"Wanting people to listen, you can't just tap them on the shoulder anymore. You have to hit them with a sledgehammer, and then you'll notice you've got their strict attention."
--John Doe, Se7en
"Yes, I'm sick, officer. Sick from the disease eating away at me inside. Sick of those who don't appreciate their blessings. Sick of those who scoff at the suffering of others. I'm sick of it all!"
--Jigsaw, Saw
I love movies, and I love philosophy, so I decided to combine these interests and analyze the ethical beliefs and philosophical motivations of my two favorite cinema serial killers: John Doe from Se7en, and John Kramer, otherwise known as Jigsaw from the Saw movies. Both of these serial killers clearly share some characteristics beyond their first names. Both are highly intelligent, willing to be apprehended by authorities if it furthers their goals, deeply committed to their system of values, and believers that they are serving society through their work. Both allow their lives to end in order to teach someone else a moral lesson. The killings of both hold symbolic significance: Doe kills his victims or arranges for them to die in ways that reflect whichever of the seven deadly sins is most prominent in their life, and Kramer puts his victims in traps that similarly have some special meaning pertaining to the individual(s) in each trap. Where the two differ is in their philosophical foundations for their values, the intended outcome of the methods used, and their attitudes towards their murders.
Although John Doe deviates from Biblical morality in so many enormous ways--he murders (Exodus 21:12-14), kidnaps (Exodus 21:16), commits acts of vigilantism (Deuteronomy 25:1), stretches out the torture of the sloth victim for around a year (Deuteronomy 25:3), involves rape in one of the killings (Deuteronomy 22:25-27), and implicitly makes adulterous advances to Mill's wife (Deuteronomy 22:22)--at the very least, despite his deviance from his seeming quasi-Christian morality, he has a philosophical basis for his work that is at least partially correct. The exact moral nature of the deity he believes he serves is grossly different from that of the actual Yahweh in reality, but Doe does at least have a metaphysical basis for his moral beliefs. He is not simply saying that his values are a matter of preference. He believes that they are objectively binding. Still, despite the Christian undertones and overtones in his moral beliefs, he seems to derive the specific moral obligations of his system not from divine revelation in Scripture but from some claimed special relationship with God, which is an entirely fallacious foundation for moral knowledge. Intuition, conscience, preferences, social popularity, nature, and estimated outcome can never tell someone if an act is right or wrong, and while Doe avoids the fallacies for some of these other ethical systems he still succumbs to deep errors.
John Kramer, contrary to this, and despite all of his moralistic passion, never appeals to anything more than his own subjective pangs of conscience. For instance, in Saw V, when arguing with his future apprentice Hoffman over Hoffman's vigilante murder of a man in a Jigsaw trap imitation that did not allow the victim even an opportunity to escape, he yells out that "Killing is distasteful . . . to me." Hoffman violated one of his most prioritized moral principles--that no one should be directly killed, only tested in a scenario where he or she can escape and be inwardly transformed. Kramer has no deficit of commitment to his work, yet he never actually explains why his values system is true and how he knows it is. Why is gratitude morally good? Why is intentionally killing someone universally wrong (by Kramer's standard, not by Yahweh's)? Jigsaw gives no answers and never even brings up the questions. He is still a moral realist and certainly not a moral nihilist. He just has no rational basis for his moral claims. Yes, Doe's moral epistemology is wildly fallacious at best, but he at least has a metaphysical anchor for his values.
Kramer, on one hand, aims to rehabilitate people through their tests, which will kill them if they fail. He laments the travesty of people wasting their lives by not experiencing gratitude for their existences. "Those who do not appreciate life do not deserve life," he claims. He concludes that "Most people are so ungrateful to be alive" and that the solution is to place people in situations that force them to decide if they appreciate life enough to exert the effort necessary to escape their traps. Ultimately, Kramer thinks that he is not even a murderer because he has never directly killed someone, as he lets them make their choices in the traps; he even says that he despises people who murder. Of course, this does nothing to negate the fact that he is still directly responsible (along with his apprentices in some cases) for abducting them and putting them in the situations that often kill them. He is still a murderer, albeit in a somewhat more untraditional way.
Doe, on the other hand, seeks to expose the commonality and disgustingness of the seven deadly sins and their manifestations in the modern world. "We see a deadly sin on every street corner, in every home, and we tolerate it. We tolerate it because it's common, it's trivial," he tells a detective, upon voluntarily surrendering himself to the police. He sees a world that overlooks the smaller examples of sin that contribute to an environment where the larger examples of it can happen with less of an outcry. Doe admits to enjoying his work, while Kramer objects when his own apprentices display sadistic attitudes (Hoffman in a Saw VI flashback). At the very least Kramer wants his victims to survive and learn from their experiences, having little to none of the overt malice that Doe revels in. Doe is far more morally apathetic towards the results of his actions than Kramer.
Both Doe and Kramer, though, share some common moral ground with actual Christian ethics (I say "actual" because what is often represented as "Christian morality" in many areas like criminal justice and sexuality is deeply contrary to what the Bible actually teaches). Each still operates in total violation of parts of Christian morality; each serial killer simply believes things that are indeed distinctively Christian ideas. John Doe and John Kramer are not entirely wrong in their conclusions, just entirely wrong in the actions they engage in as a response to their observations.
Se7en and the Saw films are not movies that will be enjoyed by everyone as films that entertain or as conductors of philosophical concepts. But for those who do view them, the movies can bring attention to issues about justice, moral metaphysics, moral epistemology, human nature, and redemption (though this is found more in the Saw series). Christians can find some very intriguing claims made by the serial killers John Doe and John Kramer, having to do with issues that all Christians must be equipped to address.
Thursday, December 28, 2017
The Morality Of Flirting
Flirting is a thing enjoyed by many men and women. It can be a fun, exciting, and fulfilling process. Flirting is acting like you are attracted to someone, for fun or because of actual attraction, whether the attraction is sexual or otherwise. It is not necessarily about creating or manipulating sexual attraction or tension, although these could certainly be the goals of some kinds of flirting. Mere friendliness is not flirting at all, nor is making jokes or teasing someone flirtatious in itself, though some might mistakenly perceive these things to be flirting. There is nothing at all sinful about flirtation among singles (Deuteronomy 4:2) as long as no party objectifies the other romantically or sexually (reduces them to one aspect of their personhood), desires to commit a sexual sin with the other party, or flirts in the process of committing a sexual sin. What about extramarital flirting or a person in a committed romantic relationship flirting with someone outside of that relationship, though?
As long as there is no lustful (covetous) or objectifying motive and no desire to commit any sexual sin then there is nothing wrong with flirting--whether or not the people flirting are single or separately married. Extramarital flirting by a married person is not inherently adulterous and can be done in a totally respectful, lighthearted, non-sinful way. It carries no adulterous connotations in itself because the act of flirting is not the same as committing the physical act of adultery or harboring inner desires to commit adultery. Thus, it by definition cannot by itself be adulterous by Biblical standards (it's astonishing what evangelicals ascribe to Biblical morality sometimes). The moral line is the same as for singles flirting--no objectification, no desire to commit a sexual sin, and no sexual harassment (unwanted comments).
People have no rational reason to feel threatened if their significant others or spouses flirt or want to flirt with someone else, since flirting does not always mean what some assume it does--it is not a sure sign of unfaithfulness or sexual expression. As with things as controversial as erotic media [1], no one has a right to tell someone else to not do something that isn't sinful, as there can be nothing wrong in doing what does not deviate from an objectively binding moral standard. Of course, not all relationships with members of the opposite gender have any romantic or sexual feelings involved on any level, so it is asinine to think that being friendly to strangers or friends friends of the opposite gender, however close, is flirting to begin with.
Relational attraction occurs when someone is drawn to some quality of a person, and thus sexual attraction is simply being attracted to someone's sexuality. It doesn't mean that someone wants to have sex with the person he or she is sexually attracted to. Sexual attraction has been demonized by some members of the Christian world, yet it is not what the Bible means by the word lust (see the Greek word for lust in Matthew 5:28) and is not a depraved impulse that makes people do sinful things. A married person does not sin in experiencing sexual attraction to another person besides his or her spouse. In refusing to impose legalistic standards on their partners, which is a Biblically defined sin (Deuteronomy 4:2), people can enjoy or allow their partners to enjoy the possible benefits of legitimate extramarital flirting.
Flirting can offer a way to act on such sexual attraction that does not involve sin. It can make one feel desirable or sexy, which generates excitement that can be directed back into one's actual romantic or marital relationship if one exists, just as one can use morally legitimate erotic media without sinning and direct the sexual energy into ones marital sex life (or solo sex life). The difference, of course, is that while erotic media is an inherently sexual thing by its nature, flirting is not. Not all attraction or flirting is sexual. Extramarital flirting can also help provide practice for flirting with your significant other or spouse. Partners in a marriage could develop flirting skills outside of the marriage--in legitimate ways (as described above), of course--and bring these skills into flirtation with their husband or wife, whether as part of foreplay or just as a friendly reminder that the other is appreciated.
Some people may not ever have any desire to flirt outside of their romantic or marital relationship, and there's nothing wrong with this at all! People have different subjective desires, and what ultimately matters is whether or not those desires contradict any moral obligations they have--and extramarital flirting is simply not sinful by Biblical standards as long as no adultery or lust is involved. This is really quite simple! Where there is no sin (1 John 3:4), there is nothing wrong with enjoying and acting upon our desires.
[1]. See here (part three will be posted in the near future):
A. https://thechristianrationalist.blogspot.com/2017/12/the-truth-about-erotic-media-part-1.html
B. https://thechristianrationalist.blogspot.com/2017/12/the-truth-about-erotic-media-part-2_19.html
As long as there is no lustful (covetous) or objectifying motive and no desire to commit any sexual sin then there is nothing wrong with flirting--whether or not the people flirting are single or separately married. Extramarital flirting by a married person is not inherently adulterous and can be done in a totally respectful, lighthearted, non-sinful way. It carries no adulterous connotations in itself because the act of flirting is not the same as committing the physical act of adultery or harboring inner desires to commit adultery. Thus, it by definition cannot by itself be adulterous by Biblical standards (it's astonishing what evangelicals ascribe to Biblical morality sometimes). The moral line is the same as for singles flirting--no objectification, no desire to commit a sexual sin, and no sexual harassment (unwanted comments).
People have no rational reason to feel threatened if their significant others or spouses flirt or want to flirt with someone else, since flirting does not always mean what some assume it does--it is not a sure sign of unfaithfulness or sexual expression. As with things as controversial as erotic media [1], no one has a right to tell someone else to not do something that isn't sinful, as there can be nothing wrong in doing what does not deviate from an objectively binding moral standard. Of course, not all relationships with members of the opposite gender have any romantic or sexual feelings involved on any level, so it is asinine to think that being friendly to strangers or friends friends of the opposite gender, however close, is flirting to begin with.
Relational attraction occurs when someone is drawn to some quality of a person, and thus sexual attraction is simply being attracted to someone's sexuality. It doesn't mean that someone wants to have sex with the person he or she is sexually attracted to. Sexual attraction has been demonized by some members of the Christian world, yet it is not what the Bible means by the word lust (see the Greek word for lust in Matthew 5:28) and is not a depraved impulse that makes people do sinful things. A married person does not sin in experiencing sexual attraction to another person besides his or her spouse. In refusing to impose legalistic standards on their partners, which is a Biblically defined sin (Deuteronomy 4:2), people can enjoy or allow their partners to enjoy the possible benefits of legitimate extramarital flirting.
Flirting can offer a way to act on such sexual attraction that does not involve sin. It can make one feel desirable or sexy, which generates excitement that can be directed back into one's actual romantic or marital relationship if one exists, just as one can use morally legitimate erotic media without sinning and direct the sexual energy into ones marital sex life (or solo sex life). The difference, of course, is that while erotic media is an inherently sexual thing by its nature, flirting is not. Not all attraction or flirting is sexual. Extramarital flirting can also help provide practice for flirting with your significant other or spouse. Partners in a marriage could develop flirting skills outside of the marriage--in legitimate ways (as described above), of course--and bring these skills into flirtation with their husband or wife, whether as part of foreplay or just as a friendly reminder that the other is appreciated.
Some people may not ever have any desire to flirt outside of their romantic or marital relationship, and there's nothing wrong with this at all! People have different subjective desires, and what ultimately matters is whether or not those desires contradict any moral obligations they have--and extramarital flirting is simply not sinful by Biblical standards as long as no adultery or lust is involved. This is really quite simple! Where there is no sin (1 John 3:4), there is nothing wrong with enjoying and acting upon our desires.
[1]. See here (part three will be posted in the near future):
A. https://thechristianrationalist.blogspot.com/2017/12/the-truth-about-erotic-media-part-1.html
B. https://thechristianrationalist.blogspot.com/2017/12/the-truth-about-erotic-media-part-2_19.html
Tuesday, December 26, 2017
Theonomy Does Not Require Presuppositionalism
Christian presuppositional apologists are some of the most intellectually inept people you can ever meet when it comes to their epistemology. In their severe irrationality, they claim that first principles (logic, axioms) can only be reliable if God exists, that no one can believe that any knowledge is possible without first presupposing that God exists, and that anyone who makes a claim about reality that happens to align with Christian teachings is borrowing, aware or unaware, from the Christian worldview--or even assuming that is is true. Presuppositionalists are great at spouting fallacious nonsense.
Sometimes they have a tendency to endorse certain specific theological ideas, whether true or false. Just like presuppositionalists may be very attracted to Calvinism and postmillennialism, they may very strongly support Christian theonomy and reconstructionism. This association of theonomy and presuppositionalism is not one of bilateral logical necessity, though. Whether or not theonomy is true is an issue totally separate from whether or not presuppositionalism is true. Sure, it follows from Christian presuppositionalism that some form of Christian theonomy is true, but it does not follow from Christian theonomy that presuppositionalism is true.
I am a theonomist because I am a rationalist, not because I presupposed or need to presuppose that Christianity is true--reason is how I know that conscience and society are totally unreliable sources of moral knowledge, not some private intuition that Jesus exists, some presupposition that the Bible is true, or because it is self-evident that God has to reveal moral truths to humans. It is not self-evident; very few things are. Since theonomy, like other Biblical doctrines, must be established using other evidence, it is not evident in itself.
Theonomy is true even if Christianity as a whole is not, much less the absurd philosophical position of Christian presuppositionalism. Even if the parts of the Bible that do not affirm things that are inescapably true (that truth exists, an uncaused cause exists, matter exists, etc.) were false, it would still be still true that morality only exists in a theistic universe and that if I am not God then I do not know moral truths on my own, only my subjective perceptions and moral preferences. Thus, it would still be true that if I am not God, all moral knowledge must be revealed to me by God and is inaccessible using my conscience. All moralists and Christians have an irrational moral epistemology if they are not theonomists.
Presuppositionalism, though, is self-damning, since it by necessity denies the fact that logic exists by intrinsic necessity in itself, whether or not a deity exists. And anything that denies the existence or innate veracity of logic is automatically self-defeating, since any denial of logic can only be true if logic is true, and since logic cannot be false. Theism in general, and narrower versions of it like Christianity, is totally unrelated to the necessary existence and reliability of logic. Presuppositionalists admit from the start that they are merely presupposing a conclusion (thereby committing a host of fallacies), and they are entirely correct--they just assume something and then become irritated when people either assume something contrary or use reason instead of making assumptions to begin with!
Presuppositionalism is nothing--nothing at all--but an enormous bundle of fallacies and epistemological errors passed off as Biblically and logically sound. Presuppositionalism is neither taught by the Bible nor supported by logic. It is an extra-Biblical epistemological and apologetics framework that is plagued by numerous falsities. It is useless, arbitrary, and thoroughly untrue. Theonomy, on the other hand, is revealed by both logic and Scripture. In its absence, moral skepticism and subjectivity of conscience are the best humans can hope for.
Language Can Describe Truth
Humans wouldn't be able to function as a society if the fact that individuals can mean different things by the same words prevented any successful communication of ideas whatsoever. I've previously explained how all human languages are arbitrary and that words in the human vocabulary have no inherent meanings in themselves, though the fact that individuals and societies arbitrarily assign meanings to words does not affect how concepts objectively exist independent of the words used to describe them [1]. Someone else might mean something by a word that is totally foreign to what I mean when I use the same word. But this does not mean that language cannot convey any truth at all--if someone argues that, he or she disproves the very claim being offered.
