The Biblical Rejection Of Looking To Moral Intuition

Morality cannot be demonstrated to exist or not exist [1], and certainly not by personal feelings or appeals to human governments or norms, but a person can, without they themself or their audience making assumptions, realize and share accurately what Mosaic Law is, what the logical prerequisites or ramifications to its various laws would be, and what evidence there is for Christianity, and thus for Biblical ethics being true.  The existence of morality itself is entirely speculative either way, but at least Christian ethics is logically possible (it does not contradict logical axioms or other necessary truths) and has actual evidence in its favor; all other moral systems have none at all or contradict themselves or something else about reality that is true by logical necessity (for example, see just one of my many refutations of Islam here [2]).  See these excerpts from Deuteronomy and Isaiah specifying that children do not know morality and have to in some way learn it (again, no person can actually know the existence or particulars of moral obligation, if it does exist, but one can teach to them the tenets of Judeo-Christianity and the evidences for them, and so on, or they can recognize them without social prompting):

Deuteronomy 1:39—"'And the little ones that you said would be taken captive, your children who do not yet know good from bad—they will enter the land.  I will give it to them and they will take possession of it.'"

Isaiah 7:14-16—"'Therefore the Lord himself will give you a sign: The virgin will conceive and give birth to a son, and will call him Immanuel.  He will be eating curds and honey when he knows enough to reject the wrong and choose the right, for before the boy knows enough to reject the wrong and choose the right, the land of the two kings you dread will be laid waste.'"

I used the New International Version above, which still conveys that in both cases, children do not know moral right and wrong left to themselves, though this is even more explicit in translations like the King James Version and the English Standard Version.  According to very direct Biblical statements, no one knows morality by default.  No one would have to learn or teach God's revealed laws from or to other people (Deuteronomy 6:6-7) if everyone just "knows" from subjective feelings what is right or wrong, which is already a logically impossible thing.  God would have never had a reason to reveal any commands at all if this was the case.  Emotions only require and prove that one's own emotions presently exist.  Feelings have nothing to do either metaphysically or epistemologically with whether morality exists or what obligations there are.  Since reason is inherently true, and thus the Bible would have to be consistent with logical necessities in order for its philosophy to even possibly be true, it is no small thing that the Bible does plainly deny innate moral knowledge.  In fact, many people who claim to be Christians and profess moral knowledge through conscience would actively disregard or oppose Biblical commands while thinking that unrelated or innocent things are moral evils.  

Conscience would not be any less subjective even if everyone's was the same, but would your conscience suggest that you always pay your laborers (employees or hired workers) before the next sunset (Leviticus 19:13, Deuteronomy 24:14-15)?  Have you, if you have a conscience, ever been stricken left totally to yourself because you ate pork (Leviticus 11:1-3, 7-8, Deuteronomy 14:8) or thoughtlessly vowed to do even something good (Leviticus 5:4-5), not that you can know what is good beyond what is good if a given worldview is true?  Such a feeling would still only require that you are experiencing guilt or moral concern, not that the thing itself is immoral, and you could never know objective morality from subjective conscience anyway.  What about your feelings about the mandatory stoning of a family member to death for enticing you to worship anything besides Yahweh (Deuteronomy 13:6-10) or about the release of male and female slaves, which are Biblically permitted but so very different from the slaves of many other times and places, every seventh year and their furnishing with resources upon the end of their service (Deuteronomy 15:12-14)?

I doubt that anyone I have known would have ever had their conscience make it seem as if these and other such exact things are respectively obligatory, permissible, or evil.  Even if someone's conscience did make them feel like these are the moral obligations that exist, the Bible concurs with what is logically true either way: no one "just knows" morality from conscience, which is purely subjective, not that everyone has a conscience to begin with, and not that everyone who has a conscience will not lose it or see it change.  You cannot be taught by God or fellow humans what you already know, just as you cannot be given eternal life if you already have it and thus the unrighteous will not live, and hence cannot be tortured, forever (John 3:16, Romans 2:7-8, and so on).  Perhaps a misinterpretation of Paul's writings in Romans 1-2 is what many Christians I have encountered base their philosophical notion to the contrary on, at least as far as what they think the Bible teaches on the subject of moral epistemology.  Was this actually what Paul means, then his writings would contradict both the inherent truths of reason and the Old Testament doctrines he supposedly champions.  The New Testament or certain parts of it can be false if the Old Testament is true, but not the other way around.

It is not as if the belief that conscience is an genuine confirmation of objective morality is limited to only evangelical Christians, however; it is quite a popular belief, or at least many talk and act as if they believe it, whatever the rest of their worldview is like, though this idea and all that it entails could by logical necessity only be false.  People who have literally never paused to even examine the mountain of sheer assumptions on which their passively constructed worldview stands might have a thriving yet intrinsically arbitrary, irrelevant, and meaningless conscience; atheists, Muslims, and any other category of philosophical adherent could have a passionate conscience.  Not even believing in moral nihilism, which cannot be proven or as much as evidentially supported even if it is true, necessitates that someone is without a conscience, and neither does lacking a conscience mean someone is not a fierce moralist of one kind or another.  Not once does the Bible, its moral doctrines most precisely and almost exclusively introduced in the Torah's Law of Moses, say anything that denies any of this.

[1].  See here for a handful of my posts on this matter:

A.  https://thechristianrationalist.blogspot.com/2018/12/denial-of-conscience.html

B.  https://thechristianrationalist.blogspot.com/2017/11/the-myths-about-moral-agreement.html

[2].  For instance, see here:

A.  https://thechristianrationalist.blogspot.com/2018/03/quranic-punishment-surah-538.html

B.  https://thechristianrationalist.blogspot.com/2025/05/the-food-laws-of-quran.html

C.  https://thechristianrationalist.blogspot.com/2025/09/the-quran-on-corporal-punishment.html

The Multiple Affirmations Of Annihilationism In 2 Peter 2

2 Peter 2:6 says that the wicked will be literally burned to ashes like the people of Sodom and Gomorrah—at least in something like the New International Version.  In the King James Version, or in certain other translations, the wording is as if the cities being burned to ashes is a general warning to God's enemies, not a prediction about an eschatological judgment.  However, if this verse conveyed something different in the original language, or if a translation like the King James Version is used, which describes what happened to Sodom and Gomorrah (being burned to ashes) as an example to wicked people who live later in history instead of an example of what will happen to the wicked, it is not so that the rest of the chapter says nothing that still affirms the eventual annihilation of the wicked.

Peter says, first, that destruction awaits false teachers in the opening three verses of the chapter.  Destruction by God in hell is what Matthew 10:28 contrasts with the mere killing of the body but not the soul by humans; obviously, this verse means that the wicked will die in hell unless it is using language in incredibly misleading ways.  Other parts of the Bible say the wicked will ultimately be destroyed so that they are no longer alive (see also passages like Philippians 3:18-19), but nothing in 2 Peter 2:1-3 requires that this destruction of false teachers is only their natural biological deaths or a premature death from God in this life.

What Peter says about the fate of false teachers, whom he describes as having, for one thing, lives based around greed, is that they are like animals that will perish (2 Peter 2:12).  The word perish alone already references actual annihilation, certainly not endless torture, and John 3:16 contrasts perishing with having eternal life—as if stating that eternal life is only possessed by the righteous or forgiven does not already necessitate that anyone else does not live forever, thus making their eternal torture impossible.  Furthermore, it is the comparison to the fate of irrational, wicked teachers to that of animals that perhaps alludes to a handful of verses from the Old Testament.

