The Fallacies Of Physiognomy

What makes something "pseudoscience" as opposed to legitimate science?  Pseudoscience masquerades as something scientifically valid, yet it either is not observable, repeatable, or measurable or it is incapable of being empirically demonstrated at all.  Just as fallacies render an argument or belief irrational, a failure to meet the criterion of being observable, repeatable, and measurable means that a claim is extra-scientific or pseudoscientific.

Something which I have addressed in some previous articles of mine that is pseudoscientific is the concept of the subconscious mind, with subconscious here meaning outside of what the conscious mind is capable of perceiving.  By this definition, even if it existed, by its very nature it cannot be seen by either a first-person subject or by other researchers [1].  Because the subconscious could never be observed and thus could never be quantified even if it does exist, it is incapable of being demonstrated to exist by science.

Another pseudoscientific matter is the doctrine of physiognomy.  Physiognomy is the attempt to discern someone's personality features or moral character by assessing that person's body parts, especially--but not limited to--facial features.  It is a wonderful example of a pseudo-scientific endeavor that is littered with errors.  In the case of physiognomy, we have something that is both illogical and unscientific, since its conclusions neither rest upon valid premises nor can be established on the basis of empirical observation.

What kind of connections between personalities and bodily features does physiognomy seek to uncover?  Perhaps a certain nose shape will be seen as indicating a deceitful spirit, or maybe a certain eye shape is held to mean that someone has a tendency to be hardworking or honest.  Maybe someone who is deemed "attractive" [2] is also expected to be intelligent.  Another example of physiognomy might be thinking that a person with large genitals must have a high sex drive.  Of course, the allegedly corresponding personality traits are purely arbitrary, since there is no logical connection tying them to the body parts.  Neither logic nor repeated empirical observation (the scientific method) establishes a connection of any sort between a certain sized or shaped nose, eye, or other body part and a certain moral habit or personality characteristic.

Can someone tell if this man is honest, dishonest, consistent,
kind, selfish, aggressive, or calm, etc, just by looking at his
face?  Not at all!

One does not even need science to realize that physiognomy is a bullshit discipline, since logic proves, entirely a priori, that it does not follow whatsoever from having body parts of a certain type or size that one must have certain personality traits.  Just because someone has a specific facial structure does not mean that he or she by necessity has some behavioral characteristic that is revealed by the appearance of the physical body.  The only way that physical appearance and mental traits are correlated is in people with certain bodily and mental disabilities.  For instance, the face of someone with Down's syndrome may look abnormal compared to other faces, but even this has nothing to do with judging moral character or basic personality types.

Though physiognomy is, fortunately, not widely embraced on the popular level these days, the historical development of such an asinine discipline exemplifies the idiocies one can stoop to when straying from logic.  Let it serve as an example of what stupidities result when logic and science are exchanged for fallacies and pseudoscience.


[1].  See here:
A.  https://thechristianrationalist.blogspot.com/2017/11/the-subconscious.html
B.  https://thechristianrationalist.blogspot.com/2018/01/an-analogy-for-subconscious.html

[2].  Although any claim about beauty (like "His body is very attractive," "That color looks great," or "Her hair looks very beautiful today") is by necessity either true or false, all perceptions of beauty are purely subjective, hence the quotation marks used above.

Game Review--Doom (Xbox One)

"I am not the villain in this story.  I do what I do because there is no choice."
--Samuel Hayden, Doom


A game that is very focused on a few key experience features, Doom appeals to a very particular audience, relying on its brutal intensity and action-oriented FPS gameplay to entice players.  And, if you are part of that audience, you could derive some serious enjoyment from playing it.  It is the first Xbox One game I played by myself, so I thought I'd review it to commemorate the occasion.

Production Values

The graphics are clear and detailed, and I never experienced frame rate drops despite the screen sometimes being crowded with enemies--and sometimes it can get very crowded, with numerous enemies of different types descending on you.  The combat can become very intense in some situations, and yet the frame rate stayed consistent for me.  The sound keeps up with the action rather well.  Expect a lot of loud explosions, gunshots, and demonic shrieks accompanied by electric guitar riffs.  Voice acting is competent, but, considering the focus on fast-paced gunplay and mild solo exploration, there is little actual dialogue.

Gameplay

People who want to play this game probably want to have fun killing demons with diverse weaponry, and those who appreciate inflicting death on the enemies will have a lot to enjoy.  The fighting can get brutal, and I died multiple consecutive times in the same area more than once.  The difficulty can be adjusted mid-gameplay via the pause screen if one needs to tone down the challenge.  Combat takes the form of using vicious gun (and chainsaw) attacks and melee finishing moves to obliterate hordes of demons intent on overpowering the unnamed character controlled by players.

Players will find that Doom combines retro and modern elements, blending arcade-like elements with contemporary graphics.  The power ups, collectibles, and minimal emphasis on story all contribute to the game being one that struck me as an old formula in a new skin.  I still loved the experience!

Metroid lovers might see some similarities between that franchise and this game, since Doom has map stations, a map screen that looks like one from the Metroid Prime games, and various collectibles often findable only through optional exploration.  Really, Doom is basically an intellectually simpler version of Metroid Prime with God of War level violence added.

Story

(Some spoilers are below)

No, Doom doesn't have a particularly developed narrative, but that's not what the creators aimed for.  The premise of the game is that in the future a group of scientists in an organization called the UAC, led by an android-like robot inhabited by a human mind named Samuel Hayden, have engaged in an operation on Mars that resulted in a portal to Hell being opened.  The unnamed player character wakes up and finds the facilities in a state of infestation by various demons.

Samuel Hayden apologizes for the disaster, but insists that his work was strictly for the betterment of humanity, his utilitarian ethics coming up at least at one key later time.  A former employee of his (I think) named Olivia Pierce is in league with the demons, seemingly having been seduced away by promises of power, and she is the one who opened the portal that allowed the demons to come to Mars.  The purpose of the UAC Mars operation was to harvest Argent energy.

The player visits hell to pursue Olivia, returns to Mars, and eventually goes back to hell to actually kill Olivia.  The journey there led to the destruction of devices used in the Argent energy project, and Hayden confiscates an object from Hell, saying he will continue his work and that he expects to meet the player character again in the future.


Intellectual Content

If players are up for some exploring, they can find different types of collectibles (ranging from data logs to suit upgrade tokens to little figures).  But the item hunting is definitely secondary to the shooting.  Still, there is definite collectible variety for completionists who want to obtain all the secrets.

Doom features an artificial intelligence, a cyborg, and a semi android-like being.  The "android" (he is humanoid, but taller than the average person and doesn't have actual or simulated human skin like some androids do) is actually a shell holding the consciousness of Samuel Hayden, a scientist.  The game largely glosses over the issue of cybernetic transference, which is transferring a human consciousness into a machine body.  Such a thing is logically possible, though this does not mean that in actuality humans will ever be able to preserve their minds by placing them in machines.  I don't recall the game actually explaining how this transference happened, only (in an optionally readable data file) that Hayden, diagnosed with terminal brain cancer, used the last months of his human life to ensure his nonphysical mind would outlast his biological body.

A human mind/consciousness is not a brain, even if it is generated by a brain.  A brain is a physical organ; consciousness is the immaterial thing that perceives, thinks, experiences, and reasons.  However, if the biological death of the brain means the cessation of consciousness (at least in terms of it animating a body), then I don't know how that consciousness could be resurrected into a machine frame.  Doom doesn't explain this in the course of its narrative.  If it does in the optional data files, I missed where it does so.


Conclusion

If you don't like gory games, Doom is one to skip.  If you like games with deep lore and stories, again, Doom is one to skip.  But if you are fine with violence and an emphasis on action over character development and a dissection of grand themes, then Doom might be a game you will take pleasure in playing!