The claim that written or verbally-spoken words cannot convey truth at all becomes entirely self-refuting the moment it is put forth in a written work or orally. Someone could privately think that human language cannot adequately express truth to other beings without believing an inescapable contradiction, yet the moment that he or she shares that stance with others and the receivers of the message understand the concepts on any level, if the concepts are true, the claim becomes hopelessly self-refuting. At that point, the claimer would be using words to argue for the conclusion that words cannot convey truths about reality, which commits intellectual suicide.
Even if no one could effectively communicate with language on any level because every person meant entirely different things by the same words, words used by individuals could themselves still describe truths about reality to those individuals in their thoughts, as each person could know exactly what he or she means by a term and there would be no ambiguity in communicating those words and the concepts they represent to another human. The difference here is that while words would be utterly incapable of communicating truth to another person, they could still be useful tools for individuals to use within their own conscious minds. Because of this, words can still retain some use for understanding truth by logical necessity.
I hope that readers can see what I am saying and what I am not saying here. Human language is far from a perfect communication tool, but it is far from useless as well. Language has severe limitations, both in its non-universality of meaning and the fact that humans can struggle to use language to describe certain concepts to begin with. But it is not entirely without benefit for seekers of truth. It is impossible for it to be so.
[1]. https://thechristianrationalist.blogspot.com/2017/11/the-relativity-of-language.html
The claim that written or verbally-spoken words cannot convey truth at all becomes entirely self-refuting the moment it is put forth in a written work or orally. Someone could privately think that human language cannot adequately express truth to other beings without believing an inescapable contradiction, yet the moment that he or she shares that stance with others and the receivers of the message understand the concepts on any level, if the concepts are true, the claim becomes hopelessly self-refuting. At that point, the claimer would be using words to argue for the conclusion that words cannot convey truths about reality, which commits intellectual suicide.
Even if no one could effectively communicate with language on any level because every person meant entirely different things by the same words, words used by individuals could themselves still describe truths about reality to those individuals in their thoughts, as each person could know exactly what he or she means by a term and there would be no ambiguity in communicating those words and the concepts they represent to another human. The difference here is that while words would be utterly incapable of communicating truth to another person, they could still be useful tools for individuals to use within their own conscious minds. Because of this, words can still retain some use for understanding truth by logical necessity.
I hope that readers can see what I am saying and what I am not saying here. Human language is far from a perfect communication tool, but it is far from useless as well. Language has severe limitations, both in its non-universality of meaning and the fact that humans can struggle to use language to describe certain concepts to begin with. But it is not entirely without benefit for seekers of truth. It is impossible for it to be so.
[1]. https://thechristianrationalist.blogspot.com/2017/11/the-relativity-of-language.html
Nudity And Sexual Arousal
Some people may fear being naked in front of other people not because of an illogical understanding of nudity (that it is inherently sexual or humiliating, for instance), and not because of insecurities about their body image, but instead out of concern that they will experience unwanted sexual arousal of their genitals in front of others. Such arousal may be uncomfortable for both the one aroused and onlookers. But it is not itself something to be frightened by, ashamed of, or condemn. Each of those three responses is irrational.
There are two different types of sexual arousal: arousal of the genitals and body (which is necessary for sexual intercourse) and arousal of the mind (which is not necessary for sexual intercourse). When a man gets physically aroused, his penis extends and becomes firmer and more rigid, the foreskin, if he is uncircumcised, retracting (in many cases) to expose the head/glans of the penis. When a woman gets physically aroused, her vagina secretes a lubricating liquid, her labia majora and minora swell, and her clitoris--a miniature equivalent to the male penis--can become engorged with blood and erect out from under a hood of skin. Female genital arousal can be much less visible than male genital arousal due to the anatomy of male and female genitals. Lack of visibility does not mean something does not occur, though. But the fact that an erect penis is more visible than a wet vulva may deter some men from wanting to try social nudity.
Now, when naked in the company of others, a man or woman might become physically aroused. This does not indicate that the nudity of either the one aroused or the nudity of any surrounding people is sexual, but it can be embarrassing for some. Physical arousal can be purely involuntary, and having an erect penis or a wet vulva does not mean that the situation or stimuli that triggered the response is sexual. This is important for people to remember--just as truth is true even if some people mistake it for a lie, nonsexual scenarios and things are nonsexual even if some people become aroused by them.
If a man has an erection or a woman's vulva "gets wet" or she has a clitoral erection while naked on a nude beach or in some other setting of social nudity, whether only one person is naked or multiple people are, the physical physiological reaction does not necessarily mean at all that the man or woman is having sexual thoughts or is experiencing sexual desire. It does not follow at all from physical arousal that mental arousal is present. Mind and body are distinct.
Physical arousal is not something to fear or ostracize people over, though, and even people who are initially discomforted by it can come to understand what it does and does not intrinsically mean and become less tense about it. Rational people who have no illogical, emotionalistic objections to the human body will realize that genital arousal is just a natural physiological reaction that does not indicate either mental arousal or that the setting is sexual, that it cannot always be controlled, and that not everyone is offended by or uncomfortable with aroused human genitalia. Some people may be horrified at the involuntary reactions of their genitals, and others may derive some degree of enjoyment from being physically aroused before others; likewise, some people may experience discomfort around others whose genitals are aroused, and others may not care at all and may even appreciate the scene. Fear of the human body and its functions is ultimately irrational, but people in settings of social nudity can handle arousal, should it occur, in a way that respects the discomfort of others.
Christians can realize that genital arousal is not sinful and is just another sign that the human body functions as God intended it to. There is nothing sinful about experiencing physical arousal, and therefore, on the Christian worldview, nothing at all to be ashamed of if one experiences it in private or in public, whether clothed or naked. Prudery about the human body and about sexuality, when praised as good, is not only entirely irrational logically speaking, but is also antithetical to Christian metaphysics and theology.
People who want to try public nudity need not feel shame or fear about possible physical arousal. If they realize that nudity is nonsexual in itself, that genital arousal can be entirely involuntary, that it does not indicate mental arousal, and that not everyone is offended by it--and if Christians realize that that human physiology and the human body are not sinful--then they can enjoy social nudity without dreading this phenomenon, should it occur. They can handle this issue with rationality and move on.
There are two different types of sexual arousal: arousal of the genitals and body (which is necessary for sexual intercourse) and arousal of the mind (which is not necessary for sexual intercourse). When a man gets physically aroused, his penis extends and becomes firmer and more rigid, the foreskin, if he is uncircumcised, retracting (in many cases) to expose the head/glans of the penis. When a woman gets physically aroused, her vagina secretes a lubricating liquid, her labia majora and minora swell, and her clitoris--a miniature equivalent to the male penis--can become engorged with blood and erect out from under a hood of skin. Female genital arousal can be much less visible than male genital arousal due to the anatomy of male and female genitals. Lack of visibility does not mean something does not occur, though. But the fact that an erect penis is more visible than a wet vulva may deter some men from wanting to try social nudity.
Now, when naked in the company of others, a man or woman might become physically aroused. This does not indicate that the nudity of either the one aroused or the nudity of any surrounding people is sexual, but it can be embarrassing for some. Physical arousal can be purely involuntary, and having an erect penis or a wet vulva does not mean that the situation or stimuli that triggered the response is sexual. This is important for people to remember--just as truth is true even if some people mistake it for a lie, nonsexual scenarios and things are nonsexual even if some people become aroused by them.
If a man has an erection or a woman's vulva "gets wet" or she has a clitoral erection while naked on a nude beach or in some other setting of social nudity, whether only one person is naked or multiple people are, the physical physiological reaction does not necessarily mean at all that the man or woman is having sexual thoughts or is experiencing sexual desire. It does not follow at all from physical arousal that mental arousal is present. Mind and body are distinct.
Physical arousal is not something to fear or ostracize people over, though, and even people who are initially discomforted by it can come to understand what it does and does not intrinsically mean and become less tense about it. Rational people who have no illogical, emotionalistic objections to the human body will realize that genital arousal is just a natural physiological reaction that does not indicate either mental arousal or that the setting is sexual, that it cannot always be controlled, and that not everyone is offended by or uncomfortable with aroused human genitalia. Some people may be horrified at the involuntary reactions of their genitals, and others may derive some degree of enjoyment from being physically aroused before others; likewise, some people may experience discomfort around others whose genitals are aroused, and others may not care at all and may even appreciate the scene. Fear of the human body and its functions is ultimately irrational, but people in settings of social nudity can handle arousal, should it occur, in a way that respects the discomfort of others.
Christians can realize that genital arousal is not sinful and is just another sign that the human body functions as God intended it to. There is nothing sinful about experiencing physical arousal, and therefore, on the Christian worldview, nothing at all to be ashamed of if one experiences it in private or in public, whether clothed or naked. Prudery about the human body and about sexuality, when praised as good, is not only entirely irrational logically speaking, but is also antithetical to Christian metaphysics and theology.
People who want to try public nudity need not feel shame or fear about possible physical arousal. If they realize that nudity is nonsexual in itself, that genital arousal can be entirely involuntary, that it does not indicate mental arousal, and that not everyone is offended by it--and if Christians realize that that human physiology and the human body are not sinful--then they can enjoy social nudity without dreading this phenomenon, should it occur. They can handle this issue with rationality and move on.
Sunday, December 24, 2017
On Punching Arius
There are two things that come to my mind when I see the annual memes around Christmas time about Saint Nick punching the heretic Arius. First, I have yet to see anyone prove definitively from the Bible that Jesus has always existed alongside Yahweh--there is certainly possible evidence for Arianism, and, second, the Bible condemns assault of the type Saint Nick engaged in (Exodus 21:18-19). The people who continue to circulate these memes around December probably don't derive their Christological doctrines purely from a rationalistic analysis of the Bible.
Theological Arianism holds that Jesus is not a being that has always existed uncaused like Yahweh ("the Father"). Despite the horror of many evangelicals at such a suggestion, logic requires only one uncaused cause, so any attempt to prove that Christian theology teaches that more than one uncaused causes exist must be rooted in the Bible, and the Bible does not explicitly teach this. Most people I've met who deny Arianism are Trinitarians. The people who literally believe that Jesus and Yahweh are identical need to realize that one has a body, the other doesn't, that one knew when the other would return and the other didn't, and that one had to submit his will to the other, an impossible thing if they are truly the same. This does not prove Arianism, but it does refute popular Christology. Jesus is not the same as Yahweh. They have the same mission and the same moral nature, but they are distinct beings with their own minds and wills. This, of course, means that Jesus doesn't have to exist uncaused by logical necessity, like Yahweh does.
Interestingly, the very phraseology of the words "Son" and "Father" can imply that the former was brought into existence by the latter, and Christ is called God's "begotten" (John 3:16), also being called the "firstborn of all creation" in Colossians 1--which could simply be a title of rank, but it could also be a reference to Christ having a finite beginning. I am not saying that these things prove Arianism, only that they serve as evidence for it that is often overlooked by those I have met who reject Arianism. The people who get upset when I suggest this do not seem to realize that Arianism, if true, changes nothing about Biblical moral obligations, the necessity of Yahweh existing as an uncaused cause, or the divine nature of Christ (a beginning-less deity can create another deity that is identical in nature except in the fact that it has a beginning). People who call Arius a heretic simply because past theologians have don't have a rational basis for doing so.
Now, as for the punch Saint Nick allegedly gave to Arius, what the hell makes Christians think that this is morally acceptable according to Mosaic Law? If they think that Arius deserved to be punched (if he even was a heretic to begin with), they are using a standard of morality different than the one revealed in Scripture, meaning that they are actually heretical since they believe in extra-Biblical morality when the Bible itself condemns extra-Biblical moral claims (Deuteronomy 4:2). The Bible never says to punch someone for denying that Jesus always existed alongside Yahweh, much less that punitive measures should be taken without a trial. What the Bible does say is that someone who assaults another person with his or her fists (without the altercation resulting in permanent injuries, which is punished differently--Exodus 21:23-25) must pay the victim and ensure that the victim recovers (Exodus 21:18-19). So people who approve of Saint Nick's assault contradict the Bible, making them heretics if they actually believe that there is a moral standard above or contrary to that of Scripture, which is primarily revealed in Mosaic Law.
In short, the people who repost the memes about punching Arius every year are probably theologically misguided and irrational people--no surprise there! I hope to look into Arianism more in the near future and see if Scripture truly does teach it. Just because Arianism is a minority belief does not mean it is false. After all, the consensus of the majority never once proves anything except that the majority is in agreement, in no way establishing that the majority is correct.
Theological Arianism holds that Jesus is not a being that has always existed uncaused like Yahweh ("the Father"). Despite the horror of many evangelicals at such a suggestion, logic requires only one uncaused cause, so any attempt to prove that Christian theology teaches that more than one uncaused causes exist must be rooted in the Bible, and the Bible does not explicitly teach this. Most people I've met who deny Arianism are Trinitarians. The people who literally believe that Jesus and Yahweh are identical need to realize that one has a body, the other doesn't, that one knew when the other would return and the other didn't, and that one had to submit his will to the other, an impossible thing if they are truly the same. This does not prove Arianism, but it does refute popular Christology. Jesus is not the same as Yahweh. They have the same mission and the same moral nature, but they are distinct beings with their own minds and wills. This, of course, means that Jesus doesn't have to exist uncaused by logical necessity, like Yahweh does.
Interestingly, the very phraseology of the words "Son" and "Father" can imply that the former was brought into existence by the latter, and Christ is called God's "begotten" (John 3:16), also being called the "firstborn of all creation" in Colossians 1--which could simply be a title of rank, but it could also be a reference to Christ having a finite beginning. I am not saying that these things prove Arianism, only that they serve as evidence for it that is often overlooked by those I have met who reject Arianism. The people who get upset when I suggest this do not seem to realize that Arianism, if true, changes nothing about Biblical moral obligations, the necessity of Yahweh existing as an uncaused cause, or the divine nature of Christ (a beginning-less deity can create another deity that is identical in nature except in the fact that it has a beginning). People who call Arius a heretic simply because past theologians have don't have a rational basis for doing so.
Now, as for the punch Saint Nick allegedly gave to Arius, what the hell makes Christians think that this is morally acceptable according to Mosaic Law? If they think that Arius deserved to be punched (if he even was a heretic to begin with), they are using a standard of morality different than the one revealed in Scripture, meaning that they are actually heretical since they believe in extra-Biblical morality when the Bible itself condemns extra-Biblical moral claims (Deuteronomy 4:2). The Bible never says to punch someone for denying that Jesus always existed alongside Yahweh, much less that punitive measures should be taken without a trial. What the Bible does say is that someone who assaults another person with his or her fists (without the altercation resulting in permanent injuries, which is punished differently--Exodus 21:23-25) must pay the victim and ensure that the victim recovers (Exodus 21:18-19). So people who approve of Saint Nick's assault contradict the Bible, making them heretics if they actually believe that there is a moral standard above or contrary to that of Scripture, which is primarily revealed in Mosaic Law.
In short, the people who repost the memes about punching Arius every year are probably theologically misguided and irrational people--no surprise there! I hope to look into Arianism more in the near future and see if Scripture truly does teach it. Just because Arianism is a minority belief does not mean it is false. After all, the consensus of the majority never once proves anything except that the majority is in agreement, in no way establishing that the majority is correct.
Contentment In Singleness
It's quite stupid for people to constantly expect or want all the singles around them to find romantic relationships. What people might assume about singles can be entirely false. Some may be perfectly content in their singleness. This post is not about how single Christians need to be content with being single, although that is true--it's about how illogical it is for my society at large to treat singleness as a condition that needs to be cured. Contentment is not impossible for singles because romantic relationships are not necessary for happiness and are not pursued by all people.
Though some may protest, it is quite stupid for people to assume that single people are unfulfilled simply because they are single, always searching for a romantic interest, or consumed by desire to be in a dating or marital relationship. Just because a person is single in a culture that glorifies romantic relationships does not mean that he or she is interested in a relationship of that type at all. As strange as it may sound to some people, just being a human doesn't mean someone has any desire to date or marry. GASP!
In no way does the fact that significant others are not universally desired trivialize the desires of those who do want a significant other. It is just that this desire is not shared by every person. There are many things that someone can enjoy, married, dating, or single. Some people may ache for a romantic relationship, but some may never be struck by the urge to look for one. Instead of assuming either about a person, a rational mind will realize that people are individuals and their desires and the intensity of those desires differ from person to person, and this includes the desire for romantic companionship.
