Movie Review--Jigsaw

"The games have begun again.  And they will not stop until the sins against the innocent are atoned for."
--John Kramer, Jigsaw

"You cannot escape the truth."
--John Kramer, Jigsaw

"Ten years ago, in this very barn, a game was played."
--Logan, Jigsaw


Through Jigsaw the Spierig brothers resurrect the enormously successful Saw franchise, presenting a focused detective mystery-thriller in which a new wave of murders that fit the infamous modus operandi of the dead serial killer John Kramer have surfaced . . . and it seems that John himself is somehow still active.  The Jigsaw killer may have died long ago in-universe, but this movie that bears his name, far more than the seventh Saw film, is truly about John and his legacy.  It atones for the largely awful seventh movie, while also bringing the franchise to life again--and holding promise as a possible stepping stone into a new trilogy.  It took me longer to get here than I thought it would, but three months to the day that Jigsaw hit theaters, I've finally reviewed every entry in the series!


Production Values

Even if Jigsaw succeeded on no other level, at the very least it gives fans another Saw experience with great production values, meaning Jigsaw is vastly superior to The Final Chapter in terms of effects, acting, and the script.  Gone are the terrible blood effects from The Final Chapter, as is the pitiful writing, the grainy camera, and the presence of bland characters like Matt Gibson.  As a major Saw fan, I resented the poor technical quality of the seventh movie when 2-6 were so well-designed, and Jigsaw definitely towers above the seventh one.

The acting is generally immersive and realistic, a welcome relief after Saw VII.  Laura Vandervoot and Hannah Emily Anderson both perform very well as Anna and Eleanor respectively, and Matt Passmore has a great final scene that is full of intensity--he definitely has some spectacular moments.  Tobin Bell expertly returns to his role, appearing in just a few scenes, but still getting more screen time than he did in The Final Chapter.  His appearances are used to great effect, particularly the first time he shows up onscreen, with the film using a clever storytelling device to explain Jigsaw's seeming resurrection.

I want to commend Charlie Clouser for another fitting Saw OST, with tracks like Shotgun and Zepp Eight blending classic Saw tunes with an updated sound.  The soundtrack, from the very opening frames, reminds series lovers that this is a Saw movie.  It honors the series while evolving, just as the structure of the film does.  Those who loved the previous soundtracks will likely love this one too!


Story

(SPOILERS)

A man named Edgar is pursued by police to a rooftop where he grabs a trigger device and says that if he pulls the trigger five people will die.  A cop named Halloran arrives, Edgar pulls the trigger, and is shot in the chest by an unknown person as the police shoot the device out of his hand.  As the trigger is pulled, a timer activates in a different location, with five people in helmets chained across from mounted but inactive saw blades.  The voice of John Kramer, the Jigsaw killer, announces the start of the game, the saws begin rotating, and each person must cut themselves to offer blood and be released from the chains and helmets.  But one of them remains unconscious until his body is pulled by the chain almost right up to the saws, the others moving on ahead of him, having completed their initial task.

A jogger notices a body with the same kind of helmet hanging from a bridge framework; as the game progresses, more bodies appear around the city and are examined in autopsies.  Coroner Logan and his assistant Eleanor assess the corpses, finding jigsaw-shaped puzzle pieces carved out of them on various locations, and a USB pulled out from one of the cuts has John Kramer's voice on it, saying the games have begun again.  Of course, John died years ago in the events of Saw III and his autopsy is shown in Saw IV.  The police are baffled as the voice on the USB is identified as Kramer's, blood under the fingernails of one of the bodies is identified as Kramer's, and Kramer's coffin is discovered to hold Edgar's body, not that of Jigsaw.

As the story unfolds, Eleanor becomes a suspect, as she is found to have a secret "studio" where she recreates Jigsaw traps from schematics accessed on the dark/deep web.  Logan casts suspicion on Halloran when the autopsy of Edgar yields the same bullet type from Halloran's gun, and all of the victims that appeared around the city have a history with Halloran.  Soon jigsaw skin pieces are recovered from his refrigerator.

Eleanor says she thinks she has learned the location of the games, tracing them to a pig barn formerly owned by Jill Tuck, and she leaves with Logan to go there.  Halloran follows.  He ambushes Logan and Eleanor, yet Eleanor flees, an unknown figure subdues Halloran in the aftermath, and Halloran and Logan soon find themselves trapped in laser collars connected to the walls of an inner room in the barn.  Jigsaw's voice tells them that they must confess their offenses, and the voice gives both a choice to go before the other victim by pressing a button assigned to them.  Halloran presses Logan's.

Logan is seemingly killed by the lasers, only to get back up after collapsing to the floor when his collar detaches from the wall.  It wasn't Eleanor who put them here; it was Logan.  He tells of a game played in the barn, ten years before, where he was the victim that stayed unconscious until he almost was at the wall of saws.  The barn games shown in the film occurred long ago.  Logan replicated part of that game with the victims the police had found in order to kill criminals Halloran had overlooked (or put back on the streets), dug up the body of John Kramer, planted his blood, and planted the pieces of skin in Halloran's house to make it appear that John was somehow alive again.  Logan had once accidentally mislabeled X-rays pertaining to John's cancer, but John rescued him from the game at the last second, and he never joined the others--John trained him as his first apprentice.  Logan came to hate Halloran for his illicit methods and tendency to allow violent criminals to walk free, and he fulfills his vengeful plot when he kills Halloran using the laser collar.


Intellectual Content

(SPOILERS)

There is not as much philosophizing in this film as there is in some of the others, but some definitely comes up in the third act.  As they work to create the reverse bear trap, John tells Logan that they can never approach the games from anger or vengeance.  Logan seems to doubt the moral legitimacy of John's desire to rehabilitate rather than punish with the traps, saying that if they don't approach the games with those attitudes then there can be no justice, yet John insists that instead of desiring vengeance they will speak on behalf of the dead.  Of course, as I've pointed out multiple times before, John and his disciples only believe the games are just on grounds of emotional preference and fallacies.

John was a philosophical giant (in the sense that he was deeply philosophical, not that he was logically sound), Amanda deeply struggled with change and pursuit of redemption, and Hoffman was a brutal heretic by Jigsaw's standards.  Compared to these three big personalities, Logan seems rather tame, however passionate he is.  Still, he and John resolve to speak on behalf of the dead and plan more games.  Logan doesn't necessarily add anything new at all to the Jigsaw philosophy.


Series Significance

(SPOILERS)

This is a section I have never before included in a review, but because of my love of the Saw franchise I want to say a bit more about the movie.  Spoilers will be discussed, so do not read between this and the conclusion section if you want to avoid them.  Some of the biggest questions the movie brings up or avoids are 1) why did the other apprentices never talk about Logan, and 2) what happened to Gordon and Hoffman (and Bobby Dagen)?

Logan's military career in Fallujah seems to explain his absence in the other movies.  He was the first disciple of Kramer, with Amanda, Hoffman, and Gordon following.  His military service does at least provide a possible explanation for why he was never involved in the games near the end of John's life, and for why Amanda, Hoffman, and Gordon never indicate they are aware that he even exists or ever apprenticed with Jigsaw.

The fates of Gordon and Hoffman and the liar Bobby Dagen are not even alluded to, although in one scene a hacksaw is found in a closet within Eleanor's studio--perhaps the one that Gordon used to cut off his foot.  I'd have to watch both scenes again to be certain it is the same saw, though.  Jill Tuck is mentioned as the owner of the pig farm where John's first game took place and where Logan kills Halloran.  And, of course, the death and autopsy of John Kramer are acknowledged.  Besides these references to past Saw events and figures, Jigsaw is largely a self-contained narrative that one can enjoy without extensive knowledge of or having seen the past seven films.  It does not utilize flashbacks to scenes or events from the other movies.  It does not tie up the remaining loose ends from The Final Chapter.  Nonetheless, it is still very much a movie in the Saw universe.

What Jigsaw does accomplish is to take elements of other Saw stories and combine them while offering a new story.  For instance, the type of reveal that the games shown occurred ten years before the Halloran investigation of the recent crimes is found, on a much smaller scale, in Saw II.  The opening traps with the bucket helmets and saws is like one of the first traps in Saw V.  And Logan staging his death only to surprise Halloran looks back to the grand twist of the first Saw when John Kramer pretended to be a corpse in the bathroom, only to shock Adam and seal him inside.


