Gender And Sex

Conservatives and liberals wage ideological warfare against each other over their claims about gender, and, unsurprisingly, both are wrong!  A great deal of the disparities between their two general stances (as well as their fallacies) center on how both sides frame gender in terms of metaphysics.  The two philosophical factions attach irrelevant or illegitimate concepts to their definitions of gender and sex, two words that must be properly understood in order to see how extensive conservative and liberal fallacies are (even though not all conservatives and liberals subscribe to the following ideas associated with them).

To be female is to be a woman; to be male is to be a man.  One's sex is determined by one's body.  On an outward level, the genitalia a person is born with is the best indicator that they are a male or a female.  Mental traits are wholly irrelevant to this classification, having no logical connection to a body with particular genitalia or chromosomes.  There is not a single psychological characteristic, talent, or personality trait that a person has because of their sex, contrary to the position of many vocal conservatives.  This is a vital fact in the face of the controversy around gender that has engulfed the West.

Liberals, on the other hand, might treat the words gender and sex as if they refer to separate things, the former referring to one's alignment with social norms for men or women and the latter classifying the physical body.  While it is correct to say that the male and female bodies are scientifically observable and gender roles/stereotypes are social constructs, gender is not distinct from sex.  Gender stereotypes and the pressure for men and women to behave in certain ways are rooted in false assumptions, but gender and sex are interchangeable words for categories of the body.

It is common for liberals to not only try to separate gender and sex, but it is also common for some of them to claim that there are far more than two genders and that people can change their gender identity at any time by subjectively experiencing different mental states.  This only compounds the logical errors, as there is not a large number of observable genders, and willpower and personal experiences cannot change one's gender because it is synonymous with one's body.

Of course, it is both logically and scientifically possible for someone to be born an "intersex" person: that is, someone could be born with an abnormal mixture of male and female genitalia.  It is likewise entirely possible that an undiscovered species, either extraterrestrial or terrestrial, has three or more distinct genders, but to say that there is a plethora of human genders is downright fallacious.  There are numerous conflicting claims about how men and women should live, but, the relatively small number of intersex people aside, there are only two genders one can find in a given group of humans.

In light of this collective information, it is the case that both conservatives and liberals cling to deeply illogical ideas about gender.  Conservatives err when they pretend that gender dictates psychological traits, but liberals err when they posit that there are more than two known human genders and that gender is different from sex.  Neither predominant ideology of gender has any validity.  A culture adrift in irrationalism is still likely to be divided between these two stances, even though refuting either is a simple matter.

Education's Non-Primary Epistemological Status

The usefulness and importance of education is continually overestimated by the West.  There is certainly some benefit to formally educating young children about historical and scientific concepts, as is the norm, but this does not mean that education possesses the magnificence often ascribed to it.  Metaphysics and epistemology are more important than history and science could ever be, yet it is logic that reveals truths about these matters, not classroom or home education. 

One does not need to first be taught information before one can discover demonstrable facts; logic, introspection, and one's immediate sensory perceptions are sources of knowledge (though the latter proves nothing more than the existence of matter [1] and the existence of one's sensory perceptions) accessible without the education many people hold so dear.  A rational person looks to reason instead of to appeals to authority, inferences, and academia.

One can even educate oneself through experiences and rationalistic reflection on those experiences without any input from other people.  An emphasis on Western education over genuine rationality and autonomy is lethal to intellectual soundness, for it falsely elevates hearsay, scientific claims, and perceived academic authority over the infallible light of reason.  Intellectual autonomy dies when a person looks to education instead of logic for knowledge.

Education is not primary in epistemology; in fact, it is not even secondary!  Logic and introspection are epistemologically superior to education in every way.  Education in general, and classroom education in particular, is not the all-important thing that many Westerners believe it to be.  The person who looks to education for epistemic victory instead of reason is very foolish indeed.  It is reason that encompasses and grounds all knowledge, not the words of educators.


[1].  https://thechristianrationalist.blogspot.com/2018/08/matter-is-not-illusion.html

The Biblical Bases For Environmentalism

Biblical environmentalism is far from an oxymoron, but there are only very specific reasons why Christian theology and environmentalism are not in opposition.  Without them, there is no Biblical basis for treating the planet as anything more than a convenient structure that can be exploited at whim for short-term personal or collective benefit.  While one of these reasons has to do with the inherent nature of the physical world within the framework of Christianity, the other pertains to the nature of humankind.

The environment may have a degree of intrinsic value according to the Bible, but a single human has more value than the universe on the Biblical worldview, as only humans bear the image of God.  It follows that Biblical environmentalism is, at the very least, concerned with two things: 1) preserving the environment for its own sake because all of creation possesses a fundamental significance (Genesis 1:31) and 2) preserving the environment for the sake of the humans who inhabit it.

Far too often, even Biblical environmentalists ignore the second of these two points in favor of emphasizing the first.  Those who do so simply undermine their own theological foundation for taking care of the planet.  If the universe did not house sentient life, particularly sentient life made in God's image, a significant part of the Biblical basis for environmentalism would be lost--not that non-theistic ethics has any legitimacy whatsoever.

Some go even further than this, positing that the whole of the human species is a plague that needs to be controlled so that the environment can thrive.  This completely ignores the connection between the health of the environment and the flourishing of humanity, as if humans are of trivial concern compared to a seemingly inanimate cosmos.  Not only is there no basis for this set of priorities other than emotion and preference, but it is also potentially devastating to the wellbeing of the very people who champion it.

No one has to obstruct or trivialize human wellbeing in order to safeguard the planet from unnecessary harm at the hands of humans.  One of the most dangerous fallacies is the false dilemma, and one does not have to search very long to find examples of people treating environmentalism as if it excludes concern for human life.  There is nothing contradictory about making both people and the planet they live in priorities, even if the former is Biblically superior to the latter.

More Foundational Than Consciousness

Mind is more immediately known than one's experiences with matter, and this can be realized within several moments.  Sensory perceptions cannot exist without consciousness, but it is logically possible for consciousness to exist in the absence of subjective sensory perceptions and the metaphysical existence of matter.  Consciousness cannot be denied without the presence of conscious thought, so the denial of the immediate awareness one has of consciousness is riddled with epistemological errors and contradictions.

Consciousness is required to perceive matter to begin with, and thus is automatically more foundational than matter in an epistemological sense.  The fact that consciousness is more foundational than matter, at least in the aforementioned manner (there is no way to verify or falsify the strand of idealism holding that matter literally does not exist when it is not being consciously perceived), is nonetheless often misinterpreted.  Non-materialists are prone to regard mind as the most fundamental thing in existence.  This false mind-centric philosophy largely has the same ramifications whether or not the human mind or the mind of God are viewed as ultimate.

Now, it is not the idea that consciousness is more central than matter in terms of epistemology that is erroneous, but some of the tangential claims or implied stances of many people who admit this fact.  Substance dualism--the notion that mind and matter are metaphysically distinct despite being intertwined, the former immaterial and the latter physical--is true.  The problem with many substance dualists (the adherents themselves) is that they treat everything as if it reduces down to physical substance (matter) or consciousness (mind).

Despite its omnipresence in any sort of experience, consciousness is not and cannot be the most central aspect of reality.  There is one thing more foundational than consciousness, the only thing at the foundation of all else: reason.  Consciousness itself, whether human or divine, cannot exist without logic existing beforehand; the laws of logic are metaphysical prerequisites for consciousness to even be consciousness in the first place!  Identity is inevitably bound to logic, and not even a divine mind can escape its identity.  Since truth is a function of logic, and truth must exist for there to be minds or anything else, logic is at the core of all things.