Other relationships can satisfy loneliness, depending on the type of loneliness. It is not as if a single person has no other available avenues to satisfy a longing for social connection. On the contrary, a variety of other relationships can enrich someone's life immensely. Friendship is far more than just a filler while waiting for someone to date or marry. Besides, even in a romantic relationship, a person can have social needs that extend far beyond the capacity of a significant other or spouse to meet. People need to stop assuming that singles are desperate for romantic relationships, and singles who are desperate for romantic relationships can still find a wealth of relationship depth in their connections to other men and women apart from romantic pursuits. Loneliness does not always require romance to be cured. What does need to be cured is my society's irrational obsession with romantic relationships.
Though some may protest, it is quite stupid for people to assume that single people are unfulfilled simply because they are single, always searching for a romantic interest, or consumed by desire to be in a dating or marital relationship. Just because a person is single in a culture that glorifies romantic relationships does not mean that he or she is interested in a relationship of that type at all. As strange as it may sound to some people, just being a human doesn't mean someone has any desire to date or marry. GASP!
In no way does the fact that significant others are not universally desired trivialize the desires of those who do want a significant other. It is just that this desire is not shared by every person. There are many things that someone can enjoy, married, dating, or single. Some people may ache for a romantic relationship, but some may never be struck by the urge to look for one. Instead of assuming either about a person, a rational mind will realize that people are individuals and their desires and the intensity of those desires differ from person to person, and this includes the desire for romantic companionship.
Other relationships can satisfy loneliness, depending on the type of loneliness. It is not as if a single person has no other available avenues to satisfy a longing for social connection. On the contrary, a variety of other relationships can enrich someone's life immensely. Friendship is far more than just a filler while waiting for someone to date or marry. Besides, even in a romantic relationship, a person can have social needs that extend far beyond the capacity of a significant other or spouse to meet. People need to stop assuming that singles are desperate for romantic relationships, and singles who are desperate for romantic relationships can still find a wealth of relationship depth in their connections to other men and women apart from romantic pursuits. Loneliness does not always require romance to be cured. What does need to be cured is my society's irrational obsession with romantic relationships.
Friday, December 22, 2017
The Wages Of Sin
Romans 6:23 is rather well known for the portion where it states that the "wages of sin is death", yet some seem to not understand what this actually means. Some might invoke this verse as a hilariously weak support for the claim that sins are equal, since they all lead to natural death, while others might say that this means that the unsaved deserve to be eternally tormented in hell (someone has actually told me that this is what Romans 6:23 means when it says no such thing). What does it actually mean for the wages of sin to be death?
Death is the natural biological consequence of sin (Romans 5:12), and the second death (annihilation of consciousness and body) in hell is the final, ultimate punishment from God for sin [1]. The human body dies at the end of this life and God will destroy unsaved people in hell (Ezekiel 18:4, Matthew 10:28). The unsaved, without the eternal life that salvation in Christ brings, will not merely be cut off from accessing heaven, but they will be cut off from existence in any form whatsoever. Death, extinction, is what human sin deserves. The second death is not eternal conscious torment; it is cessation of conscious life and physical existence.
Now, as Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy teach, some sins deserve a more immediate death in this life. In these cases, Scripture prescribes capital punishment. Yes, to name some of the capital crimes listed in the Bible, only when people who commit rape, sorcery, kidnapping, murder, adultery, bestiality, blasphemy, and battery against their parents are killed on the testimony of two or three witnesses will justice be administered in those cases. In instances of lesser crimes, only when right monetary restitution is enacted for theft and assault and when 1-40 lashes are applied to other offenses will there be justice. In cases of Biblical capital punishments, human governments are obligated (there is no such thing as terrestrial justice that deviates from Mosaic Law; all deviation from justice is injustice) to accelerate the biological death that inevitably awaits capital offenders. The appeals to cultural ideas of justice, as well as to the subjective, unverifiable impulses of conscience, that are used as arguments against this are all dismantled in full by reason. The intellectually weak will look to conscience and cultural consensus for their moral knowledge, while rational Christians will not. Intellectual insects need to be intellectually crushed.
I've had some people tell me that Mosaic punishments no longer apply because all people deserve death and therefore we should love people and not enforce Biblical penalties. What a fallacious bunch of nonsense! As if people didn't all deserve to die of natural causes when God first revealed Mosaic Law, and before that, and as if human moral obligations depend on when and where you are born! This is theistic cultural relativism, yet many will not admit to this. The doctrine of sin bringing human death in no way means that justice demands that some people be executed now. It also does not mean that all sins are equal, as God would not demand capital punishment for only some sins if they were; he would either demand it in all cases of sin or in none, as equal sins deserve equal penalties (and even some Biblical capital crimes are worse than others). The Bible rejects in full the idea that all sins are equal in their evil [2]. Only a fool believes such a contra-Biblical belief is Biblical.
When people use Romans 6:23 in order to argue against theonomy (the position which recognizes that moral knowledge comes from divine revelation alone and that Biblical morality doesn't change between testaments)--as if the fact that all people who sin deserve to naturally die in any way means that the capital penalties in Mosaic Law are illegitimate or revoked (which would also require that God's moral nature change)--they are relying on fallacies and a distortion of Scripture in order to defend an unbiblical conclusion. Besides, when people I know flee from Mosaic Law, they almost always end up defending or endorsing a legal system that is far more severe in some way than Mosaic Law ever is.
The Biblical teaching that the wages of sin is death in no way means that everyone deserves to be killed by other humans right now, nor does it mean that everyone should be left to die naturally. It means that people succumb to death because sin brings human death and people sin. And it remains true that some people deserve to be killed through legitimate methods by human governments as prescribed by the Bible. But whether an unsaved person dies naturally or by just capital punishment, he or she will face the second death--destruction of the body and soul in hell, which is the result of God's direct judgment and not the actions of any human or natural decay.
[1]. See here:
A. https://thechristianrationalist.blogspot.com/2017/02/the-truth-of-annihilationism.html
B. https://thechristianrationalist.blogspot.com/2017/12/the-justice-of-annihilationism.html
[2]. https://thechristianrationalist.blogspot.com/2016/07/the-alleged-equality-of-sins.html
Death is the natural biological consequence of sin (Romans 5:12), and the second death (annihilation of consciousness and body) in hell is the final, ultimate punishment from God for sin [1]. The human body dies at the end of this life and God will destroy unsaved people in hell (Ezekiel 18:4, Matthew 10:28). The unsaved, without the eternal life that salvation in Christ brings, will not merely be cut off from accessing heaven, but they will be cut off from existence in any form whatsoever. Death, extinction, is what human sin deserves. The second death is not eternal conscious torment; it is cessation of conscious life and physical existence.
Now, as Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy teach, some sins deserve a more immediate death in this life. In these cases, Scripture prescribes capital punishment. Yes, to name some of the capital crimes listed in the Bible, only when people who commit rape, sorcery, kidnapping, murder, adultery, bestiality, blasphemy, and battery against their parents are killed on the testimony of two or three witnesses will justice be administered in those cases. In instances of lesser crimes, only when right monetary restitution is enacted for theft and assault and when 1-40 lashes are applied to other offenses will there be justice. In cases of Biblical capital punishments, human governments are obligated (there is no such thing as terrestrial justice that deviates from Mosaic Law; all deviation from justice is injustice) to accelerate the biological death that inevitably awaits capital offenders. The appeals to cultural ideas of justice, as well as to the subjective, unverifiable impulses of conscience, that are used as arguments against this are all dismantled in full by reason. The intellectually weak will look to conscience and cultural consensus for their moral knowledge, while rational Christians will not. Intellectual insects need to be intellectually crushed.
I've had some people tell me that Mosaic punishments no longer apply because all people deserve death and therefore we should love people and not enforce Biblical penalties. What a fallacious bunch of nonsense! As if people didn't all deserve to die of natural causes when God first revealed Mosaic Law, and before that, and as if human moral obligations depend on when and where you are born! This is theistic cultural relativism, yet many will not admit to this. The doctrine of sin bringing human death in no way means that justice demands that some people be executed now. It also does not mean that all sins are equal, as God would not demand capital punishment for only some sins if they were; he would either demand it in all cases of sin or in none, as equal sins deserve equal penalties (and even some Biblical capital crimes are worse than others). The Bible rejects in full the idea that all sins are equal in their evil [2]. Only a fool believes such a contra-Biblical belief is Biblical.
When people use Romans 6:23 in order to argue against theonomy (the position which recognizes that moral knowledge comes from divine revelation alone and that Biblical morality doesn't change between testaments)--as if the fact that all people who sin deserve to naturally die in any way means that the capital penalties in Mosaic Law are illegitimate or revoked (which would also require that God's moral nature change)--they are relying on fallacies and a distortion of Scripture in order to defend an unbiblical conclusion. Besides, when people I know flee from Mosaic Law, they almost always end up defending or endorsing a legal system that is far more severe in some way than Mosaic Law ever is.
The Biblical teaching that the wages of sin is death in no way means that everyone deserves to be killed by other humans right now, nor does it mean that everyone should be left to die naturally. It means that people succumb to death because sin brings human death and people sin. And it remains true that some people deserve to be killed through legitimate methods by human governments as prescribed by the Bible. But whether an unsaved person dies naturally or by just capital punishment, he or she will face the second death--destruction of the body and soul in hell, which is the result of God's direct judgment and not the actions of any human or natural decay.
[1]. See here:
A. https://thechristianrationalist.blogspot.com/2017/02/the-truth-of-annihilationism.html
B. https://thechristianrationalist.blogspot.com/2017/12/the-justice-of-annihilationism.html
[2]. https://thechristianrationalist.blogspot.com/2016/07/the-alleged-equality-of-sins.html
Minds With Aphantasia
Although all conscious beings share some similar experiences, some aspects of their experiences may be quite different. Can you summon an image in your mind? If so, how long can you sustain it? How vivid is it? How clear? How does this feature of your mind affect your everyday life? Whatever the answer, not everyone can necessarily view these mental images. Those who cannot have a condition called aphantasia, which some might not even be aware is an actual condition.
Aphantasia is an inability to form mental images (or possibly a very weak ability to form them, just as asexuals can have faint or undirected sexual desires). People without aphantasia could easily just assume that everyone shares their capacity for visualizing images in the mind, but assumptions are not reliable. Clarity and ease of summoning mental images can vary from person to person, with some people being unable to conjure them up at all to begin with. Just because something is a majority experience doesn't mean that every single person has the same ability. Aphantasiacs are reportedly a very small minority.
Aphantasia can affect the impact of visual learning by affecting memory. When someone cannot recall what a chart or book page looked like, he or she may struggle with memorizing or recalling the contents. Maybe someone with aphantasia has to actually see a room to remember just where he or she left a certain item. Of course, people with aphantasia can still have great memories and can grasp concepts, just not in the same way as others, as they must recall without the aid of mental images. An aphantasiac can certainly still have a thriving mental life, but that life will simply not involve mental images or only involve them to a minimal degree. Imagination can refer directly to someone's ability to create and sustain images in the mind, so I will not use that word to refer to such an aphantasiac. Comprehension is far more than just visualizing something in the mind.
Despite their condition, aphantasiacs can dream--inability or a weak ability to form mental images while awake does not mean that one's mind cannot form images while the body is asleep. For some reason, sleep can enable or unlock the ability, although those with aphantasia may experience dreams more infrequently. Someone with aphantasia might even perceive mental imagery of some kind during the time right before he or she is about to fall asleep. This imagery might be weaker. It might be less memorable. But it can exist under these circumstances, although the person cannot create such imagery while not sleeping or falling asleep.
Understanding aphantasia can help people understand the possible differences between one person's experience of consciousness and that of another person. All beings with conscious minds will share some identical aspects of their experiences--all of them, to even have conscious minds, must perceive in some way, for instance. Still, in some ways, the specifics of how a person experiences thought might differ from the way that another person experiences thought. Aphantasia is an example of this. An aphantasiac might resent or be content with his or her condition, or be apathetic towards it, but, whatever his or her attitude towards it, that person still has much in common with all other conscious minds.
Aphantasia is an inability to form mental images (or possibly a very weak ability to form them, just as asexuals can have faint or undirected sexual desires). People without aphantasia could easily just assume that everyone shares their capacity for visualizing images in the mind, but assumptions are not reliable. Clarity and ease of summoning mental images can vary from person to person, with some people being unable to conjure them up at all to begin with. Just because something is a majority experience doesn't mean that every single person has the same ability. Aphantasiacs are reportedly a very small minority.
Aphantasia can affect the impact of visual learning by affecting memory. When someone cannot recall what a chart or book page looked like, he or she may struggle with memorizing or recalling the contents. Maybe someone with aphantasia has to actually see a room to remember just where he or she left a certain item. Of course, people with aphantasia can still have great memories and can grasp concepts, just not in the same way as others, as they must recall without the aid of mental images. An aphantasiac can certainly still have a thriving mental life, but that life will simply not involve mental images or only involve them to a minimal degree. Imagination can refer directly to someone's ability to create and sustain images in the mind, so I will not use that word to refer to such an aphantasiac. Comprehension is far more than just visualizing something in the mind.
Despite their condition, aphantasiacs can dream--inability or a weak ability to form mental images while awake does not mean that one's mind cannot form images while the body is asleep. For some reason, sleep can enable or unlock the ability, although those with aphantasia may experience dreams more infrequently. Someone with aphantasia might even perceive mental imagery of some kind during the time right before he or she is about to fall asleep. This imagery might be weaker. It might be less memorable. But it can exist under these circumstances, although the person cannot create such imagery while not sleeping or falling asleep.
Understanding aphantasia can help people understand the possible differences between one person's experience of consciousness and that of another person. All beings with conscious minds will share some identical aspects of their experiences--all of them, to even have conscious minds, must perceive in some way, for instance. Still, in some ways, the specifics of how a person experiences thought might differ from the way that another person experiences thought. Aphantasia is an example of this. An aphantasiac might resent or be content with his or her condition, or be apathetic towards it, but, whatever his or her attitude towards it, that person still has much in common with all other conscious minds.
Individualism In Christianity
Christianity and individualism are far from ideological opposites, although a misunderstanding of individualism may be falsely perceived to conflict with Christianity. Individualism is the position that individuals are free to express their own personalities that make them unique, an ideology that emphasizes the worth of people as individuals and not as members of some group (like collectivism, which is more prominent in Asian cultures). It acknowledges that 1) people are different, 2) that all individuals have rights, and 3) that the metaphysical value of an individual is not defined by group function. This, in itself, has nothing to do with promoting selfishness and lack of concern for others. Individualism is actually woven into Christianity far more than some might think, particularly in the areas of salvation and moral rights.
Christianity definitely emphasizes strong community, as many passages clearly show. No one can read the Old Testament and New Testament objectively without seeing that God created humans to be social beings--God said that it is not good for a person to be alone--and that the strengths of individuals can be synergistically amplified in group collaboration, as community is a tool that can reflect God's glory. But Christianity is also a religion about each individual on the personal level, and it is purely on an individual level that a person can embrace spiritual restoration, for no affiliation with a human group determines whether someone will go to heaven or hell (being in the church doesn't make someone saved; being saved gets someone in the church). It is only on the personal level that one can have a relationship with God; no other person can make me have a right standing with him. Christ died for the world (John 3:16, 1 John 2:2, Romans 5:8). But in doing so he died for each individual.
Likewise, the source of human rights is the fact that each individual human bears God's image, not the whims or decrees of any government. No group decision nullifies the value of each individual. What is not invented by humans cannot be rescinded by humans. Regardless of the group that denies individual rights, regardless of the size of that group, objective rights remain objective rights. Moral rights are another area where readers of the Bible can see individualism appear in Christianity. Groups have rights only by nature of being comprised of individuals who have rights as God's image bearers.
God revealed the moral obligations that govern interaction with other people. Still, the Law provides great freedom for individuals. The command of Mosaic Law to not add to the Law (Deuteronomy 4:2) leaves it up to each individual person to engage in or not engage in non-sinful practices at will, the preferences of others totally irrelevant. Individuals are free to live as they please as long as they do not violate the objective moral obligations that are rooted in God's nature, which are revealed solely in the Bible, not by the natural world, conscience, societal standards, or preferences. The Bible most certainly honors individual freedom, but not freedom to sin (1 Peter 2:16). Theonomy honors individualism just as the doctrine of imago dei does, for where there is no sin men and women may act as they please.
Individualism is not, as some might think, a cancerous philosophy that inevitably results in selfishness and intentional isolation from others. While some may use it in such a way, this says nothing of the concepts of individualism themselves, only how some misapplied them. On the contrary, individualism is simply true. People are different; people have rights irrespective of belonging to various groups and cultures; individuals can do what they like as long as they do not sin; it is only on an individual level that a person can have a relationship with God.