Content:
1. Violence:  As some of the screenshots here indicate, Doom is a very graphic game.  A variety of melee attacks and guns can be used to rip apart enemies, and, yes, there is a lot of blood.  All of this violence is inflicted on demonic beings, though, and thus not on humans.

The Nature Of Sexiness

What one person finds sexy another person might not, and many variables could contribute to this--immediate mood, past experiences, natural personality, etc.  Experience can confirm this, and logic can prove it independent of interacting with others.  A person or act is perceived to be sexy if it is sexually attractive or arousing.  And, as I already stated, what people perceive to be sexy is subjective.  But there is something else that might often be overlooked: some things that people might find sexy--indeed, a great deal of them--are objectively nonsexual.

In some cases there is a difference between perception of a thing and the thing itself.  Something might be different than it is perceived to be, and perceptions can vary greatly from person to person.  What are some things people might perceive to be sexy that are not sexual (the only things that are themselves sexual are sexual feelings and activities)?

Sapiosexuals are sexually attracted to intelligence, yet there is nothing sexual about intelligence.  Demisexuals experience sexual attraction to people they are very emotionally close to, yet there is nothing sexual about emotional intimacy.  Likewise, some women might be sexually attracted to male muscularity (and vice versa), although there is nothing sexual about muscularity.  Or some people might find a certain hairstyle or smile sexy, when there is nothing sexual about hair or smiling.  Some men might perceive a specific bikini to be sexy and some women might perceive shirtless men to be sexy, although there is nothing sexual about either bikinis or shirtlessness.

Nonsexual things can arouse people sexually, and sexual things might not arouse people, at all or in a given situation.  A person might not be either mentally or physically aroused by a spouse's sexual beckoning, or by sexual thoughts, or by watching erotic media.  As reason plainly demonstrates, a priori, there is no connection whatsoever between a thing being sexual and someone being sexually aroused by or attracted to it.  Different sexual activities can arouse different people differently, even though each of the acts is objectively sexual in nature.

A sexual activity, like masturbation, might not even be engaged in out of sexual desire, even if the man or woman masturbating is not asexual, as one can engage in a sexual act like masturbation simply because the act physically feels good.  So even sexual things can be done with minimal sexual motivations or without any sexual motivations at all.

So what is the nature of sexiness?  It is impossible for many things that people might perceive to be sexy to actually be sexy in themselves because they are not even sexual in themselves to begin with.  And just because something is sexual in nature does not mean that people will find it sexy.  A thing is either sexual or nonsexual irrespective of perceptions, yet perceptions of sexiness are purely subjective and, as explained, have nothing to do with the actual nature of what is found sexy.


Summary of observations
1. Sexiness has to do with something/someone being sexually attractive or arousing.
2. Perceptions of sexiness are purely subjective.
3. Only sexual feelings and activities are sexual.
4. Something that is not sexual (eg clothing, a situation) cannot be objectively sexy, since a thing that is objectively nonsexual cannot be objectively sexy.
5. People can find nonsexual things sexy, and just because something is sexual doesn't mean it will sexually arouse or excite them.

The Laziest Moral Epistemology

Well, it happened yet again.  Another professor of mine at HBU uttered a very erroneous idea recently.  The class is business ethics, and the professor has only rarely articulated an argument that is both sound and valid.  He, in an attempt to refute moral relativism, partially dismissed it because according to him it is "lazy."  Ironically, despite the impossibility of moral relativism, his own proposed moral framework is even lazier--in fact, it is the laziest possible system of moral beliefs!

According to this professor some moral truths are "self-evident."  This is entirely untrue, but I find it highly amusing that the person who calls seeing conflicting moral beliefs, realizing that they cannot all be true, and concluding that ethical truths are relative lazy thinks that just having a feeling is the legitimate pathway to moral knowledge.  Moral relativism is fallacious, impossible, and only believed by intellectual insects, but it still takes far more effort to survey the vast discrepancies between moral beliefs and actively consider them than it does to just have a moral feeling and automatically conclude that it must reflect some moral reality.

For something to be self-evident, it must require no other foundation for it to be known--it must prove itself in some way, since it cannot rely on other premises to be confirmed.  It must be evident in itself.  Only logical axioms and necessary truths have this property.  They cannot be denied without contradiction and they cannot be false.  Moral claims, on the other hand, do not possess this property.  One can deny them without any contradiction whatsoever.  And they are certainly not evident in themselves!  For moral truths to exist a moral standard must exist, and for a moral standard to exist there must be a moral authority above humans.  There is no other way for there to be such a thing as morality, and even if morality exists that does not mean that moral truths are known by intuition or conscience, for neither can soundly inform us of moral truths [1].

This means that the existence of morality and specific moral truths cannot be self-evident, since to know that these moral prescriptions exist and to know what they are one must first discover if there is a deity (without which there could be no moral authority), then inquire into the nature of this deity, find if it has a moral nature, and then see if the moral nature of this deity can be known.  Moral truths by their very nature cannot be immediately known, since they are true even if people do not agree, meaning that conscience can never be legitimately appealed to as a route to moral knowledge because conscience is just a subjective emotive tool, one that cannot even inform someone if his or her conscience is accurate.

Moral nihilism and moral realism are the only moral systems which are even logically possible, with moral skepticism being a position of uncertainty as to which is correct or what specific moral truths exist.  Either there is no right or wrong or moral truths are objectively binding whether or not we are aware of them.  There are no other legitimate options.  Moral relativism contradicts the inviolable laws of logic.  A thing is what it is, and a thing cannot be and not be in the same way at once.  Yet moral relativism holds that two or more people can believe different moral ideas--mutually exclusive ones--and somehow still all be correct at the same time.  This is impossible, and, besides, it does not follow from disagreement about morality that no objective moral truths exist (this is a major non sequitur fallacy).

Ultimately, a moral relativist is often arguing for moral nihilism with some additions, holding that there are no moral truths while also arguing that his or her subjective preferences or feelings have some moral significance.  This is just an asinine position; it, in a sense, clings to moral nihilism (which could never be proven even if it is true) while going beyond it.  I need to be clear that moral beliefs are almost entirely relative to one's subjective conscience or culture.  But the plurality of moral beliefs one can find in no way means that moral truths are relative or that they do not exist, only that moral beliefs are relative and that moral consensus does not exist.  And if moral consensus did exist, this would prove only that everyone agrees, not that they are correct.

Moral relativism is actually less lazy than what my business ethics professor believes is the proper moral epistemology.  Neither moral relativism nor the belief that humans can "just know" moral truths is correct, as both are refuted in full by logic.  Moral relativism is indeed objectively impossible (moral nihilism would be the closest possible thing), but thinking that you can know moral truths by immediate introspection or by pangs of conscience is a far lazier belief, one that, like relativism, cannot be true.


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

The Hidden Presence Of Brain Activity

During ordinary experiences or focused introspection I directly experience my consciousness.  Something I find highly fascinating is that my experience of basic consciousness does not in any way reveal the neuron activity occurring in my brain.  Just as I cannot know about blood circulating through my arm simply from the experience of moving my arm around, I cannot know about specific brain activities from mental experiences alone.

When I turn my mind's attention toward itself, focusing on a memory,

an idea, or a present emotional state, I do not sense the presence of

bustling activity of the scores of neurons in my brain.

According to some estimates there are as many as approximately 100 billion neurons in my brain, and yet mental activities like thinking (in this case by thinking I mean activities like actively reasoning or imagining things), perceiving, or introspecting, do not yield any awareness of this!  Mental activity occurs without communicating anything of neuron behavior to the conscious self.  Introspection and logic, thus, cannot discover the presence of neurons on their own.

Consciousness is a very simple and yet enigmatic thing.  It is omnipresent in experience, but its very existence can only be correctly accounted for on certain worldviews!  The existence of consciousness is self-evident, meaning one has to be conscious to doubt or deny that one is conscious, yet the existence of neurons is very far from self-evident.