Consequently, to say that mind is at the utter heart of all reality is dishonest at worst and incomplete at best.  Matter may not exist apart from conscious perception, even though it is impossible to prove this possibility correct.  Regardless, even the hypothetical impossibility of matter without mind would not mean that everything other than consciousness exists only within or because of a mind.  Logic does not depend on any consciousness, divine or not, while even the mind of God is inescapably confined in a metaphysical sense by the laws of logic.

Two Mistaken Ideologies About Conscience

There are two majority stances on the nature of conscience.  The first, and most popular, holds that conscience is direct confirmation of the existence of objective moral obligations that are revealed to most or all people.  This fallacious position is unfortunately the most common one throughout human history.  Even in the contemporary world, it maintains a stronghold in the minds of many.  The second stance, contrarily, holds that the subjective nature of conscience proves that morality has no objective existence.

Due to the prevalence of the first stance in the church and secular world, I have addressed and refuted it many times.  The second is less common, although it is just as asinine.  Those who endorse the latter often conflate moral relativism with moral nihilism, although relativism involves numerous subjective moral frameworks simultaneously being true and nihilism means no values exist.  Confusion about the genuinely distinct ideas is commonplace, even though relativism is logically impossible and moral nihilism is entirely possible (despite there being evidence for moral realism).

This particular confusion aside, the idea that the subjectivity of moral feelings entails a metaphysical moral relativity, whether or not relativism and nihilism are being conflated, is no less mistaken than the prevailing evangelical and secular framework of moral epistemology.  There is no connection whatsoever between the nature of conscience and the metaphysical existence or nonexistence of morality.  No degree of consensus or intensity behind a given moral emotion can verify that some set of moral obligations exists, but no degree of subjectivity in a person's moral feelings reflects anything about ethical metaphysics.

Thus, the epistemological uselessness of conscience does not mean that morality does not exist.  The utter subjectivity and arbitrary nature of conscience makes it impossible for moral feelings to prove anything about the existence or nature of objective morality, and anyone who objects to this can ironically only do so on subjective grounds, but it is also true that the subjectivity of conscience cannot prove that morality does not exist.  Both conclusions are mere non sequiturs; neither conclusion follows in any way.

In both cases, conscience is of no epistemological value beyond recognizing one's own personal moral feelings, preferences, and perceptions.  It is emotionalism that has persuaded people that anything else is true about the matter.  Those who believe that their moral feelings establish the existence of moral obligations are delusional, but those who believe that the sheer subjectivity of conscience establishes that there are no objective moral obligations are just as inept.

Liberty And Anarchy

There is a significant difference between a relatively small amount of a thing and a total absence of it.  Two rocks might be far less than 200 rocks, but two is still larger than zero.  Five buildings might be far less than 500 buildings, but five is far greater than none.  Even the typical non-rationalist is entirely capable of understanding and explaining this, yet if the context is changed to politics--more specifically, an analysis of libertarianism--some of the same people might conflate few laws with no laws.

Libertarianism and anarchy, therefore, might be treated as ideological siblings despite the fact that a vast chasm sits between them.  The two are wholly irreconcilable.  Under anarchy, there is no legal structure or official governing authority in place; under pure libertarianism, there are no laws beyond those needed to protect whatever moral rights have the metaphysical status of legal rights.  A libertarian government is smaller the kind any conservative or liberal wants, but it is far from anarchy.

No secular or Biblical libertarian is an anarchist (not that anarchy is inherently negative [1]) since the two positions are mutually exclusive, but libertarianism might still receive some of the same fear that anarchy receives because it is closer to anarchy than any other political framework is.  That it is closer to anarchy does not mean the two share a great deal of similarities, of course.  Any form of government, even one of miniscule size, is completely distinct from the absence of any political body.

As for why the confusion of libertarianism for anarchy leads some to reject libertarianism, it is not only misunderstanding, but fear that drives this fallacious rejection.  Anarchy is almost always associated with selfishness and destruction by the average Westerner.  The notion that anarchy is inevitably destructive is untrue, but this does not stop many people from equating it with chaos, violence, and danger.  For this reason, all that some people have to hear to erroneously conclude that libertarianism is immoral is the claim that it is on the doorstep of anarchy.

Liberty to live without the shadow of unnecessary and unjust laws is not the liberty to engage in violent, malicious behaviors.  Liberty and anarchy are not automatically synonymous, even though they are closer to the same point on the political spectrum as far as the number of laws are concerned.  In light of the obvious distinction between having some laws and having no laws, anyone who mistakes libertarianism for anarchy lacks the intelligence necessary to appraise political ideas rationally.

[1].  https://thechristianrationalist.blogspot.com/2019/03/anarchy-and-its-outcomes.html

Masturbating To Erotic Imagery (Part 1)

It is no secret that conservative Christians are often deeply frightened by basic aspects of sexuality.  When this conditioned fear is combined with the fallacious misinterpretation of Biblical sexual ethics, they are quick to condemn acts like sexual self-stimulation.  A variety of powerless objections might be raised, one of the popular ones being that masturbation is sinful in at least most circumstances because it entails fantasies derived from pictures, videos, or thoughts of other people to whom one is not married.

This objection to masturbation relies on a major non sequitur (among others): it assumes that masturbation must be accompanied by some sort of visual or imagined stimulus.  The evangelicals behind it assume that some sort of fantasy crafted around another person is at the core of self-pleasuring.  However, masturbation does not require the sight of sensual or sexual imagery (the two are not identical).  Likewise, it does not require mental imagery, although an individual's subjective experience of psychological pleasure could be thoroughly enhanced by either of them.

Imagery of either a visual or mental kind can certainly serve as an aid for self-pleasuring, but it is in no way necessary even in the cases where it amplifies pleasure.  The evangelicals who mistakenly think the Bible condemns or discourages masturbation because it allegedly involves sexual reactions to physical or mental imagery overlook the fact that sexual thoughts about a person are not Biblically sinful in themselves, but they also overlook the fact that masturbation can take place without thoughts of another person to begin with.

For this reason alone, the objection fails; it also fails in that it neglects the fact that men and women (yes, women are visual, and the male body is not unattractive!) who masturbate to the sight or thought of specific people of the opposite gender are not automatically violating, degrading, objectifying, or lusting after them.  A person can pleasure himself or herself to images without dehumanizing the recipient of their attraction or attention.  Moreover, it is Biblically impossible to lust after a single person [1] because lust is the coveting of another person's spouse, so anyone who claims that masturbating to the thought of an unmarried person involves lust is incorrect by default, as is someone who claims that sexual thoughts about someone else's spouse involve lust by default.

Masturbation is demonstrably nonsinful on the Biblical worldview [2], but it is nonetheless treated by many Christians as if it destroys marriages, promotes selfishness, and dehumanizes the opposite gender when it is coupled with erotic imagery.  None of these myths are endorsed by anyone other than those who wallow in assumptions and ignorance.  There are those who nonetheless embrace a heretical asceticism so thoroughly that it blinds them to the utter stupidity and unbiblicality of their positions on innocent sexual behaviors.


[1].  https://thechristianrationalist.blogspot.com/2019/03/the-impossibility-of-lusting-after.html

[2].  https://thechristianrationalist.blogspot.com/2017/07/sexual-self-stimulation.html

The Capacity For Intelligence Is Not Intelligence

Intelligence, like many other concepts, tends to be misunderstood, misdefined, and misused.  Intelligence is nothing other than rationality--a rare thing at any time and place in recorded history, but something that is not wholly beyond anyone's grasp.  The genuine possibility that someone could become more intelligent (there is a point past which someone cannot become more rational, but irrational people can align themselves with reason), though, does not itself make someone a rational individual.