Christianity definitely emphasizes strong community, as many passages clearly show. No one can read the Old Testament and New Testament objectively without seeing that God created humans to be social beings--God said that it is not good for a person to be alone--and that the strengths of individuals can be synergistically amplified in group collaboration, as community is a tool that can reflect God's glory. But Christianity is also a religion about each individual on the personal level, and it is purely on an individual level that a person can embrace spiritual restoration, for no affiliation with a human group determines whether someone will go to heaven or hell (being in the church doesn't make someone saved; being saved gets someone in the church). It is only on the personal level that one can have a relationship with God; no other person can make me have a right standing with him. Christ died for the world (John 3:16, 1 John 2:2, Romans 5:8). But in doing so he died for each individual.
Likewise, the source of human rights is the fact that each individual human bears God's image, not the whims or decrees of any government. No group decision nullifies the value of each individual. What is not invented by humans cannot be rescinded by humans. Regardless of the group that denies individual rights, regardless of the size of that group, objective rights remain objective rights. Moral rights are another area where readers of the Bible can see individualism appear in Christianity. Groups have rights only by nature of being comprised of individuals who have rights as God's image bearers.
God revealed the moral obligations that govern interaction with other people. Still, the Law provides great freedom for individuals. The command of Mosaic Law to not add to the Law (Deuteronomy 4:2) leaves it up to each individual person to engage in or not engage in non-sinful practices at will, the preferences of others totally irrelevant. Individuals are free to live as they please as long as they do not violate the objective moral obligations that are rooted in God's nature, which are revealed solely in the Bible, not by the natural world, conscience, societal standards, or preferences. The Bible most certainly honors individual freedom, but not freedom to sin (1 Peter 2:16). Theonomy honors individualism just as the doctrine of imago dei does, for where there is no sin men and women may act as they please.
Individualism is not, as some might think, a cancerous philosophy that inevitably results in selfishness and intentional isolation from others. While some may use it in such a way, this says nothing of the concepts of individualism themselves, only how some misapplied them. On the contrary, individualism is simply true. People are different; people have rights irrespective of belonging to various groups and cultures; individuals can do what they like as long as they do not sin; it is only on an individual level that a person can have a relationship with God.
Tuesday, December 19, 2017
The Truth About Erotic Media (Part 2)
The information in this article, as with any other aspect of truth, is highly controversial in the right circumstances, so read part one [1] and any other posts needed to understand premises which these conclusions follow from if you need a fuller comprehension of why this information is true. In part one I defined erotic media and pornography (the latter being only a subcategory within the former) and proved that sexuality and sexual energy is inherently good unless misused according to the Bible. I also explained how nothing is sexual in itself besides actual sex acts, and why viewing these other things as sexual is to misrepresent reality. Read part one if you need to read about those things first, and do not straw man anything I say here. With all of this said, I will resume where I left off.
Sexual Morality
Before explaining what Biblical sexual morality is I must explain some crucial details about moral knowledge. If there is no God there is no such thing as morality [2]. In an atheistic world there is no moral authority, for there is no metaphysical anchor for any moral standard at all--not just the Christian standard or the Muslim standard, but any standard whatsoever. If God is a being other than myself, then, since I am not a telepath, he must reveal morality to me or I will never know it. A person's conscience, just like the consciences of all other beings with human limitations, is purely subjective and can only tell that person how he or she feels about an act or attitude, not if that thing really is right or wrong.
Conscience is malleable and subject to change and can be conditioned by others or altered by experiences. Its sensitivity and triggers differ from person to person, and people as a whole do not truly agree on the specifics of morality when pressed for details. In short, no preference, feeling, or social standard reveals or determines what is morally right or wrong. God must reveal moral truths for people to know them, and the Bible acknowledges this (Romans 3:20, 7:7, 1 John 3:4). Deuteronomy 4:2 says to not add to God's moral revelation in Mosaic Law, and to know if a moral claim is an extra-Biblical one, it is logically necessary to know the Bible. A Christian cannot know if he or she is adding to the Law except by knowing the Law itself.
The Bible does condemn premarital sex without commitment or that does not lead to commitment (Exodus 22:16-17 [3]), prostitution (Leviticus 19:29, Deuteronomy 23:17-18), adultery (Exodus 20:14, Leviticus 20:10, Deuteronomy 22:22), homosexual behaviors (Leviticus 18:22, 20:13, Romans 1:26-27), incest (see Leviticus 18 in general), sex with someone who is engaged to another person (Deuteronomy 22:23-24), sex trafficking (Exodus 21:16, Deuteronomy 24:7), and rape (Deuteronomy 22:25-27, 1 Corinthians 7:3-5). It doesn't condemn masturbation, public sex, sexual arousal of the genitals, or erotic media.
As for attitudes, the Bible does condemn coveting someone else's spouse (see the Greek word for lust in Matthew 5:28), and wanting to commit an act that is evil is itself evil, so wanting to commit an act of sexual immorality is clearly sinful. It doesn't condemn sexual attraction or mental sexual arousal. Additionally, the very metaphysical value and nature of humans beings condemns objectification, which is reducing someone to just one aspect of their personhood (an object of one type), for we are creatures made in God's image with many more components to our personhood besides sexuality. People ignore reality when they treat sexuality as something to fear, avoid, suppress, and demonize, and they also ignore reality when they view nonsexual things like friendship, physical affection, and the human body as sexual. Many people either worship or fear sexuality, yet rationalist Christians will do neither.
What of the pathetic charge that use of erotic media is tantamount to adultery? Adultery is clearly sinful according to the Bible--but adultery is the act of having sex with someone who is married to another person, and the lust, or adultery of the heart, that Jesus condemns in Matthew 5:28 is the sin of coveting the spouse of someone else (as I've explained in part one). Coveting is the desire to take for yourself what belongs to another person. This is lust, not judging someone to be beautiful (or even sexy), not experiencing sexual attraction, not experiencing genital arousal upon seeing or thinking about someone. It is not adulterous in any way to do something that does not involve lust or a married person having extramarital sex.
There is a plethora of things that are not sexual or adulterous in any way that some Christians may erroneously call sexual or adulterous or both, although logic proves that neither charge is true. These things include deep friendship between a married man or woman and someone of the opposite gender besides his or her spouse, a married person seeing the nude body of someone of the opposite gender besides his or her spouse, and a married person admiring the body of someone of the opposite gender besides his or her spouse. None of these things are adulterous (much less sexual) or sinful and only an irrational, insecure, emotionalistic legalist would ever judge them to be so. But it is also true that viewing morally legitimate erotic media without sinful motives, despite the intrinsically sexual nature of erotic media, is in no way adulterous on a mental level as well (and only a highly irrational person would ever pretend it is adultery on a physical level).
Erotic Media Is Not Sinful
So then, is erotic media sinful? Not at all, unless it is pornographic (see part one for the definition of terms)! Actually, the Bible contains erotic media in the form of sexual poetry in Song of Songs. Since masturbation is not sinful [4], sexual arousal is not sinful, sexual attraction is not sinful, and erotic media is not sinful, it inescapably logically follows that combining them is not sinful as well. The truth is that men and women--and it is so utterly stupid when Americans sometimes act as if men are driven only/primarily by sexual impulses and women are not "visual" or sexual beings (both are enormous errors)--can view or read legitimate erotic media (or view legitimate sexual activity in person) with the explicit intent of sexually arousing their bodies and minds, experiencing sexual energy, and stimulating and playing with their own genitals for personal sexual pleasure. As long as they do not 1) sexually objectify anyone in the process (Genesis 1:26-27), 2) want to take someone else's spouse or significant other for themselves (coveting/lust--Matthew 5:28, Exodus 20:17), or 3) commit or want to commit an actual sexual sin, they are not sinning.
There is also nothing sinful about using erotic media in the presence of other people of either gender besides one's spouse, alone or in a group. This follows logically from other truths. Being naked in front of members of the opposite gender is not sinful--and there is nothing inherently sexual at all about full public nudity, but even if it was sexual in a particular case that would not mean that any party will experience sexual arousal or attraction to the other party/parties. Performing sexual acts (morally legitimate ones) like using erotic media in the presence of members of the opposite gender, even with opposite gender friends, is not sinful, just as performing legitimate sex acts and using erotic media in the presence of same gender friends is not sinful.
Yes, just as men and women can watch erotic media without objectifying other people or committing sexual sins, men and women, even separately married ones, can use erotic media, masturbate, and perform morally legitimate sex acts in each other's presences and still be friends. Even if there was sexual attraction between them at some point (and this is not an inevitable, unavoidable outcome; cross-gender friendships themselves are not in any way romantic or sexual), sexual attraction is not sinful and is therefore not something to demonize or fear--or something that erases rationality, free will, and self-control. As I explained in part one of The Truth About Erotic Media, sexual energy is not itself objectifying, dangerous, or lustful, and in no way means that men and women who experience it towards each other cannot remain strong, close, and committed friends. And just as it is dehumanizing to mentally reduce someone to only his or her sexuality, it is also dehumanizing to ignore someone else's sexuality. People are sexual beings, and to neglect this is to neglect a major part of the way God intentionally designed humans. Sexuality can be admired in people of the same gender and the opposite gender without sin.
If people were to truly absorb the information I have put forth so far in this series on erotic media, they would likely be far more relaxed about sexuality, far more comfortable with their bodies and bodily functions, and free from so much potential or actual false guilt. They would also recognize that most activities and experiences are not sexual but that many things can still be appreciated in a sexual way or sexualized without objectification. A society of rationalistic Christians who understand logic and Scripture would not find the conclusions mentioned here shocking or terrifying.
In part three I will refute objections to the truths addressed here and will conclude this series.
[1]. https://thechristianrationalist.blogspot.com/2017/12/the-truth-about-erotic-media-part-1.html
[2]. https://thechristianrationalist.blogspot.com/2017/03/the-nature-of-conscience.html
[3]. https://thechristianrationalist.blogspot.com/2016/08/on-exodus-2216-17.html
[4]. See here:
A. https://thechristianrationalist.blogspot.com/2017/07/sexual-self-stimulation.html
B. https://thechristianrationalist.blogspot.com/2017/09/myths-about-masturbation.html
Sexual Morality
Before explaining what Biblical sexual morality is I must explain some crucial details about moral knowledge. If there is no God there is no such thing as morality [2]. In an atheistic world there is no moral authority, for there is no metaphysical anchor for any moral standard at all--not just the Christian standard or the Muslim standard, but any standard whatsoever. If God is a being other than myself, then, since I am not a telepath, he must reveal morality to me or I will never know it. A person's conscience, just like the consciences of all other beings with human limitations, is purely subjective and can only tell that person how he or she feels about an act or attitude, not if that thing really is right or wrong.
Conscience is malleable and subject to change and can be conditioned by others or altered by experiences. Its sensitivity and triggers differ from person to person, and people as a whole do not truly agree on the specifics of morality when pressed for details. In short, no preference, feeling, or social standard reveals or determines what is morally right or wrong. God must reveal moral truths for people to know them, and the Bible acknowledges this (Romans 3:20, 7:7, 1 John 3:4). Deuteronomy 4:2 says to not add to God's moral revelation in Mosaic Law, and to know if a moral claim is an extra-Biblical one, it is logically necessary to know the Bible. A Christian cannot know if he or she is adding to the Law except by knowing the Law itself.
The Bible does condemn premarital sex without commitment or that does not lead to commitment (Exodus 22:16-17 [3]), prostitution (Leviticus 19:29, Deuteronomy 23:17-18), adultery (Exodus 20:14, Leviticus 20:10, Deuteronomy 22:22), homosexual behaviors (Leviticus 18:22, 20:13, Romans 1:26-27), incest (see Leviticus 18 in general), sex with someone who is engaged to another person (Deuteronomy 22:23-24), sex trafficking (Exodus 21:16, Deuteronomy 24:7), and rape (Deuteronomy 22:25-27, 1 Corinthians 7:3-5). It doesn't condemn masturbation, public sex, sexual arousal of the genitals, or erotic media.
As for attitudes, the Bible does condemn coveting someone else's spouse (see the Greek word for lust in Matthew 5:28), and wanting to commit an act that is evil is itself evil, so wanting to commit an act of sexual immorality is clearly sinful. It doesn't condemn sexual attraction or mental sexual arousal. Additionally, the very metaphysical value and nature of humans beings condemns objectification, which is reducing someone to just one aspect of their personhood (an object of one type), for we are creatures made in God's image with many more components to our personhood besides sexuality. People ignore reality when they treat sexuality as something to fear, avoid, suppress, and demonize, and they also ignore reality when they view nonsexual things like friendship, physical affection, and the human body as sexual. Many people either worship or fear sexuality, yet rationalist Christians will do neither.
What of the pathetic charge that use of erotic media is tantamount to adultery? Adultery is clearly sinful according to the Bible--but adultery is the act of having sex with someone who is married to another person, and the lust, or adultery of the heart, that Jesus condemns in Matthew 5:28 is the sin of coveting the spouse of someone else (as I've explained in part one). Coveting is the desire to take for yourself what belongs to another person. This is lust, not judging someone to be beautiful (or even sexy), not experiencing sexual attraction, not experiencing genital arousal upon seeing or thinking about someone. It is not adulterous in any way to do something that does not involve lust or a married person having extramarital sex.
There is a plethora of things that are not sexual or adulterous in any way that some Christians may erroneously call sexual or adulterous or both, although logic proves that neither charge is true. These things include deep friendship between a married man or woman and someone of the opposite gender besides his or her spouse, a married person seeing the nude body of someone of the opposite gender besides his or her spouse, and a married person admiring the body of someone of the opposite gender besides his or her spouse. None of these things are adulterous (much less sexual) or sinful and only an irrational, insecure, emotionalistic legalist would ever judge them to be so. But it is also true that viewing morally legitimate erotic media without sinful motives, despite the intrinsically sexual nature of erotic media, is in no way adulterous on a mental level as well (and only a highly irrational person would ever pretend it is adultery on a physical level).
Erotic Media Is Not Sinful
So then, is erotic media sinful? Not at all, unless it is pornographic (see part one for the definition of terms)! Actually, the Bible contains erotic media in the form of sexual poetry in Song of Songs. Since masturbation is not sinful [4], sexual arousal is not sinful, sexual attraction is not sinful, and erotic media is not sinful, it inescapably logically follows that combining them is not sinful as well. The truth is that men and women--and it is so utterly stupid when Americans sometimes act as if men are driven only/primarily by sexual impulses and women are not "visual" or sexual beings (both are enormous errors)--can view or read legitimate erotic media (or view legitimate sexual activity in person) with the explicit intent of sexually arousing their bodies and minds, experiencing sexual energy, and stimulating and playing with their own genitals for personal sexual pleasure. As long as they do not 1) sexually objectify anyone in the process (Genesis 1:26-27), 2) want to take someone else's spouse or significant other for themselves (coveting/lust--Matthew 5:28, Exodus 20:17), or 3) commit or want to commit an actual sexual sin, they are not sinning.
There is also nothing sinful about using erotic media in the presence of other people of either gender besides one's spouse, alone or in a group. This follows logically from other truths. Being naked in front of members of the opposite gender is not sinful--and there is nothing inherently sexual at all about full public nudity, but even if it was sexual in a particular case that would not mean that any party will experience sexual arousal or attraction to the other party/parties. Performing sexual acts (morally legitimate ones) like using erotic media in the presence of members of the opposite gender, even with opposite gender friends, is not sinful, just as performing legitimate sex acts and using erotic media in the presence of same gender friends is not sinful.
Yes, just as men and women can watch erotic media without objectifying other people or committing sexual sins, men and women, even separately married ones, can use erotic media, masturbate, and perform morally legitimate sex acts in each other's presences and still be friends. Even if there was sexual attraction between them at some point (and this is not an inevitable, unavoidable outcome; cross-gender friendships themselves are not in any way romantic or sexual), sexual attraction is not sinful and is therefore not something to demonize or fear--or something that erases rationality, free will, and self-control. As I explained in part one of The Truth About Erotic Media, sexual energy is not itself objectifying, dangerous, or lustful, and in no way means that men and women who experience it towards each other cannot remain strong, close, and committed friends. And just as it is dehumanizing to mentally reduce someone to only his or her sexuality, it is also dehumanizing to ignore someone else's sexuality. People are sexual beings, and to neglect this is to neglect a major part of the way God intentionally designed humans. Sexuality can be admired in people of the same gender and the opposite gender without sin.
If people were to truly absorb the information I have put forth so far in this series on erotic media, they would likely be far more relaxed about sexuality, far more comfortable with their bodies and bodily functions, and free from so much potential or actual false guilt. They would also recognize that most activities and experiences are not sexual but that many things can still be appreciated in a sexual way or sexualized without objectification. A society of rationalistic Christians who understand logic and Scripture would not find the conclusions mentioned here shocking or terrifying.