Does the Bible say animals will exist in an afterlife forever by default, or be tortured forever more specifically?  No.  Actually, Psalm 49 speaks as if humans and sheep alike go to Sheol, which the Bible very clearly says is where the dead perceive nothing at all because they are totally unconscious (Job 3:11-19 and Ecclesiastes 9:5-10, for instance).  Humans have no advantage over animals in the first death (Ecclesiastes 3:18-21) because both have the same breath of life from God [1], and their dead all go to unconsciousness by means of soul sleep.  However, only humans are said to be eventually resurrected (Daniel 12:2, John 5:21-29, and so on), and the unrepentant wicked will then face a permanent second death, a literal death with no additional resurrection (Revelation 20:11-15).

As 2 Peter 2:6 puts it, at least in the NIV and ESV, being burned to ashes as happened to the residents of Sodom and Gomorrah in Genesis 19 is what will happen to the unrighteous.  This is not the only place where such a thing is directly addressed, as in the case of some other verses I have referenced here, but in this form, 2 Peter 2:6 is a very plain statement of annihilationism.  Regardless, other parts of 2 Peter 2 itself are not only consistent with annihilationism, the idea that the wicked will at some point cease to have conscious life as punishment from God, but they also point to them perishing instead of eternally suffering—something that could not possibly be just, logically or Biblically [2].

[1].  https://thechristianrationalist.blogspot.com/2024/10/the-breath-of-life-in-animals.html

[2].  https://thechristianrationalist.blogspot.com/2024/06/death-is-not-worst-fate-logically-or.html

Alleged Bible Contradictions: Exodus 18:13-26 And Deuteronomy 1:9-18

I would not have even thought about the idea that Exodus 18:13-26 and Deuteronomy 1:9-18 do contradict each other, with both addressing how Moses installed judges to prevent all cases of interpersonal offense from being brought to him, any longer than is necessary to casually but rightly notice the genuine overlap of the two passages (with variations in what is clarified) if it was not for seeing someone claim that they are indeed in contradiction.  Unlike some verses that can absolutely appear to contradict other verses (including 1 Corinthians 7:19 and Genesis 17:9-10/Leviticus 12:3 [1]), there is no apparent discrepancy of the illogical kind between the aforementioned parts of Exodus 18 and Deuteronomy 1, only a difference in the details provided in each account.

Exodus 18:13-26 tells of Jethro, the father-in-law of Moses, advising Moses to not act as the exclusive judge for the large number of people who come to him, because he is only exhausting himself gratuitously.  The proposed solution is having others act as judges as opposed to simply having no one hear the numerous cases that would have been brought to Moses.  In Deuteronomy 1:9-18, Moses retells these events, but leaves out a reference to Jethro and adds his own words to the new judges.

Exodus 18:13-26—"The next day Moses took his seat to serve as judge for the people, and they stood around him from morning till evening.  When his father-in-law saw all that Moses was doing for the people, he said, 'What is this you are doing for the people?  Why do you sit alone as judge, while all these people stand around you from morning till evening?'

Moses answered him, 'Because the people come to me to seek God's will.  Whenever they have a dispute, it is brought to me, and I decide between the parties and inform them of God's decrees and instructions.'

Moses' father-in-law replied, 'What you are doing is not good.  You and these people who come to you will only wear yourselves out.  The work is too heavy for you; you cannot handle it alone.  Listen now to me and I will give you some advice, and may God be with you.  You must be the people's representative before God and bring their disputes to him.  Teach them his decrees and instructions, and show them the way they are to live and how they are to behave.  But select capable men from all the people—men who fear God, trustworthy men who hate dishonest gain—and appoint them as officials over thousands, hundreds, fifties and tens.  Have them serve as judges for the people at all times, but have them bring every difficult case to you; the simple cases they can decide themselves.  That will make your load lighter, because they will share it with you.  If you do this and God so commands, you will be able to stand the strain, and all these people will go home satisfied.'

Moses listened to his father-in-law and did everything he said.  He chose capable men from all Israel and made them leaders of the people, officials over thousands, hundreds, fifties and tens.  They served as judges for the people at all times.  The difficult cases they brought to Moses, but the simple ones they decided themselves."

Deuteronomy 1:9-18—"At that time I said to you, 'You are too heavy a burden for me to carry alone.  The Lord your God has increased your numbers so that today you are as numerous as the stars in the sky.  May the Lord, the God of your ancestors, increase you a thousand times and bless you as he has promised!  But how can I bear your problems and your burdens and your disputes all by myself?  Choose some wise, understanding and respected men from each of your tribes, and I will set them over you.'

You answered me, 'What you propose to do is good.'

So I took the leading men of your tribes, wise and respected men, and appointed them to have authority over you—as commanders of thousands, of hundreds, of fifties and of tens and as tribal officials.  And I charged your judges at that time, 'Hear the disputes between your people and judge fairly, whether the case is between two Israelites or between an Israelite and a foreigner residing among you.  Do not show partiality in judging; hear both small and great alike.  Do not be afraid of anyone, for judgment belongs to God.  Bring me any case too hard for you, and I will hear it.'  And at that time I told you everything you were to do."

According to Exodus 18, Jethro encourages Moses to dilute his bloated workload by appointing other figures to judge cases themselves.  According to Deuteronomy 1, Moses installed such figures to act as judges, insisting that they (as reason and Yahweh's prescriptions require) harbor no bias towards or against anyone, regardless of his or her ancestry and social or economic standing.  The summary of his own actions Moses provides in the first chapter of Deuteronomy does add points about how he addressed those placed in authority.  But, none of these details contradict the exact particulars of the account in Exodus 18.

The beginning of Deuteronomy summarizes the outcome of the incident described in Exodus 18:13-26.  True, the second book to address the historical appointment of Israelite judges acting on behalf of Moses and ultimately God does not mention Jethro.  Nor does the Exodus narrative bring up the charge of Moses that these judges rightfully refrain from any discrimination against Israelites, foreigners, the rich, and the poor, though it does state that Moses acted in accordance with Jethro's advice and that the judges brought the most challenging cases to Moses, handling the rest on their own.  Nothing about the one book's alleged sequence of events is incompatible with those of the other.

It is important that Moses was actually already receiving divine revelation about morality, including the just penalties for various wrongs, before the Sinai covenant (see also Exodus 16 regarding the Sabbath and Genesis 26:5 regarding Abraham's righteousness), which is yet another reason why the moral revelation codified in Mosaic Law that begins only two chapters later could not be only for the Israelites—except where its content logically could not apply to a non-Israelite as with Leviticus 21:1-4 and Deuteronomy 25:17-19.  That is why miscellaneous acts condemned in the Law are said therein to be evil for non-Israelites as well, such as in Leviticus 18:5-30 and Deuteronomy 18:9-13; such immoral acts and many others are capable of being performed by people of any nation or lineage.  Morality is morality, applying to all people except where there is some logically necessary exception.  Exodus 18 has relevance to such vital facts.

Moreover, the chapter touches on the legitimacy of not burdening oneself needlessly to the point of damaging one's mental health even for the sake of God, something lurking more in the background of Deuteronomy 1:9-18 but still touched on in verse 12.  No one needs to go above and beyond for either God or other people.  While Exodus emphasizes this far more than Deuteronomy's looser overview of the need for judges besides Moses as well as his words to those appointed, the details of the events as described in both Exodus 18 and Deuteronomy 1 are wholly consistent with each other.  Numerous times, Deuteronomy restates or adds information about earlier events or moral laws affirmed throughout Exodus and Leviticus, which does not require that there is a contradiction.