A person is not intelligent simply because they could develop thorough intelligence in the future, the major ramification being that protecting someone from criticism because they might improve at some point is inherently unsound.  No person who refrains from utilizing whatever rationality they might possess deserves intellectual gentleness in the present because of the potential for future betterment, and yet irrational people are often defended in the name of a hypothetical change of mind that might never even occur--and that probably won't happen at all.

The analogy of a bowl illustrates the nature of intelligence.  That a bowl could be filled with water does not mean it is currently filled; this only means it has the capacity to hold water at some point in the future.  The difference between these two states of the bowl is obvious, but it should be no less obvious than the distinction between intelligence and the capacity for intelligence.  A person's future worldview and intellectual state do not and cannot justify tolerance beforehand.

No matter how intellectually deficient someone is, there is always the possibility that an unintelligent person will develop their intellect.  After all, intelligence is not fixed.  Each person is capable of becoming the best version of himself or herself.  While it is true that intelligence is scarce, it is not as if an unintelligent person is inescapably bound to their stupidity.  Nonetheless, the possibility of eventual intelligence does not mean a person deserves intellectual mercy in the present.

Manipulating Moral Inferiors

Unsurprisingly, the idea that all people are inflexibly equal in value regardless of their worldviews or behaviors (which is neither logical nor Biblical [1]) is often endorsed by those who dislike manipulation.  Those who oppose manipulation on moral or personal grounds see it as a dehumanizing thing, in spite of the fact that it is entirely possible to manipulate a moral inferior without ignoring their humanity.  It is not as if the manipulation of the masses is Biblically objectionable as long as it does not involve deception or genuine dehumanization.

Some people are simply fit for little else besides manipulation, for in refusing to align themselves with reason and justice, they have forfeited the right to any positive treatment beyond the minimum required to not violate their human rights as outlined in Mosaic Law.  In fact, many people catch glimpses of this when they decide to use people without truly wronging them in the process.  Whatever the reason, even those who already engage in regular manipulation of a morally permissible kind will usually talk as if manipulation is immoral.

Whether this cognitive dissonance is brought about by conflicting social forces or by the needless dictates of conscience is of no ultimate significance, but the moral nature of manipulation is.  No amount of sheer desparation will ever change the fact that any moral system necessarily entails a spectrum of moral superiority and inferiority--or the fact that moral superiority is metaphysical superiority.  It follows from these facts and from the non-dehumanizing nature of basic manipulation that someone is free to use those of a lesser moral status for personal gain, given that they never do so in an illegitimate way.

On its own, manipulation is one of many amoral tools, and thus the mere practice of manipulating one's moral inferiors is at worst only objectionable on subjective grounds.  It can be legitimately used for utilitarian purposes or for that of personal pleasure without the crossing of any moral line.  If a society truly seeks morality instead of cultural or subjective moral preferences, its members are more likely to be more comfortable with outright manipulation than they otherwise would be, as they could recognize that manipulation is not inherently a tool of injustice, but one of great usefulness.


[1].  https://thechristianrationalist.blogspot.com/2019/09/what-bearing-gods-image-does-not-mean.html

Sensory Empiricism And Scientism

A person who simply stands outside and blankly stares at the environment around them without any objective in mind could hardly be said, in any honest sense, to be engaging in science.  This should come as no surprise to anyone concerned with correctly defining science, but empiricism might nonetheless erroneously conflated with scientism.  This is ironic given that empiricism only entails that experience (which includes the use of rationality and introspection) is involved in all knowledge, not that all knowledge involves sensory experience, with scientific observations falling into a subcategory of sensory experiences just as sensory experiences fall into a subcategory of experience.

All scientific observations involve the senses, yet not all sensory perceptions involve science.  A hypothetical physical event that cannot be repeated, for example, could be observed by the senses even though the observers are incapable of recreating it.  Science is the application of a particular method of sensory observation, not sensory observation itself--hence why individual events must be analyzed through repetition before a scientific law can be identified.  A lone experience is not enough to reveal scientific laws.

In the same way, blankly receiving sensory perceptions without active paying attention to repeatability is not synonymous with scientific investigation; watching a phenomenon without consciously considering repetition cannot be legitimately called a scientific endeavor.  It follows that to equate all sensory experiences with science is to wildly overestimate the scope of scientific activities and to blur categories within one's sensory perceptions.  That some people brazenly confuse the two simply reveals ignorance or stupidity on their part.  Those who confuse them might call the distinction pointless, but it is actually quite worthy of attention.

Sensory empiricism (as opposed to a wholistic empiricism that is entirely compatible with rationslism) and scientism alike are self-refuting and incapable of being correct epistemologies, but they still need to be properly distinguished from each other.  In refuting sensory empiricism, one has refuted scientism as well; in refuting scientism only, one has not necessarily refuted sensory empiricism.  This reason alone is enough to make the distinction important, but that hardly seems to deter many prominent Christian apologists and their admirers from mistakenly equating them.

Movie Review--Doctor Sleep

"Our beliefs don't make us better people; our actions make us better people."
--Dan Torrence, Doctor Sleep


From the performances to the themes to the careful recreation of the Overlook Hotel, Doctor Sleep radiates quality.  It easily towers above most other 2019 releases, regardless of their genre.  The thematic content is handled much more competently than that of this year's Pet Sematary (not that this is a difficult thing to accomplish in itself), but the overall film surpasses even It: Chapter 2 thanks to the tightness of the script and the strong character development.  Doctor Sleep is a shining example (I couldn't resist) of how to successfully continue an established cinematic legacy after almost 40 years.


Production Values

Every level of the production values succeeds in forming a consistently brilliant film, from the directing to the script to the score.  The returning musical themes from The Shining are used to great effect, but the recreated Overlook Hotel and its macabre inhabitants from the The Shining are the best callbacks the film could have used.  It is important to clarify that Doctor Sleep does not simply rely on the nostalgic affection some people have for The Shining; it stands tall as its own work, and the movie does so in no small part thanks to its superb characters.

Dan Torrence, son of Jack Nicholson's Jack Torrence, has one of the most thorough onscreen character arcs of the decade, while Rose the Hat and the members of her True Knot are given a degree of attention that few other contemporary films give to their villains (their fears, desires, and motivations are explored very well).  Ewan McGregor and Rebecca Ferguson are excellently matched with their respective characters Dan and Rose, but the child actors provide performances that complement theirs quite well--one scene where a young boy is tortured for his "steam," a spiritual substance released when people who shine are harmed and killed, is especially memorable because of the quality acting on the part of the child.


Story

As usual, some introductory spoilers are below!

After his traumatic experiences at the Overlook Hotel as a young boy, Dan Torrence is pursued by the ghosts from The Shining as he and his mother try to rebuild their lives.  The spirit of Dick Halloran helps him learn how to psychologically trap the entities, but Dan descends into drugs, alcohol abuse, and seeming promiscuity.  As he metaphorically gets back on his feet, a young girl named Abra displays evidence that she too can shine, unaware that a group of malevolent beings who feast on the shining is targeting young children to consume their mental energy.


Intellectual Content

With examples including dying patients expressing concerns about the possibility of nonexistence after death to telepathic people who use their abilities for selfish gain, numerous characters in Doctor Sleep grapple with questions and matters of explicit spirituality, even if the emphasis is on their personal narratives more than on true epistemology.  The very title of the film and the novel it is derived from is the name given to Dan when he uses his shine to comfort elderly people who are minutes from death, speaking into their minds and assuring them that "We don't end."

