Movie Review--Godzilla Vs. Kong

"The island is the one thing that's kept him isolated.  If he leaves, Godzilla will come for him."

--Dr. Ilene Andrews, Godzilla vs. Kong

Blair Witch and The Guest director Adam Wingard helms the fourth entry in WB's MonsterVerse, and this franchise has fallen far from its very promising start with Godzilla in 2014.  Godzilla vs. Kong does have moments of excellence, just an excellence that is reserved almost exclusively for action and CGI.  Ironically, in spite of the praise it is receiving for its monster fights, there really are not many action sequences in the movie.  This would not be problematic at all if it was not for the large cast of undeveloped human characters that either have no need to be in the story or desperately needed more characterization.  At least Godzilla had some emphasis on Bryan Cranston's character before his death.  Here, almost everything is sacrificed for a small handful of action scenes.

Production Values

What a mixed jumble this film turns out to be--having more relentless action or just more frequent fights could have saved part of it by putting more of a spotlight on the excellent animation for Godzilla and Kong.  The two of them, alone and together, represent how far CGI has come in the last three decades.  Their clashes even have some creativity in the locations and truly demonstrate how powerful these Titans are.  Human onlookers are powerfless, even when using military vehicles like fighter jets.  Unfortunately for the quality of the dialogue and characterization, the thematic and artistic depth of the film away from its action scenes is about as weak as military efforts to stop Godzilla.  Alexander Skarsgard, Millie Bobby Brown, and Rebecca Hall, among other actors/actresses, are wasted in a script that is mediocre at best.  Comedy and plot necessity are the only reasons for the characters to be here, and many of them are still unecessary.

Story

Some spoilers are below.

A Monarch setup on Skull Island has been used to keep Kong away from Godzilla's attention for years, yet Kong has started figuring out that he is in an artificial biodome.  Prompted by an executive from a technology company called Apex, an author who has written about the Hollow Earth concept attempts to bring Kong to an entry point to a massive cave system from which he can reach the hollow interior of the planet the idea posits.  Unexpectedly, Godzilla attacks the transport convoy of naval ships moving Kong, marking the second time he has attacked an area with humans seemingly unprovoked.  Apex has a sinister connection to the first of these attacks, and some of its attempts to harness Titan remains for technological purposes begin to come to light.

Intellectual Content

The Hollow Earth concept is used as a plot device and the justification for a new MonsterVerse character who resembles a toned-down Alex Jones to add more unneeded comedy into a movie that is already very loose with the quality of its dialogue.  Ultimately, the idea of a hollow region with Earth is supposedly connected to various pagan religions and many kinds of older scientific estimations.  None of the historical significance of Hollow Earth as something people have entertained as a real possibility is even hinted at in Godzilla vs. Kong.  Moreover, the movie makes it seem like accessing such an area would be far easier than it would be in all likelihood.  This series has lost much of the subtly intellectual framework it had at the beginning.

Conclusion

The MonsterVerse could still continue after its first crossover film, but, if this will happen, it needs to be done with far more effort put into the worldbuilding and human characters.  Why have such a high number of talented cast members appear for short periods of time in generic scenes?  Why forsake the more thoughtful approach of the movie that started the MonsterVerse?  Admittedly, the 2014 Godzilla film would have benefited from more extensive characterization itself, and yet it was a very serious, "grounded" take on its famous Titan.  Kong: Skull Island immediately contradicted this promise, only for Godzilla: King of the Monsters to fare better but disregard its human part of the story.  Godzilla vs. Kong completely squanders the chance to avoid this same mistake.

Content:

 1.  Violence:  The action, even with several scenes of Kong ripping biological creatures apart and a scene of a Skullcrawler getting killed by atomic breath, is kept at a very limited PG-13 level.

 2.  Profanity:  "Damn" and "shit" get used on occasion.

A Caution To Potential Parents

One of the commands of God to humans in Genesis 1 is the call for procreation, for men and women to "be fruitful and multiply," as some translations put it.  The first chapter of the Bible clearly puts having children in a positive light.  Still, there is more that needs to be contemplated--much more.  It is foolish to think that this command of Genesis 1 applies to literally every individual person or couple.  The scope of the injunction aside, even partners who wish to produce children need to carefully assess their personal circumstances before they intentionally become parents.  Intellectual, moral, and economic maturity are all marks of potential for strong parenting, and each needs to be considered before a person decides to bring a child into the world.