Conclusion

Jigsaw both honors series iconography and history while beginning to break away from expected norms.  As the film does in other ways, the last words of the villain deviate from franchise tradition.  Instead of giving the classic line "Game over," the new Jigsaw successor says "I speak for the dead."  Jigsaw definitely shifts the series in a new direction while honoring its core concepts.  As a character says, "Jigsaw lives forever through the work of his followers," echoing elements of a statement by Amanda in Saw II.  If the franchise continues, it needs to strongly emphasize this.  The name Jigsaw is now a legacy, claimed by a movement of dark web followers and a new killer, not merely an alias for one person.

Movie poster for Jigsaw.
(Photo credit: junaidrao on Visual Hunt / CC BY-NC-ND)

https://thechristianrationalist.blogspot.com/2016/07/movie-review-saw.html
https://thechristianrationalist.blogspot.com/2016/07/movie-review-saw-ii.html
https://thechristianrationalist.blogspot.com/2017/09/movie-review-saw-iii.html
https://thechristianrationalist.blogspot.com/2016/07/movie-review-saw-iv.html
https://thechristianrationalist.blogspot.com/2017/01/movie-review-saw-v.html
https://thechristianrationalist.blogspot.com/2017/11/movie-review-saw-vi.html
https://thechristianrationalist.blogspot.com/2018/01/movie-review-saw-final-chapter.html

Content:
1. Violence:  There are scenes involving deaths and dismemberment, but the gore is toned down a lot.  Jigsaw likely has about as much gore as the first Saw, which is not much at all.
2. Profanity:  "Strong" profanity is used throughout the film.
3. Nudity:  A dead woman's breasts are briefly seen during an autopsy.

Melkor And Lucifer

Both the Christian scriptures and The Silmarillion tell of how a great spiritual being, whose very existence is contingent on the will of a benevolent deity, forsakes the will of that deity in order to pursue his own intentions.  Yet the way that each work addresses this issue of cosmic rebellion differs, quite dramatically, in fact; one work provides a direct and concise account of just how the event happened, while the other leaves it as a somewhat enigmatic occurrence.  How do Genesis and The Silmarillion each present this subject?

A chapter in The Silmarillion, a prequel to Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings, titled Ainulindale describes the foundational background mythology for the world that Tolkien created.  Within the context of the work, Ainulindale serves as a historical-theological introduction to the universe of Middle-earth.  As such, it is a work of both historical literature and theological significance within Tolkien's canon, and it tells a tale that is the equivalent of the Luciferian rebellion in its mythos.

Many Christians speak of how Lucifer, created as a beautiful creature that reflected Yahweh's glory, set his will against that of Yahweh, and led an insurrection against his creator with the help of other defectors like him, being cast out as the evil being known as Satan.  Ainulindale tells of how the deity Eru/Iluvitar fashioned angelic beings called the Ainur.  Iluvitar compels them to make music in glorious unity with each other--but one of them, an Ainur named Melkor (eventually called by the name Morgoth), deviates from Iluvitar's expectations.

Melkor/Morgoth, the deviant Ainur.
(Photo credit: rinthcog on Visual Hunt / CC BY-NC-SA)

Treason festers in his mind: "But as the theme progressed, it came into the heart of Melkor to interweave matters of his own imagining that were not in accord with the theme of Iluvitar" (16).  His thoughts began to translate into actions, disrupting the harmonious music of the Ainur, and "straight-way discord arose about him, and many that sang nigh him grew despondent, and their thought was disturbed and their music faltered" (16).

The Bible is not anywhere near this open about how the angelic fall actually happened, at least in its opening book.  In the Bible, Genesis recounts how Yahweh fashioned the material world (Genesis 1:1) and created a special kind of beings called humans (Genesis 1:26-28), named Adam and Eve.  He instructed them to not eat the fruit of a certain tree.  But a manipulative serpent entices Eve to disobey Yahweh; once it appears in Genesis 3, it tempts Eve to consume the forbidden fruit, challenging the veracity of what Yahweh told her in a conversation never recorded in the text (Genesis 3:4-5).

Before this chapter the serpent is not mentioned or alluded to.  Interestingly, despite many Christians speaking of the rebellion of Satan as if it were an event spelled out with great clarity in Scripture, Genesis neither tells of this story nor even identifies the serpent that tempted Eve as Satan to begin with.  Just as the Genesis account does not call the forbidden fruit an apple, as some have done, or call the serpent a snake, as some have done, it does not call the serpent by a formal name or describe its backstory at all.

It is only much later, in the book of Revelation (12:9), that Satan seems to be equated with the serpent.  There is no narrative with a clear telling of just how Satan revolted, or just how many angels he seduced away from Yahweh, or how long before the corruption of Adam and Eve this rebellion occurred.  There is no part of the Bible that describes the exact history of Satan with the clarity that Ainulindale does for Melkor.

What can be legitimately concluded from this comparison?  It becomes apparent that a work that in some way echoes or imitates the Bible might provide far more details about the shared theme or event than the Bible itself does, and sometimes those who represent the Bible might add to its teachings, perhaps even unaware of their mistake.  It also becomes apparent that other works can illuminate an understanding of Scripture, by echoing its contents and by presenting them in a different context.  Each of these realizations, but especially together, can enrich the reading experience and theological understanding of Christians as they read books beyond the Bible.


The Silmarillion.  Tolkien, J.R.R.  New York: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1999.  Print.

Businesses: Collections Of People

Economist Milton Friedman asininely said, in his article The Social Responsibility of Business is to Increase its Profits, that businesses do not have responsibilities (beyond making profit) because they are not people and only people have moral responsibilities.  This comes early in the article, after Friedman says that the claim that businesses should pursue more than just profit is plagued by "analytical looseness."  My bullshit detector is activating!  This is nonsense, of course, since a business is just a collection of people working together.

Yes, the thing that makes a business distinct from a social club or charity is that its members aim to actually make a profit--they seek to obtain enough revenue from providing goods or services to exceed the expenses of running the business, having surplus money for themselves at the end of their labors.  The goal of making profit is definitely a major objective of business.  Without at least generating enough revenue to cover expenses, a business cannot survive.  But this fact does not mean that businesspersons are somehow exempt from any existing moral obligations that people have, since they are indeed still people.

A business is comprised of its members, who are individual persons with moral responsibilities.  And ethical behaviors do not logically exclude profit itself, although some unethical practices might certainly lead to greater amounts of profit, at least in the short run.  In the long run, though, exposed scandals can certainly damage a company's reputation to the point where it does lose vast amounts of profit and public support.  Now, this goes beyond my criticism of Friedman's claim about the nature of businesses and moral responsibilities, yet it is still certainly relevant to a rational discussion about business ethics.  Profits can still be made, even significant profits, when a company remains morally consistent and in the right.  And morally wrong behaviors are never made amoral or morally good if profits result from them.

Milton Friedman argues from an untrue premise.  Businesses are not individuals, but they are collections of people, and, as Friedman himself admits, people have responsibilities beyond simply making profit.  As someone who understands the nature of a moral obligation knows, geography and societal status do not nullify moral obligations, and so businesses still have them, whether the members acknowledge this or not.

An Introduction To Business Ethics

If a thing is right or wrong, then being a businessperson does not remove the obligation to or not partake in that thing, just as being a soldier or scientist does not remove an existing moral obligation.  In the business world, a host of complex scenarios could arise that challenge those in the workplace, and people need to consider beforehand how they should react.  Of course, knowing ethical obligations requires that one be familiar with certain philosophical and theological concepts, as a human cannot know moral truths through intuition, emotion, or consensus [1].  Business experience cannot actually tell us if moral rights and obligations exist or what they are.  Christian businesspeople in particular need to be concerned with working in a way that is morally upright.

An act or attitude is not right or wrong depending on its results.  If something is wrong, it is wrong by its very nature, because it should not be done simply because of what it is.  For instance, if slave trading is wrong, it doesn't matter if the dissolution of the institution will destroy the economic growth of a city--the slave trade is still evil and people should not engage in it (Exodus 21:16).  Likewise, if torturing a person in a certain way is wrong, it doesn't matter if torturing someone in that way will deter crime--that kind of torture is still evil, and like the slave trade in the previous example, people should not engage in it (Deuteronomy 25:1-3).  In the same way, if, say, falsifying accounting records is wrong, then it doesn't matter if doing so helps a company keep a relationship with a profitable client, as the falsification of records is still wrong (Leviticus 19:11).  Utilitarianism, the idea that the outcome of a situation determines if a preceding act was right or wrong, is logically untrue, and Biblically untrue as well.