It is in this context that, when pressed about his worldview, Dan declares that one's actions, not beliefs, make one a better person.  Considering that the character evolves more on a behavioral level than on an ideological one, the statement is a great reflection of his worldview, but it is only partially correct: while accurate beliefs without accompanying actions are incomplete, the intentional, rationalistic acceptence of verifiable beliefs does make one a better person if truth has objective value.  Moreover, right actions are cheapened when they are not conducted with the right worldview and motivations behind them.


Conclusion

Few sequels are are excellent as Doctor Sleep, and even fewer sequels of such a caliber would be made 39 years after the initial film.  Hell, few films are as excellent as Doctor Sleep.  The deep characterization, lack of jump scares, and attention to detail separate it from many other horror movies of the last 20 years, and whether you like Stephen King's novel of the same name (and its predecessor) or Kubrick's film version of The Shining, Doctor Sleep is competent enough to honor both.  Director Mike Flanagan had an enormous task ahead of him, but he reconciles King's writings with the classic film in a way that does not belittle either.


Content:
 1.  Violence:  A young boy is tortured and killed for his steam.  Other violent scenes include a gunfight and an attempted invasion of a child's mind where the intruder has her hand shredded.
 2.  Profanity:  Variations of "damn," "shit," and "fuck" are used.
 3.  Nudity:  The naked ghost of the old woman from Room 237 in The Shining is shown several times, sometimes in shots where her full torso is shown facing the camera.  Dan Torrence wakes up naked next to a naked woman in her bed (she is laying on her side and strategically covered).  His buttocks are briefly shown as he gets up.

Honoring One's Parents

One of the most poisonous ideologies about relationships is that social or familial authority is absolute, even when it is being used to endorse fallacies and injustices.  Evangelicals are quick to selectively affirm this with regards to government, but they are also quick to defend parental authoritarianism even when they object to a particular application of it.  A favorite verse of parental authoritarians is Exodus 20:12, a verse that is often assumed to mean something more than what it actually says: that people are to simply honor their mother and father.  This damaging assumption is automatically petty by nature of being an assumption, but it is also outright false.

Honoring your parents does not mean doing everything they demand.  In fact, to regard one's parents with an authoritarian reverence is the antithesis of a Biblical (and rational) approach to authority.  An authority figure, whether or not he or she is a parent, does not have moral authority by virtue of raising a child or being respected by others.  Likewise, they do not have intellectual authority because of a title or familial position.  The very nature of social authority is that it is legitimized only by one's worldview and actions, not one's perceived status by comparison to other people.

It follows that an authority figure who either prohibits someone from doing innocent things or instructs them to do something immoral (or believe something irrational) has no right to be treated with submission.  Conservative Christians are more willing to admit this when the context is a political inquiry about the role of government and law, but when the focus is shifted to family, they embrace a cognitive dissonance in order to preserve the illusion that parental authority is surpassed only by divine authority.

Of course, the political landscape is far more significant and vital than that of any individual household is, and yet conservative Christians place emphasis on authority as if the opposite was true (political authoritarianism, therefore, is far more devastating and damnable than parental authoritarianism could ever be on its own).  It is true regardless that parents have no right to go beyond their obligations and seek to influence their children in controlling or legalistic ways.

One can honor one's parents without submitting to their every whim, perceiving them to hold authority they do not wield, and excusing their intellectual and broader moral faults.  To treat them any differently than this is irreconcilable to Mosaic Law and the New Testament, no matter how deeply conservative evangelical feelings are harmed or offended by this.  If a parent expects their children to view them as above rational criticism and legitimate moral rebuke, they cannot be truthfully said to have a Biblical understanding of parenting.

Discussing Sexuality With Opposite Gender Friends

As opposite gender friendships have become more common, it has also become more socially "normal" for men and women who are not married, dating, or interested in romantic relationships to discuss everything from personal trials to emotional secrets.  Despite this, even some who admit that men and women can enjoy deep platonic intimacy might recoil at the thought of male and female friends sharing details about their individual sexualities with each other.  Opposite gender friendships have lost some of the stigma associated with them, but direct talk about the depths of sexuality often still makes people uncomfortable.

Platonic male and female friends are fully capable of discussing and revealing their sexualities to each other without sexual feelings or actions becoming a part of the friendship, of course.  No sexual topic goes too far: sexual triggers, masturbation habits, and attractions to particular individuals do not have to be concealed.  If a man and woman are not attracted to each other in a sexual or romantic way, discussing sexual matters in an intellectual and personal sense will likely not change anything about their feelings for each other.  Nothing about such discussions undermines genuinely platonic relationships.

On the contrary, being able to discuss the ethical, intellectual, and personal aspects of sexuality with genuine friends of the opposite gender is a mark of relational security and strength, not of relational weakness.  Sexuality is a major component of human life, after all, and there is no benefit to hiding it from one's opposite gender friends by default.  That one could hypothetically consult a close friend about anything is part of the nature of friendship itself, and that one could consult a friend of the opposite gender about sexual matters without sexual tension arising is not something that should surprise many people.

Even if two friends of the opposite genders develop sexual feelings for each other, does this mean that they have ceased to regard each other as friends?  Of course not!  Cross-gender friendship can coexist with sexual attraction.  In light of this, it would be pointless to fear discussing sexuality with opposite gender friends even if there was an actual connection between those discussions and the introduction of sexual interest to the friendship.  The presence of sexual attraction does not reduce men and women to a status of non-friendship.

Whether a given individual is comfortable sharing personal information about their sexuality with any other person is a different matter to begin with, but there is nothing about sexual conversations that threatens opposite gender friendships.  Instead, openness, transparency, and sincerity are marks of a thriving friendship, and openness about sexuality is no different.  Honest discussion about one's sexuality is not an impediment to platonic intimacy between men and women.

One Verse Can Demonstrate A Doctrine

If Genesis 1:1 was the only verse in the entire Bible saying that God created the physical universe, would it be enough to form the basic doctrine of creation?  Anyone who would deny that nothing more than Genesis 1:1 is necessary to establish that the Bible teaches that God created matter would do so out of stupidity.  When asked a question like this, many Christians would (hopefully) realize the clarity of Genesis 1:1 on its own.

What should be a simple exercise of reason is often avoided with other doctrines, of course.  If a Bible verse which is just as clear as the first verse of Genesis passes an arbitrary threshold of controversy or unfamiliarity, some of the same people who would concede that Genesis 1:1 demonstrates the doctrine of creation on its own would suddenly claim that they need more than one verse to verify that a doctrine is Biblical.  Usually, the arbitrary threshold has to do with an individual's subjective discomfort over a particular idea.

The claim that a single verse is not sufficient to establish a doctrine as Biblical is usually nothing more than a flimsy shield used to deflect away an idea that someone does not want the Bible to teach.  It is certainly true that many parts of the Bible do illuminate other parts.  Some verses clarify others; some verses are necessary to fully understand other passages.  Nonetheless, a clear verse is clear even if no other verses are consulted--indeed, even if no other verses in the Bible address the same point!

If a single Bible verse posits an idea that is nowhere reworded or explained by a different passage, it is not as if the verse in question simply isn't part of the Bible.  This is the obvious conclusion that follows from even the slightest Biblical affirmation of a given concept.  The heightened controversy or shock factor of certain verses is of no relevance to this fact, and the desire for subjective persuasion that the Bible teaches an idea is only valid if logical clarity is all that it takes to be persuaded.

Emphasizing Male Beauty

The typical discussion about body image for married couples is extremely one-sided.  It is commonly assumed that married women feel unattractive if their husbands do not initiate sex with them, compliment them, or nonverbally indicate that they find their wives attractive.  At the same time, men are commonly assumed either to be apathetic about their bodily appearance or to care about it far less than women do.  Assumptions are asinine to begin with (one cannot make assumptions and be rational at the same time), but many of them damage those who make them or those who are affected by them.