Many people lack the basic philosophical competence to understand even basic metaphysical and epistemological concepts without immense prompting from others.  If someone cannot handle at least recognizing things like the absolute certainty of their own existence and the inherent veracity of deductive reasoning, they have no right to raise children who have the responsibility to develop their own rational worldviews using independent thinking.  Children are always the ones responsible for whether they reason out or believe a truth, but this does not mean all parental approaches to philosophical matters are equally valid.  Only rationalism is valid for both children and their parents.

Of course, part of having philosophical maturity is recognizing the nature of the concept of morality: that of obligations and justice.  I am not assuming that moral obligations exist, as I am merely pointing out that if they do, a parent cannot deserve to raise their own children if they are abusive or otherwise on the wrong side of morality.  It would inevitably follow from the existence of even a single moral obligation that a morally apathetic or wayward parent would have no right to teach their child to be like them.  Moral perfection is not necessary to be a parent, but moral apathy would render a parent's own philosophy invalid and potentially subject their children to the dangers of living with someone who does whatever they subjectively whim.

Another significant factor is the economic stability that will give a couple the resources and ability to raise a child safely by addressing its material needs.  Without maturity in this area, which stems from the intellectual maturity that would make parents philosophically competent, even financially stable parents could ruin their own economic standing by carelessness or stupidity.  In referring to the need for financial maturity, I do not mean that a childless couple becomes irresponsible in wanting to have a child if they do not mutually possess great wealth.  I instead mean that it is folly to rush to have kids when one cannot even financially support oneself.  If a couple needs more time to stabilize their own financial standing, having even one child on purpose betrays a lack of thoughtfulness and foresight.

Even in light of these requirements for someone to be in a favorable position to become a parent, it is not impossible to be adequately prepared by a fairly young age to have children.  None of these qualities are determined by age, and none of them are bound to appear in a person without self-guided effort--just as children are responsible for becoming rational individuals even without social input or pressures, parents are responsible for gaining their own intellectual/philosophical, moral, and financial maturity.  No person of any age has an excuse for irrationality because everyone can grasp reason, child or parent.  Someone could certainly have fully prepared himself or herself intellectually by the time they are physiologically capable of having kids, and all other needed qualities follow from this rationality.

Alleged Objectification In Video Games (Part 1)

It is true that video games tend to showcase the minimally clothed female body more than the minimally clothed male body.  What is not true is that an exposed female body in a video game sexually objectifies the character, yet random objections to the presentation of women in gaming assert otherwise.  The false idea that showing a game character, whether a man or woman, objectifies them ironically commits a somewhat inverse error: it tries to ignore a character's body, an aspect of their existence, almost completely rather than neglecting all but one aspect of them.

Of course, almost no one who mistakes the in-game portrayal of women in scanty clothing as objectifying is consistent: there are many shirtless or otherwise exposed men in video games that go uncriticized because many people assume that to look at a woman's body disrespects her in ways that looking at a man's body does not.  Neither looking at a woman's body nor looking at a man's body is disrespectful, but the double standard remains, even if it is grounded in an asinine misconception of objectification.  This is why charges of objectification are almost exclusively thrown at games which feature female bodies.

Samus Aran from the Metroid series is a key example of a female video game character sometimes claimed to be objectified for the sake of male gamers.  In some cutscenes, in some death death animations, and at the end of many Metroid games (given that the games were either finished under certain times or that certain thresholds of items were collected), Samus is shown without her signature Power Suit.  Depending on the game, she wears her Zero Suit, a skin-tight and blue bodysuit, underwear that looks like a bikini, or clothes that fall somewhere in between.

Even if bikinis, undergarments, and skin-tight outfits were sexual, Samus is only shown wearing such minimal clothing in very specific contexts in games that last hours.  It is clear that she is primarily presented as an effective bounty hunter.  Of course, there is nothing sexually objectifying about portraying a male or female character in minimal clothing on a regular or constant basis to showcase their body, as wearing minimal clothing is not sexual and objectification is nothing other than an intentional, total dismissal of all aspects of a person's existence besides their sex appeal or sexual usefulness.