But just because something is inflexibly right or wrong by its very nature does not mean that right conduct never brings about pragmatic business benefits.  Ethical business behavior can foster a relationship of trust between a company and its external stakeholders, including the consumers that keep it going.  Without consumer support, a company could not continue to operate or make a profit.  Doing the right thing, or at least attempting to, could be very appreciated by both internal stakeholders, like employees, and external stakeholders, like investors and customers.  But a course of action or an intention is not right or wrong because of such results or the lack of them.

Yet this does not mean, of course, that every business that has an official code of ethical expectations fulfills or encourages these expectations out of benevolence or concern for moral obligations themselves.  Perhaps a company's leadership merely wants to have a good reputation, and thus avoids dishonesty, illicit discrimination, exploitation of employees, or bribery on those grounds.  An ordinary civilian can certainly do something morally good with selfish intentions, and an organization's managers can do the same.  A company leader might, given the chance if no one would know, sell harmful products, overwork employees, or gratuitously destroy a part of the environment in order to make a profit.  Thus people need to remember that mere ethical behavior alone does not indicate ethical motivations.

Christian businesses should set the example in the business world, with at a minimum there being no sexism, racism, sexual harassment, or dishonesty tolerated within a Christian firm or a firm run by a Christian.  Such businesses should be among the absolute best representations of what it means for businesses to treat their employees in a consistent and just way and to serve customers honestly.  Other businesses have the same obligations, as moral obligations are binding whether or not someone wants or is aware of them.  But Christians need to consistently apply their worldview to all areas of life, and that includes the business sphere.

[1].  https://thechristianrationalist.blogspot.com/2017/03/the-nature-of-conscience.html

The Impossibility Of Irrationalism

Irrationalism could refer to one of two things: 1) an ideology or epistemological framework that actively rejects reason or 2) the metaphysical belief that logic does not govern all of reality, or reality at all.  I'm going to refute the latter idea here.  It is an idea I have never seen either seriously considered for long or embraced by anyone outside of certain select groups of people I have interacted with.  Irrationalism is not untrue because of its minority following, though, but because it is impossible.

In the comments for another post, I wrote this [1]:


"As for logic, it is impossible for it to 1) not exist and 2) not be inherently true, universal, and inviolable. It is impossible for a "logicless" realm to exist. If it did, it would be a logicless realm and not a logical one (meaning the law of identity still applies by necessity); the fact that it is logicless means that the laws of logic are not true within the realm (meaning the law of noncontradiction still applies by necessity); and the realm, being logicless, is one of the only two ways it could be, namely logical or logicless (meaning the law of excluded middle still applies by necessity). Logic governs all things by necessity, as there is no other way that reality could be. Nothing, not even God, is capable of operating outside of these laws. The very imagining of logic not existing or governing something is impossible (I mean that while someone can understand what the word "logicless" means he or she could never produce an actual example of it), just as such a thing (logic not existing/governing a thing) is entirely impossible in reality."


In a later comment on the same post, I wrote the following to emphasize and establish the same general points, speaking once again of the three laws of logic--the law of identity, noncontradiction, and excluded middle.  I basically restated what I did before:


"None of these could be suspended even in a dimension outside of our universe, whether in heaven, some multiverse scenario, or something else. The only way a realm could truly escape logic would require being governed by logic, making the very concept of alogicality self-defeating and inherently impossible! The place would be alogical, meaning it still is what it is. It would exclude logic, and thus the law of noncontradiction is still true because for an alogical place to exist the law of noncontradiction must be false, which means that it is actually still true. And it would likewise also still be governed by the law of excluded middle, since it could only be either alogical or logical. Of course, it can't actually be alogical, but I am merely showing how the only way a dimension/universe could be alogical is if it is still under logic, which would by necessity mean that it isn't and can't be alogical at all!"


The nature of a logicless realm inevitably does not escape logic, and thus there is no such thing as an item, concept, or reality that actually is "logicless."  Concerns that logic doesn't apply outside of our immediate experiences or outside of our universe are unnecessary, and amount to nothing but worries about something that is utterly impossible.  Irrationalism is false in its entirety.


[1].  https://thechristianrationalist.blogspot.com/2017/08/examining-meditations-part-5-i-am-i.html

The Stupidity Of Atheistic Libertarianism

Here, I'll examine a certain merging of philosophy and politics: atheistic libertarianism.  Libertarianism is a political ideology that espouses very limited government, with the government protecting the natural rights of its citizens in a just way and not interfering in their lives any or much further.  Penn Jillette is an example of an atheist who advocates political libertarianism.  But this is actually an incongruous combination, for the conclusions of libertarianism hinge on whether or not moral truths and natural rights exist--and if atheism is true then there are no moral rights and obligations for a government to defend, and thus there would be no objective boundaries defining what a government should and shouldn't do.  I will show in this post how illogical the very concept of atheistic libertarianism is.

Atheist libertarians like Penn Jillette are appealing to a standard outside of and above whatever existing legal system and government they live under.  Yet this means that they are living contrary to what logically follows from atheism.  No government could even have any objective moral authority on this worldview since there would be no moral standard to conform to; on atheism it is not that morality would become arbitrarily decided by those in power in the absence of a deity to ground it, but that there is no moral authority or truth at all, regardless of what any person feels or says.

How can moral truths exist in an atheistic cosmos?  This is a metaphysical impossibility.  Even if they did, how could they possibly be known?  This is an enormous epistemological problem.  And even if they existed and could be known, what would the point of abiding by them be?  This is the existential issue.  I will explain each problem below.

First, I'll address the metaphysical problem.  Without a deity, there is no moral authority in the universe, and thus there is no standard of right or wrong, and thus there are moral preferences or feelings but no moral obligations or truths.  There is a way things are, but no such thing as a way things should be.  As for the epistemological problem, even if it were possible at all for both atheism and moral realism to be true simultaneously, a person could never actually know what the existing moral truths are.  A person could see that he or she has a conscience and that his or her society upholds a loosely-shared values framework.  But that is all, and neither conscience nor society verifies a moral claim, as neither can actually demonstrate that a particular moral belief is true.  Since the existence of morality requires the existence of a deity, and conscience and society are fallacious grounds for moral beliefs, that deity would have to reveal moral truths to humans [1].  Then, existentially, in terms of purpose and meaning, there could be no point to living ethically if both atheism and moral realism were true.  There would be no point in being moral because there would be no judgment to follow terrestrial life, and every person would reach the same destination.  There would be no ultimate moral accountability.

Atheist libertarians live in a philosophical contradiction, denying the only metaphysical basis for the rights they claim exist independent of government recognition.  And that's not even factoring in the epistemological errors and assumptions they must make to even be moral realists while holding to atheism, which is itself objectively false on its own [2].  Biblical ethics--Christian theonomy--is not only compatible with some forms of libertarianism, but also by necessity is ideologically paired with libertarianism.  A law or government action is not just unless it aligns with objective morality; objective morality can only exist if a deity exists and has a moral nature; any laws that contradict this objective framework are unjust and unnecessary.


[1].  See here for more elaboration on the metaphysical and epistemological issues I mentioned: https://thechristianrationalist.blogspot.com/2017/03/the-nature-of-conscience.html

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

Longevity In Friendship

Modern technology allows for an unparalleled level of connectedness to friends in different cities and states.  Some people might still insist that "people move and friendships fade", but friendships do not have to disintegrate or vanish because of mere geographical distance.  It is not an inevitable necessity that friends drift apart.  It is not as if even in past generations long-distance friends could not communicate at all.  Mail, though much slower, still existed.  But in the modern era friends certainly need not drift apart due to geographical distance between them.  They can stay connected and maintain an intimate relationship far more easily than a pre-21st century society could.

We have more tools to preserve friendships than ever before--email, phone calls, social media, Skype, texting, and so forth.  If a person truly loves someone then he or she can stay in contact with that other person.  At the very least, someone can tell a friend if he or she will be in a communication drought for a while due to some upcoming busyness or need for isolation, but to simply leave the life of a close friend without any warning or explanation is a selfish, cold thing.

Genuine friendships are--to different degrees, as people have different social needs and different friendship intensities--empowering, energizing, and life-giving, and it can become increasingly difficult to find intimate friendships as one grows older.  Holding on to friendships may be difficult in some cases, but it can enrich one's life emotionally and spiritually in ways that are difficult to articulate.  At minimum, in most plausible scenarios there is no reason for someone in an intimate friendship to not tell the other party that it may be a while before communication resumes.