If a woman said that she felt this way about a situation with her boyfriend or husband, perhaps no one would find it odd.  Women are usually expected--and overtly conditioned--to want to be seen as physically attractive.  Random comments from family members and strangers reinforce this from an young age onward.  Many people who would identify as egalitarians still pay a great deal of attention to the female body and try to make encouraging comments about how attractive various women are, even as they tend to ignore the male body.  Male beauty is acknowledged far less frequently than female beauty.

Complementarians tend to go even further and assert the sexist claim that men are not only not as physically beautiful as women, but that they were also intentionally designed this way by God.  This is Biblically and logically false [1], of course, but most of the social pushback against needlessly emphasizing female beauty has to do with concerns about discouragement in women who are insecure about their appearance.  It is as if people do not realize that traditional Western ideas about beauty demean men first and foremost and that the male body is ignored as a result.

The authors of the Bible are not hesitant to describe the beauty of the male body [1], and Christians should be among the first to affirm that there is no logical connection between being a man or a woman and possessing or not possessing physical beauty.  While the focus of this post is on the negative ramifications for men when the female body is equated with beauty, there are benefits for both genders when sexist ideas about beauty are properly rejected.  Women do not have to feel like there is any special reason for them to be concerned with their appearance--not to mention that they can explore the visual aspects of their sexualities--and men do not have to feel like they are unattractive because they are men.

Wives, girlfriends, and single women can contribute to a cultural environment where the physical beauty of both genders is openly appreciated by simply giving genuine compliments to men in their lives, whether they are husbands, boyfriends, or platonic friends.  Admiring someone's body does not have to be a sexual or demeaning thing, after all.  Ironically, the rejection of sexual prudery often leads people to this realization!  The nonsexual nature of complimenting bodies aside, men have the same capacity to love their bodies that women do, and it is irrational to treat women as if they deserve to feel more comfortable with their bodies than men do.

[1].  https://thechristianrationalist.blogspot.com/2016/12/the-beauty-of-both-genders.html

The Desire For Absolute Certainty

It is far from being the case that all people necessarily want absolute certainty.  In fact, many people seem to live out entire lifetimes without ever challenging the prevailing fallacies of the day.  Their entire worldviews, with only selective exceptions within those worldviews at best, reduce down to a house of cards that can be dismantled by the slightest wind.  If anyone seeks to verify this, they would need only to ask random people basic philosophical questions--the answers would likely be deeply unsound.

Indeed, some people truly are shallow enough to be apathetic towards matters of epistemology, or perhaps they even think of absolute certainty as something trivial or irrelevant.  The latter type of person may not just voyage through life rejecting the fact that logic grounds numerous absolute certainties (although they are all in some way truths about logic, oneself, or foundational metaphysics).  He or she might go even further and criticize genuine rationalists for insisting on the pursuit of absolute certainty to begin with.

Accordingly, they might label the quest for absolute certainty a "fool's errand," regardless of what they think about the intrinsic veracity of logical axioms.  The very intent to discover what can be proven with absolute certainty is regarded as asinine or even dangerous to individual and societal wellbeing.  In the place of utter logical certainty, persuasion, extrapolations, and assumptions are held up as worthy epistemological methods.  Stupidity is always at the heart of this stance, but fear of unwanted ramifications and fear of the effort necessary to construct a sound worldview can motivate people to adopt this approach as well.

A denial or dismissal of absolute certainty can be a defense mechanism, as anyone who is intelligent enough to see that things like the existence of other minds, the veracity of a particular value system, and the nature of the material world beyond its mere existence (and the fact that it is bound by reason, of course) are ultimately uncertain might try to flee direct acknowledgment of the need to abandon unverifiable beliefs.  Absolute certainty does not extend into certain aspects of life that many people have or could easily develop deep insecurities about.  Thus, some attempt to avoid an existential crisis by simply ignoring strict logicality.

The desire for absolute certainty might very well be what triggers many existential crises, but it is also the only thing that can ultimately rescue us from them.  Some things can be known with absolute certainty [1], and it is this fact that can serve as the foundation for personal security in an epistemological sense.  This is especially the case when someone realizes that far more than logical axioms and one's consciousness can be known with absolute certainty [2].  Far more is epistemologically demonstrable than almost anyone interested in philosophy seems to realize.

Even if only those two aspects of reality could be known (logical axioms and one's own mind respectively), seeking absolute certainty in those areas would not be foolish, dangerous, or destined for failure.  Similarly, the search for absolute certainty would not be a superficial thing.  There is nothing shallow about longing for the supreme clarity and absolute certainty that nothing and no one can provide other than logic.  Indeed, there is nothing deeper than the pursuit of verifiable truths, an endeavour that has no room for heeding the baseless criticisms of those who fear or deny absolute certainty.


[1].  https://thechristianrationalist.blogspot.com/2017/12/metaphysics-and-absolute-certainty.html

[2].  https://thechristianrationalist.blogspot.com/2018/11/the-extent-of-absolute-certainty.html

Time Spent With Gaming

The increased prominence of technology in daily life has altered everything from the workplace to transportation, including the very nature and availability of entertainment.  As a result, the relatively young medium of video games has become especially common in recent years.  A question that many Christians sincerely ask themselves relates to whether or not there is some line past which a person plays too many video games (or watches too many movies, and so on).  While there is a line of sorts, it has nothing to do with spending a fixed number of hours scouring virtual worlds or investing all of one's free time in gaming.

There is no objective Biblical or logical line distinguishing a permissible amount of time spent playing video games from an illegitimate amount in the sense that playing for some arbitrary number of hours is not irresponsible.  Anyone who posits that spending two hours a day playing games is heinous, for instance, can never prove that their selected number of hours is correct.  If playing for some particular amount like three hours or five hours a day is not inherently negative, then, at what point does playing video games (or consuming some other form of entertainment) take up too much of one's time?

The line is drawn where playing beyond a certain amount would hinder relationship, workplace, and spiritual obligations.  This means that the line might be ever-shifting for some people, while the line might be set at a point so high for others that it would actually be difficult for them to approach it.  It is worth noting that many people never truly even approach the line at all.  Staying up into the morning to play video games and playing at any opportunity during the day do not signify addiction or moral failure unless a person neglects his or her outside obligations in the process.

Paranoia about the mere presence of video games as an art form has convinced fallacious critics of entertainment media that video games are a generally negative thing despite there being nothing irresponsible about playing them on their own.  Just as there are double standards about many other things in Western culture, there is an obvious double standard when it comes to general perceptions of leisure.  A person who reads books is often thought of as intelligent and balanced, even though there is nothing about reading that means one is intelligent.  Contrarily, a person who plays video games, no matter how intellectually and thematically stimulating the games might be, is often thought of as lazy, selfish, and unintelligent.

The inconsistency of social norms surrounding entertainment does nothing to make playing video games the destructive pastime some people seem to want it to be, of course.  There is simply nothing wrong with spending one's free time in whatever amoral pursuits one is inclined to enjoy; as long as one has upheld all other obligations and is not sinning, there is no objective number of hours one must limit an activity to.  It does not matter if the activity in question is socially discouraged or condemned in arbitrary ways.  There is no reason to hinder one's personal pleasure after one has fulfilled one's obligations, after all, and those who make fallacious objections can be safely ignored or mocked.

John's Comments On The Antichrist

Deep concern that this generation might be one of the last before the return of Christ, if not the last, has hindered some of the most conservative evangelicals from maximizing their potential and pursuing legitimate causes.  Anticipating the antichrist, a figure said (according to modern evangelicals) to lead a unified world against Yahweh in the last days, these Christians are prone to unverifiable speculation about the exact years and people to be involved in major eschatological events.