Moreover, a video game, film, or image cannot objectify someone because it merely shows a person, real or fictional.  People can objectify other people, but entertainment and other media have nothing to do with the objectification process.  For multiple reasons, the portrayal of Samus in relative states of undress is utterly unrelated to objectification--not that bikinis and other sensual or revealing clothing for women or men are themselves sexual in the first place.  Nothing in any Metroid game has the power to reduce a fictional or real person to nothing but their sex appeal!

For an example of a female video game character who is far more consistently shown wearing little clothing, see Ayumi from Blades of Time.  Her default costume resembles a bikini, but the emphasis is almost never on her appearance itself.  Her adventurous impulses, concern for her friend Zero, and skills with diverse weapons practically always take the lead.  Even so, the fact that she is only wearing a bikini-like outfit would not signify any sort of objectification even if the game emphasized her appearance more than many other aspects of the character and gameplay.

There are other women in video games that sometimes wear revealing clothing, whether or not they chose to in the context of their story (Rachel from Ninja Gaiden 2 seems to have been forced to forgo most of her clothing when taken captive).  In none of these cases does the exposure of a woman's body objectify the character.  A work of entertainment cannot objectify anyone simply by portraying them in a certain way, regardless of how sexual or nonsexual it may be.  There is still an important aspect of this issue having to do with the intent of a game's creators, but that will be saved for a future article.

The Most Sophisticated Sexual Aid

The nonsinful nature of masturbation extends far beyond the simple type of sexual self-stimulation that involves only a person's own hands and genitals.  The use of sexual or nonsexual but sensual material featuring the opposite gender is likewise permissible by the standards of Mosaic Law [1], as is masturbating in the presence of romantic partners outside of marriage [2].  Another permissible form of masturbation is, as far as the historical record suggests, unique to modern times.

Technological evolution has finally led to the point that the possible range of sex toys, objects used for sexual stimulation or pleasure, is no longer limited to items that directly seem inanimate, like vibrators or "fleshlights."  Robotics has ramifications for human sexual behaviors as well as other aspects of human life.  Sex robots could be designed to appear lifeless or to move and speak, and the moral implications of this are likely to be gasped at by the typical Christian.

Some might not even immediately see the connection between sex robots and masturbation, as self-pleasuring is often conceived of as centering on how a person uses his or her hands and genitals.  However, masturbation can involve non-human objects like the aforementioned examples of sex toys, which do not erase the fact that the act reduces down to how someone stimulates or attempts to stimulate their own genitalia.  As for the conceptual definition of these aids, as long as an item is made with the purpose of aiding sexual gratification, it is indeed a sex toy.

Even self-pleasuring that features intensive use of sex toys like vibrators or fleshlights is still masturbation, no less than that involving no physical stimulation other than that provided by one's own hands.  The size of the sex toy is irrelevant.  It follows that using something as large and sophisticated as an autonomous sex robot is still ultimately self-pleasuring despite the fact that the physical experience could hypothetically be identical to that of sex with a human partner.  This is the most complex way to use a sex toy, but nothing about it violates Biblical obligations.

Sexual "intercourse" with a sex robot, even one that is fully conscious and possesses its own will, is nothing more than a form of masturbation, albeit the closest form of masturbation to actual sex with a human of the opposite gender.  Since masturbation is nonsinful, this means that using sex robots for personal pleasure, whether or not one is married, is not a sinful act.  If masturbation is not immoral, there is no line that can be drawn separating masturbation with nothing more than hands from sex with a sentient or inanimate machine that is not arbitrary and contra-Biblical.

As shocking and controversial as it is to affirm such a thing, Christian men and women have no moral obligation to shun or avoid the use of sex robots for personal pleasure--even if they are already married.  It is not adulterous or otherwise sinful to engage in the most realistic simulation of sexual behaviors, for even a machine that can truly think or act for itself is not a living thing, and thus it is impossible to commit adultery with a sex robot of the most lifelike kind.  The most sophisticated sex toy/aid is not an inherent moral hazard.