The alternative to remaining in contact with close friends over time is ghosting them or being ghosted by them, which comes about when one party simply drops communication with the other, unpredictably and without emotional closure, a thing that can be extremely painful.  I think I have been ghosted by a recently-acquired close friend who moved away.  I would prefer losing a limb to losing her.  And yet, for reasons unknown to me, and despite having been assured by her beforehand that she would text and call me, my attempts to talk to her have been met almost entirely with communication silence.  This has caused me a great deal of mental anguish, and I do not want anyone else to experience something like this.

Recent experiences motivated me to write this issue.  Not all friendships will or even can last a lifetime, but there is no reason for a person to not do his or her best to ensure that the closest of his or her friendships remain active, thriving, and fulfilling.  I know that when I search for or find new friendships, I generally am intentionally looking for relationships that will last, deepen, and mutually grow both me and the other person.  Becoming emotionally attached to someone only for that person to leave my life is not something I am fond of.  What I aim for, and what I have found in some cases, are friendships brimming with me and my friend sharing both a deep intellectual/spiritual connection and an emotional/social one.

The Language Of Substance Dualism

A brain without consciousness is like a mindless stone--it doesn't think, perceive, believe, or will anything.  And yet people regularly use imprecise and misleading language, sometimes summarizing their beings as "brain and body," which is a rather moronic description considering that the brain is just a part of the body.  A person could distinguish between the brain and another part of the human body, but the brain is just another organ within the body, and so distinguishing them beyond the aforementioned way is rather asinine.

And yet people do use substance dualist language a lot as well, substance dualism recognizing that the body and mind are metaphysically distinct, as I have explained before in other posts [1].  Every time someone says something like "My body" or "I thought" that person is distinguishing between his or her conscious mind/self and material body.  It is not as if all common phraseology mistakes the brain for something other than just another part of the body or consciousness for the brain.  But some people might also regularly alternate between philosophically/logically correct and incorrect references to their minds and bodies.

Of course, people who speak like this might have no idea what exactly they mean by their words.  They could be entirely oblivious to the enormous philosophical concepts and ramifications behind their words.  They might just talk a certain way because others around them do, having never actually considered what the words mean.  And yet on at least some occasions they speak in accordance with reality, whether they mean to or not.

Brains are not minds.  Even people who are not rational, critical thinkers sometimes seem to realize this on some level, hence the use of language described in the preceding paragraph, and yet this does not stop others from using the heinously inaccurate phrase "brain and body."  The next time someone says something like "My brain believes it," remember that brains don't and can't believe anything.  Conscious minds do.


[1].  See here:
A.  https://thechristianrationalist.blogspot.com/2017/10/consciousness-cannot-be-illusory.html
B.  https://thechristianrationalist.blogspot.com/2017/09/examining-meditations-part-6-mind-body.html

The Unreliability Of Statistics

Statistics about people can be thrown into arguments as if they actually have some authority, but a rational examination of statistics shows that they have little to no epistemic value.  For some people this may be new information.  But the authority ascribed to statistics is nonexistent.  Before I continue into explaining three important limitations of statistics about people, I will provide some definitions.  In statistics a population is the set of things/people researchers want to learn about, and a sample is the specific subset of that group that is targeted in observation or analysis.


Self-Reporting

If I were included in a study poll as part of a sample of the religious beliefs of a certain population, I can know that I have answered honestly, but not that the strangers in the poll have.  Self-reporting allows for the possibilities of mistakenly answering questions when one is personally confused (perhaps even unknowingly) or answering in a way intended to fit in with social expectations.  For instance, just because a majority of people in a study, even a nation-wide study, identify as Christians does not mean that they are.  They might not even know what it means to be a Christian; they might know nothing about actual Christianity at all.  The poll results have no ability to be legitimately verified.  Or consider another example.  Just because a member of a certain demographic gives an answer doesn't mean he or she really means it.  Perhaps that person just answered as he or she did in order to fit into stereotypes of the demographic to feel validated by arbitrary societal standards.


Unknown Causes

When it comes to studies about the characteristics of various people, even if a statistical number is correct ("67% of men have a tendency to overspend"), the statistic itself cannot legitimately be used to say that the cause or causes of this phenomenon are known.  In the hypothetical example I just gave about men and overspending, even if the results were true when extrapolated, I am sure that someone would claim that this study "proves" that men have a mental characteristic that makes them likely to spend money gratuitously.  But even if the results were correct this conclusion does not follow at all.  It is not that the men overspend just because they are men--either individual personality or external pressure via societal conditioning will inescapably be at the root of this, though the statistics cannot reveal this part, as they can reveal only the alleged results.  It is logic, isolated from statistics, that reveals this.  But fallacious minds might easily use confirmation bias to argue that statistics confirm some societal myth.

Another example might be a study from a particularly racist era of the 1900s concluding that African Americans are less intelligent that whites--when intelligence has nothing to do with being black or white, but, once again, with individual personality characteristics and societal forces.  In a time when blacks were not educated (though education is absolutely not the same as intelligence) or taken seriously as intellectual beings, someone could have used a study like this to argue that they are less intelligent by nature of being black, when that not only does not follow at all, but it also is proven false in its entirety by reason.


Limited Results

Then, of course, there is the fact that even if all of the answers from each participant are honest and accurate, the answers at most only apply to those in the poll.  To say, to use another contrived example, that "50% of Americans believe in Platonism" because half the members of an American poll group said they believe in Platonism is very fallacious.  This commits the fallacy of composition and treats what is true of some people as necessarily true of others, when that is not the case.  And yet how many articles claim that a certain percentage of Americans or whites or women or some other population are a certain way just because of the alleged answers (which could be very misleading as I addressed above) provided by a very limited population sample?


Statistics are not a reliable basis for believing almost anything about other people.  The limited extent of the results, possible inaccuracy of the results, and inability to confirm the cause of the results (individual personality, social conditioning) altogether disqualify statistics from being a source of certain knowledge.  And yet some people prioritize statistical information!  This only testifies to the philosophical stupidity of some people, not some nonexistent reliability of statistics.

An Analogy For The Subconscious

Imagine that you are inside of a dark room, equipped with a flashlight that you can only point in one direction at a time--this means that you can only see one part of the room at a time, as directing the light to another area means taking the light away from the part it was on before.  Nothing in the room is beyond your ability to see.  The only limitation here is that you can only see one part of the room at once.

This will serve as an analogy I will use to show the irrationality of believing in a subconscious part of the human mind (in the Freudian sense) that lurks behind experienced consciousness.  I've shown the stupidity of positing the existence of the subconscious before [1], but this time I will use the room scenario to demonstrate this.  I will explain what the components of the scenario mean.

In this imagined setting of the room, the room is a person's mind, the light is the person's conscious attention, and the dark non-illuminated areas are the parts of the person's mind that are not being actively perceived (the memory storehouse).  In this sense, the dark areas are the "subconscious," because they are outside of the immediate conscious perceptions of the person.  The darkness is outside of the immediate focus of the light, but it does not hide anything beyond the ability of the person to perceive.

What the Freudian concept of the subconscious amounts to is not something like the analogy here.  The idea of the subconscious in this ideology is not the mere admission, to use the analogy I brought up, that there are other parts of the room that the flashlight is not currently focusing on, but the belief that something outside the room, unseen, is controlling activities inside the room.  Even if such a thing was true, there could never be any evidence for or proof of it, since the claim is that a part of the mind exists that is invisible to the conscious subject.

The analogy of the room, person, and flashlight shows just how absurd believing in the subconscious is when the phrase does not refer to a memory storehouse.  When someone says his or her "subconscious" is dictating his or her attitudes or actions, it isn't difficult at all to point out the logical errors in claiming this.  The concept of the Freudian subconscious is a notion that is unscientific, since it cannot be tested by the scientific method.  It is illogical to believe in it, since it cannot be logically proven.  Believing in it is a philosophical blunder.


[1].  https://thechristianrationalist.blogspot.com/2017/11/the-subconscious.html

The Horror Genre

I'm definitely a lover of horror, with a horror book, movie, or video game is a work with a general atmosphere intended to arouse a sense of fear.  I've reviewed some horror games and movies on my blog, like Dementium Remastered, Resident Evil: Revelations, Until Dawn, House, The Witch, It, and the Saw series.  I do not hide the fact that I appreciate and enjoy the horror genre!  Not everyone shares this subjective appreciation for the genre, and there's nothing wrong with that, yet some Christians label horror sinful.  I'm going to explain why this is a thoroughly mistaken notion.