The antichrist is at the core of much of this speculation.  In some cases, each new political candidate in or from a particular region is viewed as if they might soon be the greatest tyrant in history.  However, there is not a single antichrist figure according to 1 John 2:18, which explicitly states that "even now many antichrists have come."  This is because the basic Biblical definition of an antichrist (found in 1 John 4:3 and 2 John 1:7) applies to more than just a single person, much less to the European male many paranoid adherents of eschatology seem to expect.

The presence of many antichrists throughout history does not exclude the possibility of a singular antichrist who appears in a key eschatological period and epitomizes the spirit that defies Yahweh and Jesus, but it does not directly confirm this idea either.  Nothing about a long succession of antichrists inherently foreshadows a supreme antichrist.  1 John 2 is far from specific enough to provide great clarity about eschatology.  Later in 1 John, the emphasis is merely placed on the fact that anyone who misrepresents the nature of Christ is himself or herself an "antichrist."

1 John 4:3 contains such a description of what it calls the spirit of the antichrist, which it states has already manifested in the world.  Again, while nothing about the wording refutes the idea of a supreme antichrist figure in an end times context, it is clear that the spirit of the antichrist is not limited to a being that has yet to be revealed.  The verse is similar to 2 John 1:7, which declares that if a person refuses to acknowledge the fact that the evidence points to the divinity of Christ, he or she is an antichrist, whether or not political power is involved.

Rather than try to fruitlessly identify every male politician associated with Europe who speaks of globalism as if he is potentially the antichrist, Christians need to realize that every individual man and woman who opposes Christ bears the title in question.  Some may do far more to deserve the title than others, but the era of time and geographical location in which a person lives are irrelevant.  Although there may very well be a figure to come who resembles evangelical stereotypes of the antichrist, history is full of antichrists who have already come.

"I Am Right"

Press hard enough, and many people will act as if certainty is an anathema to a peaceful, tolerant culture.  In many ways, they are right: genuine certainty and toleration of the typical status quo do not coexist easily.  Many do not stop at calling rationalistic proclamations of certainty disruptive, however.  It is common to find counter-proclamations that even legitimate claims of certainty are arrogant and indicate some moral or (ironically!) intellectual deficiency.

Charges of arrogance are often used in an attempt to silence someone whose claims are controversial or urgent, as many people are quite content to wallow in philosophical apathy or ineptitude if that is the norm around them.  When some truth--or an attempt to sincerely, rationally pursue truth--comes to light, it is far easier for the average person to assume that the truth-seeker is simply overestimating their own epistemological capacity or the importance of their claim.

To belittle someone based on unjust or irrational grounds and to think oneself significant on unjust or irrational grounds are both expressions of arrogance, but the recognition and acceptance of logical certainties are not.  Indeed, it would be arrogant to think oneself above reason, as if logic could be dismissed without consequence or as if logic has only a partial reign over reality.  True arrogance is found in denying, ignoring, or trivializing the absolute certainties that logic offers to all thinking beings.  There is never anything arrogant about genuine knowledge.

A rationalist is therefore not only justified in savoring the realization that "I am right," but is also justified in savoring the realization "I am right."  There is no arrogance in discovering, reciting, or deriving pleasure from the absolute certainty provided by logic.  To think of oneself more highly than one should or more highly than one's metaphysical status affords is not arrogant; to celebrate the logical facts that can be known is simply to celebrate one's metaphysical status as it is.

Misconceptions About Geometry "Postulates"

The avoidance of assumptions is one of the clearest indicators of intelligence, accuracy, and consistency.  Despite being at the foundation of all sound philosophy, the rejection of assumptions is championed by a select few at most, and assumptions (whatever arbitrary nature they take in a given irrationalist's worldview) are often defended and even celebrated.  Indeed, many children are explicitly taught that assumptions are sound and necessary, particularly when it comes to geometry.  This counterproductive endeavor is on full display when students are introduced to postulates.

The typical description of various postulates, whether those postulates are correct or not, is that they are foundational ideas assumed to be true without proof and that they are also used to prove other things.  This is not only an inaccurate representation of the foundational premises of sound geometry, but it is also a completely inaccurate representation of epistemology itself.  Logical axioms--self-evident and self-verifying necessary truths that must be affirmed to be denied--are not proven by other premises, but they are not mere assumptions.  Instead, they prove themselves.  For this reason, they cannot be false or uncertain no matter what else is.  Many geometry postulates do not have this property, and thus they cannot legitimately be treated as geometric axioms (not that axioms have to be assumed at all to begin with!), contrary to the claims of almost all geometry educators.  Consider the postulate that only one line can run between two points.

Can their only be one straight line through two respective points in space?  Of course this is the case, but this is not something that has to be assumed, much less something that is unverified or unverifiable.  This fact is also not a self-evident and self-verifying axiom (like the law of identity): in order to know that only one line can connect two given points, one must already know what points and lines are and then reason out why such a thing must be true.  It is not as if there is no way to demonstrate that multiple lines cannot run through two points!  Even a self-evident thing does not have to be assumed, but this "postulate" is not self-evident.  It can be reduced down to other logical and geometric facts, meaning it is not the utter foundation of shapes.

When it comes to the postulate that any three points fall on the same plane, the verifiability is similar.  It is true that any three points must always fall on the same plane (and are thus coplanar) if a plane is infinite, having no spatial boundaries whatsoever.  If a plane was finite, then it could not true that any three points must be contained within it.  No matter how large a finite plane is, there is always the possiblity that two points are within it and that the third is outside of it (or that all three are outside of it), even if only by a miniscule distance.  Either way, the truth of the matter is not a self-evident, self-verifying thing; it stands upon premises that are more foundational.  One must understand the basic concept of infinite space and the finite nature of points to realize that a plane must contain three points.

These and other geometric facts do not have to be assumed.  Moreover, no one who believes that assumptions are necessary understands the basic aspects of sound epistemology.  The very nature of an assumption is that it is uncertain; if an idea is assumed to be true (even if it ultimately is true), nothing that builds on that idea is known to reflect reality.  The fact that so many people truly think that an assumption could ever ground actual knowledge does not and cannot legitimize even a single assumption.  Rather, it affirms the fundamental unintelligence of each person who would claim that such an impossibility is true.  There is not a single instance where an assumption is anything more than a blind, irrational leap into a darkness that could be at least somewhat illuminated by the necessary laws of logic.

Defeating Sin

That a topic as important and layered as the defeat of sin in an individual's life is handled with such error, inconsistency, and flippancy by the evangelical world should alarm any sincere Christian.  Personal victory over sin is often held up as a necessary goal even as it is also described as a hopeless and inane thing to aim for.  In order to intentionally engage in the process of moral improvement, one must be aware of what acts or motives can be legitimately defined as sin, but one must also be willing to accept the logical possibility of moral perfection.  Although there is far more to moral improvement than the former, in many cases, realizing that numerous things the church has condemned across centuries are not sinful is a vital step towards understanding one's moral status.

It is quite easy to gratuitously feel discouraged when everything from anger to sexual attraction to leisure activities like video games is regarded as inherently sinful, as many evangelicals imply or teach outright, and thus the first step towards defeating sin is defining sin correctly.  One has to understand what is and is not sinful in order to thoroughly understand what it means to triumph over sin.  The legalism of the evangelical church prevents them from obtaining this comprehension, but their opposition to moral improvement runs deeper than this: its members fail to admit that they can not only completely overcome a given shortcoming, but also that it is not logically impossible for them to attain moral perfection.