[1].  https://thechristianrationalist.blogspot.com/2018/09/masturbating-to-mental-imagery.html

[2].  https://thechristianrationalist.blogspot.com/2018/11/sexual-expression-before-marriage.html

Quantum Gravity

One of the two so-called "fundamental forces" of physics that can be constantly observed on a macroscopic basis, gravity refers to the force that pulls objects to the ground, affecting large and small objects alike.  At a quantum scale, gravity is allegedly far weaker than it is at the normal scale of human sensory experiences--to the point where particle behavior seems random and more unpredictable than that of objects at a macroscopic scale.  All science is inescapably probabilistic and therefore unpredictable in an ultimate sense, but this is moreso the case when it comes to reported quantum activity.

There are two main possibilities for why the nature of quantum gravity is different from "ordinary" gravity (if the alleged differences exist at all): it either 1) is different from macroscopic gravity in the same way that other aspects of quantum behaviors might not match those of the macroscopic world, meaning that different scientific laws apply at different scales, or 2) there is simply more to laws like gravity than initially seems to be the case.  While these two possibilities may seem similar to some, they are objectively distinct on a scientific and broader philosophical level.  In either case, quantum gravity, if it exists in the way it is claimed to, differs from macroscopic gravity.

Gravitational attraction correlates to mass, and mass often correlates to size.  Since any object at the quantum level would be extraordinarily small compared to even miniscule macroscopic objects, why would it be surprising that subatomic particles are not affected by gravity in the same way that macroscopic objects are?  Subatomic particles, if the general correlation between size and mass holds at the quantum scale (that is, if subatomic particles even exist in the first place, as even atoms cannot be philosophically proven to exist [1]), would have very little mass.

That gravitational forces influencing subatomic particles are seemingly very weak by comparison to macroscopic gravitational forces does not necessarily mean that there are two different forces of gravity, but it does exemplify that macroscopic and quantum events do not have to share the same traits.  It is possible to realize that scientific laws could differ across different regions without having ever heard of quantum physics, as uniformity of scientific phenomena like gravity is not a logical necessity.  It should thus be unsurprising on one level that there is more to theoretical and observational science than that which is perceived in everyday life.


[1].  https://thechristianrationalist.blogspot.com/2019/04/the-existence-of-atoms.html

Fairness In Parenting

Fairness is a minimum requirement of sound parenting, and many parents would at least profess to want to treat their children fairly.  The irony is that some of them might then turn around and impose restrictions on multiple siblings for the sake of one of them.  There is nothing fair about treating all children as if they have the same intelligence, consistency, desires, and motivations, and there is also nothing fair about refusing to differentiate between children of different philosophical and personal maturity, which means the only fair way to parent children is to treat them as the individuals they are regardless of how their parents perceive them.

It is actually unfair to impose unilateral restrictions on children who have different philosophical, emotional, and behavioral levels of maturity.  It is not sinful to let a young child watch an R-rated movie full of violence--and I do not mean the immensely exaggerated "violence" that some people think onscreen shootings automatically amount to--but it is legalistic and therefore sinful according to Deuteronomy 4:2 to impose unnecessary rules on a person of any age in the name of stopping an imaginary sin.  If a child can handle such a thing without misunderstanding the nature of what they see and without it negatively impacting their own personal psychology, there is nothing to object to!

Suppose that a child who is nine has a desire to behave violently towards their siblings after watching a particular film that is rated R for its violent content.  They go so far as to act on these desires and physically bully their own brothers or sisters.  The film has not made them do anything, but they choose to react in a certain way.  Their parents allow the siblings even younger than the troublesome child to watch R-rated movies that are even more violent, but they do not allow the latter child to watch even the violent, R-rated movie they have already seen.  In this situation, because the parents did not invoke slippery slope fallacies or do anything more than treat one child in accordance with his or her own deeds, they have treated all of their children fairly.

Christian parents usually pay lip service to fair discipline of their children without actually supporting anything close to the action of the parents in this hypothetical situation.  On the contrary, the very thought of allowing a child to watch an R-rated movie at the age of nine is horrifying to many of them.  At the same time that they impose legalistic constructs and prohibit all of their children from doing an activity that may or may not have negatively impact only a single kid, they might truly think they are determined to treat their children fairly--but their inconsistent actions betray their true irrationality.