In part three I will refute objections to the truths addressed here and will conclude this series.
[1]. https://thechristianrationalist.blogspot.com/2017/12/the-truth-about-erotic-media-part-1.html
[2]. https://thechristianrationalist.blogspot.com/2017/03/the-nature-of-conscience.html
[3]. https://thechristianrationalist.blogspot.com/2016/08/on-exodus-2216-17.html
[4]. See here:
A. https://thechristianrationalist.blogspot.com/2017/07/sexual-self-stimulation.html
B. https://thechristianrationalist.blogspot.com/2017/09/myths-about-masturbation.html
Sunday, December 17, 2017
A Sexist Custom Regarding Beauty
In my experience, Americans seem to believe that women are intrinsically more beautiful than men, with women getting called beautiful on a regular basis, while the same types of compliments are not extended to men with anywhere near the same frequency. Instead of articulating that some men are more beautiful than some women and that some women are more beautiful than some men (although perceptions of what makes someone beautiful are purely subjective), which is logically true since different men and women have different physical appearances, American people often fallaciously elevate female beauty over male beauty. The fact that women get complimented on their physical appearances more than men do just demonstrates the sexist nature of what many Americans seem to believe (again, as far as I can tell in my experience) about beauty.
The way that my culture treats female beauty as more common or more important than male beauty may have a great deal to do with another asinine cultural belief, the belief that men are hypervisual/hypersexual beings. In this context, the fallacious belief that women are more beautiful than men, combined with the utterly illogical American tendency to view beauty and the human body as sexual, takes on the added errors of feeding into a larger societal lie that tells men that they are "wired" to have a massive need to visually admire women or that they are "wired" to sexually objectify women.
Since many compliments about a woman's physical appearance can be totally random and gratuitous, it is as if the people who constantly tell women that they are beautiful seem to believe that women are beautiful or deserve to be called beautiful simply because they are women. This is, of course, entirely fallacious and unbiblical, with the Bible calling both individual men and women beautiful and never teaching some absurd gender-based hierarchy of the physical beauty of men and women [1]. It does not follow from a person being a woman that she is physically beautiful, and it does not follow from someone being a man that he is not physically beautiful or that he is less beautiful than a woman.
Women don't care about their bodily appearances, at all or to a high degree, just because they are women, and the deep desire to be physically beautiful is not foreign to men just because they are men. As in all other things, gender stereotypes about personality traits are false, fallacious, and harmful. Men may care deeply about being beautiful and being seen as beautiful by others, although they may not verbalize this due to societal pressures or conditioning. I myself care a lot about being physically beautiful, though I care far more about my intellectual pursuits than I do about beauty. Other members of my culture would likely insist in general that being beautiful isn't a top priority of mine because I'm a man, though.
And when people don't challenge these erroneous beliefs about beauty, some people fallaciously conclude that women are more beautiful than men because they are often told that or have it implied to them, and the tendency to encourage use of makeup by women (but not men) reflects this belief, as does the tendency for women's clothing to be more colorful and sensuous than clothing for men. None of these things make the belief that women are more beautiful than men true, though! The belief rests on nothing but fallacies based on arbitrary cultural leanings.
The practice of regularly calling women beautiful, given the way it is applied, is sexist towards males just like many expected dating practices are [2]. It is an example of benevolent sexism [3], which, although more socially-accepted, remains entirely sexist. Yet another double standard that one can see in how my culture treats men and women, it demonstrates, as do many other things, the infantile reasoning easily found in American society.
[1]. https://thechristianrationalist.blogspot.com/2016/12/the-beauty-of-both-genders.html
[2]. https://thechristianrationalist.blogspot.com/2017/12/sexist-dating-traditions.html
[3]. https://thechristianrationalist.blogspot.com/2017/08/benevolent-sexism.html
The way that my culture treats female beauty as more common or more important than male beauty may have a great deal to do with another asinine cultural belief, the belief that men are hypervisual/hypersexual beings. In this context, the fallacious belief that women are more beautiful than men, combined with the utterly illogical American tendency to view beauty and the human body as sexual, takes on the added errors of feeding into a larger societal lie that tells men that they are "wired" to have a massive need to visually admire women or that they are "wired" to sexually objectify women.
Since many compliments about a woman's physical appearance can be totally random and gratuitous, it is as if the people who constantly tell women that they are beautiful seem to believe that women are beautiful or deserve to be called beautiful simply because they are women. This is, of course, entirely fallacious and unbiblical, with the Bible calling both individual men and women beautiful and never teaching some absurd gender-based hierarchy of the physical beauty of men and women [1]. It does not follow from a person being a woman that she is physically beautiful, and it does not follow from someone being a man that he is not physically beautiful or that he is less beautiful than a woman.
Women don't care about their bodily appearances, at all or to a high degree, just because they are women, and the deep desire to be physically beautiful is not foreign to men just because they are men. As in all other things, gender stereotypes about personality traits are false, fallacious, and harmful. Men may care deeply about being beautiful and being seen as beautiful by others, although they may not verbalize this due to societal pressures or conditioning. I myself care a lot about being physically beautiful, though I care far more about my intellectual pursuits than I do about beauty. Other members of my culture would likely insist in general that being beautiful isn't a top priority of mine because I'm a man, though.
And when people don't challenge these erroneous beliefs about beauty, some people fallaciously conclude that women are more beautiful than men because they are often told that or have it implied to them, and the tendency to encourage use of makeup by women (but not men) reflects this belief, as does the tendency for women's clothing to be more colorful and sensuous than clothing for men. None of these things make the belief that women are more beautiful than men true, though! The belief rests on nothing but fallacies based on arbitrary cultural leanings.
The practice of regularly calling women beautiful, given the way it is applied, is sexist towards males just like many expected dating practices are [2]. It is an example of benevolent sexism [3], which, although more socially-accepted, remains entirely sexist. Yet another double standard that one can see in how my culture treats men and women, it demonstrates, as do many other things, the infantile reasoning easily found in American society.
[1]. https://thechristianrationalist.blogspot.com/2016/12/the-beauty-of-both-genders.html
[2]. https://thechristianrationalist.blogspot.com/2017/12/sexist-dating-traditions.html
[3]. https://thechristianrationalist.blogspot.com/2017/08/benevolent-sexism.html
Solipsistic Phenomenology
I have explained before why solipsism, the belief either that nothing but my mind exists or that I cannot know if anything but my mind exists, is false. My epistemic abilities and limitations do not demonstrate that there is nothing that exists other than my mind or that I cannot know if anything exists other than my mind, because there are thing besides my consciousness that do exist. Logic and truth exist necessarily and independently of my awareness and existence, and matter does exist--I have a body and there is an external world [1].
But if someone were to redefine what they mean by the word solipsism, and stop using it in the usual manner, it becomes a position that is totally true, in my case at least. The truth is that I cannot know if there are my other minds, not that I cannot know if anything at all exists other than my consciousness, as there are at least several things that do [2].
As long as someone with my same epistemological limitations (i.e., a big one in this case not being a telepath) means by identifying as a solipsist not that there is nothing but his or her mind or that anything else cannot be known to exist, as both are provably false, but that it is not certain if other conscious minds exist, then that form of solipsism is legitimate. The difference between the two is blatant, the former being objectively false and the latter being true. My mind alone is not all that exists, but it might be the only mind that exists.
I wanted to clarify this point since I have mentioned and refuted the more popular definition of solipsism before. Having done that already, I wanted to show that an alternate definition of solipsism narrows the claim being made to something that is actually logically defensible and that acknowledges the fact that some things do exist other than my consciousness, while also recognizing that some of them exist by necessity even if my consciousness did not.
[1]. See here:
A. https://thechristianrationalist.blogspot.com/2017/08/the-external-world.html
B. https://thechristianrationalist.blogspot.com/2017/11/closing-my-eyes.html
[2]. https://thechristianrationalist.blogspot.com/2017/12/metaphysics-and-absolute-certainty.html
But if someone were to redefine what they mean by the word solipsism, and stop using it in the usual manner, it becomes a position that is totally true, in my case at least. The truth is that I cannot know if there are my other minds, not that I cannot know if anything at all exists other than my consciousness, as there are at least several things that do [2].
As long as someone with my same epistemological limitations (i.e., a big one in this case not being a telepath) means by identifying as a solipsist not that there is nothing but his or her mind or that anything else cannot be known to exist, as both are provably false, but that it is not certain if other conscious minds exist, then that form of solipsism is legitimate. The difference between the two is blatant, the former being objectively false and the latter being true. My mind alone is not all that exists, but it might be the only mind that exists.
I wanted to clarify this point since I have mentioned and refuted the more popular definition of solipsism before. Having done that already, I wanted to show that an alternate definition of solipsism narrows the claim being made to something that is actually logically defensible and that acknowledges the fact that some things do exist other than my consciousness, while also recognizing that some of them exist by necessity even if my consciousness did not.
[1]. See here:
A. https://thechristianrationalist.blogspot.com/2017/08/the-external-world.html
B. https://thechristianrationalist.blogspot.com/2017/11/closing-my-eyes.html
[2]. https://thechristianrationalist.blogspot.com/2017/12/metaphysics-and-absolute-certainty.html
What Is A Social Construct?
Accusations that the claim of one's opponent is a social construct are not infrequent enough to be unusual, in my experience. Sometimes the charge is correct ("Gender stereotypes are social constructs"), and sometimes it is not ("Theism is a social construct"). It is important to know exactly what a social construct is so that inaccurate accusations of this type can be avoided. In short, a social construct is a belief or claim that a society embraces which does not conform to objective reality, hence the fact that society merely constructed the idea.
Things that are social constructs include:
Any widely accepted moral claim that isn't true.
Any popular belief about race or gender that isn't true.
Any widespread belief about God's nature that isn't true.
A social construct is a truth claim, whether about morality, gender, theology, beauty, or anything else, that does not conform to objective reality. A belief is a social construct if it is the false byproduct of irrational thinking and not the correct result of a calculated discovery of the way things really are. Whenever a society, whether a small community or an enormous empire, agrees that something is true, reality does not change. At best a society can discover truth, but it cannot make things a way that they are not.
Truth, logic, consciousness--these are examples of things that some people might call constructs that are not, that cannot be. Society can't invent truth and logic because they both exist necessarily apart from the existence of all minds. Society can't invent consciousness because people would have to be conscious to do so, meaning they didn't create consciousness at all, and then there is the inescapable fact that something cannot bring itself into existence. These things are not and cannot be social constructs, regardless of what some error-riddled minds might prefer or think.
It remains true, though, that a great majority of what people seem to believe amounts to nothing more than fallacy-filled falsities that were inherited from others, whether from family members or from society at large. Any person who has not systematically tested truth claims has no knowledge of which of his or her beliefs are true and which are fictions represented as true by some culture. The only way to distinguish the two is by holding these beliefs up to the light of reason and to note which ones the light can see right through and expose as lies. Just because arguments for a certain conclusion are bad, however, doesn't mean that the conclusion itself is false, so care must be used in sorting between truth and constructs, lest a seeker of truth arrive at errors of his or her own in the process.
Things that are social constructs include:
Any widely accepted moral claim that isn't true.
Any popular belief about race or gender that isn't true.
Any widespread belief about God's nature that isn't true.
A social construct is a truth claim, whether about morality, gender, theology, beauty, or anything else, that does not conform to objective reality. A belief is a social construct if it is the false byproduct of irrational thinking and not the correct result of a calculated discovery of the way things really are. Whenever a society, whether a small community or an enormous empire, agrees that something is true, reality does not change. At best a society can discover truth, but it cannot make things a way that they are not.
Truth, logic, consciousness--these are examples of things that some people might call constructs that are not, that cannot be. Society can't invent truth and logic because they both exist necessarily apart from the existence of all minds. Society can't invent consciousness because people would have to be conscious to do so, meaning they didn't create consciousness at all, and then there is the inescapable fact that something cannot bring itself into existence. These things are not and cannot be social constructs, regardless of what some error-riddled minds might prefer or think.
It remains true, though, that a great majority of what people seem to believe amounts to nothing more than fallacy-filled falsities that were inherited from others, whether from family members or from society at large. Any person who has not systematically tested truth claims has no knowledge of which of his or her beliefs are true and which are fictions represented as true by some culture. The only way to distinguish the two is by holding these beliefs up to the light of reason and to note which ones the light can see right through and expose as lies. Just because arguments for a certain conclusion are bad, however, doesn't mean that the conclusion itself is false, so care must be used in sorting between truth and constructs, lest a seeker of truth arrive at errors of his or her own in the process.
Friday, December 15, 2017
The Justice Of Annihilationism
One of the most basic truths about values that a person can learn is that our feelings and preferences have nothing to do with whether or not a moral claim is true. Someone can feel like an evil thing is good, and someone can feel like a good thing is evil. Feelings are intrinsically unreliable by their very nature when it comes to epistemological pursuits. When I see people discussing annihilationism, I sometimes see believers in eternal conscious torment (ECT) saying that they don't think annihilationism is just because it only involves limited suffering at most.
First of all, even if God were to immediately annihilate people, body and soul/mind (Matthew 10:28), without any period of torment beforehand, those annihilated would still have suffered a great punishment: permanent exclusion from God's presence and salvation. This alone is no small punishment in itself, but annihilation also involves extinction of consciousness and destruction of the body. It is an enormously, incalculably less torturous fate, but it is not a small thing to be exiled from both God and from existence on both a conscious and material level. Some people may even fear death more than eternal torture--which I do not understand, but this only shows the subjective nature of fear and deterrence appeal. Regardless of which one people fear more, though, eternal conscious torment is objectively harsher, more agonizing, and lengthier.
With the genuine punishment in annihilation affirmed, I want to remind people that whether or not someone feels like eternal conscious torment, limited torment leading to annihilation, or only annihilation is just is entirely irrelevant to discussing ECT and annihilationism. Annihilationism is just not because someone prefers it to eternal torture. As with all other moral truths, which include truths about justice, God must reveal them to humans for humans to know them. Ultimate annihilation is just because it matches God's nature and because eternal conscious torment of humans contradicts it [1], and there can be no moral authority other than God. When someone tries to insist that annihilationism is unjust because they can't imagine such a truth deterring people, they are arguing not from Biblical grounds, and not even from rational grounds at all, but are appealing to their subjective preferences and feelings instead.
Likewise, it does not matter what someone feels towards the Biblically true doctrine of conditional immortality--the (correct) position that in a post-fall world neither the human body nor the conscious human soul/mind will live forever apart from restoration to God (1 Timothy 6:16) is unaffected by their emotions. Some may feel less valuable once they recognize their fallen natures as inevitably mortal, but conditional immortality only makes the gift of eternal life all the more significant. Christ's promise of eternal life for those who believe in him is not cheapened by conditional immortality; it is only all the more precious because of it.
Just as the Bible teaches that it is unjust to give someone more than an absolute maximum of 40 lashes (Deuteronomy 25:1-3), because someone can't deserve more regardless of the perceived deterrence of additional lashes, it is unjust to torment people forever for finite sins--although Satan, the beast, and the false prophet, if the latter two are literal figures, are said to suffer eternally, the same is not said about general unsaved humans [2] (Revelation 20:10-15). Annihilationism stands or falls on whether it accurately represents God's nature, not on whether or not humans approve or disapprove of it. And Scripture is rather clear that it does represent God's nature.
[1]. https://thechristianrationalist.blogspot.com/2017/02/the-truth-of-annihilationism.html
[2]. https://thechristianrationalist.blogspot.com/2017/03/revelation-20-and-annihilationism.html
First of all, even if God were to immediately annihilate people, body and soul/mind (Matthew 10:28), without any period of torment beforehand, those annihilated would still have suffered a great punishment: permanent exclusion from God's presence and salvation. This alone is no small punishment in itself, but annihilation also involves extinction of consciousness and destruction of the body. It is an enormously, incalculably less torturous fate, but it is not a small thing to be exiled from both God and from existence on both a conscious and material level. Some people may even fear death more than eternal torture--which I do not understand, but this only shows the subjective nature of fear and deterrence appeal. Regardless of which one people fear more, though, eternal conscious torment is objectively harsher, more agonizing, and lengthier.
With the genuine punishment in annihilation affirmed, I want to remind people that whether or not someone feels like eternal conscious torment, limited torment leading to annihilation, or only annihilation is just is entirely irrelevant to discussing ECT and annihilationism. Annihilationism is just not because someone prefers it to eternal torture. As with all other moral truths, which include truths about justice, God must reveal them to humans for humans to know them. Ultimate annihilation is just because it matches God's nature and because eternal conscious torment of humans contradicts it [1], and there can be no moral authority other than God. When someone tries to insist that annihilationism is unjust because they can't imagine such a truth deterring people, they are arguing not from Biblical grounds, and not even from rational grounds at all, but are appealing to their subjective preferences and feelings instead.