Philippians 4:8 is often held up as a common Internet objection to Christian participation in the horror genre, a verse that tells us to think on what is pure and lovely, and so on.  But this verse, if actually applied the way the objectors want, would prohibit reading many parts of the Bible, reflecting on the hideous nature of sin, or using other genres of entertainment.  If horror stories involving demonic activity or serial killers are too dark, then it follows that portions of the Bible that record demonic activity, murder, or gang rape must also be illegitimate.  This is similar to one of the major errors of those who claim that erotic media is inherently sinful--if true, that would mean that reading Song of Songs is sinful, which means that reading the Bible can be a sinful thing, which totally contradicts the possibility of the Bible being a document that is true and good.

Then there's the fact that the Bible condemns those who add to its moral teachings (Deuteronomy 4:2, Matthew 15:3-9), for there is no sin outside of what is condemned in at least some way by the Bible (Romans 7:7, 1 John 3:4).  To dislike horror or wish to avoid horror movies, novels, or games is not problematic, but making extra-Biblical condemnations of horror is prohibited by the Bible itself.  At that point someone has fallaciously mistaken a personal preference for an objective moral obligation.

Actually, Christianity, a religion featuring malevolent entities like demons, is not a worldview distant from horror.  Christians who view horror as sinful probably don't seriously consider the Biblical accounts of demonic possession, or the terrors of fallen human nature unleashed without any goodness holding them back.  Contrary to what some might imagine, Christian theology and storytelling holds the potential for some deeply chilling horror tales, yet the reluctance of many Christians to interact with the genre (not authors like Dekker or Peretti or filmmakers like Scott Derrickson, though) stymies the actualization of these possibilities.

Horror, more so than some other genres, often emphasizes a moralism inherent to its stories.  For instance, the Saw series (although the Saw movies are more horror-thrillers than pure horror films) is deeply moralistic and philosophical, although the exact worldviews of the characters in it are often enormously irrational and unbiblical.  The titular character of the newest movie in the series, Jigsaw, serves as both a villain and a protagonist within the story structure (he is certainly not a good person by Biblical standards though), and he is the mouthpiece for ideas about cherishing human life and choosing to turn away from addictions and cruelty (ironically).  Moralism is entirely Biblical, to the extent that the moral claims being defended/made align with the moral teachings of Scripture.  A great deal of the Bible is devoted to moralistic condemnation of certain behaviors and attitudes.

I would love for Christians to produce quality horror stories!  But whether or not horror ever becomes a popular genre in mainstream Christian entertainment (and whether or not Christian entertainment as a whole ever increases its general quality), it is erroneous to say that it is sinful to make, view, or enjoy horror.  Fellow Christian horror lovers are free to love horror as I do!

Popular Christian Assumptions

Many Christians are stupid, uninformed, and inconsistent even within the framework they claim they operate within.  I long ago stopped being surprised when their beliefs contradict their other beliefs, their actions contradict their beliefs, and their frameworks are riddled with enormous philosophical and logical errors.  A rationalist who has debated and interrogated numerous evangelical Christians easily understands this.  And as one converses with members of the Christian community in America, one realizes that they, whether correct or incorrect in their claims, cannot defend many of the popular beliefs they ascribe to.  They merely assume them, which is at its most ironic when they claim that they derive their theological beliefs from sola scriptura--which is an impossible thing, of course.  No knowledge can be derived from the Bible without logic, and thus no knowledge of Scripture can exist isolated in a vacuum with only itself.

What might a common example of these popular assumptions Christians make about the Bible be?  For instance, many Christians seem to believe that Satan is the serpent who tempted Eve in Genesis 3, yet Genesis 3 says nothing of this.  It merely refers to the serpent as "the serpent", not as Lucifer or any other title often reserved for Satan.  Only in Revelation 12:9 is the serpent seemingly equated with Satan.  But this belief is touted about as if it were readily clear in the Bible!  I almost never see the actual Biblicality of this belief (or lack of Biblicality) acknowledged, and yet Christians all around me assume that the serpent in the Genesis account of the fall is Satan because they have been taught this by others!

Why is this?  It is not because Genesis provides any definitive answer about the serpent's identity being a rogue angel.  This is a perfect example of an idea that Christians repeat, and, when cornered in a demand for evidence, they probably won't have a chapter reference to conjure up, much less an accurate one.  American Christians, in my experience, are quite gullible in this regard.  They make certain claims about the Bible's teachings as if they were extremely clear, and yet they are far from obvious, or are even entirely false.

Ask Trinitarian Christians why they believe that Yahweh, Jesus, and the Holy Spirit are all three synonymous beings that are still somehow different--they likely won't be able to produce a single Scriptural reference, which often means that they don't even have a perceived Biblical reason to hold to this.  This belief is logically and mathematically impossible, not to mention thoroughly unbiblical [1], but the point here is that it isn't uncommon to find upon asking that people don't even have a Biblical argument ready.  They merely assume.

Another idea that they sometimes circulate is the contra-Biblical belief that humans literally deserve to be crucified and this is why Jesus died on the cross.  Not only is this never once stated in the entire Bible, but Mosaic Law also utterly condemns crucifixion as an execution method [2].  It is entirely contrary to Biblical ethics and theology to claim that Jesus took "my cross" (and saying he died for me is not the same as saying he took my cross), as if crucifixion is Biblically deserved.  At worst, this twisted idea can be associated with defenses of the ancient Roman legal system, which some sermons or messages about the death of Jesus actually include, or defenses of extra/contra-Biblical torture methods in the modern age.

Calling out Christians for stupidity is, unfortunately, extremely easy.  Whether a Christian or not, a rationalist doesn't have to look far at all to find a Christian holding up as immediately apparent something that is not obvious at all or making a claim that contradicts the Bible, logic, or both.  If Christianity is true, of course, these assumptions are not minor--they affect how people live, the answers they give to skeptics, and whether or not the claimers are aligned with reality.  At the very least, they indicate systematic irrationality, which can so easily encroach from one part of a worldview to the next, amplifying the errors and consequences.


[1].  See here:
A.  https://thechristianrationalist.blogspot.com/2017/08/a-refutation-of-trinitarianism-part-1.html
B.  https://thechristianrationalist.blogspot.com/2017/09/a-refutation-of-trinitarianism-part-2.html
C.  https://thechristianrationalist.blogspot.com/2017/10/a-refutation-of-trinitarianism-part-3.html

[2].  https://thechristianrationalist.blogspot.com/2016/12/we-are-getting-what-our-deeds-deserve.html

Movie Review--House

"God came to my house, and I killed him.  I will kill anyone who comes into my house, like I killed God."
--Tin Man, House


Based on a horror-thriller novel coauthored by authors Frank Peretti and Ted Dekker, the movie House is superior to many Christian films from a production value standpoint, although it fails to actually become something great.  Of course I'll still watch and interact with Christian projects as long as they are superior to the expected results Christian filmmaking!  Which isn't saying much in itself, but this movie leans away from what many might expect from a Christian film in some regards (no obvious preaching, for example).  Lionsgate, the distributor for the Saw series, distributed the movie, which is ironic because House has several very Saw-like elements, albeit executed in a far less developed and structured way.  No, House isn't a tamer and lesser offering just because it's Christian; it could have been both Christian and just as brutal and philosophically rich as something like the entries in the Saw series.  The contrasts will come up again during this review.


Production Values

Though a small-budget movie, the atmosphere and sets are effective for the story structure.  The execution isn't amazing, but it's not totally devoid of effectiveness.  The acting and script are inconsistent in their quality across characters and scenes: some of the actors and actresses exhibit far more skill than others.  The titular house itself works well aesthetically, although it could have been given more "personality" to make it unique by comparison to haunted houses from other stories.

Stephanie is acted rather well by Heidi Dippold, and Bill Moseley has some effective moments as Stewart.  Most of the other performances, while not utter trash, are not particularly notable, even that of the villain.  Michael Madsen plays the Tin Man, and, not in the movie as much as he is in the book, he isn't ever developed or explained very much.  Madsen acts out a reserved but malevolent character fairly well.  Tin Man is certainly no Jigsaw, though.  Don't expect him to have a sophisticated backstory, a deeply philosophical message, or a screen presence like that of Tobin Bell.  House is certainly not as deep or carefully crafted as Saw, which it shares some atmosphere with (and the distributing company with).  In the book Tin Man was a malevolent combination of elements from Jigsaw and Jason Vorhees, but in the movie Madsen presents him as a mostly reserved villain who exaggerates his own alignment with evil ("I'm pure . . . evil.  One hundred percent" can seem quite a silly statement compared to those of other cinema serial killers).  Yes, he sometimes comes across as childish in his characterization.


