever merit, but it is also not at all what the Bible teaches [2].  Even in the short descriptions in the novel, it is clear that more than just ant-esque beings are seen.  Extraordinarily malicious yet powerful consciousnesses have the ability to make us suffer there, without death, light, or rest according to Mother, and they bring this about simply, it would seem, because they can.  The ant-things are in turn themselves enslaved by Mother and the other Lovecraftian entities that observe from behind the "paper sky", the physical universe containing Earth being like an illusion that the fundamental realm of the universe hides behind (real, but not as foundational or significant as the Null).  Although he is absolutely wrong in light of other Stephen King stories in his connected literary world [3] and would still be in error for assuming anything to begin with, the protagonist of Revival does assume that every person who dies goes to the Null forever.

Again, it is not ants that are the focal point of the cosmic horror.  Rather, the heart of the Null's terror is that of eternal torture, that of having no control over what afterlife you receive no matter what you believe and do, and that of there being a universalist, non-theological hell; that is, the idea that everyone is destined to suffer after death.  Of relevance is that there cannot not be an uncaused cause, or a deity, as long as anything contingent exists at all [4], and Stephen King's multiverse has one by the name of Gan.  However, Gan is doing nothing to stop any of this, unless the Null is a total illusion orchestrated by Mother rather than a real afterlife, albeit of a much more limited scope than Jamie fallaciously assumes.  Nothing about God's necessary existence in light of contingent things, which does not require that the Biblical Yahweh in particular exists, means God has a moral nature or that he presides over any afterlife that might exist instead of something like Mother.  The relationship of the Null to Gan is a very weighty one, though, since Gan appears to be more benevolent than entirely apathetic towards its creation.

In a way, it only adds to the cosmic horror of all these things that the aging protagonist is left wondering if the vision of the Null he has seen is a hallucination of some kind, if Mother has lied to him.  Definitely no rationalist as far as his worldview goes, he does not actively doubt in the final pages that Mother is real, only if she tried to deceive him or not.  The only way to really find out, even if he was a rationalist who makes no assumptions, is for him to wait until death to see if there is an afterlife for him and if it really is the Null.  The inability for a human to reach absolute certainty about anything more than the likes of the Null being logically possible because it does not contradict the necessary truths of logical axioms, as well as what would and would not follow by necessity from the concept, is part of the existential terror of Revival.  However, in the very last words of the book, after hearing what seems to be Mother's voice calling for him to come to her and live forever, the protagonist resigns himself to the belief that his death is inevitable at some point, and then he will go to Mother.  Cosmic horror cannot be any greater than the likes of this unless someone existed past-eternally and was already in endless suffering, and only the degree of the agony could vary at that point.

[1].  https://thechristianrationalist.blogspot.com/2023/10/beyond-lovecrafts-horror.html

[2].  Though I have written about this extensively, see posts like this:

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

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

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

All The Poor

The Bible's consistent high regard for the poor as people, as expressed in verses like Leviticus 19:15 and Proverbs 14:31, is rooted in the idea that all men and women bear the divine image, whatever their socioeconomic class (Genesis 1:27, 5:1-2).  Wealth and scarcity is not what dictates human value or rights, and Yahweh's Torah laws repeatedly condemn showing classist favoritism to anyone in either direction (Exodus 23:3, 6, Leviticus 19:15) and demand practices that would prevent permanent debt poverty in a region (as in Deuteronomy 15:3).  There is nuance in this, as the Bible does acknowledge the possibility that people can be poor out of genuine stupidity and laziness rather than because of circumstances utterly beyond their control.  This is the only manner in which someone would inevitably stay poor if living in a society where all Biblical poverty commands are upheld.  Speaking of such fools, the book of Proverbs says the following:

Proverbs 6:9-11—"How long will you lie there, you sluggard?  When will you get up from your sleep?  A little sleep, a little slumber, a little folding of the hands to rest—and poverty will come on you like a thief and scarcity like an armed man."