Likewise, it does not matter what someone feels towards the Biblically true doctrine of conditional immortality--the (correct) position that in a post-fall world neither the human body nor the conscious human soul/mind will live forever apart from restoration to God (1 Timothy 6:16) is unaffected by their emotions. Some may feel less valuable once they recognize their fallen natures as inevitably mortal, but conditional immortality only makes the gift of eternal life all the more significant. Christ's promise of eternal life for those who believe in him is not cheapened by conditional immortality; it is only all the more precious because of it.
Just as the Bible teaches that it is unjust to give someone more than an absolute maximum of 40 lashes (Deuteronomy 25:1-3), because someone can't deserve more regardless of the perceived deterrence of additional lashes, it is unjust to torment people forever for finite sins--although Satan, the beast, and the false prophet, if the latter two are literal figures, are said to suffer eternally, the same is not said about general unsaved humans [2] (Revelation 20:10-15). Annihilationism stands or falls on whether it accurately represents God's nature, not on whether or not humans approve or disapprove of it. And Scripture is rather clear that it does represent God's nature.
[1]. https://thechristianrationalist.blogspot.com/2017/02/the-truth-of-annihilationism.html
[2]. https://thechristianrationalist.blogspot.com/2017/03/revelation-20-and-annihilationism.html
Tuesday, December 12, 2017
Divine Friendship
How do friendships flourish? They flourish because of mutual love, communication, attentiveness, and affection. They can deteriorate or die apart from these vital ingredients, and the same is true of our relationships with God. A relationship with God requires just as much intentionality as a relationship with another human being, and in some ways perhaps much more.
Friendship is a thing so misunderstood and misrepresented by my culture, as are most other concepts. Some people have mistake friendship for a sexual thing, another grounds by which to exclude members of the opposite gender and other races from their lives, and a thing that has far less power within it than it truly does. And a focused human friendship is powerful. In truth, it can arouse a longing for the type of relationship that humans could only have with a suprahuman being.
Marriage is often held up by Christians I've been exposed to as the pinnacle of human relationships, but it is, at best, just one of many kinds of relationships that humans can share. While it is said that marriage reflects the current and future relationships between Christians and God in a significant way, I do not think I have ever heard or read the same claim made about friendship in general. But it is true: friendships can capture a portion of the life that can be found in a restored relationship with God. Both types of relationships are built on knowledge of the other.
The best of our human relationships can indeed show us in part, even to a great extent, what it is like to enjoy relational intimacy with God. Even at their most intense, though, human metaphysical and epistemological limitations prevent the absolute deepest of intimacy. We can know each other, but not to the fullest extent. This is not because there are no people willing to show their inner selves to their friends or family members in full--I know for sure that I would love for my friends to see me as I am. I do not hide myself from my friends. Still, if they are beings like me (it's always logically possible that they are not!), then they cannot see into my mind, just as I cannot see into theirs. The aim of friendship (and the relationship of marriage by extension) may be to have one soul/mind in two bodies, yet human limitations prevent this total oneness from ever fully being reached.
Humans can share relational intimacy with each other that is so deep that it is impossible to describe it adequately using human language. I cherish my closest friends (not that I have many friends) in ways that my words and tears and physical affection could never communicate in full. I would rather die than lose them. But we are capable of having a deeper relationship with God than we can with any other human, in a sense, because whereas all beings like me cannot see into each other's minds, only into our own, God is not restrained by this limitation (Psalm 139:1-2). This allows for greater intimacy, although parts of this heightened intimacy are merely unilateral. I can derive comfort from the thought that he understands my motives, desires, and struggles, however complex or inarticulable, even when other people do not.
Friendship is a thing so misunderstood and misrepresented by my culture, as are most other concepts. Some people have mistake friendship for a sexual thing, another grounds by which to exclude members of the opposite gender and other races from their lives, and a thing that has far less power within it than it truly does. And a focused human friendship is powerful. In truth, it can arouse a longing for the type of relationship that humans could only have with a suprahuman being.
Marriage is often held up by Christians I've been exposed to as the pinnacle of human relationships, but it is, at best, just one of many kinds of relationships that humans can share. While it is said that marriage reflects the current and future relationships between Christians and God in a significant way, I do not think I have ever heard or read the same claim made about friendship in general. But it is true: friendships can capture a portion of the life that can be found in a restored relationship with God. Both types of relationships are built on knowledge of the other.
The best of our human relationships can indeed show us in part, even to a great extent, what it is like to enjoy relational intimacy with God. Even at their most intense, though, human metaphysical and epistemological limitations prevent the absolute deepest of intimacy. We can know each other, but not to the fullest extent. This is not because there are no people willing to show their inner selves to their friends or family members in full--I know for sure that I would love for my friends to see me as I am. I do not hide myself from my friends. Still, if they are beings like me (it's always logically possible that they are not!), then they cannot see into my mind, just as I cannot see into theirs. The aim of friendship (and the relationship of marriage by extension) may be to have one soul/mind in two bodies, yet human limitations prevent this total oneness from ever fully being reached.
Humans can share relational intimacy with each other that is so deep that it is impossible to describe it adequately using human language. I cherish my closest friends (not that I have many friends) in ways that my words and tears and physical affection could never communicate in full. I would rather die than lose them. But we are capable of having a deeper relationship with God than we can with any other human, in a sense, because whereas all beings like me cannot see into each other's minds, only into our own, God is not restrained by this limitation (Psalm 139:1-2). This allows for greater intimacy, although parts of this heightened intimacy are merely unilateral. I can derive comfort from the thought that he understands my motives, desires, and struggles, however complex or inarticulable, even when other people do not.
Taking A Husband's Last Name
Oh, how I love mocking the allegedly "rationalist" site called Intellectual Takeout. During the summer I found an amusingly fallacious article and criticized its irrationality [1], and I found another one [2] that I wanted to dissect online. The writers for Intellectual Takeout routinely distort and attack feminism and gender egalitarianism in various ways, appealing to traditions (there's a whole fallacy called appeal to tradition, you morons), commonly-held stereotypes (appeal to popularity is a fallacy too), and arbitrary, false premises (thus begging the question) in arguing for their conclusions. So I decided to point out errors the site publishes yet again.
The article in question this time pertains to the issue of women choosing to not take their husbands' last names. As might be expected, the author sees this as an assault on a loving tradition and as a possible attack on men--but it does fortunately end by not condemning the keeping of women's maiden names, settling to tell men to appreciate it when they don't. Although the ending could have been far worse, the road to get there touches on a whole host of fallacies and inaccurate beliefs that the author didn't even bother to refute. And now I will begin highlighting the stupidity of various assertions in the article.
"This trend might reflect shifting cultural attitudes towards gender roles and traditions, but it also might have an impact on how men and women understand each other’s roles in a marriage. New research suggests that when a man’s wife doesn’t take his last name, he is perceived as disempowered and less masculine."
Are there any gender roles? Not according to the Bible (which Intellectual Takeout seems to hold as true, being a Christian group), as I've addressed at length on my blog. The Bible does not teach them [3], and no Christian can make a legitimate moral claim apart from the Bible. And logic sure as hell dissolves any argument in favor of gender roles, whether in marriage, in dating, in the workplace, or in general society. So whether or not a society endorses a particular set of gender roles, there are none on the Christian worldview. As for that last part about men being perceived as less "masculine", a person is a man or woman because of his or her genitals and chromosomes, not because of conformance to a social stereotype or because of a mental personality characteristic. Without the existence of these gender-specific personality traits, the entire basis for even arguing for gender roles collapses entirely, with it being impossible to rationally rebuild. For a website claiming to represent logic, Intellectual Takeout, as usual, does a very poor job.
"On the other hand, many women believe strongly in the tradition of taking a man’s name as her own, seeing in it a time-honored gesture of love and respect, a symbolic merging of two people, and a way to signal unity as a family."
Of course, Intellectual Fakeout doesn't immediately clarify that the "merging of two people" could involve them retaining their individuality as autonomous persons or that it could take the form of a man taking his wife's surname. There is no unifying benefit in one gender universally, unilaterally submitting to the other in this way because of tradition. A tradition of that type is sexist. A spouse willingly choosing to adopt the last name of his or her partner is not. But there is nothing loving about sexist traditions, whatever the intentions behind them are.
"Men have valid reasons to feel strongly about the issue, too. And despite this recent study, those reasons extend far beyond simple insecurity in their masculinity."
I find it hilarious how the nonexistent "masculine" personality traits are often associated with strength, yet the men who most loudly proclaim their "masculinity" could very well be extremely insecure and emotionally fragile on the inside. That's the paradox of the Western notion of "masculinity"! Not only is it entirely illogical and wholly unbiblical, it's not even applied in an internally consistent way! If someone really is internally strong, they don't have any need to constantly mention their strength of heart unless they have an insecurity about it or about not being perceived as strong at heart . . . and, ironically, it seems like the only men who are offended by women's desire for social equality are men who are not internally strong and comfortable with themselves. They need external validation that the social construct that they want to participate in is true, and so they act in a way contrary to that construct when it is threatened. It's hilariously irrational all around!
"It’s not outrageous for a man to wonder if a woman’s hesitance to adopt and commit to his name isn’t a sign of a deeper questions about her commitment to the marriage or her willingness to embrace future changes. Perhaps he wonders if she isn’t subconsciously signaling that her identity and ambitions should take priority over his . . . or over theirs as a family."
Well this is amusing coming from a site that frequently criticizes feminism and teaches sexist ideas about what it means to be a man or woman. So men should be worried that their wives not taking their last names means they might want superiority in a relationship, but women shouldn't be concerned that this sexist tradition might signal that the identity and ambitions of husbands should take priority over their own? This is the illogicality of all sexist traditions, whether they elevate either men or women--they are purely arbitrary. One could use the same arguments appealed to in their favor to argue for sexism of the inverse kind as well. These claims are utterly powerless; they have no logicality to appeal to.
What the hell is up with Intellectual Fakeout's legion of fallacies? Men can change their last names to match those of their wives, and women can do the same for their husbands. Why doesn't Intellectual Takeout not just openly say that no gender is obligated to change its names for the sake of the other gender? Because that would be rational, and being rational would require abandoning many of the tradition-based and fallacy-based beliefs that the site promotes.
[1]. http://www.intellectualtakeout.org/article/should-women-take-their-husbands-last-name
[2]. https://thechristianrationalist.blogspot.com/2017/08/generalizations-about-men-and-women.html
[3]. See here:
A. https://thechristianrationalist.blogspot.com/2017/02/why-ephesians-5-does-not-teach-rigid.html
B. https://thechristianrationalist.blogspot.com/2017/11/complementarianism-is-inherently-sexist.html
C. https://thechristianrationalist.blogspot.com/2017/11/the-error-of-complementarian-arguments.html
The article in question this time pertains to the issue of women choosing to not take their husbands' last names. As might be expected, the author sees this as an assault on a loving tradition and as a possible attack on men--but it does fortunately end by not condemning the keeping of women's maiden names, settling to tell men to appreciate it when they don't. Although the ending could have been far worse, the road to get there touches on a whole host of fallacies and inaccurate beliefs that the author didn't even bother to refute. And now I will begin highlighting the stupidity of various assertions in the article.
"This trend might reflect shifting cultural attitudes towards gender roles and traditions, but it also might have an impact on how men and women understand each other’s roles in a marriage. New research suggests that when a man’s wife doesn’t take his last name, he is perceived as disempowered and less masculine."
Are there any gender roles? Not according to the Bible (which Intellectual Takeout seems to hold as true, being a Christian group), as I've addressed at length on my blog. The Bible does not teach them [3], and no Christian can make a legitimate moral claim apart from the Bible. And logic sure as hell dissolves any argument in favor of gender roles, whether in marriage, in dating, in the workplace, or in general society. So whether or not a society endorses a particular set of gender roles, there are none on the Christian worldview. As for that last part about men being perceived as less "masculine", a person is a man or woman because of his or her genitals and chromosomes, not because of conformance to a social stereotype or because of a mental personality characteristic. Without the existence of these gender-specific personality traits, the entire basis for even arguing for gender roles collapses entirely, with it being impossible to rationally rebuild. For a website claiming to represent logic, Intellectual Takeout, as usual, does a very poor job.
"On the other hand, many women believe strongly in the tradition of taking a man’s name as her own, seeing in it a time-honored gesture of love and respect, a symbolic merging of two people, and a way to signal unity as a family."
Of course, Intellectual Fakeout doesn't immediately clarify that the "merging of two people" could involve them retaining their individuality as autonomous persons or that it could take the form of a man taking his wife's surname. There is no unifying benefit in one gender universally, unilaterally submitting to the other in this way because of tradition. A tradition of that type is sexist. A spouse willingly choosing to adopt the last name of his or her partner is not. But there is nothing loving about sexist traditions, whatever the intentions behind them are.
"Men have valid reasons to feel strongly about the issue, too. And despite this recent study, those reasons extend far beyond simple insecurity in their masculinity."
I find it hilarious how the nonexistent "masculine" personality traits are often associated with strength, yet the men who most loudly proclaim their "masculinity" could very well be extremely insecure and emotionally fragile on the inside. That's the paradox of the Western notion of "masculinity"! Not only is it entirely illogical and wholly unbiblical, it's not even applied in an internally consistent way! If someone really is internally strong, they don't have any need to constantly mention their strength of heart unless they have an insecurity about it or about not being perceived as strong at heart . . . and, ironically, it seems like the only men who are offended by women's desire for social equality are men who are not internally strong and comfortable with themselves. They need external validation that the social construct that they want to participate in is true, and so they act in a way contrary to that construct when it is threatened. It's hilariously irrational all around!
"It’s not outrageous for a man to wonder if a woman’s hesitance to adopt and commit to his name isn’t a sign of a deeper questions about her commitment to the marriage or her willingness to embrace future changes. Perhaps he wonders if she isn’t subconsciously signaling that her identity and ambitions should take priority over his . . . or over theirs as a family."
Well this is amusing coming from a site that frequently criticizes feminism and teaches sexist ideas about what it means to be a man or woman. So men should be worried that their wives not taking their last names means they might want superiority in a relationship, but women shouldn't be concerned that this sexist tradition might signal that the identity and ambitions of husbands should take priority over their own? This is the illogicality of all sexist traditions, whether they elevate either men or women--they are purely arbitrary. One could use the same arguments appealed to in their favor to argue for sexism of the inverse kind as well. These claims are utterly powerless; they have no logicality to appeal to.
What the hell is up with Intellectual Fakeout's legion of fallacies? Men can change their last names to match those of their wives, and women can do the same for their husbands. Why doesn't Intellectual Takeout not just openly say that no gender is obligated to change its names for the sake of the other gender? Because that would be rational, and being rational would require abandoning many of the tradition-based and fallacy-based beliefs that the site promotes.
[1]. http://www.intellectualtakeout.org/article/should-women-take-their-husbands-last-name
[2]. https://thechristianrationalist.blogspot.com/2017/08/generalizations-about-men-and-women.html
[3]. See here:
A. https://thechristianrationalist.blogspot.com/2017/02/why-ephesians-5-does-not-teach-rigid.html
B. https://thechristianrationalist.blogspot.com/2017/11/complementarianism-is-inherently-sexist.html
C. https://thechristianrationalist.blogspot.com/2017/11/the-error-of-complementarian-arguments.html
Sunday, December 10, 2017
A Christian Rationalist Defense Of Emotion
I have frequently, and quite hostilely, attacked the idiocies of relying on emotion as a revealer of truth. Whether the truth a person pursues is moral, theological, scientific, or philosophical in a broader sense, emotion cannot determine or discover any truths--except truths about our inner experiences. While I will continue to emphasize this as long as people need to hear it (until they become thoroughly rationalistic), I do not want any readers to mistakenly come to the conclusion that I despise emotion itself or that I have an erroneous theology of emotion, which would be a non sequitur. Thus, I have a strong desire to explain the Christian rationalist position on emotion.
An emotion is a particular mental state marked by a specific sentiment. In this post, I am using the words emotion and feeling interchangeably. Obvious examples of emotions would include anger, fear, joy, sadness, but emotions with potentially more complex and nuanced natures exist: nostalgia, ennui, romantic attraction, sexual attraction, and so on. People can learn from experience just how wide the range and just how deep the impact of emotions can be, though the level of this emotionality can differ dramatically from person to person, just as other personality traits do.