Keeping one son or daughter from doing something that is not inherently problematic is not logically justified out of concern for how siblings might or might not subjectively react.  Fairness requires consistency, and treating people in accordance with their actions requires fairness on the part of parents.  Perhaps all parents would claim they hope to be fair, but few Christian parents operate on a truly individualistic basis, which is the only path to fairness that offers more than an illusion or misdirection.  There are far more crucial manifestations of fairness on the Christian worldview that those in parenting, but a consistent Christian parent would never treat one child a certain way for the sake of another child's actions.

Movie Review--Zack Snyder's Justice League (Spoiler Review)

"I have turned 100,000 worlds to dust looking for Anti-Life, looking for those who robbed me of my glory.  I will stride across their bones and bask in the glow of Anti-Life, and all of existence shall be mine."

--Darkseid, Zack Snyder's Justice League

". . . like you, I've realized that I have a stake in this world, and it's time I started fighting for it."

--Martian Manhunter, Zack Snyder's Justice League

Zack Snyder's Justice League does for superhero films what The Lord of the Rings does for high fantasy, what Doctor Sleep does for horror, and what the original Terminator movies do for science fiction; it tells a story about broken people stumbling to discover what seems to be the best way to fulfill personal goals against a background of important philosophical issues and themes sincerely woven into the narrative.  With a bedrock of strong characterization all around and stakes that eventually surpass those of Infinity War, Snyder vindicates his original plans for the DCEU in a way that makes the very mixed nature of Batman v Superman's theatrical cut worthwhile as a stepping stone to true excellence of a more consistent kind.

Snyder uses everything from multiple Knightmare sequences to Darkseid's plans to conquer Earth through the "old ways" to the teased future deaths of Wonder Woman and Aquaman to show just how much of a tyrant Darkseid truly is and how costly defeat can be.  The final battle actually features a miniature, condensed version of the basic plot of Infinity War and Endgame--and the DCEU could have even shown this type of idea before the MCU!  This is a world where the "gods" and "goddesses" people look to for strength are not guaranteed to outlive them, forcing them to come together in a non-shallow way to confront a truly apocalyptic holocaust for the multiverse.  Everything from the diversity of the cast to the emotionality and artistic execution of Zack Snyder's Justice League is so natural that it deserves to be personally analyzed by lovers of quality entertainment--and now that my non-spoiler review is out of the way, it is time to dive into specifics!

Production Values

With fight sequences that sometimes last around half an hour, this epic has the grandest action of the DCEU by far--but the action can have very personal experiences for the characters.  The final clash with Steppenwolf and his parademons before Aquaman, Superman, and Wonder Woman send his corpse through a portal to Darkseid is a masterful scene on the level of action and characterization.  Only just before the death of Steppenwolf, Cyborg has a very visually clever vision of the three Mother Boxes before him appearing as almost demonic figures, prompting him to announce that he has finally accepted his nature as a hybrid being, and just before that the Flash had to go several moments back in time when the Unity is formed, and Steppenwolf literally succeeds in killing the members of the League close to the Mother Boxes, as he thinks about his father.  None of this made it into the 2017 release of the film despite having a more cosmic and unique aesthetic in one general part of the movie than most other superhero franchises ever produce.

If the kinds of effects and character moments present in the final assault on Steppenwolf's forces were the only ones added, Zack Snyder's Justice League would already be one of the better superhero movies to be made.  Thankfully, this same level of characterization depth is gradually introduced all over the story, and Ray Fisher's Cyborg finally becomes a truly developed individual thanks to some excellent acting.  For instance, Fisher's facial expression just before the death of his mother displayed more intense emotion than some performers get to show across entire movies.  As for Steppenwolf, the emotion manifesting itself in his facial animations as he tries to receive Darkseid's attention and favor is similarly blatant, and details like his futuristic armor receding as he bows before Darkseid after finally getting to speak with him also reveal so much of his personality and aspirations (I am fully aware that the contents of other minds cannot be known based on outward observation of their bodies; I only mean this in terms of how things appear).