If neurons are active in or around the brain, one cannot know this simply by experiencing or reflecting on consciousness; one would have to use additional empirical means beyond introspection and logic isolated from scientific data.  This confirms, yet again, the distinction between mental and brain activity that one can discover through logic without any scientific inquiry.

Asexuals Are Still Sexual Beings

I am an asexual, meaning I have little to no natural sexual desire at any given time.  But I am still a sexual being.  Is this not a contradiction?  Not at all!  There are two general components to sexuality: the emotional/mental aspects of it and the physical/physiological aspects of it.  Asexuality in itself exclusively pertains to an absence of the former.  It does not erase the latter.  Sexuality is not limited to either just sexual feelings or the physiological capacity for sexual acts, as it encompasses both.

Although some may be puzzled that an asexual would say this, I, an asexual, am still a being with sexual physiology, as are other asexuals with normally-functioning genitals.  This is not surprising to those who realize the distinction between the mental and physical aspects of sexuality.  The two often interact, but one can exist without the other.

In fact, there is evidence that God intended for humans to be physiologically sexual beings even when they are not experiencing or cannot experience the mental aspects of sexuality.  The very fact that people can have their genitals involuntarily become sexually aroused during sleep, even without erotic dreams, shows that God designed humans to naturally experience bodily sexual arousal even when unaccompanied by actual sex acts or sexual desires, and even when people are not in sexual relationships.

This does not change just because someone is an asexual.  Asexuals have no need to feel confused by this because it does not contradict the definition of asexuality--even someone who is entirely without sexual feelings can still be a sexual being.

An Examination Of Basic Islamic Christology

The Quran, when it comes to the nature of Jesus, outright agrees with the New Testament in some ways and totally deviates from it in others.  I will give credit where it is due, yet also draw attention to the aspects of Islamic Christology that contradict both the Bible and historical evidences.  In one sense Islam regards Jesus highly.  It calls him someone who was tasked by God with presenting the Gospel and confirming the Torah, yet it also denies his death entirely.

Surah 4 summarizes key points about the Islamic position on Jesus:

Surah 4:155-158--". . . No!  God has sealed them in their disbelief, so they believe only a little--and because they disbelieved and uttered a terrible slander against Mary, and said, 'We have killed the Messiah, Jesus, son of Mary, the Messenger of God.'  (They did not kill him, nor did they crucify him, though it was made to appear like that to them; those that disagreed about him are full of doubt, with no knowledge to follow, only supposition: they certainly did not kill him--No!  God raised him up to Himself."

First of all, the Jews (the context reveals that the Jews are the people in question in these verses) did not crucify anyone, as the Torah both does not prescribe execution methods like crucifixion and condemns them [1], so the implication in the text that the Jews thought they had directly crucified and killed Jesus is totally unfounded.  Second of all, this passage contradicts what is actually supported by historical evidence by saying that Jesus wasn't crucified and didn't die, but merely appeared to.  Islamic Christology, then, ultimately admits that Jesus existed, even calling him a servant of God, but then denies what the historical data actually points to: that he died via Roman (certainly not Jewish!) crucifixion.  Josephus, Tacitus, the Babylonian Talmud--there are definitely sources that provide historical evidence for the crucifixion of Jesus!

It is the Bible that says the crucifixion occurred as recorded by non-Christian historians.  Since Muslims can conjure up no historical data to reinforce the claim that Jesus never died and was even never crucified to begin with, the New Testament teaching that Jesus did die is the one out of the two claims that is most compatible with external evidences.

Only one verse later, though, Surah 4 actually says something that, ironically, is similar to something Philippians 2:9-11 teaches:

Surah 4:159--"There is not one of the People of the Book who will not believe in [Jesus] before his death, and on the Day of Resurrection he will be a witness against them.)"

The Quran does say that Jesus has some special eschatological significance in that he will eventually condemn the Jews who did not follow Islam, which does somewhat parallel what Philippians 2 describes--that every knee will bow to Christ and every tongue will confess his authority and divine nature.  The differences between this and the similar Quranic teaching, of course, are that Philippians says that every person will acknowledge Christ, not just non-Christian Jews, and that Jesus is actually called divine.  

It is indeed important that I show where the Quran does teach things about Jesus that are Biblically true.  Elsewhere, the Quran affirms the Torah by saying that Jesus came on behalf of God to testify to its veracity:

Surah 5:46--"We sent Jesus, son of Mary, in their footsteps, to confirm the Torah that had been sent before him: We gave him the Gospel with guidance, light, and confirmation of the Torah already revealed--a guide and lesson for those who take heed of God."

As I've explained before, this is ironic, because one notion of the Quran that contradicts the Torah disproves Islam, and in an earlier post I showed how the Quran contradicts the Torah on a crucial matter of justice [2], though there are other disparities I could write about in the future.  All it takes is one inconsistency for Islam to be falsified, whether or not the Torah is true, meaning that, since the Quran contradicts the Torah, Islam can be rationally disproven as a system and legitimately set aside, leaving us with no reason to think that Jesus merely "appeared" to die.

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

[2].  https://thechristianrationalist.blogspot.com/2018/03/quranic-punishment-surah-538.html

Defining The External World

I have explained what the external world is and is not in at least one previous post, but, since I was thinking about this issue again today, I want to be clear that the external world is not everything outside of my mind.  This post is just for good measure for the sake of newcomers to my blog!

The external world is the world of matter outside of my consciousness, and depending on the specific context it could refer to either all matter, including my body, or all matter beyond my body.  My consciousness is what it is external to, hence the descriptive phrase used to refer to it.  The world of matter, though, is certainly not the totality of everything that exists beyond my mind.  There is at least one thing that exists outside of my mind that is immaterial and thus by definition not a part of the external world, and there is strong evidence for others.

Logic is immaterial, and thus it is not a part of the external world despite governing the entirety of it [1].  Since logic cannot not exist, I do not even need to demonstrate that any other immaterial thing exists in order to show that the material world does not encompass everything outside of my mind, especially since logic would exist even if neither the external world nor my consciousness (or any other minds) existed at all.

Although I cannot prove that other minds exist, and thus I cannot know if they do, what I can prove is that other minds, even if they animate physical bodies as my own conscious mind does, are immaterial, thus also not being a part of the external world.  If there are any other minds/consciousnesses besides my own, then they, too, are not part of the material world because their metaphysical natures prevent this from being true.  Then, of course, there is the fact that on the Christian worldview it is even more troubling to call the external world everything that exists outside of my mind, because, in addition to logic and any other existing minds (including Yahweh's), things like sin and moral obligations are also immaterial and not part of the material world.

As rationalists can see, it is very misleading and to call the external world "everything" outside of one's mind.  To believe such a thing is to believe an impossibility.  While some might be tempted to misuse language with reference to the concept of the external world, it remains utterly invalid to say that the external world is comprised of everything whatsoever that exists outside of my consciousness.

[1].  https://thechristianrationalist.blogspot.com/2017/10/the-immateriality-of-logic.html

The Object And Method Of Faith

There is a difference between an object of faith and faith as a method or a basis for belief.  It is vital to distinguish between these, appraise what is meant by each concept, and then declare the truth about both things.  The object of faith is the thing that is trusted in.  Thus, having faith in someone's honesty means that a person's honesty is the object of faith.  But as a methodology or foundation, faith is belief in something without confirmation.  This is what is meant when someone defends a claim by saying he or she believes in it on faith.  The former can be consistent with reason (in that the thing believed in/trusted in might actually be real and true), yet the latter is contrary and exclusive to rationality.  You cannot hold something to be true on faith and know it is true simultaneously.