[1].  https://thechristianrationalist.blogspot.com/2025/04/paul-on-circumcision-in-1-corinthians.html

An Overview Of Light: Quanta And The Macroscopic

Other than traveling at the speed of light or some even faster hypothetical speed, there is still a faster way to travel that is logically possible, although it could only be attained through supernatural or extraordinarily advanced technological/natural means: immediate teleportation.  But as far as reported empirical investigation yields, little [1] to nothing observed within the universe moves faster than light itself, naturally or artificially.  Even if it did, it would be traveling faster than our composite neurological-phenomenological ability to see it.  If our conscious sense of sight is integrated with physical eyes that cannot receive photons faster than light travels, anything faster would be imperceivable to us.

Now, photons, the quanta (the ostensibly smallest quantum units) of light, are supposed to be energy without mass: in other words, they are claimed by some to not be made of matter although they have a direct relationship with the material world.  Like the empty space between atoms [2] (and empty space, like logically necessary truths and the uncaused cause, by necessity exists prior to and independent of the physical cosmos, whatever scientists or theologians might pretend [3]), photons are among the sometimes subtly acknowledged immaterial existents proposed by otherwise metaphysically naturalistic scientists.  Though they might be called fundamental particles, they are said to not be miniscule units of matter like electrons or quarks, also deemed fundamental particles, but are instead alleged to be matterless altogether.

This would mean, if the hearsay is true, that photons are in a sense not strictly part of the natural world, as they have no physical substance.  Since sensory observation and interaction with the world of matter are still related to light, this remains a scientific issue despite how science is about matter and not about the immaterial side of metaphysics.  Of course, one cannot know if things like immaterial photons or many of the seemingly physical objects around us really exist outside of our conscious perceptions, and we cannot directly perceive quantum energy or particles regardless, but we can see macroscopic light in our everyday lives.  Immaterial as photons and the visible light they generate seem to be, the external world it illuminates would be physical, though experiments could be performed that reveal what seems to be the case about how light interacts with nature.

Galileo's lantern experiment of 1638 is one such example regarding the speed of light in particular, though its extreme rapidity—for it seems to us to appear instantaneously—and the imprecision of then-contemporary timing mechanisms imposed empirical limitations.  Much has been investigated or proposed since then.  Today, in addition to the aforementioned quantum scale of light "particles," the cosmological distances light can travel, related to why we would only be seeing distant galaxies as they were in the past, have received much attention.  The speed of light has been pinpointed as 186,000 miles per second in a vacuum, with slight to significant variations in the perceived speed occuring when light hits certain substances.  The speed of light seemingly slows in a medium like water due to the high refractive index, for instance.  Eventually, the macroscopic luminosity of light can be drowned out altogether, and this would have to be the case for there to be a bathypelagic zone in the ocean (starting at 1,000 meters below the surface).

Otherwise, no layers of the deep sea could ever be fully immersed in darkness, except for that which is dispelled by bioluminescence.  Without a boundary past which light is entirely muted or absorbed, sunlight would reach all the way to the bottom of every trench even if its visibility weakened with depth; light would only be blocked when debris or creatures briefly separate a given spot from its rays.  The bathypelagic, abyssopelagic, and hadopelagic zones are, however, shrouded in darkness.  What light is present, save for some that might penetrate down to around 1,000 meters supposedly under the right circumstances, originates from local sources like the appendage of the female anglerfish.  Observing this still would tell us nothing about the quantum processes that contribute to such a phenomenon, though.  Do photons continue moving at their same speed unhindered and undissipated even if the light loses its macroscopic visibility?

Regardless, it is paradoxical that something ostensibly consisting of nonphysical energy would be impacted in its sensory perceivability by a physical medium such as water, but my immaterial mind still controls behaviors of my body despite having no physical substance.  Pertaining to quantum and macroscopic physics alike without actually being part of the material cosmos according to one paradigm, light is a highly foundational yet nuanced subject of science.  Providing literal illumination of the environments and objects around us, light is vital to basic human activities and is complex in its metaphysical composition.  The nature of photons and general quantum energy is, while secondary to the primary of logic, the uncaused cause, and empty space (as well as one's own consciousness on an epistemological level since it is self-evident along with axioms), of great relevance to the reliance of what is comprised of matter on what is immaterial.

[1].  https://www.popularmechanics.com/science/a70885429/darkness-faster-than-light/

[2].  https://thechristianrationalist.blogspot.com/2021/06/empty-space-within-atoms.html

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

Survival Of The Cooperative

The concept of survival of the fittest is sometimes misunderstood as the idea that a creature must be ruthless, selfish, and willing or eager to trample on other living things in order to be "fit" enough to survive.  Everything from casual conversation to fictional stories might reinforce this erroneous perception, but being fit to survive does not have to inevitably mean that one animal exploits or abandons others according to whatever is in its immediate interests.  At its core, the concept just entails that a being is fit to survive in some given situation, whatever the means of doing so (however logically or morally legitimate they are).  Those criteria that help that creature extend its life can significantly vary.

In one context, a person might be genuinely more prone to survive by expressing boldness or cruelty; in another context, a person might be more prone to survive by acting timid or reserved.  Physical strength, a thriving immune system, rationalistic intelligence, and sheer luck are among the traits or factors that could contribute to someone having a better chance of remaining alive, depending on the scenario.  So, too, would cooperating with others intentionally and wholeheartedly, contrary to a popular notion about the efficiency of the vicious survivalist who will use or brutalize anyone to stay alive.

Two or more people who can look out for each other can increase their prospects of survival immensely.  For instance, a lone person intent on survival out in "the wild" has no one to share pragmatic burdens with.  He or she must endeavor to find a secure place to sleep that does not leave them exposed to the elements or at heightened risk of unwanted attention from other animals, including fellow humans.  There is no one to act as a guard or watcher on their behalf, which at worst leaves them vulnerable in the case of an intruder.  Even a single additional person taking a turn watching while the other sleeps could bestow great advantages to both.

The strength or observational capacity of multiple people can easily surpass that of a person operating in solitude.  And what if sickness or injury befalls the lone survivalist?  They have no one to assist them in even the most basic actions, even actions that improve the likelihood of their recovery to fuller autonomy.  There are many logically possible survival situations and factors not addressed in this post, of course.  But, when directly confronted with scenarios like these, it is not unusual for people to acknowledge the benefits of cooperation with others when it comes to survival and more general ease of life.

The people in these situations who act cooperatively, though this does not make their beliefs or actions logically or morally valid in themselves, are certainly "fit" for survival in a sense.  Survival of the fittest has no singular manifestation.  Indeed, some people are more equipped mentally or physically to navigate a given perilous situation without losing their life.  One of the means of achieving this, especially in some circumstances, is working together with or directly caring for the needs of other people.

What If Someone Finds Annihilation Appealing?

Logically, it is impossible for eternal torture to be justice: endless suffering infinitely outweighs any individual sin and torture would objectively be worse than many sins being punished as it is.  Biblically, like it or not, the fate of the wicked in hell is death and not the supreme injustice of perpetual torture (Matthew 10:28, John 3:16, Romans 6:23, etc.).  The Bible thus agrees with pure logic on this matter.  But what if someone is eager to be annihilated or to face this punishment precisely because there is no eternal pain, despite the resulting state of death lasting forever?  More specifically, what of a person highly attracted to suicide due to the potential for mental oblivion or the person who would gladly, knowingly sin as long as they expected to eventually cease to exist and not face eternal suffering?