DC's Trinity of Batman, Wonder Woman, and Superman all benefit from their additional scenes or altered scenes.  There are many explicit and subtle hints as to where Snyder would take his sequels: Batman would try to fight Superman in a Knightmare Earth while eventually getting the chance to give his life for the world, Wonder Woman would die and potentially appear in an afterlife modeled after Greek mythology, and Superman would become so vulnerable after the eventual death of Lois Lane that he would submit to Darkseid's will.  The Knightmare scene of Batman v Superman shows in part what this future would would be like, but Zack Snyder's Justice League shows parts of just how Darkseid would reduce Earth to a wasteland.  Anyone who had difficulty understanding what the Knightmare scene of Batman v Superman foreshadowed can have a much easier time following what Snyder was setting up.  The script here is the pinnacle of the DCEU's worldbuilding.

Story

At last, viewers get to see everything from a physical manifestation of the Anti-Life Equation to Steppenwolf's distant homeworld of Apokolips.  His entire personal hope for his planned takeover of Earth is that he will use the victory--and his accidental discovery of the Anti-Life Equation--to persuade Darkseid to allow him to come back to his planet after a long and bitter exile.  Steppenwolf and DeSaad never specify just how the former betrayed Darkseid, but there are multiple references to a multiverse brought up in connection with the tyrant's own goals, affirming that the ruling and military class of Apokolips are capable of using technology to travel between separate universes, as seen when Darkseid's portal opens before Steppenwolf succeeds and then is killed when the Flash goes back in time.  Multiple Green Lanterns, living and dead, are also shown in scenes relevant to Darkseid's past and future, and the role of the Anti-Life Equation in this brutal ruler's pursuits is actually prominent and explained very well.  DC has never had a richer live action portrayal of its lore.

Intellectual Content

The characters take clear prominence over the exploration of any particular philosophical concepts, but Snyder and the cast handle the characters so well that this does not even obstruct the genuine depth of the movie despite a few asinine comments about the nature of reality--or at least comments that are careless and misleading at best.  There is not much to say here that I did not already place in this section of my non-spoiler review, so I will refer readers there if they wish to know what I wrote about the thematic side of the story.

Conclusion

Had Zack Snyder's Justice League released in 2017 with some of its runtime trimmed out for the sake of theatrical timeslots, the DCEU could have completely avoided its current drift into a random, loosely connected future with almost entirely reactionary plans made based on how audiences reacted to the last movie or two.  Yes, Shazam! is great as an action comedy, and Birds of Prey has some of the best action in the DCEU, but the general narrative shift of the DCEU after the theatrical Justice League has not been for the best in terms of ultimate coherence and collective storytelling.  Some of the plot elements Zack Snyder's Justice League hints at would help starkly distinguish the DCEU from the MCU and give more variety to the next iteration of superhero films.  If the DCEU was to be given even a flexible plan from which spin-offs and multiverse tales could spring forth with their own self-contained focus, both Snyder's elaborate, dark plans for the franchise and the less structured, lighter approach of other recent DC films could even work together.

Creation Ex Nihilo

Creation ex nihilo is a phrase associated with Genesis 1's creation theology, referring to the specifics of the way God created matter.  "Ex nihilo" might linguistically mean "from nothing" in its common usage, but what does it mean conceptually?  There are two distinct intentions behind the phrase that are likely to be used.  Only one of them even corresponds to a concept that is logically possible, and yet it is the other that seems to be behind the words of plenty of Christians when they speak of an "ex nihilo" act of creation.  The two possible meanings can be easily contrasted in part because one of them is so irrational.

If someone means by the phrase that the Biblical deity or the uncaused cause, which are the same entity in Christian theology, brought the cosmos into existence without reshaping matter that already existed, the phrase is not philosophically problematic (or Biblically erroneous).  If someone means that God created the universe using literally nothing, including his own power, then the phrase is obviously self-contradictory because the concept behind it contradicts itself.  The unfortunate fact is that making this distinction on any level seems foreign to many Christians.

Popular references to "creation ex nihilo" by Christian theologians might never distinguish these two concepts at all.  This only perpetuates confusion or fallacious beliefs among people who are so intellectually helpless that they truly think they have to look to popular theologians to even contemplate the logicality of concepts.  Of course, even popular theologians seem to rarely bring this issue up.  The phrase, as is so often the case with other terms, can be used so ambiguously that there is no linguistic evidence that the speaker or writer is even aware of the distinction!  Many Christians seem content to never challenge the latter of these two options.