The object of someone's faith might indeed be true and consistent with the necessary laws of logic, but faith as a method or basis for a belief is never compatible with reason, since it inevitably involves belief or trust in something beyond what can be proven.  I will give an example: if someone believes on faith (by trust in what has not been or cannot be proven) that extraterrestrial life exists, he or she has no basis whatsoever for that belief, though it is entirely logically possible that alien life exists, and thus it is not the conclusion that is intrinsically irrational but the method used to arrive at the conclusion.  If alien life exists, that person was only right by accident; if it does not, that person was no less irrational, since the veracity of the conclusion has nothing to do with the validity of the methodology.

These points are seldom clarified when Christians discuss faith and reason, especially since some of the positions I've frequently encountered are quite untrue.  One is that reason itself requires faith, a claim which is by its very nature impossible [1], and another is that it is somehow rational to believe in what cannot be proven in full--again, the nature of logic makes this impossible, for it can never be rational to believe in what cannot be rationally proven.  The object of someone's faith might be rational and true, but believing in something because of faith is inherently irrational whether or not the object of faith is real.

I have made it clear to those around me that I am not a Christian because of some introspective experience, because I was raised by Christian parents, or because of some emotional insecurity or preference.  I don't even believe that the entirety of Christianity is true; I believe that Christianity is internally consistent, consistent with all external evidence I have found, supported by a great amount of various evidences, and that parts of it are true by logical necessity (the parts holding that truth, a material world, and an uncaused cause exist, or that the mind is distinct from the body, for example), because that is all that I can demonstrate to be true.  I can prove that Christianity is evidentially-fortified, but that is not the same as proving that the entirety of it is correct.

Still, I am committed to Christianity because of the evidential strength that it boasts.  Nothing about Christianity is logically impossible, but that does not mean that it is true--all I can prove are that some parts of it are true and that the rest seems quite probable.  Acting upon what evidence reveals is not irrational if one keeps in mind that even great evidence is not a total proof and understands the distinction.


[1].  https://thechristianrationalist.blogspot.com/2017/07/the-impossibility-of-faith-in-reason.html

Autocracy Is Not Inherently Tyrannical

The idea that autocrats, otherwise called dictators, are by necessity tyrants is the result of fallacious thinking.  An autocrat is someone who rules with a great degree of power, while a tyrant is one who rules through illicit fear--particularly by unjust threats or unjust force.  Having great or even absolute power over a group of people does not itself mean that one will abuse that power or impose it in illicit, sinful manner.

For instance, an autocrat who rules using the right set of just laws is not a tyrant (Biblically, autocracy itself is not sinful, but it could be used in sinful ways).  Even if an autocrat had absolute power he or she will not necessarily be cruel.  This is demonstrable simply by comparing the concept of a tyrant to that of an autocrat, for one can see that the two are not synonymous; although an autocrat could become a tyrant, such a thing is never an unavoidable outcome.  People who argue that autocracy is evil because of what might come about from it commit the slippery slope fallacy.

Am I saying that autocracy is obligatory?  No!  I am merely pointing out that it is not some inevitably destructive thing that must, by necessity, end in malevolent, selfish tyranny.  Autocracy, like monarchy [1], is neither sinful nor obligatory.  I am not arguing for autocracy, only proving that it is not what some represent it as being.  Autocracy is not an automatic indicator of corruption or evil.  In fact, an autocrat who rules justly is better than a leader who has a more limited power and yet acts unjustly.


[1].  https://thechristianrationalist.blogspot.com/2018/02/the-moral-theology-of-monarchy.html

Rationalism A Source Of Confidence

When one is devoted to reason, one is freed from bondage to the errors of others--and also from fearing their rejection.  And with freedom from their errors comes recognition that their approval is utterly meaningless.  One of the most liberating side effects of rationalism for me is that I have a deep confidence, a confidence that extends down into every part of my life, one that leaves me without any fear over whether or not the truths I know are accepted or denied by others.  This confidence, a foundation of internal assurance, is a security in the truth that is unaffected by how other people respond or act.

Confidence is one of the most empowering things a person can experience, and the firmest confidence can only be obtained from a right understanding of reality.  This is something only rationalism can impart.  Without rationalism one is adrift in uncertainty and assumptions.  With it, one can be prepared to face popular delusions.  With it, one looks to truth and not acceptance by other people.

I care nothing for their feelings, preferences, traditions, assumptions, or fallacious objections.  I loathe the very people themselves quite often.  It is not that I hate those who are walking on the path to truth and yet are stumbling along the way, but that I hate those who refuse to acknowledge blatant errors, instead persisting in believing outright impossibilities or in things that cannot possibly be verified, even after multiple corrections.

Because of rationalism I can look at others, see the common idiocies of the masses, and know that I am not like them.  Intellectual freedom is being right (therefore being free from submission to errors) and knowing that you are right.  It can bring the most secure kind of confidence--knowledge that you do not need to be trapped in the same stupidity that so often engulfs others, a knowledge which can so easily accompany security rooted in the truth and not their fictions.

Deborah: The Female Judge

Those in the church who say that God is against women leading men must do so in spite of the fact that the Bible itself clearly describes women as holding legitimate positions of authority over men.  One such example is Deborah, prophetess and judge of Israel (Judges 4:4-5).  God himself is said to have raised up the judges (Judges 2:16-19), so readers cannot rightly claim that Deborah, being a woman, was in moral error simply by presiding over Israel.  The judges were non-monarchical leaders who presided over the Israelites, sometimes leading them to military victories.  They were not called kings or queens, but they did lead on behalf of God:


Judges 2:16, 18--"Then the Lord raised up judges, who saved Israel out of the hands of these raiders . . . Whenever the Lord raised up a judge for them, he was with the judge and saved them out of the hands of their enemies as long as the judge lived . . ."


Judges 2 and 4 alone absolutely demolish the idea that Yahweh is against women leading men.  If it is sinful for a woman to lead a man, and if God cannot sin (James 1:13), then God could not have raised up a female judge!  Thus the fact that he did means that female leadership over men is not sinful.  Some complementarians might say that God only settled for Deborah because no men were willing to accept the role of leadership meant for them.  But where the hell does the text say this?  It does not!  What it does say is that God raised up judges and that Deborah was a judge.

Oh, how I love observing how insecure complementarian men can be when they meet a female leader who is competent, qualified, and in authority over them--especially if it bruises egos that have been shaped by stereotypes that so many blindly believe in!  When fallacious minds encounter things that disprove their false assumptions, the result is always cognitive dissonance, a refusal to adapt to reality, or a right change of mind.  Since complementarianism wouldn't exist without fallacious minds embracing it, the complementarian response to reason and Scripture usually isn't a right change of mind, unfortunately.

God does not condemn female leaders.  No one is qualified for leadership simply by being a man, and no one is disqualified from leadership simply by being a woman.  Sound logicians realize that denial of this involves fallacies--non sequiturs, begging the question, circular reasoning, appeals to tradition, etc.  It doesn't follow at all from having a certain body that one is or isn't capable of competent, skillful leadership; instead it follows from one's personality traits or experiences.

Logic, people.  It is very fucking helpful.

Quranic Punishment: Surah 5:45

While reading Surah 5, I noticed a pair of verses in the Quran that both agree with and deeply contradict the Bible.  I will quote both verses below and examine them after.


Surah 5:44-45--"We revealed the Torah with guidance and light, and the prophets, who had submitted to God, judged according to it for the Jews.  So did the rabbis and the scholars in accordance with that part of God's Scripture which they were entrusted to preserve, and to which they were witnesses.  So [rabbis and scholars] do not fear people, fear Me; do not barter away My messages for a small price; those who do not judge according to what God has sent down are rejecting [God's teachings].  In the Torah We prescribed for them a life for a life, an eye for an eye, a nose for a nose, an ear for an ear, a tooth for a tooth, an equal wound for an equal wound: if anyone forgoes this out of charity, it will serve as atonement for his bad deeds.  Those who do not judge according to what God has revealed are doing grave wrong."