In these verses, Proverbs warns strongly against descending into poverty due to simple unwillingness to work.  Note that the Sabbath prescription alone contradicts the idea that the Bible is teaching any sort of relentless productivity (Deuteronomy 5:12-15, for instance).  Of course, there are other possible reasons why someone might fall into poverty.  A person could be born without their consent into an impoverished family without any means of doing more than surviving or could be ruthlessly exploited by employers, who hoard more of the wealth generated by labor than would rightfully be theirs so that their workers are not compensated enough to save their way out of destitution.  It does not logically follow from working hard that one will see financial flourishing.  In one sense, however, it makes no difference why someone is poor.  There are moral rights of the poor that the same Bible which contains Proverbs 6:9-11 inflexibly teaches beyond the more general human rights like that of not being murdered (Exodus 20:13).  Here are some examples:

Exodus 23:6—"'Do not deny justice to your poor people in their lawsuits.'"

Leviticus 19:9-10—"'"When you reap the harvest of your land, do not reap to the very edges of your field or gather the gleanings of your harvest.  Do not go over your vineyard a second time or pick up the grapes that have fallen.  Leave them for the poor and the foreigner.  I am the Lord your God."'"

All the poor and not strictly those born into poverty or without the opportunities to escape it should be treated in these ways.  Crucially, not all of these rights have to do with not being discriminated against on the basis of class in a legal setting--whether or not someone is poor exclusively due to their own stupidity and laziness.  Having access to life-sustaining resources like food is a Biblical human right, like it or not, even if that food comes from someone else's fields as clearly permitted—and morally required of agricultural landowners—in Leviticus 19:9-10, as well as in Leviticus 23:22 and Deuteronomy 23:24-25 (see also the adjacent passage of Deuteronomy 24:19-22).  However, no one would be able to escape poverty as opposed to starvation simply by relying on this mandatory form of generosity, as to do this apart from immense luck, he or she would indeed have to work.  Some people might nevertheless refuse.

As asinine as it is, there is nothing impossible about someone perpetuating their own poverty out of sheer stupidity and laziness.  In my country, in spite of extreme workplace exploitation in the form of low compensation, there are many who ensure their own financial hardship on top of this by recklessly spending money they do not have on non-essentials or by refusing to save money for the sake of retirement or unexpected emergencies when they have the chance.  They might even regard careful management of personal finances as an oppressive intrusion into a fulfilling life!  

This is the kind of person Proverbs refers to.  Neither laziness nor misfortune nor economic oppression is the sole possible way for someone to become or remain poor; any of these or a combination of them could be the reason.  Of these factors, though, laziness alone is the fault of the individual.  You cannot will away societal obstacles to obtaining wealth legitimately, and no one can be at fault for their own mistreatment as an employee that holds them back.  Sheer inactivity cannot be anyone's fault but that of the lazy individual although it can cost them dearly, in sharp contrast.

At the same time, not even the truly lazy among the poor deserve to be entirely ignored on Judeo-Christianity.  Perhaps one does not need to lend to them as freely as to others (Deuteronomy 15:7-11), but such lending is not the only anti-poverty measure prescribed in the Bible.  To bar the poor access to the edges of your field during the harvest in an agricultural community or prevent people from eating from your standing grain or orchards, given that they do not take more than they can eat at that time (Deuteronomy 23:24-25) is sin no matter the reason why a given person is poor.  All the poor have a right to such things—and the scope of Deuteronomy 23:24-25 is not even limited to the poor!

The Illogical Reason To Embrace Logic

There is such a thing as an illogical reason to believe in or hold to logic.  When non-rationalists believe anything, they can only assume: knowledge is impossible without absolute certainty, and one cannot have absolute certainty without intentionally, rightly grasping the foundation of truth and knowledge, which is logical axioms such as the necessity of truth.  This axiom can only be true because if nothing is true, then this is itself true—but logical axioms are not merely true of other things because they are true in themselves.  If nothing logically follows from anything, then it follows logically from the nature of reality that logic is false; things do still follow or not follow logically, and independent of any other examples, this is intrinsically, absolutely true.

And, for instance, if contradictions are possible, then would necessarily be true that what is sometimes called the logical law of non-contradiction is false, or else contradictions would be impossible.  This means that even if the latter is false, it still is true that conflicting concepts cannot be true simultaneously, logically requiring that contradictions are impossible either way.  No matter what, independent of other examples of particular issues, non-contradiction is true because the alternative would nonetheless entail that this logical law, which contradicts it, is false.  In turn, since all logical axioms cannot be false, any concept that contradicts them must be false.  