A suicidal person might not care if their sin of suicide was to seal their future damnation to soul oblivion—I am not saying that this must be the outcome of committing suicide, as I am focusing on a logical truth about their potential motivation.  Someone who hates the misery of their life so much that they prefer cessation of mental existence to living out the rest of their natural lifespan could find the idea of annihilation after resurrection and cosmic judgment relieving.  Even if they have to suffer a finite amount of time to reach the final state, they would still eventually be purged from existence, unable at that point to even ponder or regret the choice that led them to true and lasting destruction.  This is precisely what they longed for enough to find suicide appealing.

Alternatively, a wicked person bent on pursuing whatever subjectively pleasurable thing calls to them in the moment might be apathetic towards the final destiny of annihilation as long as the pleasure of their preference is accessible now.  To commit suicide is at least in most cases sinful, but a desperately suicidal person craves nonexistence for the sake of relief while the hedonist or malicious person who wants to do as they like wants nonexistence to escape accountability.  If the latter could know in advance with absolute certainty that annihilation awaits them if they do not repent before their soul is killed, as with the sufficiently suicidal person, their personal attitude could be one of relief and contentment.  The irony is that they could experience none of that contentment once death has arrived.  

For someone still living, true death can seem like a greater state by far in itself or by comparison to any other possibility.  That it is Biblically reserved for the unrepentantly wicked would probably not dissuade either kind of person described even if there is evidence that the Bible is true.  Why should they seek eternal life regardless, and why would it be in their best interests?  Now, if something is morally obligatory, by nature it is what you should do even if you despise it.  If something truly is evil, it should not be done.  If morality exists, whether or not in the form it has on Christianity, there is no legitimacy in doing whatever you wish because you will not have to suffer without an end in some sort of afterlife.

It would not matter if someone does not care that they will be annihilated forever if they do not repent of their sins, as they should avoid evil by nature of it being evil and not strictly to avoid punishment.  However, the kind of suicidal person and egoistic sinner described above at least do not consistently care about pure logic and do not care about upholding righteousness more than gratifying their own subjective whims, as different as they might be.  Necessitated by justice is the fact that any punitive suffering is not eternal, and, again, some people might crave the oblivion that follows any torment in the Biblical hell.

Would you personally want to do what you should and shun what should not be done, when logic and morality themselves require that there could not be morally legitimate torture without end as punishment for evil?  Even if someone was irrational enough to care more about their own preferences than what is true and what is morally correct (if there is morality) for their own sake, on the Biblical worldview, there are still pragmatic benefits to seeking eternal life, the gift to the righteous.  Whoever receives eternal life does not merely exist forever unlike the wicked who perish.  Each individual with eternal life is free to do whatever they would like as long as they do not sin—and those boundaries are much less confining than many people inside and outside of the church assume.

Morality should be lived out no matter the consequences or lack of them.  When the enduring consequence is death of the soul, total extinction of consciousness and thus the very capacity for sadness or pain, this might seem trivial to someone intent on living as they please no matter what because they still can do as they wish in the present.  It is absolutely not trivial.  The eternal deprivation of the ability to experience pleasure in all its nonsinful forms—such as savoring logical necessities, engaging in empowering introspection, knowing God, and enjoying deep friendships—would be a terrible thing.  On the level of sheer personal benefit, eternal life free of pain coupled with existential fulfillment and pleasure always outweighs the unconciousness of eternal death.

With all of this in mind, aside from whether Christianity is actually true, would you really want to cease to exist as opposed to enjoying the multitude of good or permissible pleasures without boredom, pain, or an end?  Independent of preference, one should do and intend to do whatever is good because one should do it, but there are incentives according to Biblical philosophy that objectively would be better on a pragmatic and personal level than simply seizing what is comparatively like a few brief moments of pleasure in this life mingled with the opportunity for unwanted pain, and then dying forever.  The process of dying in hell might be very painful although logic and Christian morality require a maximum severity to justice (Deuteronomy 25:1-3, Luke 12:47-48).  This potential for pain is part of the deterrence.  

Nonetheless, the lasting part of the punishment of hell is being eternally denied the capacity for joy and pleasure.  You no longer exist to regret or repent or find any sort of fulfillment and happiness.  Eternal life alone is not a positive thing whatsoever [1]; Biblically, whoever receives eternal life will be the endless subject of a perfect life with all that human perfection really permits and entails, very much unlike what many conceive of living in heaven being like.

[1].  https://thechristianrationalist.blogspot.com/2024/02/to-live-forever.html

Wise (Or Rational) Only In One's Own Eyes

The approval of other people does not make anything true except that they harbor approval.  It could only be stupid, because the concept itself is objectively erroneous, to think that one person or group considering another person to be wise is what means the latter really is such a thing.  The latter individual believing they have this quality is likewise not what makes it so or reveals the truth of the matter to them.  Now, intelligence is not necessarily the same thing as wisdom.  However, the same point would be true either way of rationality (real intelligence) and wisdom, for someone is not lacking in either trait simply by believing or not believing they possess it; they alternatively do not possess it by virtue of others believing or not believing that they do.  It all comes down to whether they truly have the characteristic.  When Proverbs condemns people who are wise in their own eyes, it is in actuality warning against a person having the false belief they are wise, not against anyone ever thinking they are wise.

Proverbs 18:2—"Fools find no pleasure in understanding but delight in airing their own opinions."

Proverbs 26:12—"Do you see a person wise in their own eyes?  There is more hope for a fool than for them."

As with many statements in Proverbs, the claim of 26:12 is extremely hyperbolic.  To be wise only in one's own eyes (according to one's perception/assumptions but not in reality) is to be irrational, and to be irrational is to be a fool, so the person wise in their own eyes, who believes they are what they are not (and thus could only be assuming this), is by nature foolish.  He or she is wise only in their own eyes and not in truth.  Someone who falsely thinks they are wise on the basis of assumptions neglects or denies reason, perhaps rooting their worldview in sheer intentional egoism.  Thinking one is rational or wise is not erroneous if it is true and one is not making assumptions.  These things are true and knowable by logical necessity independent of the Bible and its veracity, of course, but Proverbs 18:2 very plainly contrasts genuine understanding with holding to subjective, preference-based opinions.

There is no way to have anything more than an entirely illusory understanding apart from strict adherence to rationalism, requiring that someone start with recognizing the utter truth and foundationality of logical axioms and make no assumptions.  Anything else is to have a worldview that is unproven or unprovable and that ignores the only things that have to be true in themselves.  Of course a rationalistic person can know that they are rationalistic, and thus intelligent.  Logical truths and introspective states of mind, for the person who is not a slave to assumptions, are absolutely certain because logic cannot be false—if logic was false, it would follow by logical necessity from the nature of reality that it is false, and so it would still have to be true—and one's own mind is directly experienced.  If a person knows reason and knows their own mind, it follows that they can certainly know that they are intelligent, aka rational, aka rationalistic.  This person cannot possibly be rational or wise merely in their own eyes (though wisdom is again not the same as pure rationality, which is pure ideological alignment with necessary truths).

The person who believes in falsities or in assumptions can only be in error, and thus he or she is not intelligent to the extent that they neglect the self-evident (logical axioms and their own conscious existence) or embrace any kind of assumption.  They would be an example of the fool of Proverbs who delights in their own preferences or arbitrary, false, assumed beliefs because they find this appealing, as if reality hinges on subjective whim—not even the whim and power of God can alter what is true by logical necessity.  Someone who believes they are intelligent because they recall philosophically secondary or unimportant information about historical or scientific matters that cannot be logically proven anyway [1] is an example of a person wise or intelligent only in their own eyes.  Though they deny or neglect logical axioms or make a myriad of assumptions, confusing hearsay for proof and history and science for the heart of reality one way or another, they are utterly deluded.