First, I'll focus on the contradictory aspect of this passage I alluded to above.  The Quran here restates its explicit teaching that Yahweh/Allah did indeed give accurate moral revelation to Moses in the Old Testament (Surah 2:53), adding that to disregard what God has revealed is a serious error.  How ironic, considering that multiple times the Quran prescribes totally different penalties for certain crimes than the Bible does, meaning that the Quran contradicts the very Torah it itself claims is true and binding on multiple occasions!  I recently wrote on the disparity in the punishment for theft, the Bible prescribing restitution to the victim, while the Quran prescribes the amputation of the thief's hand [1].

As for Lex Talionis, though, the Quran and the Bible do not disagree.  This is where Surah 5:44-45 actually concurs with the Bible.  Surah 5:45 is one of the Quranic verses where preserving Jewish moral theology does win out over the tendency for Mohammed to make revisions while still claiming consistency with the Old Testament.  Whereas Mohammed drastically deviated from some Biblical penalties, here he upholds one of them, and for that I will give him credit.

I've clarified before that the Biblical Lex Talionis laws apply only to permanent physical injuries/mutilations, not to sexual assault, nonpermanent physical injuries, or certain forms of torture like flogging [2].  Likewise, in Sharia Law, for instance, rape is not punished by rape, but by death, as in Deuteronomy 22:25-27.  As long as Islamic law reserves Lex Talionis for only permanent injuries or mutilations, there is no difference between the Lex Talionis of Islam and of Christianity.  Still, the words immediately surrounding the Quranic affirmation of Lex Talionis in Surah 5 only highlight the differences between other Biblical and Quranic punishments!

The Quran does not totally disregard or deny what the Torah and the rest of the Bible teach.  But when it does do so is rather blatant and significant.  I aim to explore the Quran, bit by bit, making observations, identifying what the text does and does not say, and describing my findings here on my blog, as I've already done twice before this month.  Expect more posts about ways that the Quran either affirms Biblical teachings or contradicts the Bible to be periodically posted in the future!


[1].  https://thechristianrationalist.blogspot.com/2018/03/quranic-punishment-surah-538.html

[2].  https://thechristianrationalist.blogspot.com/2016/12/bible-on-torture-part-2.html

What Is Emergent Naturalism?

Naturalism/physicalism in its strictest sense says that the only things that exist are various arrangements of physical matter.  In this form, it is utterly incapable of being true [1].  This is because things like consciousness and logic are immaterial and are simply not composed of physical matter.

Just like seeing is different than an eyeball, consciousness is
different than a brain.  Consciousness cannot be an illusion,
 for perceiving an illusion requires consciousness [2].

Emergent naturalism, rather than deny outright that immaterial things like consciousness exist, holds that immaterial things are somehow generated by the physical world.  The word emergent refers to how nonphysical things like consciousness "emerge" when physical components are arranged in a certain way.  The dilemma of explaining just how this emergence occurs in terms of causality is called the hard problem of consciousness.

Consider the Internet as an example of the emergence concept.  The Internet is a vast series of pages and networks that one can access through a device like a desktop or laptop computer, smartphone, or tablet.  It itself is not a tangible, physical thing, although physical things are required to both generate and access it.

All computer software, like the Internet, is itself immaterial, yet
it only exists because of physical hardware.  One can grab the
 physical hardware because it is a tangible thing made of matter,
yet one cannot grab the software, only the thing that software
runs on.

At the very least, since a naturalism that denies the existence of immaterial things like consciousness simply cannot be true, emergent naturalism is the only form of naturalism that could even be legitimately considered by rational people.  Even this is only because, although it holds that the brain is the sole origin point of consciousness, it acknowledges that consciousness is objectively distinct from the brain.  Someone could be both an emergent naturalist and a mind-body dualist with regard to distinguishing consciousness/mind from the brain, although I rarely hear this clarified.  Emergent naturalism is still a kind of mind-body dualism!  Actually, depending on the scope of what one means by emergent naturalism, the emergent naturalist conception of consciousness is not logically incompatible with basic theism, free will, or the existence of immaterial entities like demons.  Emergent naturalism pertaining to consciousness is also, left to itself, not an intrinsically atheistic idea.

I must now explain that logic itself is immaterial, and it would exist even if there were neither conscious minds nor physical matter [3].  My conscious mind allows me to grasp logic, and the senses in my physical body allow me to grab matter; the immaterial grasps the immaterial and the material grasps the material.  Logic is not and cannot be some emergent phenomenon that comes about from the existence of matter because even if no matter existed logic, including the basic three laws of logic and the fact that certain things follow from others, still exists.  It cannot not exist!  It is intangible, transcends all physical things, and does not even rely on the existence of a mind for its own necessary existence.  Thus even if emergent naturalism is the correct explanation of consciousness there is still something immaterial that transcends all matter, meaning not all immaterial things are brought about by arrangements of matter.

How does Christianity relate to emergent naturalism?  Well, in Genesis 2:7 God himself is clearly credited with giving the breath of life--consciousness--to Adam.  Yet this does not in itself explain how consciousness is imbued into the next generation.  Does God specifically imbue each new baby with consciousness in the womb?  Did God make it so that each subsequent generation after Adam and Eve would receive consciousness in an emergent way?  Even the latter option would mean that God is at the very least still indirectly responsible for the emergence of consciousness after Adam and Eve.  Either way, even irrespective of the truth of Christianity, there is an uncaused cause, so whether or not emergent naturalism is the true explainer of consciousness there is a god if one uses "god" to mean the uncaused cause [4].  On a non-Christian theism, though, it is hypothetically possible that the uncaused cause created matter and that matter eventually produced mind.

Emergent naturalism (whether as pertaining to consciousness or the Internet or some other immaterial thing) must be distinguished from strict physicalism/naturalism because it actually admits the existence of some immaterial things.  As readers can hopefully see, while one can refute the strictest sort of naturalism rather easily, emergent naturalism requires more serious engagement.  There is still the enormous hurdle for emergent naturalists of solving the "hard problem," but, in the sense of logical proof or disproof, no one can actually verify or falsify emergent naturalism regarding human consciousness in its entirety.  But let's be clear: emergent naturalism does not contradict all theistic models.

What can a rationalist take away from studying emergent naturalism?  One can see that 1) consciousness is immaterial regardless of its exact origins, 2) consciousness is not the brain, 3) not all immaterial things (i.e. logic) are or even can be emergent, 4) and there is still an uncaused cause even if consciousness is emergent.

[1].  https://thechristianrationalist.blogspot.com/2017/07/a-refutation-of-naturalism.html

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

[3].  https://thechristianrationalist.blogspot.com/2017/10/the-immateriality-of-logic.html

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

The Fallacy Fallacy

We must be sure, when debating a fallacious mind, to not reject a person's conclusion just because he or she uses fallacies in his or her arguments.  Fallacies inescapably invalidate arguments for conclusions, but do not prove that the conclusions themselves are also false.  What's the difference here?

If someone were to say that 1) chairs have four legs, 2) glass can be transparent, and 3) therefore the universe began to exist, the structure of the argument is nonsense.  Premises one and two are red herrings to the conclusion, and the conclusion does not follow from the premises in any way.  Yet the conclusion is still true despite the fallacies in the argument!  Similarly, a claim about history, science, or metaphysics might be true even if an argument used in an attempt to affirm it is extremely unsound.

The fallacy fallacy is the name of the fallacy that appears when people reject a conclusion because of flaws in an argument used to reach it.  It is, like many fallacies, a type of non sequitur [1], since it does not follow from fallacies appearing in an argument that the conclusion is by necessity also untrue.  Thoroughly rational people will not dismiss a claim just because its defenders cling to erroneous premises.  Instead, they will recognize that it could be true, despite the stupidity of the argument or the one making the argument, and will either remain agnostic about it unless proof is discovered or will verify or falsify it on their own.