Genesis clearly describes a specific beginning point for matter, but it also clearly does not say that the creation of matter marked the beginning of all existence.  If it did, it would contradict itself by saying God used nothing to create when he must by necessity at least use his own abilities, and if it stated that nothing at all existed before creation, it would likewise contradict its own teaching that God preceded nature--as well as contradict reason by entailing that logical truths did not exist prior to the external world even though they cannot not exist.

Creation ex nihilo is both a philosophically and Biblically valid concept only when it is not used to wrongly affirm the idea that God used nothing at all in the act of creation.  In one sense, it would be clear to a rational, thoughtful reader of the Bible that since God is something, a being, it is misleading at best to say "nothing" made the universe.  There would be no insistence that God created using nothing, only that there was no use of matter that existed before the universe (which would be a logical impossibility as it is).  The thing is that many Christian and non-Christian readers of the Bible are not rational and are thus likely to commit basic errors like this.

In Praise Of Fellow Rationalists

One of the greatest joys for me as a rationalist, after the direct personal experiences that came with actual certainty, originality, and confidence, has been interacting and becoming friends with the small number of fellow rationalists I have had the luck of meeting.  Reason grounds knowledge and thus social consensus is a red herring to this, and the universal accessibility of reason means other people are not ultimately necessary for one to discover purely logical truths, but there are still social pleasures to be found in rationalism.  A thorough embrace of rationalism gives two people with this in common much to talk about, even if the only new information will be stories of how the other party developed as a rationalist or dealt with the stupidity of non-rationalists.

It is stories of how others have developed as rationalists that I wish to focus on.  While such people are rare finds, treasures among the superficiality, apathy, and hypocrisy so much more easily found in others, I have several in my life whom I cherish as sisters and brothers I can relate to on a fuller level than would otherwise be the case.  Whether I have only met them online or have been with them person, each and every one of them is worthy of praise for their depth, intelligence, and love of truth in a world where so many prefer comforting assumptions or outright inconsistencies.  I would like to highlight two of them in particular here for specific ways that they have navigated life as rationalists--and rationalistic Christians at that, even if the accomplishments in question have more to do with their broad rationalism than their commitment to Christianity.

One of the two people I wish to laud has spent her life under the shadow of multiple mental health difficulties that go far beyond the more common kind of experiences with true mental illness.  I am honored to be her significant other and hear these stories about years past.  She has described intense panic attacks and periodic emotional-sensory issues that can make it incredibly difficult to remain rational, yet she clings to the laws of logic and the light they bring even in these traumatic circumstances.  Even most people who never claim to have any sort of regular, debilitating mental health issues do not even try very hard to understand reality in a rationalistic manner--literally anyone who tried hard enough could at least grasp the inherent truth and self-affirming nature of some logical axioms like the fact that truth exists.  If they had sincerely tried, no one would ever go years without grasping such utterly foundational yet thoroughly abstract truths about reality.

The second person I want to highlight once had a conversation with me where he said that he does not think he came to any philosophical belief purely on his own.  I am not sure if he meant that he had a lot of help from the small number of fairly rational people he knew when he was growing up or if he literally meant that there is perhaps no logical fact that he specifically came to without conversational prompting from others (or something similar), but, in either case, to so openly declare such a thing serves as immense evidence of deep humility.  It could be easy for certain people to make it seem as if they have discovered various logical truths, of either a more foundational or more hyper-specific kind, on their own when they did sometimes intentionally look to select others to prompt ideas and then only perhaps autonomously think about those ideas afterward.  Irrational people tend to talk as if they cannot fathom coming up with philosophical truths on their own, only to act cornered when someone points out their lack of intellectual initiative and autonomy.  This is not true of my friend in question!