[1].  For instance, see elaboration here:

https://thechristianrationalist.blogspot.com/2023/09/rationalism-is-not-evidentialism.html

The Market Rate

The market rate is not necessarily livable or in any other way rational and just.  Really, it is just the normalized amount employers are personally willing to pay in a given area at a specific time.  Sometimes it is equated with an average of what other employers in a similar business pay, meaning that some of the wages or salaries are even lower than the supposed rate.  Either way, that the "market" pays only a certain amount does not mean that the work does not deserve more simply because it is professional work or because of the nature of that exact role.  This alone is unlikely to deter employers from acting as if whatever minuscule compensation they offer is somehow significantly better than what one would fine somewhere else.  Often, this vague, unspecified amount is just presented on job listings as "competitive."

A wage or salary being better than that of a competitor requires nothing more on its own: it is better, which in this case means larger, than the competitor's wage or salary.  It might be genuinely horrible, which necessitates that the competitor's lesser offering is even worse.  The lower compensation offered by the other company might be so abysmal that almost any amount would be better, so superior pay does not automatically mean excellent or even adequate pay, as some employers might try to mislead applicants into thinking.  Higher standing relative to another similar example is not the same as something being good itself.

The philosophy and actions of one abusive employer—for paying anything less than livable wages is exploitative—are not legitimized by the fact that another employer is more abusive.  Yet the similar range of employers' willingness or unwillingness to pay are somehow considered the proper criteria for whether the compensation is adequate and just.  Hypothetically, all employers in a region could even actively collude to keep compensation low, even if it means giving the outward perception that they cannot afford to pay more when this is far from the case.  Small businesses in particular might be helmed by people who like to complain about how there are not enough resources for raises, or at least not for everyone in the company.  This changes nothing about how anything less than livable compensation is exploitative in itself.

If an employer cannot truly afford to pay workers enough to live, they need/deserve to go out of business or to remain/revert to a sole proprietorship if that is all they can fully fund (which would diminish the scope of the work that can be taken on).  The basic threshold of whatever is livable—not what barely permits literal continuation of survival despite immense financial difficulty and the stress stemming from it—is not some pragmatic or Biblically suggested option that need not be ensured.  On top of the baseline of the bare minimum necessary to survive in a certain place and time without sacrificing stability (this is what the genuine minimum wage would amount to), factors like experience and skill would proportionately increase the fitting compensation.  In my country at this time, even years of experience and immense skill would probably not get the typical worker to the point of being offered enough by their employer to live without sacrificing stability of one kind or another!

The criteria for the market rate, in either case, are not valid.  Someone's willingness to pay a certain amount or their degree of conformity to social norms has nothing to do with whether what they are willing to pay is morally and otherwise legitimate.  Probably, they want fully invested, cheerful workers who go above and beyond when they are not even paid enough to live comfortably, and that is if they have the chance to perform almost any outward activity besides the likes of eating, showering, commuting, and sleeping when they are not professionally working.  The market rate is an arbitrary social construct that some employers use to actively oppress workers while hiding behind the excuse of the arrangement being normal throughout an area.

Eve's Legalism In Eden

The very first seeming legalist presented in the Bible is not a Pharisee.  It is Eve herself.  God tells Adam to not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil (Genesis 2:15-17), and whether Adam told her of this after her own creation or God repeated the command to her, Eve shares this with the scheming serpent in Eden.  However, she tells the serpent that God said not to eat from that tree or touch its fruit, lest she die (Genesis 3:2-3).  Yahweh never said to not touch the fruit, or to never do other things like gaze at it.  Eve wanes here into legalism, the rejection of God's actual commands or the addition of personal preference or slippery slope "precautions" to them.

She appears to have already stooped to irrationality before eating the fruit in question, just not yet specifically the violation of the direct command from God to not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.  God does not say in the text that touching the fruit must not be done, just as he never said later on to not touch a living non-kosher animal in addition to not eating it.  Like the Jews who think that consuming any combination of meat or dairy is what is really being condemned in Exodus 23:19, Eve added to Yahweh's commands out of stupidity and sin.

Again, the Genesis account never says that God instructed Adam and Eve to not touch the fruit at all.  The serpent's denial of God's honesty (Genesis 3:4-5) is often focused on, but Eve has already distorted what God told the first humans at the first opportunity to respond to the serpent's question of "Did God really say . . . ?"  She has already fallen into the irrationality of legalism, of misunderstanding Yahweh's commands and then adding to them (Deuteronomy 4:2, 12:32, Proverbs 30:5-6).  That one thing is immoral necessarily requires that other things also are in certain cases.  For example, if eating from the forbidden tree is sinful, so is encouraging someone else to eat from it: though the latter is not what God said, if what he did say is true, this would also have to be the case.

It is not so with touching the fruit or looking at it or thinking about it, or with finding it aesthetically appealing as Eve does (Genesis 3:6).  It does not follow from eating the fruit being immoral that the same must be true of any of these additional things.  Similarly, it does not follow from murder being sinful that anger is (Jesus only condemns anger without cause in Matthew 5), or from drunkenness being sinful that merely drinking alcohol is.  Eve, and possibly Adam, was already a legalist before God specifically touched upon how it is itself immoral to add to his commands in Mosaic Law, as if his moral nature is incomplete or as if he intentionally withheld revelation of moral prescriptions from humans.

Conflicting Stereotypes

All stereotypes are both epistemologically fallacious and metaphysically false.  No, a man who is harsh is not harsh because he is a man.  There is nothing about being an elderly person at the present time in history that entails being a residual racist.  A wealthy person is not necessarily uncaring about those with fewer resources.  A woman who likes to shop, as with all personality traits, either has this mental characteristic because of her individual personality or because of social conditioning, not because she is a woman.  None of these mental/nonphysical qualities follows from having a specific gender, a certain age, and other such things, and one person does not necessarily have the same personality or talents as another even if they have the same gender, age, and so on.  Even so, some people not only believe in stereotypes, but they also propose stereotypes that by logical necessity contradict another stereotype they hold to.  Anything that contradicts logical axioms directly, some other necessary truths, or itself can only be false.

Even if any of these stereotypes were true, and they are by their very nature erroneous, they could not all be true at once.  For instance, men cannot be the financially "mature" ones out of men and women when it comes to the alleged bent of women towards the likes of frivolous, unrestrained shopping, not if they are also be the "immature" ones regarding how they spend money, supposedly wasting it on alcohol or gambling.  Each of these stereotypes, which I have encountered and which are both false by logical necessity for the same non sequitur reasons, is in conflict with the other.  Women are also supposed to be emotionally volatile in contrast with the relative "emotionlessness" or at least emotional stability of men, but men are also supposed to be constantly or easily driven to violence by extreme anger.  However, if men were just the emotionless, empty husks that some people think (something that could only be true on an individual basis), they could not feel anger or any other vehement emotions at all, much less be motivated primarily or exclusively by them as some of the same people might believe.

Not all of the societally entrenched stereotypes have to do with gender, of course.  Black people, according to one stereotype (which also tends to conflate education and intelligence), are naturally stupid, as if the color of someone's skin has anything to do with an individual's grasp of reason.  At the same time, there is the stereotype that black people are "smarter" than white people because they try to very proactively stay out of dangerous, uncertain situations, such as by refusing to investigate a threatening hallway in a movie.  This fallacious idea is said to stem from them being victimized by racism to the extent that they would try to avoid other kinds of trouble at almost any cost, hence the alleged race-related "intelligence".  If one of these stereotypes was true, and none could be, then the other could only be false, since black people cannot be both stupid and intelligent because of their skin color.  They utterly exclude each other and are all logically false for the same aforementioned reasons.