Believing any concept without logical proof, solely found in the self-evidence of these axioms or in what necessarily follows from something in light of axioms.  Even if someone does not directly think about or realize these strictly logical facts that are true because they cannot possibly be false, they are still relying on them and other logical truths (either by assuming or by metaphysically depending on them) about things like mind and belief, such as that belief does not require that the thing believed is true, or that one cannot believe or think at all without already existing as a conscious being.  While not an axiom in the same purely logical sense, it is also self-evident and logically true that one cannot deny or ignore the existence of one's own mind without existing as a mind to have such asinine thoughts.

This too is a logical truth, albeit not about pure logic.  Because logic is inherently true, it is unavoidable.  Not even the most passive, philosophically negligent person can go a single moment without metaphysically or epistemologically relying on logic.  Only the logical possibility of their own existence makes it possible for them to exist, because their being does not contradict logical axioms.  It is just that anything they believe, even if they believe something true and demonstrable for what is in isolation a correct necessary truth, is only assumed since they do not know logical axioms.  At best they attach their belief to some form of subjective, arbitrary persuasion divorced from recognition of transcendent logical facts.

Logic is not a mental process; though grasped by the mind, it is not a construct or perception or some kind of illusion.  Reasoning is a mental process that can be done in alignment with objective logical truths or in deviation from them (irrational reasoning).  Many people reason on the basis of appeals to intuition or authority figures, not intrinsically necessary truths, making anything they believe invalid even if the conclusion itself is demonstrably true or at least logically possible.  Reasoning can be done illogically, but logic itself simply is true, unaffected by belief or a person's reason for believing any part of their worldview.  Non-rationalists might like to selectively pay lip service to logic to feel validated in their fallacies or look "intelligent" before others, but at most, they are still enslaved to assumptions.  How many of them have even thought of these truths about axioms enough to actively misunderstand or reject them?  Few, if any!

It is possible to have a correct belief for utterly illogical reasons.  The supreme example of this is believing in a truth about pure reason itself like logical axioms on the basis of something like emotional comfort or personal approval, since logic cannot be false without still being true and hence is epistemologically self-evident without reducing down to anything else and also the supreme metaphysical part of reality, the only self-necessary reality at that.  To assume that logic is true or in any way believe this for an incorrect reason, for any reason other than its own inherent truth, is irrational.  Assumptions do not become valid to any extent because the thing assumed is true or even if the thing assumed is inherently true.

Jonah And Sheol

The pathetic translation style of the King James Bible calls Sheol/Hades/the grave, Tartarus, and Gehenna hell, which can contribute to some confusion about what exactly Sheol is despite other passages being clear.  In the belly of the fish, Jonah prays to God, and God does hear and deliver him.  Jonah says that he called out to God from within Sheol prior to this (2:2).  The fish itself was rescue from what could otherwise have been death in the storm while he was still on the boat with pagans in the first chapter.  The prophet says he was in Sheol in a verse that has been misunderstood by some, like author of 23 Minutes in Hell Bill Wiese in that very book, to mean that Jonah, if he did not literally die and see hell, encountered a vision of a realm of agony and saw its torments and alleged bars within.  The end of the chapter also has Jonah say he was delivered from the pit (2:6), a phrase often used in other places alongside the mention of Sheol.

Like in Isaiah 38:18 and Psalm 30:3 and 88:3-4, Jonah 2 is using "the pit" as a figurative or even literal reference to the physical holding place of a corpse [1].  Even if Jonah had died and received resurrection from God in the fish, the Bible is very direct in saying what Sheol is.  No one who goes there, righteous or wicked (Job 3:11-19), experiences suffering or bliss.  The collective human dead are unable to perceive even the self-evident logical axioms and the direct contents of their own mind (Ecclesiastes 9:5) and sleep (Daniel 12:2, see also the aforementioned Job passage) without perception or activity of any kind, physical or mental/spiritual (Ecclesiastes 9:10).  All of this is very different than what is commonly equated with Christian doctrine by the likes of Bill Wiese.  This is not even everything they get wrong.