Yes, some people are so stupid that when they are right they are often only right by accident, by happenstance, not by accurate reasoning.  But rational people will realize that their stupidity does not mean that their conclusions are necessarily false, even if their premises and arguments are total shit.  The fallacy fallacy will be avoided by thorough critical thinkers.


[1].  https://thechristianrationalist.blogspot.com/2018/01/the-non-sequitur-fallacy.html

Does The Quran Teach Annihilationism?

Islam, because it claims the Torah is true while contradicting it [1], cannot be true, yet that does not mean that the Quran teaches everything some might ascribe to it.  For instance, from what I have read, the Quran does not actually prescribe that women wear burkas, although many might think that burkas are prescribed in the Quran itself (I still want to look into this more though).  Another thing that the Quran might not teach is eternal conscious torment, meaning it might actually concur with the Bible's teachings on annihilationism [2].  I need to read more of the Quran to be certain, yet people can always be reminded to not represent a worldview as teaching what it does not hold to.  I read some of Surah 4 today, scanning for verses about hell, and I wanted to highlight some of my findings.


Surah 4:29-30--"You who believe, do not wrongfully consume each other's wealth but trade by mutual consent.  Do not kill each other, for God is merciful to you.  If any of you does these things, out of hostility and injustice, We shall make him suffer Fire: that is easy for God."

Surah 4:138--"[Prophet], tell such hypocrites that an agonizing torment awaits them."


Nothing in these verses inherently suggests eternal conscious torment; both of them are consistent with either eternal conscious torment or annihilationism.  This means that they do not themselves contradict a type of Islamic annihilationist theology.  The direct teaching that sinners will suffer agonizing torment in hell does not necessarily mean that they will suffer agonizing torment endlessly.  But what about verses like Surah 4:156?  While this verse may seem to promote something closer to eternal conscious torment, logic reveals it is compatible with annihilationism and, again, that it does not necessarily teach that unsaved sinners will suffer forever in hell.


Surah 4:56--"We shall send those who reject Our revelations to the Fire.  When their skins have burned away, We shall replace them with new ones so that they may continue to feel the pain: God has the power to decide."


Although the verse refers to God replacing burned skin with new skin to prolong the sinners' torment, nothing in this verse by necessity teaches a kind of eternal conscious torment.  The verse does say that God will replace skins consumed by hellfire, but, as logic demonstrates, this might mean only that God will replace the skins once, or that God will replace them a certain other number of times.  The text never specifies if this entails an infinite number of replacements, a finite number of replacements, or how many replacements it signifies if the number is finite.  Indeed, the clarification at the end of the verse--that God "has the power to decide"--might refer to God having the power to decide to release an unsaved person from his or her torment into annihilation.

I am not saying that I know yet if the Quran teaches either annihilationism or eternal conscious torment.  It certainly teaches, like the Bible does, that there is a hell and that God will send unsaved sinners there, but it might also teach annihilationism, just like the Bible does.  But I do know, as someone who was taught a lot of shit extra-Biblical theology by Christians growing up, that the Bible does not at all teach many of the ideas I have seen ascribed to it, and the Quran (while certainly false) might also be misrepresented to and by some Muslims and Christians alike, whatever their intentions.


[1].  https://thechristianrationalist.blogspot.com/2018/03/quranic-punishment-surah-538.html

[2].  See here:
A.  https://thechristianrationalist.blogspot.com/2017/12/the-justice-of-annihilationism.html
B.  https://thechristianrationalist.blogspot.com/2017/02/the-truth-of-annihilationism.html
C.  https://thechristianrationalist.blogspot.com/2017/09/the-destruction-of-soul.html

On Political Isolationism And Libertarianism

In honor of the film Black Panther [1], I've been recently reflecting on isolationism, foreign aid, and libertarianism.  On the Christian worldview it is certainly not evil to share resources with less fortunate regions, yet there are legitimate and illegitimate manners of doing this.  The only philosophically valid ethics system (epistemologically and metaphysically) is theonomy, and a form of libertarianism inevitably follows from Christian theonomy [2].  So what would the Christian libertarian means of handling foreign aid be?  If the only objective purposes of government are to protect citizen's rights, administer criminal/civil justice, and defend from foreign militaries (when needed), do isolationist policies result when governments act strictly in accordance with their purpose?

I want to clarify quickly that isolationism, a political stance of refusal to interfere with events in other countries, can ironically end up severely hurting a country that relies on it to stay out of trouble--for example, if a country stayed out of a major war long enough to allow a tyrant to take more power then that tyrant could destroy that land's people more easily.  Not only is isolationism sometimes outright self-destructive, as in the hypothetical war scenario above (or when a land cuts itself off from the advances of other regions), it is also simply not what follows from libertarianism.

Libertarians (or consistent libertarians) are not nationalists, since they recognize that all people, irrespective of geography or ethnic-national background, have natural rights, and that governments have no legitimate purpose beyond protecting these rights through just means.  Thus they will by default reject any nationalistic arguments for isolationism that some might use.  Since libertarianism by its nature is contrary to nationalistic pride, a thoroughly libertarian state would never use nationalism as an excuse for isolationism (though nationalism could also lead to imperialism as well).  Libertarians would view people from elsewhere as fellow holders of natural rights and as people free trade could be conducted with.

So, how then could a libertarian government give foreign aid without deviating from the fundamental tenets of libertarianism?  Foreign aid is not a part of the mandate for a government to protect the natural rights of its citizens; since it involves the citizens of other countries/regions, it goes outside of the only legitimate activities of a government--unless foreign aid is administered in very specific ways.  A libertarian country could still give foreign monetary aid without actually having a budget for foreign aid, and there are a couple of ways that this could happen.

First, the government could collect voluntary one-time donations from the citizens, which no one is morally obligated to give and which the government has no right to demand, and could send the totality of these offerings to a nation or nations in need.  Second, the people themselves could give money or other resources without government involvement at all.  This is effectually the same as the first option but with the government removed, relying totally on the citizens of the country and not the politicians.  Raising money for foreign aid through involuntary taxation does contradict the role of government outlined in Scripture by illicitly demanding that citizens yield private property and resources that belong to them.

Isolationism certainly does not follow from libertarianism, yet governments can still interact with other nations, even in matters of foreign aid, without contradicting libertarian ideas.  They just better be damn careful to make sure that they are not coercing nonconsensual redistribution of resources!


[1].  For information on some of the relevant plot points, see here:
https://thechristianrationalist.blogspot.com/2018/02/movie-review-black-panther.html

[2].  https://thechristianrationalist.blogspot.com/2018/02/secular-and-christian-libertarianism.html

More Examples Of Mind-Body Interaction

In a recent post I offered a handful of examples of mind-body interaction [1].  The ones I used were sad thoughts making tears appear, fear triggering a sweat and a rapid heartbeat, and sexual attraction causing physiological arousal of the genitals.  All three of these examples have to do with mental states affecting the body, whereas below I have examples of the inverse occurring, examples where the body affects the mind/consciousness.

I have three such examples here to compliment the other three examples.


Drinking an energy drink or coffee and experiencing mental clarity or alertness.

Just yesterday in the early evening, to fuel a Game of Thrones watching session that I didn't even end up having, I had a caffeinated drink.  Because of the drink, though, I did not go to sleep until later than I otherwise would have.  This is an example of something in my body--the caffeine in the drink--bringing about a certain mental state, making it so that my mind could not retreat into itself for sleep for a time.  Of course, getting high on drugs produces altered states of consciousness as well.  There are a variety of drinks/substances that can have an impact on consciousness.


Taking a pain medication reducing or removing pain from the mind's awareness.