Emotionality, like rationality, sexuality, and other aspects of human nature, is inherently good (Genesis 1:31) when not misused. People can misuse emotions or allow them to seduce them into untrue beliefs, but just as the sinful behaviors of people who claim to be Christians have nothing to do with whether or not Christianity is true, misuse of emotions does not mean that emotions are sinful. This does not follow. Nothing is evil because it can be abused. Logic, friendship, sexuality, money, physical strength, and ambition can be sinfully misused, but they are not evil. In Biblical narratives, Jesus shows outward signs of inward experiences of feelings like sadness (John 11:35). Jesus never belittled human emotional experiences, and neither did Yahweh. God never condemned our emotions; he did not create us sinful and then blame us for the nature he imbued us with. Anyone who says that emotions are sinful according to Biblical Christianity is a liar (Deuteronomy 4:2).
If all humans were to lose their capacity for emotion, they would become, in a sense, beings of blank consciousnesses. They would have lost the experience of things like love and attachment as they previously understood them. Emotions are deeply important to many aspects of human motivation and life. Without them, some people would likely not judge life to be worth living according to their subjective desires. Apart from emotion, humanity could behave in a very different manner! Christians should never demonize emotions, just like they shouldn't demonize other aspects of human nature that God created.
I cherish the feelings of satisfaction, fulfillment, and joy that I derive from my friendships. I love the feeling of excitement I can experience when immersing myself in a video game. I have known deep existential fears. Rationality does not necessarily purge one of feelings, but it can reorient them and stop them from usurping reason's place as revealer of truth. Emotions can tell us nothing about reality except that we experience emotions. Epistemologically, emotions are almost entirely useless. At best they only inform us of certain aspects of our internal mental experiences. My emotionality does not affect my worldview at all--the only thing I believe in because of emotion is that I have emotions. This is not an impossible state to reach, as some irrational minds might suppose.
I despise emotionalism, for I harbor deep hatred for any obstacle that impedes my knowledge of reality. I loathe the way that many people seem to hold to beliefs on grounds of emotional persuasion more than logical proof. This is, Biblically (1 Thessalonians 5:21, Proverbs 19:2) and rationally, inexcusable. But the fallacies, deceptions, and sins of emotionalism do not affect the theological goodness of emotion. God intentionally created humans with the capacity for a variety of deep emotions, and this is good. No rationalist Christian could legitimately come to any other conclusion.
It is logic that proves that this is the correct position on emotion according to Scripture. It is logic that proves that the epistemic uselessness of feelings does not mean they have no metaphysical or theological significance whatsoever. I hope that people become purely rational in their philosophical methodology and conclusions, but I also want them to experience full inner life as God intended. When it comes to epistemology, logic and emotion are bitter enemies, with logic the indomitable victor, but when it comes to other aspects of living human life, emotion is nothing to hate, fear, or treat as insignificant. May all Christians become rationalists, but may they not use fallacies that lead to false conclusions about emotion!
An emotion is a particular mental state marked by a specific sentiment. In this post, I am using the words emotion and feeling interchangeably. Obvious examples of emotions would include anger, fear, joy, sadness, but emotions with potentially more complex and nuanced natures exist: nostalgia, ennui, romantic attraction, sexual attraction, and so on. People can learn from experience just how wide the range and just how deep the impact of emotions can be, though the level of this emotionality can differ dramatically from person to person, just as other personality traits do.
Emotionality, like rationality, sexuality, and other aspects of human nature, is inherently good (Genesis 1:31) when not misused. People can misuse emotions or allow them to seduce them into untrue beliefs, but just as the sinful behaviors of people who claim to be Christians have nothing to do with whether or not Christianity is true, misuse of emotions does not mean that emotions are sinful. This does not follow. Nothing is evil because it can be abused. Logic, friendship, sexuality, money, physical strength, and ambition can be sinfully misused, but they are not evil. In Biblical narratives, Jesus shows outward signs of inward experiences of feelings like sadness (John 11:35). Jesus never belittled human emotional experiences, and neither did Yahweh. God never condemned our emotions; he did not create us sinful and then blame us for the nature he imbued us with. Anyone who says that emotions are sinful according to Biblical Christianity is a liar (Deuteronomy 4:2).
If all humans were to lose their capacity for emotion, they would become, in a sense, beings of blank consciousnesses. They would have lost the experience of things like love and attachment as they previously understood them. Emotions are deeply important to many aspects of human motivation and life. Without them, some people would likely not judge life to be worth living according to their subjective desires. Apart from emotion, humanity could behave in a very different manner! Christians should never demonize emotions, just like they shouldn't demonize other aspects of human nature that God created.
I cherish the feelings of satisfaction, fulfillment, and joy that I derive from my friendships. I love the feeling of excitement I can experience when immersing myself in a video game. I have known deep existential fears. Rationality does not necessarily purge one of feelings, but it can reorient them and stop them from usurping reason's place as revealer of truth. Emotions can tell us nothing about reality except that we experience emotions. Epistemologically, emotions are almost entirely useless. At best they only inform us of certain aspects of our internal mental experiences. My emotionality does not affect my worldview at all--the only thing I believe in because of emotion is that I have emotions. This is not an impossible state to reach, as some irrational minds might suppose.
I despise emotionalism, for I harbor deep hatred for any obstacle that impedes my knowledge of reality. I loathe the way that many people seem to hold to beliefs on grounds of emotional persuasion more than logical proof. This is, Biblically (1 Thessalonians 5:21, Proverbs 19:2) and rationally, inexcusable. But the fallacies, deceptions, and sins of emotionalism do not affect the theological goodness of emotion. God intentionally created humans with the capacity for a variety of deep emotions, and this is good. No rationalist Christian could legitimately come to any other conclusion.
It is logic that proves that this is the correct position on emotion according to Scripture. It is logic that proves that the epistemic uselessness of feelings does not mean they have no metaphysical or theological significance whatsoever. I hope that people become purely rational in their philosophical methodology and conclusions, but I also want them to experience full inner life as God intended. When it comes to epistemology, logic and emotion are bitter enemies, with logic the indomitable victor, but when it comes to other aspects of living human life, emotion is nothing to hate, fear, or treat as insignificant. May all Christians become rationalists, but may they not use fallacies that lead to false conclusions about emotion!
Why Do Many Apologists Use Obvious Fallacies?
Years ago, before I became a consistent, thorough rationalist, I used to look up to many Christian apologists: Frank Turek, William Lane Craig, Nancy Pearcey, and so forth. The unfortunate truth is that these men and women are often simply not as rational as they like to present themselves as being, and sometimes downright fallacious in very obvious ways. Aspiring apologists need to look to reason to discover truth and not to these apologists in any area where they contradict reason.
For instance, William Lane Craig admits--openly--that he is not a Christian on evidential grounds, but because of the so-called inner witness of the Holy Spirit. He has even said that if all of his arguments for theism and Christianity (and there is only one argument for God that is both sound and valid, making it a logical proof and not a mere argument) were refuted, he would still believe in Christianity because of this alleged sense of God's presence. This means that his worldview ultimately rests on a private emotive experience, with the conclusions drawn from it by him unable to be verified or falsified. As terrifying as it may be to some, a seeming sense of God's presence proves nothing except to the experiencer that he or she is experiencing a seeming sense of God's presence. It doesn't mean that God exists or that the experiencer knows just which deity exists. Begging the question, circular reasoning, a non sequitur, the anecdotal fallacy, and an appeal to emotion all in one place? Yep!
William Lane Craig also says that because he has no proof that he is a brain in a vat, he is justified in believing that he isn't a brain in a vat. He claims that in the absence of a "defeater" for the alleged reliability of his senses he is justified in believing that they are reliable. But something isn't true just because it can't be falsified, much less because an alternative can't be verified. This is basic logic! I could name several fallacies that are present here. For instance, it does not follow that because there is no provable "defeater" for a claim that it is true, so to claim so commits the non sequitur fallacy. Craig also begs the question. He simply assumes that his senses are accurately perceiving the external world because he can't prove that they are not! The truth is that I am only justified in believing that I have some sort of body with senses, that I experience sensory perceptions of specifics objects, and that there is an external world, because that is all that I can prove. I cannot prove anything more [1], and thus I cannot know anything more, and any being with my limitations who pretends to know more is lying!
Another example of the fallacies of apologists is what most Christian apologists I know of teach about moral epistemology. Many of them are not theonomists, and many of them seem to treat conscience as a major part of moral epistemology, when conscience is utterly subjective and useless when it comes to verifying or falsifying moral claims [2]. Craig, like many other popular apologists (J Warner Wallace, Frank Turek), credits "moral experience" with informing us that morality exists, but he never defines what criteria make something just or good beyond conforming to God's nature. Yes, if there is no God then there is no moral authority in the universe, but it does not follow from me or anyone else having a conscience that there is such a thing as a single moral obligation. I am not a telepath; I cannot know God's nature unless he reveals it to me or unless I am God. The moral experience these apologists cite as authoritative is purely subjective, utterly incapable of being logically established as true, and is not at all uniform from person to person. Logic reveals that conscience proves nothing more than that a being with a conscience has a conscience. Conscience doesn't prove that someone knows what moral obligations exist, or even that morality exists at all! People do not even agree about the specifics of morality, and if they did, nothing is established except that they agree.
I won't even go into detail here on why the design arguments for God put forth by these apologists are logically flawed [3], why the transcendental argument for God defended by apologists like Matt Slick is erroneous [4], or on all the legalism and contra-Biblical moral ideas that come about when someone looks to "moral experience" for moral knowledge. I'm sure my disdain for the error-filled arguments and conclusions of many apologists is quite evident by now. But there is also the flawed epistemic tendency for them to leap from "There is evidence, even strong evidence, for this claim" to "This claim is true and we can know this". Wherever this approach appears, the apologist using it cares more about defending Christianity than accurately representing epistemology. I don't claim to know that Christianity is true in its entirety--because I can't know.
Claiming that Christianity is true and that I can know this and claiming that there is a great deal of evidence for Christianity that have incited me to commit my life to it are two dramatically different claims. But apologists commonly assert that they know Christianity is true, and, when pressed for proof, retreat behind some variation of the bullshit epistemological claim that "you don't have to prove something to know it is true". Being honest about epistemology and human limitations would save them from using many fallacies. The conclusions of popular Christian apologists do not always follow from their premises, their premises can be very flawed, and they sometimes misrepresent the nature of knowledge and rationality in order to promote ideas that at least some of them admit they would believe independent of any proof or evidence. That is not rational. That is deeply fallacious.
[1]. See here:
A. https://thechristianrationalist.blogspot.com/2017/08/the-external-world.html
B. https://thechristianrationalist.blogspot.com/2017/04/the-reliability-of-senses.html
[2]. https://thechristianrationalist.blogspot.com/2017/03/the-nature-of-conscience.html
[3]. See here:
A. https://thechristianrationalist.blogspot.com/2017/11/why-design-argument-fails.html
B. https://thechristianrationalist.blogspot.com/2017/11/the-loving-designer-erroneous-natural.html
[4]. https://thechristianrationalist.blogspot.com/2017/12/refuting-transcendental-argument-for-god.html
For instance, William Lane Craig admits--openly--that he is not a Christian on evidential grounds, but because of the so-called inner witness of the Holy Spirit. He has even said that if all of his arguments for theism and Christianity (and there is only one argument for God that is both sound and valid, making it a logical proof and not a mere argument) were refuted, he would still believe in Christianity because of this alleged sense of God's presence. This means that his worldview ultimately rests on a private emotive experience, with the conclusions drawn from it by him unable to be verified or falsified. As terrifying as it may be to some, a seeming sense of God's presence proves nothing except to the experiencer that he or she is experiencing a seeming sense of God's presence. It doesn't mean that God exists or that the experiencer knows just which deity exists. Begging the question, circular reasoning, a non sequitur, the anecdotal fallacy, and an appeal to emotion all in one place? Yep!
William Lane Craig also says that because he has no proof that he is a brain in a vat, he is justified in believing that he isn't a brain in a vat. He claims that in the absence of a "defeater" for the alleged reliability of his senses he is justified in believing that they are reliable. But something isn't true just because it can't be falsified, much less because an alternative can't be verified. This is basic logic! I could name several fallacies that are present here. For instance, it does not follow that because there is no provable "defeater" for a claim that it is true, so to claim so commits the non sequitur fallacy. Craig also begs the question. He simply assumes that his senses are accurately perceiving the external world because he can't prove that they are not! The truth is that I am only justified in believing that I have some sort of body with senses, that I experience sensory perceptions of specifics objects, and that there is an external world, because that is all that I can prove. I cannot prove anything more [1], and thus I cannot know anything more, and any being with my limitations who pretends to know more is lying!
Another example of the fallacies of apologists is what most Christian apologists I know of teach about moral epistemology. Many of them are not theonomists, and many of them seem to treat conscience as a major part of moral epistemology, when conscience is utterly subjective and useless when it comes to verifying or falsifying moral claims [2]. Craig, like many other popular apologists (J Warner Wallace, Frank Turek), credits "moral experience" with informing us that morality exists, but he never defines what criteria make something just or good beyond conforming to God's nature. Yes, if there is no God then there is no moral authority in the universe, but it does not follow from me or anyone else having a conscience that there is such a thing as a single moral obligation. I am not a telepath; I cannot know God's nature unless he reveals it to me or unless I am God. The moral experience these apologists cite as authoritative is purely subjective, utterly incapable of being logically established as true, and is not at all uniform from person to person. Logic reveals that conscience proves nothing more than that a being with a conscience has a conscience. Conscience doesn't prove that someone knows what moral obligations exist, or even that morality exists at all! People do not even agree about the specifics of morality, and if they did, nothing is established except that they agree.
I won't even go into detail here on why the design arguments for God put forth by these apologists are logically flawed [3], why the transcendental argument for God defended by apologists like Matt Slick is erroneous [4], or on all the legalism and contra-Biblical moral ideas that come about when someone looks to "moral experience" for moral knowledge. I'm sure my disdain for the error-filled arguments and conclusions of many apologists is quite evident by now. But there is also the flawed epistemic tendency for them to leap from "There is evidence, even strong evidence, for this claim" to "This claim is true and we can know this". Wherever this approach appears, the apologist using it cares more about defending Christianity than accurately representing epistemology. I don't claim to know that Christianity is true in its entirety--because I can't know.
Claiming that Christianity is true and that I can know this and claiming that there is a great deal of evidence for Christianity that have incited me to commit my life to it are two dramatically different claims. But apologists commonly assert that they know Christianity is true, and, when pressed for proof, retreat behind some variation of the bullshit epistemological claim that "you don't have to prove something to know it is true". Being honest about epistemology and human limitations would save them from using many fallacies. The conclusions of popular Christian apologists do not always follow from their premises, their premises can be very flawed, and they sometimes misrepresent the nature of knowledge and rationality in order to promote ideas that at least some of them admit they would believe independent of any proof or evidence. That is not rational. That is deeply fallacious.
[1]. See here:
A. https://thechristianrationalist.blogspot.com/2017/08/the-external-world.html
B. https://thechristianrationalist.blogspot.com/2017/04/the-reliability-of-senses.html
[2]. https://thechristianrationalist.blogspot.com/2017/03/the-nature-of-conscience.html
[3]. See here:
A. https://thechristianrationalist.blogspot.com/2017/11/why-design-argument-fails.html
B. https://thechristianrationalist.blogspot.com/2017/11/the-loving-designer-erroneous-natural.html
[4]. https://thechristianrationalist.blogspot.com/2017/12/refuting-transcendental-argument-for-god.html
Saturday, December 9, 2017
The Truth About Erotic Media (Part 1)
The truth that creating and using erotic media is not intrinsically sinful is not a popular one. But almost nothing that is true is actually popular, and not many people genuinely sacrifice their assumptions, preferences, and feelings at the altar of truth. Truth alone can set us free (John 8:32), and truth is what Jesus came to affirm (John 18:37). I care nothing for the feelings or preferences of others wherever they do not align with reality. But long-time readers of my blog have seen this, and have also seen how it is not uncommon for me to write about truths that few others will. What I will prove in this series is extremely controversial--but that does not make it untrue!
I want to emphasize up front the fact that women are not less sexual than men because, although my culture will not acknowledge this, the Bible does, and reason affirms it as well [1]. I despise the American emphasis on male sexuality over female sexuality and the fact that many Americans I've met assume that men and women must have certain sexual impulses or inclinations simply because of their gender, when this has nothing to do with their gender and everything to do with their individual personalities and whatever cultural conditioning they have received. As such, I will not be fallaciously, unbiblically, and erroneously treating erotic media or sexual desire as gender-specific issues. This blog is about sharing demonstrable truths, not about acceptance of the popular fictions of the masses.