This sleep only ends at their resurrection where the body is restored and their spirit is awakened again (Job 14:10-17, 1 Thessalonians 4:13-18, Revelation 20:11-15).  The righteous or repentant rise to eternal life free of pain and the impact of sin and the wicked or unrepentant rise to condemnation and eventually destruction, or true eternal death: the permanent nonexistence of the soul (Ezekiel 18:4, Matthew 10:28, 2 Peter 2:6, Isaiah 66:22-24).  Not everyone is given immortality, but only the righteous (Romans 2:7, John 3:16, Romans 6:23), and only God is immortal on his own (1 Timothy 6:15-16).  For everyone in the meantime, there is unperceiving, dreamless sleep before resurrection to face either an everlasting life of reward or a likely very painful death in hell.

The dead cannot praise God because they cannot think in order to do so (Psalm 6:5, 88:10-12, Isaiah 38:18-19).  Since Jonah says he called out to God from within Sheol, and other verses state that Sheol is not a realm from which a person can think, remember, pray, or experience anything whatsoever, he only came close to death.  Again, had he died, the Bible clarifies that he would not have gone to any immediate afterlife.  Sheep and humans alike go to Sheol (Psalm 49:14).  It is not a hellacious or heavenly afterlife people reside in before Gehenna and New Jerusalem.  It is the grave for the body and unconsciousness for the mind.  Moreover, tormenting people for longer periods of time before the final judgment based on when they lived and died (some would suffer far longer than others) would be unjust anyway.

Jonah did not go to an afterlife while in the stomach of the great fish, and certainly not to hell or a hell-like place.  Bill Wiese is a fool for either mistaking his hallucination which does not align with the real Biblical doctrine of the afterlife for an experience with the Biblical hell or for contriving the story completely for the sake of money or notoriety.  Anyone else who reads Jonah 2 and makes assumptions about Sheol or hell (which are not the same things), especially ones that so obviously contradict other parts of the Bible, is likewise a fool.  The chapter teaches that Jonah was near death but was delivered only to soon spurn the mercy of God, which he himself was a recipient of, when it was shown to Nineveh.  Little to nothing about Sheol is clarified in this passage alone and what is taught in other places is not what many have likely heard.

[1].  https://thechristianrationalist.blogspot.com/2025/10/the-pit.html

Proverbs 6 On Stirring Up Conflict

The New Testament is not exactly subtle about encouraging or prescribing peace (Matthew 5:8, James 3:17-18), depending on the verse.  Paul even lists peace among the fruits of the Spirit in Galatians 5:22 as an evidence that someone is not living for sin—though there are still logically and Biblically erroneous ways to regard or pursue peace, like doing so for the sake of emotionalism or tolerance of evil.  Yet, one broadly accepted idea is that the Old Testament promotes a form of arrogant or harmful disunity, while the New Testament "overrides" or "corrects" this.  This is not so.  The New Testament does declare that discord and dissensions can be signs that someone is wicked and devoted to their own selfish disregard for God and morality (Galatians 5:19-21).  So does the Old Testament.

There are not only six or seven things that are evil and hence detestable, but Proverbs 6 includes a person who stirs up conflict as one of the things God hates.  The sinner and the sin alike are despised.

Proverbs 6:16-19—"There are six things the Lord hates, seven that are detestable to him: haughty eyes, a lying tongue, hands that shed innocent blood, a heart that devises wicked schemes, feet that are quick to rush into evil, a false witness who pours out lies and a person who stirs up conflict in the community."

Stirring up genuinely needless, unwarranted strife is irrational and morally analogous to but not as evil as killing someone without justification.  Yes, there are many justifications provided in the Torah for putting someone to death due to what certain sins objectively deserve, though there are still many ways to kill someone illicitly and thus be guilty of murder.  Gratuitously aggressive conversations or attitudes obviously would not be as wicked as something like murder, but conflict-stirring behaviors and killing both should be limited to particular circumstances, and even then, there are ways to err even when basic strife or killing are required or acceptable.  According to Proverbs 6, God hates not just unecessary interpersonal strife, but also those who unrepentantly promote it.

The New Testament does not introduce anything new or amend the particulars of the Bible's moral philosophy when it does speak of pursuing peace as an obligatory thing.  No, actions that establish or could facilitate peace between personal enemies or opposing nations are overtly mentioned among the universal requirements of morality in the Law (Exodus 23:4-5, Deuteronomy 20:10).  But according to the Old Testament there are of course times where seeking peace is neither mandatory nor permissible.  And the New Testament absolutely does not say anything contradictory about the matter.