Story

(SPOILERS)

In the opening scene a woman hides in a house, the front door of which is barricaded.  A man with a gun finds her and shoots her, but only after she exposits that she is his wife.  Later, another husband and wife are on a car ride to visit a marriage counselor in Alabama, briefly pursued by a cop that, once they eventually stop, suggests a shortcut to their destination.  Their car runs over sharp metal pieces nearby another car with a flat tire, next to which is a set of tire spikes.  The couple leaves, walked around, and finds a building called the Wayside Inn, which they do not remember passing.

Inside, they meet Randy and Leslie, whose car they saw next to their own.  And before long all four meet Betty, Stewart, and Pete, the residents who own the establishment.  It isn't long before abnormal phenomena begin to occur, such as Jack and Stephanie separately seeing apparitions of their dead daughter Melissa (who died in an accident while ice skating).  When Stephanie eventually tries to walk out of the house, a man with a gun stands outside.  The man soon climbs onto the roof and drops a tin can down the chimney after trying to enter the front door without any success.

The can has writing on it and communicates three "rules."  The first is "God came into my house, and I killed him", the second, "I will kill anyone who comes into my house, like I killed God", and the third, "Give me one dead body before sunrise and I'll let rule number two slide."  The four visitors become separated and must face their own past trials--the death of a daughter, rape by an uncle, and the vengeful killing of an abusive father.  Events in the house pressure them to kill each other in order to satisfy the demand of Tin Man.  While in the basement, Jack finds a girl named Susan, and eventually the police officer that gave directions to Jack and Stephanie earlier comes and tells the four victims that they can leave through the garage, the way he came in.

They attempt to flee only to find a man waiting outside who begins shooting at the officer; the man, though, is chained, and quickly shot by the cop.  The officer orders them back inside and reveals himself as Tin Man.  He repeats his three rules and seats the four visitors at a table where they are restrained in chairs, a knife inserted into the table in front of each.  Susan enters and calls Tin Man a liar, enraging Tin Man enough for him to demand that the bound guests kill her.  Leslie and Randy break free and kill each other, while Tin Man shoots Susan, whose corpse soon releases a bright light that destroys Tin Man.  Then Jack and Stephanie leave the house, see their bodies outside their vehicle surrounded by emergency personnel, and wake up on the ground.  Susan emerges from behind a tree and smiles, but as the ambulance transports him and his wife away, Jack sees Tin Man outside the Wayside Inn, with Betty, Stewart, and Pete all staring out from upstairs.


Intellectual Content

The book the movie is based upon proclaims, albeit sometimes rather cheaply and vaguely at the some times, that sin deserves death.  In the film, this is even more undeveloped as a theme.  Other than some writing on a wall that is briefly visible and some sporadic talk about moral guilt, almost no attention is given to this concept.  There are still some allegorical elements that are probably easier to recognize if one has read the book.  For instance, a black smoke that comes out of Betty and Stewart also comes out of the real Jack during the doppelgänger scene, conveying that evil is inside of him too, since the smoke in some way represents the presence of evil.  When Tin Man accuses the four visitors of belonging in the house just as much as Betty, Stewart, and Pete, he is affirming this point.  However, there is nothing profound in the way these messages are handled in the film.  Even the death of Susan, who is meant to act as a Christ figure, isn't explained outright in the movie (it is in the book), and Susan is scarcely developed as a character, and thus the core theme remains vague.

At one point Leslie suggests to Jack that Betty or Stewart found their case files from past therapy because that would provide a rational explanation for how they know them.  "There's nothing rational about this place, Leslie," Jack tells her.  Jack makes a self-refuting claim here.  The laws of logic are universal and inviolable.  Nothing in the house violated or could violate logic, although the events in the house contradicted their expectations based upon their previous experiences in the external world, and thus they thought that spiritual forces were irrational, which means contrary to reason.  Is it impossible for me to go into a house and find supernatural inhabitants and a wall that leaks smoke that fashions a lookalike of me?  Is such a series of events irrational?  Not at all!  The house is still a house, the smoke is still the smoke, and the demons are demons.  Nothing about this scenario is irrational, though it might be very foreign to me.  When people throw out words like "irrational" or "impossible" haphazardly like Jack does, they trivialize the concepts the words are supposed to convey.  They speak in error.  No, I don't let things like this slide.


Conclusion

House ultimately doesn't have as much quality, heart, or innovation as secular horror films that use Christian imagery or characters do, like Jame Wan's The Conjuring 2, but it still stands far above many Christian-made films I've seen.  Hopefully, Christian filmmakers will begin to more regularly take the Scott Derrickson approach, boldly tackling the horror genre (and even non-horror movies like Doctor Strange).  But although it is still overshadowed by its secular counterparts, House rises above the unsalvageable horrendous acting of many Christians movies I've watched.  I referred to development and lack thereof a lot in this review.  Had the characters and setting been developed more, House could have risen above mediocrity.


Content:
1. Violence:  Some brawls and gun kills.

The Non Sequitur Fallacy

1).  All humans are mortal.
2).  Socrates is a human.
3).  Therefore dragons exist.


I hope that most people, upon even just a cursory examination of the above syllogism, could easily spot the major problem with it.  The existence of dragons does not in any way follow from humans being mortal and Socrates being a human!  The logically-valid conclusion, meaning the conclusion that actually follows from the premises (just because a conclusion follows from premises doesn't mean the premises are true, though), is that Socrates is mortal, not that dragons exist.

The syllogism is plagued by the non sequitur fallacy, with non sequitur meaning "it does not follow".  Whenever someone affirms a conclusion that has nothing to do with the preceding points--like "if Donald Trump is narcissistic then he must be an extraterrestrial"--they have succumbed to this fallacy.  Non sequiturs like this are not always spotted so quickly by people, though, as many people use non sequiturs without ever realizing they are doing so.  Many fallacies, although they go by different names, are just different specific versions of the non sequitur fallacy.

For instance, the fallacy of appeal to popularity calls out the fact that it does not follow from people agreeing on something, however large their number, that the subject of their agreement is true.  The fallacy of composition points out that it does not follow from one object or person being a certain way that other objects or people will be the same (one car being red doesn't mean another car is red; one person having a fierce personality doesn't mean another person will have the same personality).  Appeal to tradition is invalid because it does not follow from something being traditional, say, a law or a social expectation, that it is therefore true, good, obligatory.

When many other fallacies are recognized as articulate types of non sequiturs, it becomes apparent that the non sequitur is a very popular fallacy indeed--one can kind some variant of it in the words and worldview of a great number of people.  Thus, it is imperative that people understand what a non sequitur is, so that they can readily identify it when it appears.  In fact, realizing that many fallacies are different applications of the non sequitur fallacy can make it easier to notice a broader range of fallacies.

While some non sequiturs, like the existence of dragons being proven by Socrates being mortal or Donald Trump being an alien because he is narcissistic, will probably be called out by a large number of people, many of them are far more commonly accepted.  An example of this is the belief that the past has existed for more than a single moment--it doesn't follow from having memories of times before that that the recalled events actually happened.  Another example is the belief that something is morally right or wrong because one has a certain feeling about it--it doesn't follow from having a feeling that an act or attitude is right or wrong.

Non sequiturs like the ones in these two examples are tolerated, accepted, and even defended by people who would correctly reject non sequiturs in other contexts.  This is due to a lack of intelligence and consistency.  Rationalists must be prepared to point out how even popular non sequiturs are still deeply fallacious, regardless of their defended status in society at large.  Truth is not altered or extinguished by the delusions and ignorance of the masses.

Sacred Unions, Sacred Passions (Part 6): Brothers And Sisters

Entries in this series:

Sacred Unions, Sacred Passions (Part 1): Just Friends --https://thechristianrationalist.blogspot.com/2018/01/sacred-unions-sacred-passions-part-1.html

Sacred Unions, Sacred Passions (Part 2): Fear Of Intimacy --https://thechristianrationalist.blogspot.com/2018/01/sacred-unions-sacred-passions-part-2.html

Sacred Unions, Sacred Passions (Part 3): The Romantic Myth --https://thechristianrationalist.blogspot.com/2018/01/sacred-unions-sacred-passions-part-3.html

Sacred Unions, Sacred Passions (Part 4): Nonromantic Oneness --https://thechristianrationalist.blogspot.com/2018/01/sacred-unions-sacred-passions-part-4.html

Sacred Unions, Sacred Passions (Part 5): Against "Nature" --https://thechristianrationalist.blogspot.com/2018/01/sacred-unions-sacred-passions-part-5.html


I will continue where I left off.  For the background of the book analyzed here or for more information about the concepts, see earlier parts in this series.