I do not watch erotic videos or view images of sexual activity. This is not out of any misguided sense of guilt or a faulty understanding of morality, but simply because I do not want to do so. I wanted to clarify this because some Christians fallaciously reject some moral claims because they think that those who affirm them are just trying to justify a sinful habit. Of course, these Christians are certainly not rationalists (or not consistent ones), much less rational. But even if I did engage in these practices, that has nothing to do with the correctness of my reasoning; logic, not my actions, determines the veracity of my claims. Realizing that erotic media is not sinful is the culmination of realizing many individual but extremely important things about God, morality, sexuality, and human nature. As such, I will reference older blog posts where I discuss in greater detail specific aspects of some of the truths I will mention.
Sexual Metaphysics
Sexual energy is not an objectifying force, but just another aspect of human nature. Sexuality, as long as it is not sinfully used, is inherently good (Genesis 1:31), just like the human body as a whole. Experiencing sexual attraction or arousal is not lust, regardless of the marital status of the person experiencing them. Matthew 5:28, which condemns lust, is often used to condemn sexual attraction, yet it only condemns coveting the spouse of another person (see the Greek word for lust), the first step in committing adultery. Objectification is reducing someone to one aspect of themselves--viewing someone as a sexual object is literally isolating his or her sexuality from all of that person's other human aspects, which could be an extremely difficult thing to do. Objectifying someone is not the same as lusting after them (coveting), as one could lust without objectifying. However, both are sins and should be thoroughly condemned as such [2]. But the Bible never condemns sexual attraction or sexual arousal. They are not the problems. Every time a man or woman experiences attraction or arousal, that person could thank God for the pleasures of sexuality and for the goodness of the human body and all of its functions. The creation story of Genesis reveals the theological truth that they are inherently good unless misused.
As I will elaborate more thoroughly on in part two, and as I have explained many times on my blog, conscience and cultural beliefs are purely arbitrary tools that are totally ineffective at revealing moral truths. Only divine revelation can establish moral knowledge. This can not only be proven entirely from logic alone, but the Bible repeatedly teaches this in verses like Deuteronomy 4:2, Romans 3:20, Romans 7:7, and 1 John 3:4. Feelings, social norms, and preferences have no value for discovering truth of any sort, and that includes moral truth.
A person can experience sexual arousal and sexual attraction directed at a particular member of the opposite gender, even if separately married, and still respect that person as a full human being who has many more components to his or her personhood than just sexuality. Humans still possess rationality and free will, meaning that we can grasp logic and control our actions regardless of our surroundings. Sex and sexuality do not and cannot make us desire or carry out sinful things. Sexuality is not something to fear or worship [3]; it is something to acknowledge, understand, and celebrate, but not something that defines the entirety of what it means to be human and not something that is itself sinful. To demonize sexuality is to demonize something that God created and called very good--and that is sinful.
While on the topic of the nature of sexuality I want to emphasize again a very important point. Contrary to what some seem to believe, nothing is inherently sexual except sex acts--not emotional intimacy between men and women, deep friendships between men and women, shirtlessness (for men), toplessness (for women, although I don't know why different words get used sometimes), full public nudity, bikinis (even thong bikinis), speedos, any other kind of clothing, simple flirtation, or attraction (there are many kinds of nonsexual attraction). Any combination of these things does not have an intrinsically sexual nature. I have addressed many of these issues on other posts in great depth, so I will not revisit each of my points here. But make no mistake: very few things are actually sexual, although there is nothing sinful about sexually appreciating things like nudity.
Experiencing sexual attraction or arousal is never itself sinful and people should not feel guilty or ashamed for experiencing them. Men and women, whether single or separately married, can sexually admire each other--intentionally appreciating the sexuality of someone of the other gender--without coveting or objectifying each other or viewing every situation or interaction as sexual. The problem occurs not when people sexualize an instance of nudity or attraction or flirting or enjoy it in a sexual way, but when they treat nudity, attraction, flirting, and so on as sexual things in themselves. This is an enormous logical and Biblical error. Almost nothing is sexual in itself, and to say otherwise is to grievously lie.
What Is Erotic Media?
Erotic media is a work of any medium (sculpture, literature, painting, movie, video game, etc.) dedicated to portraying sex and inciting sexual arousal or desire. Nudity is entirely nonsexual left to itself, so the presence of nudity in a photograph, movie, sculpture, painting, book, or video game does not make the work it appears in erotic media. The Bible is very pro-nudity [4]. Besides, whether or not nudity is sinful is an issue totally separate from the morality of erotic media, a red herring--but the Bible clearly teaches that nudity is not only not sinful, but it is good. God created humans naked (Genesis 2:25), called it very good (Genesis 1:31), never condemned it in Mosaic Law (Deuteronomy 4:2 condemns adding to the Law), allowed for it in Mosaic Law (Exodus 22:26-27), and commanded Isaiah to be totally nude for three years (Isaiah 20:1-6). Nudity is neither sexual nor sinful in itself! Someone could certainly create a work using a medium with the intent of portraying the nudity as sexual or sexually arousing, and the results might truly depict nudity in a sexual way (although this would likely be impossible to prove in some cases), but nudity in art and the public nudity of actual persons is inherently nonsexual left to itself.
For the sake of clarity, I will distinguish erotic media from media that simply depicts sex. A movie might have a sex scene, even a graphic one, but the movie cannot correctly be called "erotic media" if sex is not the focus of the work, whereas a video entirely about sex would qualify for that title. Although many people would simply use the word "pornography" as an interchangeable synonym for erotic media, what I mean when I use the word pornography is much more specific. I use the word to refer to its historical, etymological meaning: writings (or other media by logical extension) of forbidden/sinful sexual acts. Just as all murder is killing but not all killing is murder, all women are people but not all people are women, and all mathematics is logic but not all logic is mathematics, so too all pornography is erotic media but not all erotic media is pornography.
However, just seeing a sinful sex act is not sinful. Seeing any sin isn't sinful, whether that sin is theft, lying, blasphemy, illicit anger, bestiality, rape, murder, ungratefulness, or unbiblical forms of torture. Christians are called to be like God (Ephesians 5:1) by viewing sin properly. We can be like God in how he views sex as well. But if, say, a Christian man or woman watches a movie that has a scene showing the act of adultery, the Christian has not sinned if he or she has a bodily reaction of arousal. First of all, physical arousal of the genitals can be entirely involuntary. It is different from mental arousal and either one can exist apart from the other, so neither is an indicator that the other is present. Second of all, there is no sin in experiencing arousal (1 John 3:4, Deuteronomy 4:2). This does not mean that the person derives pleasure from observing evil. It just means that his or her body is responding to external stimuli, not that his or her mind harbors sinful thoughts or motives. There is nothing wrong with writing about or visually portraying sexual immorality, but creating an erotic work about sexual immorality with the intent of arousing in viewers a desire to tolerate, engage in, or enjoy sexual sin is wrong. Likewise, viewing it with the intentions the creator wants in viewers is also sinful.
Having explained the nature of sexuality and defined erotic media, in part two I will examine sexual morality, why non-pornographic erotic media is not sinful at all, and then in part three I will refute some objections to these conclusions.
[1]. See here:
A. https://thechristianrationalist.blogspot.com/2017/04/women-are-visual.html
B. https://thechristianrationalist.blogspot.com/2017/01/the-folly-of-modesty-part-2.html
C. https://thechristianrationalist.blogspot.com/2017/11/sexuality-in-marriage-part-3-gender-lies.html
[2]. https://thechristianrationalist.blogspot.com/2017/09/the-cause-of-sexual-objectification.html
[3]. https://thechristianrationalist.blogspot.com/2017/09/sex-is-sacred-but.html
[4]. See here:
A. https://thechristianrationalist.blogspot.com/2016/08/bible-on-nudity-part-1.html
B. https://thechristianrationalist.blogspot.com/2017/02/bible-on-nudity-part-2-refutation-of.html
C. https://thechristianrationalist.blogspot.com/2017/07/the-naturalness-of-nudity.html
I want to emphasize up front the fact that women are not less sexual than men because, although my culture will not acknowledge this, the Bible does, and reason affirms it as well [1]. I despise the American emphasis on male sexuality over female sexuality and the fact that many Americans I've met assume that men and women must have certain sexual impulses or inclinations simply because of their gender, when this has nothing to do with their gender and everything to do with their individual personalities and whatever cultural conditioning they have received. As such, I will not be fallaciously, unbiblically, and erroneously treating erotic media or sexual desire as gender-specific issues. This blog is about sharing demonstrable truths, not about acceptance of the popular fictions of the masses.
I do not watch erotic videos or view images of sexual activity. This is not out of any misguided sense of guilt or a faulty understanding of morality, but simply because I do not want to do so. I wanted to clarify this because some Christians fallaciously reject some moral claims because they think that those who affirm them are just trying to justify a sinful habit. Of course, these Christians are certainly not rationalists (or not consistent ones), much less rational. But even if I did engage in these practices, that has nothing to do with the correctness of my reasoning; logic, not my actions, determines the veracity of my claims. Realizing that erotic media is not sinful is the culmination of realizing many individual but extremely important things about God, morality, sexuality, and human nature. As such, I will reference older blog posts where I discuss in greater detail specific aspects of some of the truths I will mention.
Sexual Metaphysics
Sexual energy is not an objectifying force, but just another aspect of human nature. Sexuality, as long as it is not sinfully used, is inherently good (Genesis 1:31), just like the human body as a whole. Experiencing sexual attraction or arousal is not lust, regardless of the marital status of the person experiencing them. Matthew 5:28, which condemns lust, is often used to condemn sexual attraction, yet it only condemns coveting the spouse of another person (see the Greek word for lust), the first step in committing adultery. Objectification is reducing someone to one aspect of themselves--viewing someone as a sexual object is literally isolating his or her sexuality from all of that person's other human aspects, which could be an extremely difficult thing to do. Objectifying someone is not the same as lusting after them (coveting), as one could lust without objectifying. However, both are sins and should be thoroughly condemned as such [2]. But the Bible never condemns sexual attraction or sexual arousal. They are not the problems. Every time a man or woman experiences attraction or arousal, that person could thank God for the pleasures of sexuality and for the goodness of the human body and all of its functions. The creation story of Genesis reveals the theological truth that they are inherently good unless misused.
As I will elaborate more thoroughly on in part two, and as I have explained many times on my blog, conscience and cultural beliefs are purely arbitrary tools that are totally ineffective at revealing moral truths. Only divine revelation can establish moral knowledge. This can not only be proven entirely from logic alone, but the Bible repeatedly teaches this in verses like Deuteronomy 4:2, Romans 3:20, Romans 7:7, and 1 John 3:4. Feelings, social norms, and preferences have no value for discovering truth of any sort, and that includes moral truth.
A person can experience sexual arousal and sexual attraction directed at a particular member of the opposite gender, even if separately married, and still respect that person as a full human being who has many more components to his or her personhood than just sexuality. Humans still possess rationality and free will, meaning that we can grasp logic and control our actions regardless of our surroundings. Sex and sexuality do not and cannot make us desire or carry out sinful things. Sexuality is not something to fear or worship [3]; it is something to acknowledge, understand, and celebrate, but not something that defines the entirety of what it means to be human and not something that is itself sinful. To demonize sexuality is to demonize something that God created and called very good--and that is sinful.
While on the topic of the nature of sexuality I want to emphasize again a very important point. Contrary to what some seem to believe, nothing is inherently sexual except sex acts--not emotional intimacy between men and women, deep friendships between men and women, shirtlessness (for men), toplessness (for women, although I don't know why different words get used sometimes), full public nudity, bikinis (even thong bikinis), speedos, any other kind of clothing, simple flirtation, or attraction (there are many kinds of nonsexual attraction). Any combination of these things does not have an intrinsically sexual nature. I have addressed many of these issues on other posts in great depth, so I will not revisit each of my points here. But make no mistake: very few things are actually sexual, although there is nothing sinful about sexually appreciating things like nudity.
Experiencing sexual attraction or arousal is never itself sinful and people should not feel guilty or ashamed for experiencing them. Men and women, whether single or separately married, can sexually admire each other--intentionally appreciating the sexuality of someone of the other gender--without coveting or objectifying each other or viewing every situation or interaction as sexual. The problem occurs not when people sexualize an instance of nudity or attraction or flirting or enjoy it in a sexual way, but when they treat nudity, attraction, flirting, and so on as sexual things in themselves. This is an enormous logical and Biblical error. Almost nothing is sexual in itself, and to say otherwise is to grievously lie.
What Is Erotic Media?
Erotic media is a work of any medium (sculpture, literature, painting, movie, video game, etc.) dedicated to portraying sex and inciting sexual arousal or desire. Nudity is entirely nonsexual left to itself, so the presence of nudity in a photograph, movie, sculpture, painting, book, or video game does not make the work it appears in erotic media. The Bible is very pro-nudity [4]. Besides, whether or not nudity is sinful is an issue totally separate from the morality of erotic media, a red herring--but the Bible clearly teaches that nudity is not only not sinful, but it is good. God created humans naked (Genesis 2:25), called it very good (Genesis 1:31), never condemned it in Mosaic Law (Deuteronomy 4:2 condemns adding to the Law), allowed for it in Mosaic Law (Exodus 22:26-27), and commanded Isaiah to be totally nude for three years (Isaiah 20:1-6). Nudity is neither sexual nor sinful in itself! Someone could certainly create a work using a medium with the intent of portraying the nudity as sexual or sexually arousing, and the results might truly depict nudity in a sexual way (although this would likely be impossible to prove in some cases), but nudity in art and the public nudity of actual persons is inherently nonsexual left to itself.
For the sake of clarity, I will distinguish erotic media from media that simply depicts sex. A movie might have a sex scene, even a graphic one, but the movie cannot correctly be called "erotic media" if sex is not the focus of the work, whereas a video entirely about sex would qualify for that title. Although many people would simply use the word "pornography" as an interchangeable synonym for erotic media, what I mean when I use the word pornography is much more specific. I use the word to refer to its historical, etymological meaning: writings (or other media by logical extension) of forbidden/sinful sexual acts. Just as all murder is killing but not all killing is murder, all women are people but not all people are women, and all mathematics is logic but not all logic is mathematics, so too all pornography is erotic media but not all erotic media is pornography.
However, just seeing a sinful sex act is not sinful. Seeing any sin isn't sinful, whether that sin is theft, lying, blasphemy, illicit anger, bestiality, rape, murder, ungratefulness, or unbiblical forms of torture. Christians are called to be like God (Ephesians 5:1) by viewing sin properly. We can be like God in how he views sex as well. But if, say, a Christian man or woman watches a movie that has a scene showing the act of adultery, the Christian has not sinned if he or she has a bodily reaction of arousal. First of all, physical arousal of the genitals can be entirely involuntary. It is different from mental arousal and either one can exist apart from the other, so neither is an indicator that the other is present. Second of all, there is no sin in experiencing arousal (1 John 3:4, Deuteronomy 4:2). This does not mean that the person derives pleasure from observing evil. It just means that his or her body is responding to external stimuli, not that his or her mind harbors sinful thoughts or motives. There is nothing wrong with writing about or visually portraying sexual immorality, but creating an erotic work about sexual immorality with the intent of arousing in viewers a desire to tolerate, engage in, or enjoy sexual sin is wrong. Likewise, viewing it with the intentions the creator wants in viewers is also sinful.
Having explained the nature of sexuality and defined erotic media, in part two I will examine sexual morality, why non-pornographic erotic media is not sinful at all, and then in part three I will refute some objections to these conclusions.
[1]. See here:
A. https://thechristianrationalist.blogspot.com/2017/04/women-are-visual.html
B. https://thechristianrationalist.blogspot.com/2017/01/the-folly-of-modesty-part-2.html
C. https://thechristianrationalist.blogspot.com/2017/11/sexuality-in-marriage-part-3-gender-lies.html
[2]. https://thechristianrationalist.blogspot.com/2017/09/the-cause-of-sexual-objectification.html
[3]. https://thechristianrationalist.blogspot.com/2017/09/sex-is-sacred-but.html
[4]. See here:
A. https://thechristianrationalist.blogspot.com/2016/08/bible-on-nudity-part-1.html
B. https://thechristianrationalist.blogspot.com/2017/02/bible-on-nudity-part-2-refutation-of.html
C. https://thechristianrationalist.blogspot.com/2017/07/the-naturalness-of-nudity.html
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