Other examples could be identified.  Women cannot be delicate, oblivious, harmless beings and cold, egoistically manipulative masterminds who seek to financially or emotionally exploit men at the same time.  Hispanic immigrants cannot be a natural psychological "fit" for taking on low-paying or manual labor jobs and be rushing to take jobs away from wealthier, native-born Americans at the same time.  An Asian person cannot both be a collectivist drone and hyper-intelligent due to their race or cultural background.  All stereotypes are logically false, and even on the level of social experience or one's own introspective experience as opposed to strict logical necessity, people from a given racial category, among other things, would never believe or act any differently from one another if their worldviews, skills, and desires truly were tied to their race.  Many of the stereotypes concerning gender, race, age, nationality, and other factors still contradict each other with regard to the same category of people and thus have an additional philosophical flaw.

Game Review—Sherlock Holmes: The Devil's Daughter (Switch)

"Because I could not stop for Death, he kindly stopped for me; the Carriage held but just ourselves, and Immortality."

—Professor James Moriarty

A collection of cases with overarching plot threads, The Devil's Daughter portrays a Sherlock Holmes struggling with how to raise the young daughter of a renowned adversary without telling her of her family ties, that adversary being Moriarty.  It is not the first Sherlock game brought to the Switch by Ukranian developer Frogware.  On a storytelling level, this is far stronger than Crime and Punishment.  Sherlock grapples with adoptive parenting when he is not exactly prepared for the challenge, all while playing cat and mouse with his new neighbor Alice—whom he finds has an enigmatic but dark interest in his life.

Production Values

As with other Frogware games on the platform, The Devil's Daughter is far from the pinnacle of the Switch's capabilities.  Underpowered as it may be, the system has its share of visually excellent first-party games, which I have highlighted over and over as successful in utilizing the strengths of the Switch.  Items that appear abruptly based on walking distance, blurry textures, and noticeable pixelation all mar the production values of The Devil's Daughter significantly.  That said, some moments, as seen in the close-up of Sherlock's facial animation from the opening of the game two screenshots above, do feature much greater, more realistic levels of detail.  This is aside from the sometimes long loading times, however clever it is to load a new area by having Sherlock ride a horse-drawn carriage with the opportunity to review his notebook or engage in "deductions" (as I will of course address more thoroughly, Sherlock is not rationalistic and thus is unintelligent!).  As for the voice acting, I encountered no glitches or deviations from the overall strong quality.

Gameplay

Across the five cases in this title, various gameplay mechanics are introduced, some of which appear sparingly.  A recurring one involves the player examining magnified outward features of a person's body or clothing and choosing which of two possibilities seems the most probable reason for the mark or characteristic (they are not the only logically possible things, though).  Alternatively, the player can see what happens even if they select a descriptive option that appears wrong in light of some other evidence, though little to nothing truly follows logically from these physical qualities except that certain things are probably true about the person.  Sherlock, much like the typical person (a non-rationalist), makes a plethora of assumptions, so it is not that the player has to be truly rational to be persuaded to choose the options the game presents as correct.

Puzzles are skippable: due to impatience, lack of time, or difficulty with analyzing the clues, a player can bypass entire sequences of the game.  Sometimes, the puzzle-related tasks entail noticing physical factors about someone's appearance or attire as mentioned in an attempt to uncover something connected to a murder attempt, among other things.  Other times, you have to determine which order a series of precise events occurred in; this also happens more than once.  The non-recurring puzzles include arranging gears adequately to trigger a mechanism, navigating through a trap-laden pyramid (more on this later), and toggling between perceptions of a room as recollected and in its current state to note items that have been removed.  Quick-time events and dialogue choices account for other parts of the gameplay.  Various developments, which sometimes hinge on the puzzles, bring Sherlock to clues that can in turn be linked on the deduction screen.

The "deduction" screen is about identifying which miscellaneous clues are relevant to each other and then selecting certain conclusions that allegedly follow from them; the erroneous part is that sometimes trial and error rather than true rationalistic thought (that is, in accordance with the objective, intrinsically true laws of logic that thus transcend the mind) can or has to be relied on, and many of Sherlock's conclusions in the story are in reality nothing but non sequiturs that, because they are not necessary truths, cannot possibly be absolutely certain.  They do not follow from some other fact or concept, and the ideas they supposedly follow from are themselves not even necessarily logically demonstrable truths.  Regardless, the clues and conclusions are displayed as if to stand in for neurons and synapses.  The color blue is assigned here to the representation of compatible ideas and the color red to the representation of incompatible ideas.  Now, a thought is not a neuron and neither is the same as logical necessities, but I digress.

Story

The famed Sherlock Holmes acts as the adoptive parent of young Kate, who has not been told the identity of her actual father, though his assistant Dr. Watson insists that Holmes disclose this sooner rather than later.  Living with Watson on Baker Street, he finds himself becoming familiar with a new neighbor, a woman named Alice.  She shows a persistent interest in bonding with Kate, who becomes enamored with Alice's stories and willingness to share her time.  But, as Sherlock works on various cases, evidence mounts that Alice has intentionally secured residence next to his and has some sort of very particular goal involving him.  She even seems to think she can communicate with the spirits of the dead.


Intellectual Content

I will say it again.  Sherlock is not genuinely rationalistic and so is not truly intelligent.  In one of the cases, Sherlock mentally explores an imagined version of a pyramid from Guatemala so as to relive the experiences of someone embroiled in the case from over a decade ago, as if this would in any way show him what really happened in the pyramid!  He is only thinking about one possible way the situation looked and unfolded and still bases major conclusions on what he sees in his mind.  Elsewhere in the story, Sherlock just assumes prison sentences are just.  He also concludes that a boy can read maps because he has one on hand, when it does not logically follow from the child having a map of London in his pocket that he knows how to read maps.

When he finds that Alice has written down Kate's birthday, he exclaims that "women are good at this sort of thing" when any thorough rationalist knows that gender is objectively unrelated to psychological traits like a precise memory for birthdays.  Another time, he mentions in a threatening manner that a pygmy who kills an Englishman will not be treated lightly by the court—though, of course, it is idiotic to assume that the punishment of incarceration is morally correct anyway.  But on top of all his other fallacies here, he mentions a culturally-ingrained discrimination against foreigners without acknowledging the logical errors of the philosophy behind this discrimination.  What a fool!

Then there is the general conflation of logic with science, careful observaton, and historical information, or at least the absence of any clarification that logic itself is not a mental process, the laws of physics, and so on.  Only a true rationalist is intelligent or worthy of deep admiration, even if he or she has little to no familiarity with the empirical trends or social constructs that Holmes really relies on, which can be relevant to cases like the game's but which one must either be omniscient to know and is always metaphysically secondary to logic itself.  While The Devil's Daughter does not even hint at such ultimate, abstract truths directly, it does actually somewhat explore the topic of spiritualism.  Arthur Conan Doyle, author of the original written works featuring Sherlock Holmes, was in fact (as far as historical hearsay evidence suggests) a strong philosophical proponent of spiritualism, so it is in a sense fitting for the game to weave a spiritualist character into the plot.

Is Alice really communing with spirits of the dead as parts of the game tease?  Such a thing is not logically impossible, since an unembodied conscious existence after the death of the body does not contradict logical axioms.  Sherlock winds up holding that she is merely insane and declares as much to Kate in the final case.  Either way, Alice's characterization and Sherlock's interactions with her allow for some excellently-realized tension and twists.  Biblically, she would deserve to die either way, not because she indulges in sorcery or adjacent sins (or attempts/stages them) and happens to be a woman, as some misunderstand Exodus 22:18 to mean about sorceresses; the verse says no such thing despite only mentioning female practitioners of magic and would contradict what reason requires about egalitarian consistency if it did.  Also, Leviticus 20:27 and Deuteronomy 18:9-13 are not subtle about encompassing both men and women who practice the likes of necromancy, sorcery, and divination.  I touch on this here because the idea that the Old Testament discriminates against women who practice such sins or are alleged to is commonly put forth.