"For centuries male-female friendship was a 'natural' disorder according to philosophers.  Men believed women were incapable of friendship.  Plato, Aristotle, and Cicero all wrote treatises on the nature of friendship, and all three thought it was unnatural for women to participate in enduring, virtuous friendships." (53)


This objection to opposite gender friendships is not identical to the one based upon fallacious sexual fears.  Instead of being based primarily on some expectation that all such relationships are or will become sexual, it is based on a claimed metaphysical difference between the social and intellectual natures of men and women, holding that their natures prevent them from understanding or connecting with each other.  This is all bullshit, of course.  Logic dissolves any argument in favor of this nonsense, and no Christian can ever legitimately claim that this stance has any basis in the Bible whatsoever.  A more sexually oriented objection to cross-gender friendships could easily result from the metaphysical one, though.  Brennan references some figures who opposed these friendships on such grounds:


"Caesarius of Arles[,] for example, ordained as a Catholic bishop in 502[,] feared women and disorder in close friendships, including cross-sex relationships.  He warned the people under his spiritual care that a man and a woman should not, 'be allowed to speak together alone for more than a moment.' . . . According to Gregory the Great, 'men should love women as if they were sisters, but they must also flee from them as if they were one's enemies.'" (54)


Such is the conclusion of a delusional, irrational legalist: men and women must be separated, for they are nothing but dangers to each other.  This is neither a position aligned with reason nor the prescription for male-female relationships in the Bible.  The antidote to Gregory the Great's stupidity, ironically, is living consistently with the first part of what he said--loving members of the opposite gender as sisters/brothers.  Brennan emphasizes the similarities between how brothers and sisters interact and how opposite gender friends interact:


"Contemporary Christians rarely balk at or are suspicious of close, biological adult brother-sister relationships.  Indeed, many don't think twice about a brother and sister spending time alone with each other, living alone with each other, or sharing physical affection . . . From a Christian perspective, the complex brother-sister bond as a nonromantic model for male-female friendships holds great power and promise." (55)


Christian men and women, even if not biologically related, are bound together in a way that transcends all terrestrial familial relationships.  We are to treat each other as such, in a way governed by love.  Just as biological brothers and sisters can have relationships of great emotional intimacy, relational closeness, and physical affection, so too can men and women who are not literal siblings enjoy the same kind of relationships.  Physical touch and emotional vulnerability are not gateways to evil; they are communicators of affection, and not all affection is sexual or romantic.  When Christians realize this, they can shed awkwardness, fears, or discomforts with the opposite gender that they have been taught by ignorant and fallacious church leaders or authors.

They can look to the example of Jesus as they do so:


"In fact, while some enforced strict boundaries between men and women, other Christian men and women were empowered by Jesus' friendships with women to intentionally pursue close, paired male-female friendships . . . Unsurprisingly, these opposite approaches to cross-sex friendships also parallel how communities addressed brother-sister relationships." (59)


Treating members of the opposite gender as brothers or sisters is not only a way to establish or cultivate intimacy in relationships with them, but it is also an entirely Biblical course of action (Romans 14:10).  Even when one is attracted to a particular man or woman in a sexual way, the friendship itself is not impure simply because of the existence of such a kind of attraction.  Even people who are sexually attracted to a member of the opposite gender can still relate to that person as a brother or a sister.  Ignorance of these matters can be amplified by ignorance of cross-gender friendships in church history, as Brennan soon covers:


"Many in the evangelical sub-culture are virtually unaware of the deep friendships that have existed between men and women in the church." (59)


Not far after this, Brennan gives examples of these historical cross-gender friendships, which I will explore in the next entry in this series.  I hadn't heard of any of these friendships before I read this book, and it will be enjoyable for me to address some of them soon!

God's Hatred

There is an objection I have heard when discussing the Biblical fact that God hates at least some sinners [1]--that humans do not or cannot hate with perfect righteousness like God does and thus humans should not hate other humans at all, only love them.  This might sound appealing to some people, particularly those who find the concept or experience of hatred unpleasant.  But it is neither a Biblical nor a rational position to hold.

First of all, the idea that redeemed humans cannot actually be morally perfected on earth, at least in some compartment of their lives, is foreign to Scripture.  Secondly, the claim that we should not hate as God does but we should love as he does is inherently illogical and unbiblical.  I never hear or see anyone say that if humans cannot love others perfectly then we should not love at all.  I exclusively see this extremely fallacious argument leveled against those who draw attention to the Biblical fact that God hates, a thing that does not logically exclude or diminish the fact that God loves.

The reason for this disparity is not because the Bible does not teach that God hates, or because hatred really is intrinsically wrong (it isn't, as I've explained before), but because people either 1) don't understand what love and hatred are, thus erroneously seeing them as logically incompatible, or because they 2) have some emotionalistic objection to all hatred rooted in the subjectivity of their consciences.  But love and hate are not logically incompatible, and hate is not identical to malice.  And conscience is an utterly useless tool in itself; at most it tells us how we feel about or have been conditioned to react to something, not if the thing itself really is wrong [2].

If anti-hatred Christians used the same fallacies with their positions on love that they do with their positions on hatred, then they would argue that Christians cannot or should not love because they cannot love exactly like God does.  But even if it truly was logically impossible for Christians to ever perfectly imitate an aspect of God's nature (and it is not), that would not change the fact that Christians are still obligated to love as God does.  Obligations don't disappear simply because someone doesn't carry them out fully.

The reason that some Christians object to the doctrine of divine hatred is because they have a faulty understanding of Christian theology and/or they are not acknowledging that God's moral nature is the only standard for right and wrong.  Love is good and obligatory on the Christian worldview only because it conforms to God's nature.  Likewise, just, legitimate hatred is non-sinful--and even obligatory--because it conforms to God's nature.  A rational person will not see that the Bible teaches that God both loves and hates and then insist that people, who are called to imitate God (Ephesians 5:1), only partially imitate God's attitudes.  To do so would be inconsistent with what the Bible actually teaches.  And to deny that the Christian God hates is to reject what is plainly described in Scripture (for more information on that, see the first link at the bottom).

There is a specific word for any claim that denies or contradicts a part of God's nature: heresy.


[1].  https://thechristianrationalist.blogspot.com/2017/04/does-god-hate.html

[2].  https://thechristianrationalist.blogspot.com/2017/03/the-nature-of-conscience.html

The Heresies Of A Complementarian

I recently read a particularly idiotic article called Why Christians Should Be Proud Sexists.  Yes, the author thinks it is Biblical to not only be sexist, but also to be proud of it.  Apart from infamous appearances by the fallacy of composition and a legion of non sequiturs, the article makes many claims that are not only erroneous on purely logical grounds, but also on Biblical grounds.  I'm only going to highlight some of the absolutely asinine claims made in the article, so I'll pass over the extremely fallacious claims about gender stereotypes (I've logically deconstructed and refuted these multiple times before on my blog), discrimination, and so on.  I'm going to focus on a handful of the article's egregious Biblical errors.  Errors is too tame a word.  I will call these claims what they are--heresies that contradict God's nature and Biblical theology.  Let's get started!


"Only Men are Made in God’s Image, Not Women"


Yes, the author literally denies that women are bearers of God's image just like men are.  Has the author fucking read Genesis 1:26-28?  Women were made in God's image to corule creation with men [2], not to be slaves in function (if not in name) to males.  Men and women have equal value in Christian theology, and this stubborn fact will not cease to be a fact because people with fallacy-drenched worldviews do not want to admit it.  What are some ways that male and female possession of God's image manifests itself in the Bible?  For instance, Mosaic Law gives men and women equal legal rights and protection in criminal cases (see Exodus 21, for example).  Paul praises men and women in Romans 16 as he commends fellow Christians for their evangelism and service.  The Bible is clear: men and women are equal in metaphysical value, and what follows from this inescapably contradicts complementarian teachings.


"Wives Are Regarded as the Property of Their Husbands"


No, husbands do not unilaterally own wives and wives do not unilaterally own husbands.  To say otherwise is to embrace heresy.  Both husbands and wives "own" each other.  A Biblical example of this is in 1 Corinthians 7:3-5, where Paul explicitly states that husbands and wives have mutual ownership of each other's bodies.  Husbands and wives mutually possess each other's bodies, and not in the sense of either having a "right" to demand that the other submit unilaterally.  It is impossible for men and women to have equal value while one of them is the property of the other in the way that the article implies--in a way that is unilateral and sexist.  Not even Biblically-codified and allowed slavery involves one party owning the other as if he or she exists just for the owner [3].