It is as if the evangelical world is simultaneously desperate to emphasize that God is more powerful than sin while also unwilling to admit that moral progress is not unattainable.  This contradiction allows them to pay lip service to the idea of sanctification--which is nothing but the doctrine of moral betterment--without ever acknowledging that they can actually be consistently better.  Consequently, evangelicals are able to convince themselves that it is ultimately impossible to truly become sinless prior to one's death, despite the non sequitur fallacies and Biblical errors involved.  After all, denying that sinlessness is possible in this life can easily foster moral apathy and contentment with one's sins.  There is perhaps no better way to make oneself feel at peace with moral failure.

A rationalistic approach to Biblical passages about sanctification reveals that there is nothing in the Bible which claims that humans cannot become sinless before death.  The Bible even explicitly demands moral perfection from each individual Christian (Matthew 5:48).  It is, of course, logically possible to be sinless because there is no specific instance of sin that cannot be avoided, as well as because free will necessitates the ability to do that which is good, and no one needs the Bible to realize that the concept of moral perfection is not incoherent.  There is still a need to clarify that Biblical Christianity does not teach that humans are unable to align with righteousness after their redemption.  In fact, a person could even become morally perfect without ever becoming saved and thus restored to God in the first place--though it would still be impossible for their self-realized moral perfection to erase the guilt of their former sins (that is, they would still be unable to earn eternal life).

It is not obscurity or a lack of Biblical confirmation that keeps evangelicals from admitting thar moral perfection is possible before heaven.  Rather, it is stupidity, insecurity, or both.  Moral perfection can be a frightening concept for those who realize that they are not concerned with morality for morality's sake.  As evangelicals repeatedly make clear, they are either not concerned with morality in any serious sense or they are concerned with traditions and preferences, not morality itself.  The inherently moralistic (and more specifically, theonomist) nature of Christianity is an alien thing to them, something that demands of them that which they are not willing to give.  As evangelicals might selectively affirm elsewhere, an unwillingness to grapple with the Biblical commands to pursue absolute moral perfection does nothing to remove those commands from the Bible, but it does prove to the person experiencing that unwillingness that they are not in the pursuit of truth.

A Liberal Inconsistency On Gun Ownership

I frequently target conservatives since they tend to be associated with Biblical Christianity more openly and since they are more likely to explicitly identify with rationality, as liberals are usually more willing to admit the emotionalistic roots of their ideologies.  Nevertheless, liberals cling to many ideas that also merit deconstruction and refutation, even if their adherents are not as quick to overtly claim reason and objective reality are on their side.  Among these ideas is their stance on personal ownership of firearms, an issue that is often tackled by imbeciles from all over the political spectrum.  Conservatives tend to gratuitously glorify the personal use of guns, while liberals tend to fallaciously condemn them.

Liberals often oppose the existence of a legal right to own firearms if the weapons fall within arbitrary categories (or simply oppose any legal allowance to privately own guns), like if a gun is an assault rifle, as if there was a logical line that can be drawn between the legitimacy of possessing one weapon and that of possessing another.  There is no type of firearm is immoral to own.  As long as guns are not available to merely anyone at all who requests them, as psychological and moral stability and familiarity with weapon safety are necessary to legitimize gun ownership, there is no logical or moral basis for laws restricting what kinds of guns can be owned by civilians.

Indeed, it is civilian hands that are intended to be kept from specific types of firearms.  A deep irony is that liberals might decry the police as a group of collectively murderous, racist (conveniently, they ignore the blatant sexism that leads to harsher treatment of men by police) oppressors while also saying that they should be the only ones to carry certain weapons.  The hypocrisy of stereotyping the police while opposing the stereotyping of African Americans aside, it is lunacy to want to reserve the ownership of firearms, whether some or all, for a corrupt police force.

Rather than abandon this inconsistency, opponents of civilian firearm ownership tend to ignore that the fact that someone owns a firearm--or another kind of weapon--is irrelevant to whether the person in question is willing to use it for murder or other illicit purposes.  Liberals are often simply frightened by gun ownership itself, and they allow their subjective preferences to dictate their political and ethical ideologies, which in turn fuels the desire to prohibit others from doing amoral things.  The fact that England has criminalized butter knives highlights the utterly asinine lengths some liberals are willing to go to when it comes to mistaking ownership of an item for the cause of murder.

At best, the standard liberal position on gun ownership is thoroughly flawed.  At worst, it is a position held while the inconsistencies and fallacies are known to its adherents.  There is nothing abnormal about political parties endorsing hypocrisies, assumptions, and contradictions, and the errors of both major political factions in contemporary America need to be corrected until they are abandoned completely.  Gun ownership is merely one of numerous subjects that the right and left often address in thoroughly inept ways, and many of the attitudes towards it exemplify the intellectual incompetence of the primary political parties in America.

Overestimating The Significance Of Corporate Achievement

As a source of stability and an outlet for self-development, one's career can be an appreciated pillar in one's life, as opposed to a necessity that would be eagerly tossed aside if modern life was restructured.  Many people, Christians included, would like to reach the point where they enjoy their occupations in this way.  Because of the integral role of the workplace (whatever kind it is) in modern life, it would likely not be particularly difficult to find someone who orients their life around their careers instead of the other way around.

An occupation, however, no matter how sincerely or passionately it is approached, is only a means to an end.  That end might be money, power, renown, benevolence, a sense of subjective fulfillment, or any combination of these, but a job is always aimed at some personal objective.  While someone may appreciate their job because it is a job or because it contains a particular set of tasks or duties, they don't enjoy their work for no reason other than that it is an occupation.  Something else is always the motivating factor behind a person's career.

In light of this, it is irrational to regard one's occupation as the ultimate manifestation of purpose or fulfillment.  There is nothing wrong even with viewing one's job with a high level of personal attachment, but many people approach their careers as if they have an existential significance that they do not have outside of their perceptions.  They look to their work as if their professional reputation dictates their perceived worth as an individual, as if their workplace accomplishments are the default apex expressions of their talents, and as if they will be aimless apart from specific occupations.

Careers have a vital financial significance and can certainly provide a sense of stability, but it remains foolish to expect them to define the existential ramifications of one's life.  Even some Christians need to be reminded of this from time to time.  Subjective satisfaction with a career is quite important on a personal level for many individuals nonetheless, and this needs be affirmed without overestimating the ultimate value of corporate achievement and workplace reputation.

How Prudery Impacts Personal Health

There is a disconnect in the mind of anyone who endorses prudery between their awareness that they have a body and their willingness to accept the physicality or sensuality of their body (or the sensuality of others' bodies).  This disconnect can have serious spiritual and psychological consequences, but it is more accepted to discuss these in broad social contexts than it is to publicly acknowledge the ways prudery obstructs physical health, and the health of genitalia in particular.  After all, prudery easily breeds an ignorance of one's body.

The typical evangelical exemplifies this.  The unbiblical hostility towards the unclothed human body that is so thoroughly embedded in evangelicalism prevents people from understanding otherwise basic information about human anatomy and physiology.  Someone who shuns the body in general and refuses to become familiar with it is at inherent risk for misdiagnosing or ignoring bodily issues while they are relatively minor.  Rather than decry the human body (even complete nudity) in the name of Christianity, a rational Christian can understand that the Bible is thoroughly pro-body--and that the foundational Biblical teachings on the body would drive people to prioritize pleasure and health if they were absorbed by the church.

The naked human body is the pinnacle of God's physical creation, as it is the object that houses the human spirit.  The vastness of the cosmos has a lesser significance than the human body on the Christian worldview for this reason alone.  It is therefore fundamentally contrary to Christian theology to trivialize the body and its health, and yet prudery has accomplished exactly that: the typical Christian either trivializes the body or demonizes its sensuality.  It is sensuality, as well as sexuality, that frighten evangelicals, so it is hardly surprising when conservative prudery shackles Christians to ignorance about their bodies, as well as the functions and health of their bodies.