You do not have to pursue peace inflexibly or relentlessly to be righteous.  Ecclesiastes 3 says there is a time for war and a time for peace.  The general populations of the Promised Land deserved merciless slaughter because of their egregious sins (Deuteronomy 9:4-6), some of which are detailed in places like Leviticus 20:1-23 and Deuteronomy 18:9-13.  To make peace with them would in fact have been the immoral course of action (Exodus 34:12-16, Deuteronomy 7:1-5, 20:16-18), though the Torah prescribes peacable actions in other contexts as clarified above.  As for the New Testament, Jesus himself claims that he did not come to bring peace to those who oppose the truth (Matthew 10:34-36, Luke 12:49-53) even as he calls peacemakers blessed (Matthew 5:8).  Discord due to one party holding to truth (such as, on Christianity, the truth of the gospel) is only wrong for the other party.

There are simply ways in which seeking or avoiding peace can be evil.  Someone bent on producing conflict not for the sake of honoring the truth, hating falsity, or opposing irrational people, but for personal satisfaction or to manipulate a situation to carry out some other sin, is vile.  A traitor to both reason and morality, this person is an abomination because their intentions and actions are abominable, detestable as Proverbs 6 puts it in the NIV.  The words of Jesus, Paul, and James in New Testament writings do not suddenly depart from the Old Testament to condemn aversion to peace.  Yahweh always hated baseless or egoistic conflict.

"We're Like Family"

One might hear the words as a representative for a company tries to make their business seem like an appealing place to work—"We're like family."  There might be positive intentions behind this, even if the idea does not match the real nature of a specific organization, but there are also sinister reasons a company might be accurately or falsely presented as a "family" of sorts.  Biological family bonds are not even in themselves anything to defend or crave or regard highly at all, for family relationships, other than those created by consensual marriage or procreation, are utterly involuntary.  Short of literal forced labor, one has a degree of freedom to enter or refrain from entering a workplace, making this somewhat different from true family already.

It is also that family does not deserve loyalty or praise simply by virtue of being family; they have to be rational and righteous to deserve anything more than the bare minimum required to honor their human rights.  Now, a corporate employee using the words "We're like family" had the chance to realize that family is not by necessity a positive thing and has perhaps considered this possibility, albeit probably not as a rationalist and thus only in the grip of assumptions rather than true knowledge.  Perhaps they did not.  Either way, as I like to point out, family of an immediate or extended kind can be one of the greatest sources of misery in this life.  It is possible for biological family to be positive, negative, or neutral, but in a world filled with mostly non-rationalists, it is always more likely that it will be negative.

The same is true of coworkers, managers, and employers for the same reason: it is always more probable that a given person will be irrational than not, perhaps expressing their stupidity in egoism, hypocrisy, and so on, because it takes initial effort to go from making assumptions to aligning with reason.  As long as rationalists are a minority, it will not be commonplace for biological family, which cannot be chosen outside of marriage or procreation, or coworkers, who can somewhat be "chosen" in the sense that a prospective employer can be rejected, to be worthy of deep personal respect or friendship.

A given company might still have workers and/or leadership that truly do foster relaxed, close, or otherwise positive relationships between the organization's members, not that being rational is the same as being genuinely friendly or inviting.  This might be what is meant if the phrase "We're a family" comes up in a job advertisement or interview.  There is nothing impossible about this being true since it is consistent with logical axioms.  However, these words can also be intentionally or otherwise (by idiots who believe it when it is false) used to make a company appear far more incredible than it really is or manipulate people into putting in more effort than their jobs require or deserve.

Perhaps financial desperation or personal willingness to tolerate bullshit long enough to get through a shift will bring someone who sees right through many uses of this phrase to accept a job offer anyway.  There is not anything inherently irrational about this.  It does not change that many businesses using this phrase likely have not at all thought rationalistically about the nature of family or are only trying to present an exaggerated or outright maliciously deceptive image to interviewees or new hires.  Family can be refreshing or family can be oppressive; a workplace can be pleasant without being explicitly like family and can be like family in all the worst kinds of ways, neither of which is likely what it is hoped that interviewees will focus on when the words "We're like family" are used in this context.