Also, a philosophy or theology of gender that says one marriage partner owns the other, but not vice versa, is an ideology from which it follows that sexual consent is not necessarily morally required.  In the Old Testament, Deuteronomy 22:25-27 clearly condemns nonconsensual sex, calling all rape "like murder", another Biblical capital crime (Exodus 21:12-14), and demanding the deaths of rapists (and this would include the deaths of women who rape males).  Consent alone does not make a sex act morally legitimate or permissible (adultery, homosexuality, and so on), but consent IS Biblically mandatory for legitimate sex to be legitimate (1 Corinthians 7:3-5).


"Women Are Commanded to Submit to Their Husbands"


Actually, all husbands and wives are commanded to submit to each other.  It's in the damn Bible.  Read Ephesians 5:21.  When Paul commands all Christians to submit to each other out of love for Christ, that includes both husbands and wives (besides, 1 Corinthians 7 also emphasizes mutual submission).  As for the complementarians who insist that later verses in Ephesians 5 demand a unilateral submission of wives to husbands, I notice that they are practically never stupid enough to say that Ephesians 5 demands a unilateral love of husbands for wives.  The Bible commands love of all people, not that one gender love the other.  Arguing that the instructions in Ephesians 5 are unilateral inherently involves illogicality [4].


The author eventually claims that Jesus was sexist because he did not have female disciples among the 12 Apostles.  First of all, Jesus was followed around by a group of women that financially supported him (Luke 8:1-3), a very important feat.  Second, it doesn't follow from Jesus not having female apostles that God expects men and women to occupy different social spheres or that men and women should not choose each other as close companions.  That's a major non sequitur.

When dealing with special morons like the author of this article, rip apart the assumptions, expose all of the logical fallacies, and call out all of the philosophical errors.  Since such people clearly aren't rational, hence why they believe in obvious fallacies and falsities to begin with, it doesn't hurt to raise awareness of their errors in a mocking way.  The past few years have empirically shown me how people who don't want to admit they are deniers of reality will not admit such a thing.  And wherever they don't, their fallacies trail behind them, leaving an open target for the ridicule, correction, and disgust of the rational.

May the anger of rationalist Christians be aroused at the stupidity and moral inferiority of the fallacious.


[1].  https://biblicalgenderroles.com/2017/12/28/why-christians-should-be-proud-sexists/

[2].  https://thechristianrationalist.blogspot.com/2017/11/the-error-of-complementarian-arguments.html

[3].  https://thechristianrationalist.blogspot.com/2016/06/bible-on-slavery.html

[4].  https://thechristianrationalist.blogspot.com/2017/02/why-ephesians-5-does-not-teach-rigid.html

Nietzsche On Thinking

Nietzsche is one of my favorite philosophers to read--not because he is consistent and thoroughly rational, but because he fluctuates between brilliance and stupidity, quite regularly, in his book Beyond Good and Evil.  He is entertaining to me because of his tendency to deny what cannot be false or illusory and refute himself in the process.  But I would be wrong to say that he never defends truths, even unpopular ones.

For instance, he refutes the form of idealism which holds that the senses create the external world, rather than merely perceive external stimuli [1].  This is an example of a legitimate truth that Nietzsche points out.  But then, in the same book, he claims that no one can know if he (or she, although in his irrational sexism Nietzsche would likely not clarify this) is thinking.  Let's inspect what Nietzsche says:


"There are still harmless self-observers who believe that there are 'immediate certainties'; for example, 'I think,' so as the superstition of Schopenhauer put it, 'I will'; as though knowledge got hold of its object purely and nakedly as 'the thing in itself,' without any falsification on the part of either the subject or the object." (23)


The "thing in itself" refers to concepts or objects as they actually are, not just as they are perceived to be.  This distinction was emphasized by Immanuel Kant with his concepts of noumena and phenomena, with noumena being things as they are independent of observation, and phenomena being things as they are perceived by human observers.  But even making this distinction means that perceptions exist, and that means a perceiver exists, and that necessitates that the perceiver at least knows the perceptions in themselves.  It is impossible for me to perceive anything at all without having objective clarity that I am indeed perceiving.  Of course all knowledge involves a subject that perceives; it is impossible to know anything at all without being conscious and thus having a subjective experience.  But that does not make reality or logic subjective!  It is impossible for truth to be anything but purely, inescapably objective.  Even if truth and logic were subjective, it would be objectively true that they are subjective, and thus they would still be objective.

Anywhere that there is a distinction between perception and reality, the distinction can only exist if the perception falls short of capturing the essence of actual reality.  Illusion and false perceptions can only exist if they deviate from reality in some way--otherwise they themselves would be reality!  It is also true that any illusion or faulty perception still exists.  Illusions and faulty perceptions are indeed real, but they in some way distort of fall short of expressing the reality beyond them.  The entire distinction between illusion and reality doesn't change objective reality or signify the nonexistence of objective knowledge in any way.  Such a thing is impossible!

Continuing his fallacies, Nietzsche literally argues that people must use their minds (which would involve thoughts) to realize that they cannot know that there are conscious minds that are thinking.  When he refutes himself, he does so very overtly:


". . . the philosopher must say to himself: When I analyze the process that is expressed in the sentence, 'I think,' I find a whole series of daring assertions that would be difficult, perhaps impossible, to prove; for example, that it is I who think, that there must necessarily be something that thinks, that thinking is an activity and operation on the part of a being who is thought of as a cause, that there is an 'ego,' and, finally, that it is already determined what is to be designated by thinking--that I know what thinking is." (23)


Consciousness cannot be an illusion [2].  To perceive the illusion, a person would have to be conscious, and any perception at all necessitates that there is a conscious subject that is perceiving.  Thoughts are individual ideas that occur within a conscious mind, and, like the experience of consciousness, the existence of thoughts cannot be illusory.  Thought cannot be doubted or denied apart from using and relying on thoughts in order to do so.  Nietzsche doesn't acknowledge here that human words are mere constructs to convey concepts, and that logic and experience, not language, initially supply us with the concepts.  The idea that thinking itself is unknown is self-defeating and denies what cannot be an illusion: consciousness and the experiences contained within it.  To analyze a sentence, as Nietzsche claims "the philosopher" must do, involves thought, and Nietzsche is using thoughts to argue against knowledge of thoughts.

Even if some other being were implanting thoughts into my mind, I would still be experiencing them and, therefore, would still be thinking.  Nietzsche descended into utter stupidity here--when dives into sheer asinine nonsense, he does not hold back!  Thinking, like consciousness, cannot be illusory.  Now, at this point the issue of free will comes up.  For if my thoughts are controlled by something other than my self (which is my consciousness), then my beliefs are dictated by an outside source, and I can never actually know anything since my conclusions are controlled not by my own rational mind but by other forces.

Thinking, like consciousness, cannot be an illusion.

I have some knowledge, and I couldn't have any knowledge at all unless I have free will.  As I've covered before, without free will a person could never be certain of anything, since his or her thoughts and conclusions would be guided by some other force or forces.  But I do know some things; I know some things with absolute certainty, things that cannot be false--that logic exists, that I exist, and so on.  Therefore it follows that I do indeed have free will.  I still can summon, dwell on, dispel, and remember some thoughts at will.  So even if an external mind, be it that of God or Descartes' demon or some other conscious entity, randomly inserted thoughts into my own mind, I still have at least some control over whether or not I believe, dismiss, or act upon those thoughts.

Of course someone can doubt these truths about consciousness, thought, objectivity, and reason.  That doesn't erode the truth of them in any way; it cannot.  Doubting some things only infallibly affirms them (that truth exists, that consciousness cannot be illusory, etc), and no refusal to admit the veracity of what cannot be false will ever affect the reality of those things.  Nietzsche shows what irrationalities someone can stoop to when he or she denies things that cannot be false!  But, importantly, he also exemplifies the wasted potential that fallen humans can neglect when they flee from God.  He could have been so much more!  For all his stupidity, as I said, he did indeed have moments of rational clarity and brilliance.  When one turns away from reason and from God (the two are not the same), absurdities and contradictions will result.

Beyond Good and Evil.  Nietzsche, Friedrich.  Trans. Kaufmann, Walter.  New York: Vintage Books, 1989.  Print.


[1].  https://thechristianrationalist.blogspot.com/2017/11/nietzsche-on-external-world.html

[2].  https://thechristianrationalist.blogspot.com/2017/10/consciousness-cannot-be-illusory.html