Conclusion

The absolute greatest blunder of the game is not even an artistic one, but the misrepresentation of the supreme and absolutely certain nature of logic (its purely self-necessary truth, how anything consistent with logical axioms is hypothetically possible no matter someone's confusion or biases, etc.)—as almost all Sherlock-related media does in one way or another.  But what it does handle better tends to be executed well, the momentum towards the climactic confrontation between Sherlock and Alice and the weight of Kate's connection to Professor Moriarty being two of the very best pillars.  My personal favorite layer of the game is the plot threads dealing with whether or not Alice is communicating with the dead.

The mishandling of what is and is not strictly logical truth aside, should you be interested in a game based largely on investigative mechanics, this title is a great option, and the ability to skip puzzles streamlines the length and difficulty for anyone who gets stuck or does not have the time to assess an object or situation as long as they might otherwise want to.  This latter option does make the game much more accessible than many offerings in this genre probably tend to be.  The Devil's Daughter thus strikes a unique blend of accessibility with nuanced puzzles as it does so with its amalgam of (sometimes irrationalistically presented) detective mechanics and a necromancy story.

The Myth Of A Debt To Society

If good and evil exist, and if an act like theft is evil, and if this act deserves a legal penalty (whatever it is), there could still be no such thing as a debt to society unless a theft somehow involved directly stealing from the society as a whole.  All three of the ideas introduced by "if" can only be assumed by humans because epistemological limitations prevent us from proving that they are true, but setting aside this important fact, an action like many forms of theft only victimizes the victims, not any unrelated party.  Even if there are repercussions for people far removed from the actual victim in a given case, the offense is not against them.  And anyone else in the community/nation who is not impacted whatsoever could not possibly be owed a debt of any literal or figurative kind by the perpetrator who did not target or impact them.

Sometimes, an offense would directly affect a secondary figure.  An invested spouse or dependent child of a murder victim would absolutely be impacted in a much more indirect way, though they were neither killed nor (possibly/probably) the intended victim.  However, murder is still a deed done against the particular person whose life is prematurely ended by the murderer.  Many acts which qualify as crimes under American or Biblical law do not necessarily victimize anyone else past the offended party.  Whenever this is the case, even if all three ultimately unverifiable factors mentioned in the first paragraph apply, the very concept of all crime incurring a debt to society is utterly false.

Whoever is not victimized directly or indirectly could not be owed a debt of any kind, whether one of literal restitution/damages or some sort of nonliteral debt that can only be paid by some other penalty.  Some logically possible actions could genuinely victimize an entire society, but this only entails extremely specific acts in very particular circumstances.  The idea that crime creates some automatic moral debt to society is a philosphical myth, and not just because a community criminalizing something does not mean it is morally correct to make it illegal or impose a punishment.  The rest of society beyond the victim(s) is purely irrelevant.

According to American legal/ethical philosophy, crime itself does incur a debt to society that can only be paid by, in many instances, spending time incarcerated.  How does the moral need for incarceration follow from the concept of a debt to society, as illogical as the latter concept already is?  It absolutely does not follow, not in itself, and thus anyone who believes in the justice of incarceration could only do so on the basis of cultural conditioning, sheer personal preference, or some asinine epistemological leap they legitimately find philosophically persuasive past simply preferring that it would be true.  What a delusional person!  Of course, this position is very mainstream in the United States.  The idea that locking someone away from the public, perhaps in very dangerous conditions, somehow repays or could repay a nonexistent debt to an entire nation is not exactly unpopular (how would this fulfill the repayment to those outside the jail/prison anyway?).

The non sequitur of imprisonment being the way to resolve the alleged debt to society aside, American law is, as in various other ways, based on philosophical delusions.  It does not even matter if good and evil exist; no one could owe a debt to someone for what the former did to a truly unrelated party.  Living in the same city, state, or nation as a victim of a crime does not make someone else a victim by extension due to geographical proximity, shared citizenship, or symbolic association.  Only the victim could be owed a debt if some actions warrant repayment, whether literal or otherwise.  This really is quite easy to demonstrate.

The New Testament On Two Or Three Witnesses

In three places, the Old Testament calls for an inflexible requirement of at least two or three witnesses to convict and punish someone of a sin that qualifies as a crime according to the divine moral law, not the legal constructs of human governments.  The first time at least two or three witnesses are prescribed, the numbers two and three are not mentioned, though executing someone for murder based only on one person's testimony is prohibited.  Then, Deuteronomy reiterates this ethical requirement twice in a manner that clearly treats it as not applying solely to executions for the specific capital sin of murder.  More than three witnesses is not problematic, of course.  Anything less than a minimum of two or three is condemned if someone is to have the proper penalty for their sin imposed, but there could be more than three who come forward.

Numbers 35:30—"'"Anyone who kills a person is to be put to death as a murderer only on the testimony of witnesses.  But no one is to be put to death on the testimony of only one witness."'"

Deuteronomy 17:7—"On the testimony of two or three witnesses a person is to be put to death, but no one is to be put to death on the testimony of only one witness."

Deuteronomy 19:15—"One witness is not enough to convict anyone accused of any crime or offense they may have committed.  A matter must be established by the testimony of two or three witnesses."

Portions of Deuteronomy 13, 17, and 22 address in various ways how other evidences besides literal eyewitness testimony are valid, so aside from strict logical reasons why other evidences could have an equal or greater (but still fallible) epistemological weight than the hearsay of witnesses, the Bible itself does not shy away from other means of evidential support for a charge.  None of the demands for multiple witnesses prescribe that people assume someone else is telling the truth if they have another alleged witness agreeing with them, but that as confrontation escalates, two or three witnesses should be involved whenever possible.  Jesus, it might surprise some to find out, appeals to this concept in a context entirely divorced from legal accusation and punishment.  The scenario is that of one person trying to compel an unrepentant sinner who at least calls or considers themself a follower of God and Christ to relent, with Jesus detailing progressively aggressive steps to take.

Matthew 18:15-17—"'If your brother or sister sins, go and point out their fault, just between the two of you.  If they listen to you, you have won them over.  But if they will not listen, take one or two others along, so that 'every matter may be established by the testimony of two or three witnesses.'  If they still refuse to listen, tell it to the church; and if they refuse to listen even to the church, treat them as you would a pagan or a tax collector.'"

Reading chronologically as the books appear in modern Bibles, this reference Jesus makes would mark the first time that the New Testament touches on having/needing two or three witnesses when dealing with interpersonal affairs where one party has either sinned or supposedly sinned.  Paul adds two more such references to the New Testament total.  In 2 Corinthians 13, Paul quotes Deuteronomy to a Gentile church to reinforce the severity of him needing to chastise the congregation in Corinth more than twice.  If there was no transcendent moral weight to needing this many witnesses, it would be pointless for Paul to bring the idea up at all.

2 Corinthians 13:1-2—"This will be my third visit to you.  'Every matter must be established by the testimony of two or three witnesses.'  I already gave you a warning when I was with you the second time.  I now repeat it while absent: On my return I will not spare those who sinned earlier or any of the others,"

Next, Paul insists in 1 Timothy 5 on two or three witnesses as a requirement for seriously considering a charge against a church elder, something obviously rooted in the concept of witnesses introduced in Numbers 35 and then affirmed as applicable for even broader scenarios in Deuteronomy 17 and 19.  This time, however, while he certainly invokes the principle, he does not directly use the wording of Deuteronomy other than the phrase "two or three witnesses".  The connection is still plain in light of the two aforementioned books in the Torah.