Since sexual health is a component of bodily health, Christians have no reason to disregard it or treat it as a shameful thing.  God intentionally created the human body with a capacity to receive and give sexual pleasure, after all.  A person is not more spiritual or moral because they view concern with the body as something petty.  The high status of the body according to Biblical theology is a basis for taking physical and sexual health seriously, not for pretending like sexual health is an improper thing to contemplate or discuss.

Refuting ideological arguments for prudery, as well as enjoying the human body, is not merely helpful because it enables a freer and deeper sense of pleasure based around the body, but it is also helpful because it frees people to more directly understand and care for their bodies and physical health.  It is rare for the average person to seek to understand that which they fear, and the human body as a whole is unfortunately regarded by a vocal proportion of Westerners as a dangerous thing.  Rejecting Western assumptions about the body is the key to shedding the sense of discomfort around familiarity with the human body.

Game Review--Payday 2 (Switch)

"Greetings . . . and welcome to Crime.net.  If you are reading this, it means you have been cleared for access to the hub of our organization."
--Bain, Payday 2


Payday 2 is one of several games that have probably shocked or surprised many players with their mere presence on a handheld Nintendo platform.  A heist simulation game, Payday 2 is a unique Switch title, being one of the only games of its type on the system.  It is playable alone or with up to three friends or online strangers, and, for reasons I will detail later below, it is a much easier and less potentially frustrating game when playing co-op.

Production Values

The graphics are by no means spectacular, but this is at least in part because Payday 2 is a port from much older platforms.  The civilian and police character models are bland and very repetitive, and the other aesthetic qualities of the layouts inside buildings are repetitive as well.  Anyone expecting incredible visuals will find the ones on display very lackluster.  Nevertheless, they are sufficient for framing the gameplay.  Slowdown is rare, but it can happen when dozens of cops descend on your location at once.  The sound could easily annoy players far more than the visual performance, as the same few music tracks play over and over despite the fact that they might not seem to fit the mission at all.

Gameplay

The varied missions require everything from the concoction of illegal drugs to bank robberies to the hacking of voting machines.  The same missions will appear repeatedly on the map, but the location of items and rooms within the mission environments change, as does the difficulty level--and therefore the amount of experience points attached.  In fact, upon dying or failing and restarting a mission, players may find that the interior of the building which holds the objectives shifted around.  This provides a measure of replayability, but the core mission structures never change.  Still, revisiting completed missions can be an easy way to level up.

Upon leveling up, players receive skill points that can be used to activate skill trees, while the total amount of experience points earned are translated through a ratio into perk points that can be used on a separate list of active and passive abilities called perks.  The skills and perks--not to mention all of the weapon and mask unlockables--contribute to a rather deep progression system.  Some abilities are especially helpful, such as the ones that provide bonus XP or permit more uses for particular items (like ammunition or medical bags).  One skill literally lets you manipulate captive police officers into fighting for you!  Since different skill trees can be active at once, there are incentives to spread one's skill points across a variety of complementary options.

As for the AI behind the non-captive police, don't expect complex maneuvers or strategy on their part.  Still, they are more competent overall than your partners when the latter are controlled by AIs, as your partners must be controlled by other players in order to do anything besides revive you and shoot the police.  This significant issue delays objective completion in solo heists by a large amount of time.  If you yourself do not actively carry each step of the plan forward, your team will make no progress.  For this reason, it is not only easier to play online or locally with other people, but it is also far more enjoyable for those who do not appreciate difficulty that is only present because of a massive design problem.

Story

There might be an overarching, background storyline that loosely connects the missions together, but the individual heists are so seemingly detached from a linear narrative that it is as if there is no specific story.  Instead, players simply choose from a set of available and time-sensitive heists that might reference companies from other heists without ever overtly developing some sort of foundational plot.


Intellectual Content

The absence of a defined story and character exploration in Payday 2 results in a lack of major theme development, but the very fact that games like this can be played raises questions about the ethics of creating and playing video games.  Condemnation of certain video games (and movies) usually revolves around some arbitrary line where violence is deemed acceptable up to a point.  While I do not recall being aware of Payday 2 when it was initially released, it is exactly the type of game that conservatives and liberals might panic over.

However, if it is not immoral to carry out a relatively minor act of evil inside a game, where is the line?  If it is not problematic to engage in petty larceny in a video game, what would make an in-game bank robbery morally wrong?  If it is not wrong to kill enemies in video games outside of self-defense, what makes taking hostages cross the line?  There is no Biblical or logical boundary past which one has sinned by committing an act in a video game.  As long as a person does not have the motive of celebrating an actual sin, there is nothing wrong with enacting an otherwise immoral behavior in the confines of a virtual world.


Conclusion

If you can play with a friend, Payday 2 can be quite enjoyable, replayable, and rewarding.  The limitations of the single player mode are its greatest weaknesses, thanks to the lack of a clearly discernible story and to the largely unhelpful AI partners who are unable to complete objectives.  If a given Switch owner can tolerate these problems or can bypass them by simply playing co-op, he or she will find that Payday 2 is a deep crime simulation experience that is not completely marred by its deficiencies.


Content:
 1.  Violence:  The blood effects in Payday 2 are not anywhere near as realistic as they are in more recent shooters, but there is still a fair amount of blood involved in shooting or physically striking cops.
 2.  Profanity:  Variations of "damn," "shit," and "fuck" are used with regularity.
 3.  Nudity:  In some areas, there are statues of the naked male or female body, the genitalia quite overt.

The Nuance Of Memory And Identity

The simplest and most foundational part of personal identity pertains to the law of identity: an individual is metaphysically identical to himself or herself.  Even if two beings had bodies with an indistinguishable appearance, they would be separate beings, or else there would be only a single entity.  Beyond the basic application of the law of identity, though, personal identity becomes far more complex.  Memory is the faculty that binds an individual's experiences together in their mind, but there are at least two different aspects of this that need to be addressed.

A person who takes their memories at face value--that is, someone who simply assumes that past events must have occurred if they remember them--will think that their recalled behaviors define them.  They will hold that if they remember committing acts of kindness, then they are a kind person, or that if they recall starting a business, then they are a businessperson.  In contrast to this is the awareness that a lack of confusion at a given time means that one's memories are internally consistent, which in turn means that one does have a stable perception of identity at a particular time.

One's memories of past events may very well be nothing but false memories, and thus it is entirely possible that whatever aspects of one's perceived identity that are bound to those alleged past events might not correspond to anything outside of one's mind.  This, however, does nothing to change the fact that one's memory nonetheless grounds one's identity in the sense that it maintains a stable sense of self from one moment to another.  An example can clarify the distinction between these two forms of identity and how memory can be irrelevant to one and yet inseparable from the other.

For instance, suppose that a person has memories of working as a scientist on an innovative project.  The work provides her with a sense of purpose, fulfillment, and competence.  She closely associates the work with her identity as an individual.  In actuality, her memories are intramind hallucinations (they are not sensory hallucinations of perceived external objects), and she lives in a mental institution as she is treated for psychosis.  It follows that her memories do nothing to reveal her occupational and past identity to herself.  Nevertheless, without a memory that functions on some level, she would not even have internal clarity as one moment elapses and leads into another.

Personal identity is far more nuanced than simply recalling certain events and identifying with specific values or goals.  There are very different components of one's core identity, and one component does not necessarily have the epistemological verifiability of another.  One can never know one's true past as long as one cannot verify the historicity of one's memories.  At the same time, one can always know one's immediate memories, desires, and perceptions, and continued awareness of them across consecutive moments by necessity means that one has some form of stable identity.