This is another obvious example of something put into the physical body affecting mental states, for, although pain can originate in a part of the body, like an arm that is pierced by shrapnel, pain can only be experienced by a consciousness.  When someone takes a pain pill, he or she wants to silence pain felt in the mind by giving the body a certain tablet.


Holding a hand in a fire causing strong sensations of burning pain.

If I were to hold my hand in a fire, I would be subjecting myself to excruciating pain, experiencing an agony felt by my mind.  Yes, my body would be involved, as I would be holding part of it inside a fire, but I would feel burning sensations because of my mind.  Thus both would be involved in the feeling of my hand while it is on fire, meaning that my mind and body would be interacting.


[1].  https://thechristianrationalist.blogspot.com/2018/03/the-mind-body-problem.html

An Inverse Complementarianism

Yes, this is a satirical article.  Yes, no rational person believes the Bible teaches what you will read in the next three paragraphs (or their inverses).  I'm simply drawing attention to how asinine it is when Christians say the opposite of what the next three paragraphs claim and then pretend that they are being Biblical.  Enjoy.


Our culture has strayed far from God's intentions for how men and women should behave.  Since Eve was created last in Genesis 2, God clearly intended for Adam to be subservient to her, as the fact that her appearance ended God's creation acts establishes that she was to preside over all the previous creations.  The creation narrative affirms the distinct roles God assigned to men and women, for God intended for women to lead.  Why else would he have made Eve last?

We can also see the unique closeness to God in the fact that Mary, a woman, gave birth to Jesus.  This, too, shows the high status of women before God, for they are privileged with birthing the next generation, and this means that Jesus emerged from the womb of a woman.  It's not that men and women aren't equal; they are, but women were created to serve a different role, and they have a special closeness to God as a result, as the creation of Eve shows and Mary giving birth to Jesus demonstrate.  It is not sexism for men to follow women; it is a privilege!

Men need to understand this about women and God's design for them.  They also need to be attentive to the way that God designed the female gender.  As Scripture so obviously evidences, women are very visual creatures.  Just think of Potiphar's wife in Genesis 39.  She typifies how women can be tempted to sin by male bodies, and we men need to respect this--and there are also the sisters of Ezekiel 23, who are described as lusting after the bodies of foreign men.  We males need to make sure we cover our bodies so that we don't make women fall into sin, and this is especially important in an era where men expose their bodies publicly, seeing nothing shameful about the exposure of their bodies.

My culture has fled from these truths.  It's time we welcomed the right roles and nature of women.


Alright, as I said at the top, the middle contents of this post aren't rational or true at all!  Would I be reaching correct conclusions about what the Bible teaches if I truly believed the claims here?  Not at all!  If I believed the Bible teaches this nonsense, I would be reading foreign positions into the text, contradicting what the text actually says, and then claiming that my new heresy is true.  Likewise, the complementarian model is foreign to Scripture [1].  It distorts, adds, assumes, and misinterprets.  Complementarianism is nothing but non sequiturs attached to assumptions and sexist errors.  God made men and women equally in his image and assigned to both genders the responsibility of stewarding creation (Genesis 1:26-28).  Paul teaches mutual submission (Ephesians 5:21, 1 Corinthians 7:3-5).

Some types of complementarianism are not necessarily as damaging as others.  For instance, the modesty teachings I referenced above have nothing to do with the concept of basic complementarianism in itself, but complementarianism can often be paired with them.  Not all forms of complementarianism rely on as many stereotypes as others.  Not all manifestations of complementarianism are as sexist as others, but they are all sexist to some degree [2].  But they are all fallacious and untrue.


[1].  See here:
A.  https://thechristianrationalist.blogspot.com/2017/11/the-error-of-complementarian-arguments.html
B.  https://thechristianrationalist.blogspot.com/2017/02/why-ephesians-5-does-not-teach-rigid.html

[2].  https://thechristianrationalist.blogspot.com/2017/11/complementarianism-is-inherently-sexist.html

The Heresy Of Gnosticism

A heresy called Gnosticism holds that matter is evil and the spirit/mind is good, ultimately denying that Jesus resurrected bodily.  Even novice theologians and philosophers can see some of the enormous ramifications of these two things.  And both of them are entirely contrary to what the Bible itself teaches about God, the material world, and Christ's resurrection.  Lesser manifestations of Gnostic ideas are actually not foreign to the minds of some Christians, for anyone who views the body as sinful knowingly or unknowingly adheres to a Gnostic concept!  Prudery and legalism can abound when people view the body itself as evil instead of recognizing that only some of the things that can be done with it are evil.

Gnosticism is a heresy contradicted by the very first chapters of Genesis, in which God creates matter and human bodies, calling them very good (Genesis 1:31).  Any philosophy that says matter is evil is contrary to Scripture.  First of all, a morally perfect deity cannot create anything evil, for this is a logical impossibility.  Second, human minds are affected by sin; it is not as if people can only sin with their bodies or as if only the body is fallen.  A person's mind can harbor rampant covetousness, malice, or selfishness without that person ever carrying out external actions of sin with his or her body.

As for the resurrection of Christ, the Bible is clear that Jesus did indeed have a material body after resurrecting.  In John 20:17 Jesus might be implying that Mary Magdalene physically embraced him when she finds the empty tomb, although he could simply mean that she was holding onto him in the sense of some sort of emotional attachment or unwillingness to see him leave the earth.  But in Luke 24 Jesus invites others to touch his body to demonstrate to them that he is not a mere spirit, for, as Jesus says, "It is I myself!  Touch me and see; a ghost does not have flesh and bones, as you see I have" (Luke 24:39).  In the same chapter Jesus goes on to eat a fish (Luke 24:41-43), further establishing to onlookers that his resurrected self was a body inhabited by consciousness and not just solely a consciousness (which is all that a spirit is).

If Jesus did not resurrect bodily, then the very basis for commitment to Christianity as opposed to ordinary Judaism is undermined (1 Corinthians 15:12-17).  If he did not, then many have proclaimed falsities in the name of God.  The significance of his physical resurrection is enormous.  If a perfect divine being can inhabit a body of matter, then matter cannot be evil; if God can resurrect Christ's body, then he can resurrect ours also.  The resurrection of Jesus is a foreshadowing of what will happen when deceased Christians have their own bodies resurrected and glorified.  It gives Christians further reason to rejoice in the fact that we are embodied creatures, serving as grounds for deep appreciation of our bodies and a celebration of the fact that God made them good.

The gospel accounts do not describe Jesus as being a mere disembodied spirit, only a mind, when Mary and apostles see him after his death.  Various people either physically interacted with him (like when Mary seemingly hugged him) or watched him interact with physical matter (eating food).  And thus Gnosticism has no place in Scriptural exegesis.

The Necessity Of Introspection To Leadership

Before one can lead in a sure direction, one must know what one wants to lead others towards.  The prerequisite to careful, goal-oriented leadership is knowing one's goals--I say prerequisite and not first step because leading is controlling/influencing people or resources, and identifying objectives can and needs to occur, when it can, before one actually leads.  A person could lead without a defined goal or plan, but that leadership will be aimless and/or successful only by accident.

To lead with intentionality and vision one must know what exactly one's goals are.  Without knowing what one is leading towards, efforts towards progress will be disjointed, vague, or unhelpful, since there is no defined objective and thus no clarified pathway to reach the fulfillment of that objective.  Not only is there no destination, there isn't even a road to the destination, since one cannot be properly selected without knowing both where one is and where one is going.  In order to have others carry out a mission you must know what that mission is.

This is where introspection is necessary.  Someone preparing to lead effectively needs to reflect inwardly on what he or she wants to bring about or bring followers to.  Without this inward gaze, there can be no weighing of priorities or careful selection of objectives.  And with no discernible ending point, one has no awareness of how to reach that ending point, making the most successful leadership reliant on thoughtful introspection.