1 Timothy 5:17-21—"The elders who direct the affairs of the church well are worthy of double honor, especially those whose work is preaching and teaching.  For Scripture says, 'Do not muzzle an ox while it is treading out the grain,' and 'The worker deserves his wages.'  Do not entertain an accusation against an elder unless it is brought by two or three witnesses.  But those elders who are sinning you are to reprove before everyone, so that the others may take warning.  I charge you, in the sight of God and Christ Jesus and the elect angels, to keep these instructions without partiality, and to do nothing out of favoritism."

This crucial passage [1] from Paul's epistles actually does quote Deuteronomy, but not on the matter of witnesses.  Paul quotes Deuteronomy 25:4 a mere verse before he says to not act against an elder without two or three witnesses, an Old Testament prescription about the treatment of farm animals.  Here, like with his quotation of the same verse in 1 Corinthians 9, he points out that if even agricultural animals should be allowed to benefit from their own labor as with an ox eating from the grain it treads, so too should humans benefit from their own labor, all the more since we are the higher animal.  Then he mentions needing two or three witnesses concerning action against church elders.  However, the absence of a direct quote changes nothing about the clear connection between the concept of two or three witnesses and the same requirement for witnesses in Mosaic Law.  And when this threshold of accusers is reached, as would have to be the case with all matters of logic and justice, one should not spare any elder out of personal attachment or reverence, hence why Paul insists on utter impartiality.

Using the very words of Yahweh's Torah law, Jesus and Paul in fact emphasize the applicability of things like the obligation to rely on at least two or three witnesses/evidences outside of the originally specified context.  In this case, the Old Testament context was explicitly about formal charges of criminal sins and the administration of the only legitimate penalties for those exact wrongs.  The New Testament affirms that this principle is relevant to wider circumstances than legal proceedings.  Whether at an all-encompassing level (such as dealt with in Matthew 5:17-19 and 1 Timothy 1:8-11) or that of various precise issues, and whether someone looks to pure logic or strictly logical facts about Biblical doctrines, there is no escape from the fact that the moral relativism entailed by Rabbinic Judaism and evangelical "Christians" cannot be true, with one moral standard for Gentiles and another for Jews or different standards at different points in history.  At least, the could not be the case unless God was to have changed, which is rejected entirely by both the Old and New Testaments (Malachi 3:6, James 1:17).

Logically, the nature of an action would be morally mandatory or vile for all people in a given situation with respect merely to ancestry and nationality (if morality exists, that is), and neither side of the Bible ever actually says otherwise.  Morality is universal according to both testaments, and the Law provides the details of morality.  Neither Jesus nor Paul claims that the Law was some arbitrary contrivance of God, a pseudo-moral (morally binding, but in a relativistic way) way to culturally distinguish Israelites from Gentiles, or a temporary measure until Christ.  Something like confronting or pushing back against someone on the basis of two or three witnesses would not have its moral nature changed based on who someone is, and it is not just the concern of those with societal power to punish sin.

To be universal, though, an obligation also must not be only for people devoted to God even if they represent diverse backgrounds.  It is not just people committed to Yahweh of any national or racial background who should fulfill obligations like relying on two or three witnesses/evidences when proceeding with charges against a person, either when it comes to legal sentencing or organizations like the church.  With certain exceptions that by their very nature cannot be for all individuals at all times (Leviticus 19:23-25, Deuteronomy 25:17-19), every human is righteous or wicked (or a mixture of both) based on their conformity to the same moral standard.  If Judeo-Christianity is true, that standard was not created when God revealed laws to ancient Israel, but it was communicated to a particular group of people through the Law.  Jesus and Paul alike act exactly as they should if this was the case by promoting the Law in its previously unstated but logically necessary ramifications.

[1].  After all, it addresses not only the ongoing universality of the Law contrary to moral relativism and non-theonomist "Christian" ethics, but also the inclusion of Luke's gospel among the writings of "Scripture" according to the New Testament (quoting Luke 10:7), the sharp distinction between God and Christ as their own entities, and the importance of impartiality for acting in a logically and morally consistent manner.

What A Prenuptial Agreement Is And Is Not

No one knows what will happen in the future with any of their relationships, a consequence of not being able to know other minds or the future, though many non-rationalists speak and act as if they assume, at least selectively, that they truly can know what someone else is thinking or that a certain outcome (which is logically possible either way) will not happen.  A once casual acquaintance could become a close friend or an intimate friend could become a passionate enemy.  Marriage is no exception.  As much as someone might want their marriage to last as long as they live, and as much as all available evidence might suggest that it will, there is no way to know if it will be so because there is nothing logically necessary about this happening.  Within the very next few moments, a genuinely perfect marriage could break down; that it was perfect before does not mean it will be, and many marriages never even reach true perfection to begin with.

Only fools assume (or they are stupid to the extent that they make assumptions), and the only way to believe that a future divorce is impossible is to assume.  All sorts of life directions and events are logically possible, and so there is no way to know ahead of time which possibility will come about.  Signing a prenuptial agreement—a document affirming a predetermined division of money and property, including future income, in the case of divorce or mutually consented courses of action during the marriage—is a way to protect oneself and even one's partner in the case of an unfortunate future.  Yes, formalizing such agreements before legal marriage can be a way to genuinely protect one's partner.

A rational (aka, rationalistic) spouse should all but never object to creating a prenuptial agreement.  There is no legitimate problem with prenuptials themselves, only at most with how they might be executed—or because one person does not want a prenuptial due to not really wanting to get married!  In no way does a prenuptial in itself express an expectation or desire for a marriage to end.  Even then, it can also address matters following the death of a spouse, not just the death of the legal marriage in divorce.  Still, a marital connection can never be guaranteed beforehand to be lifelong, and a prenuptial allows for a greater degree of security before and during the marriage and security and peace if it comes to a premature end.  It is in this way a safeguard in the hopefully unlikely case that a marriage will falter to the point of ending for reasons other than the death of one party or the other.

A prenuptial arranged well ahead of the hopefully improbable circumstance of divorce can indeed make the process of legal annulment smoother.  Particularly if spouses have come to resent each other and are figuratively, or even literally, at each other's throats in the final days of the legal marriage status, it is incredibly helpful to already have key financial details planned upon in a way that does not exploit either party, something that does not at all necessitate a perfectly even split of assets.  There is always the option of a postnuptial, the equivalent of a prenuptial except in that it is formed after a marriage has legally started, yet having handled such matters before the legal recognition of a union does ensure that spouses would already have addressed how they would handle specific aspects of a hypothetical divorce.  Though this would be the fault of an irrational spouse and not an inherent reason to avoid the issue, calling for a postnuptial might also seem more aggressive to certain husbands or wives.

The unknowability of the future alone, which is of great relevance to the possibility of a partner showing their true self or dramatically changing after marriage, means it is ideal to complete this sort of protective agreement as soon as it can be done, which for people not yet married would take the form of a prenuptial.  It is not that a prenuptial is absolutely necessary to protect oneself or, more importantly, to be a rationalistic person (this is about what one believes and the reasons why); it is just a way to better ensure protection before more and more turbulence might arrive.  Also, if one's partner refuses outright to consider or pursue a prenuptial, he or she is irrational, and an irrational partner, before or after legal marriage, is not worth staying with except out of sheer mercy and subjective affection.  How a discussion about prenuptials goes could reveal far more than information about each party's present financial standing!