Of course, one could just wander aimlessly as a leader--I am not at all saying that such a thing is impossible, nor am I saying that one cannot achieve a goal by happenstance.  I am a rationalist, after all!  I am fully aware that such things are possible.  I am merely saying that planning can be conducted prior to and thus separate from leading, and that a careful leader, who has the opportunity to adequately prepare, will know the intended destination before actually leading others.

Knowing what you want, including what you want to enact or pursue as a leader, involves introspection and self-awareness.  Knowing if what you want is good and just requires philosophy and theology.  But before an objective can be recognized as morally good, wrong, or neutral, the objective has to be specified--it has to be known.  Only then can it be clearly revealed to others.

Quranic Punishment: Surah 5:38

The Quran explicitly, directly states that what Yahweh revealed to Moses about morality is correct.  In Surah 2:53 it says "Remember when We gave Moses the Scripture, and the means to distinguish [right and wrong], so that you might be guided."  By extension, this means that within Islamic theology the Quran would have to be a continuation of the revelation from Yahweh/Allah, or otherwise it disagrees with the Old Testament writings that it itself says teach righteousness.  But this is quite untrue.  Just one disparity between the Old Testament and the Quran--just a single contradiction--and the Quran cannot be true, irrespective of the veracity of the Old Testament.  And I will indeed show a disparity.  There are more, of course, but I only need one to disqualify the entire basis for Muslim theology.

Let's compare the Biblical and Quranic punishments for theft:


Exodus 22:1-4, 7--"'If a man steals an ox or a sheep and slaughters or sells it, he must pay back five head of cattle for the ox and four sheep for the sheep.  If a thief is caught breaking in and is struck so that he dies, the defender is not guilty of bloodshed; but if it happens after sunrise, he is guilty of bloodshed.  A thief must certainly make restitution, but if he has nothing left, he must be sold to pay for his theft . . . If a man gives his neighbor silver or goods for safekeeping and they are stolen from the neighbor's house, the thief, if he is caught, must pay back double."

Surah 5:38--"Cut off the hands of thieves, whether they are man or woman, in return for what they have done--a deterrent from God: God has the power to decide."


So, there you have it.  While the Bible prescribes as the penalties for theft either 1) monetary restitution of a certain ratio to the victims or 2) temporary servitude to pay off debts if the thief cannot make restitution (lasting up to a maximum of six full years; see Exodus 21:2-3), the Quran prescribes the amputation of a thief's hand.  Both punishments cannot be just at the same time; if restitution or servitude is just then cutting off a thief's hand is unjust, and if cutting off a thief's hand is just then financial restitution and servitude are unjust.  For one penalty to be just, all different penalties must be intrinsically unjust.  Conflicting claims about justice cannot be simultaneously true.

The Bible does prescribe amputation of a hand if a woman grabs a man's penis in a fight (Deuteronomy 25:11-12; by logical extension a man assaulting a woman similarly deserves the same punishment) and if someone, either a man or woman, cuts off the hand of another person in a criminal assault (Exodus 21:23-25).  Some Muslims might think that it is hypocritical for Christians to object to the Quran demanding amputation when the Bible demands it for two other crimes.  Sound Christian theologians, though, are not objecting that cutting off a hand is universally unjust in criminal punishments, as that would indeed deny what the Bible so clearly teaches, but they are instead pointing out that the Quran's punishment for theft contradicts the very Old Testament that the Quran claims to be consistent with!

The Quran claims to be a continuation of the divine revelation in the Old Testament, yet it contradicts Mosaic Law.  This means that, whether or not the Bible is true, the Quran cannot be true.  If the Bible is false then the Quran, which claims that the Old Testament is true, cannot be true, and if the Bible is true then the Quran, which claims the Old Testament is true and yet contradicts it, cannot be true.


The Quran.  Mohammed.  Trans. Haleem, M.A.S. Abdel.  Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2016.  Print.

The Five Minute Hypothesis

Imagine that all of your memories of events before the last five minutes do not correspond to an actual history at all--you were created only five minutes ago, as was the universe, and all of your memories of things before those five minutes were planted in your mind upon your creation.  This idea is called the five minute hypothesis.

The five minute hypothesis is, like the brain in a vat hypothesis or Descartes' evil demon hypothesis, something that can be neither verified nor falsified.  Even if it is true, though, nothing about the way I live changes, even if the ramifications are enormous when it comes to metaphysical reality.  I will prove below that even if such a seemingly unlikely hypothesis is true, I still have the exact same identity, knowledge, and lifestyle that I otherwise would have possessed.

So, on the five minute hypothesis, what remains unaffected about reality and the way I live?  What is still true and what is not?

Even if I and the material world were created only five minutes or a
 single moment ago, "Some things--like logic, mathematics, truth, my own
existence, causality, the uncaused cause, and the past--are utterly
impossible to escape from because there is no way they could
be false or illusions" [1] (Note: by saying the past cannot be an
illusion I mean that there is a past, even if only a single moment of time).

While things like my consciousness, logic, truth, mathematics, the present moment, the past, causality, and the uncaused cause would still exist--and I would still be aware of them and be capable of proving them with absolute certainty--there are portions of my worldview which would have a very different relationship with reality.  An example is my Christianity.  I have committed myself to Christianity on the grounds of probabilism, for there is a great deal of evidence supporting the veracity of Christianity.

And all of that evidence would still exist even if the five minute hypothesis were true--I would still find historical evidence for the existence and resurrection of Jesus, archeological support for the Bible, the internal consistency of the Bible, etc.  However, if the universe was created only five minutes ago, then many components of Christianity would be false, as the Bible details genealogies and timelines that could not have actually occurred.  But it would still be true that since all of the evidence for Christianity remains and I am still aware of that evidence, Christianity would still seem very probable to me.

Now, I will focus on how even if this scenario is true my memories [2] still shape my identity and actions.

Even if the material world, and I myself, was created five minutes ago,
things still appear to be much older--and this is ironically similar to what
some young earth creationists will argue for.

Little to nothing about how I live is affected if the five minute hypothesis is true!  For instance, I remember meeting my best friend Gabi around five years ago.  In the years since we have become very close friends.  But even if our memories of all our previous encounters during those years were fabricated by whatever created me five minutes ago, we would still have the same level of relational closeness and love for each other that we would have had did the remembered past five years actually occur.  Either way, we are still best friends and that remains true regardless of the recentness of creation.

My grasp of language, logic, and everything else is unaffected.  I am just as knowledgable, disciplined, and functional as I would have been had the memories of my past life all actually corresponded to actual previous 21 years of my life.  Any true conclusions I hold are still true, and I am still aware of what my conclusions are and whether or not I can prove them logically, so the five minute hypothesis poses no threat at all to the coherency or veracity of my core worldview and epistemology.  Even if the hypothesis is true, I am still familiar with whatever I am familiar with in the external world, I am still aware of my own inner desires, and I still know my own worldview, with all its nuanced distinctions between points of absolute certainty and probabilistic perception.

These serve as just some of many possible examples of how my life is still functionally the same and I still have the same personal identity even if the five minute hypothesis is true.  Like with the brain in a vat hypothesis [3], even if the five minute hypothesis conforms to reality, my core worldview and epistemology are still inescapably true and my everyday actions remain unaffected.  Seekers of truth need to take these possible scenarios seriously on the epistemological level, but they also need to identify what about reality remains unchanged and the ways that their lifestyle actions remain unaffected--and, in this case, much remains the same even if the five minute hypothesis is true.

[1].  https://thechristianrationalist.blogspot.com/2017/07/thoughts-on-time.html

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

[3].  See here:
A.  https://thechristianrationalist.blogspot.com/2016/12/brain-in-vat.html
B.  https://thechristianrationalist.blogspot.com/2017/02/brain-in-vat-reality-remains-unchanged.html