These are just two of the fellow rationalists that have enriched my life with their mere presence, but there are others, like my best friend Gabi I have repeatedly mentioned since the start of my blog, who could be deservedly praised at length for their rationality and authenticity.  They are blatant examples I could point to of other people who are holistically characterized by concern for truth, venturing wherever reason leads them.  My rationalism, as theirs was in some cases, was a completely self-discovered worldview, but even for rationalists with this experience, bonding with others who understand and cling to rationalism is one of the most fulfilling parts of life.  The view of peak rationality and deep social intimacy as opposed to each other is just another fallacious error that those who have not conformed their worldviews to rationalism are often too stupid to fully reject.

Philosophy In Television (Part 4): The Stand (2020)

"I have your blood in my fists, old mother.  Pray your God takes you before you hear my boots on your steps."

--Randall Flagg, The Stand (season one, episode three)

Difficult circumstances have the tendency to bring people to contemplate explicitly philosophical things like the nature of reality, how to know if something is true, what priorities, if any, someone should have, and what they truly want out of life--things shied away from by the average person except in small, likely random doses.  In The Stand, a 2020 streaming adaption of the classic Stephen King novel, an apocalyptic virus nicknamed Captain Trips kills the majority of humans worldwide and clears the stage for the survivors to realize this exact truth, albeit in a fragmented, cloudy way due to the absence of true rationalism.  More specifically, the virus allows two figures to rally the often philosophically aimless survivors of the outbreak to their sides: Mother Abigail, a woman 108 years of age who calls to others in dreams and credits God with her ideology, and Randall Flagg, an alluring but predatory leader who likewise calls to others in dreams.

Mother Abigail makes enough statements about her theology to clarify that she is indeed referencing Yahweh when she mentions God, as she cites events involving Jesus, Jonah, and other Biblical figures.  Her leadership ultimately hinges in part on mysticism, even though she is connected to mass dreams that clearly transcend ordinary experiences, but, even so, in her best moments she resembles an Old Testament prophet who has the fortune of standing on a different historical side of the life of Jesus.  She at least admits that her (philosophically asinine) foundation of her relationship with God leaves enough "unknowns" that she needs to postpone certain decisions, even if her epistemology is irrationalistic some of the time if she believes more than what she can actually prove.

Still, Mother Abigail's telepathic dreams and her occasional prophecies that do come true establish that there truly is strong evidence that she does speak on God's behalf.  The fact that she is specifically a Christian theist gives her in-universe followers even more evidence than the present historical evidence that it is indeed Christianity that accurately describes the uncaused cause (which can be logically proven to exist regardless of what societal context or historical information one has access to).  Getting beyond the logical fact that an uncaused cause created time and the physical world is the part that a rational person handles by rationalistically assessing other evidences that might point to God having a certain nature, all of which falls short of logical proof, without actually believing in the unprovable and going past commitment to evidentially supported possibilities.

Randall Flagg, the "Dark Man" of New Vegas, has no concern for epistemological and metaphysical truths that do not help him maintain a psychological grip on his own subjects.  He displays extreme tyranny in his use of punishment methods like crucifixion (even though his style of it still goes nowhere near the cruelty of Roman crucifixions), his allowance of gladiator fights for entertainment, and his goals of subjugating outsiders for the sake of his own power instead of for the sake of truth.  Flagg's response to the apocalyptic outbreak and related breakdown of standard civilization is to merely manipulate people in an objectifying manner that treats them as nothing more than a means to a personal end so he can rule through offering pleasure and inspiring fear.

One of Mother Abigail's highest appointees eventually exposes how Flagg's influence is primarily rooted in fear instead of rational or moral authority, something that starts the process of eroding the irrationalistic support for Flagg in New Vegas.  This marks the beginning of his downfall.  Despite the blatantly supernatural power Flagg demonstrates throughout the series, his defeat comes shortly after due to what seems to literally be a highly abnormal kind of lightning directed by the deity of Mother Abigail.  The event destroys his New Vegas and at least silences Flagg for a time.  However, in the last scene, he is shown appearing to an isolated tribe of people untouched by the Captain Trips virus, a tribe that starts to revere him as if he is divine after he displays some of his powers.

The final scene of The Stand emphasizes that there will always be the possibility of human societies and the individuals within those societies being corrupted as long as humans exist.  There is no place, no matter how remote, that cannot be tainted with sin.  It does not even take an apocalyptic disaster to give everyday people the chance to seriously think about whether they want to side with truth or with selfish preferences that might promise convenience but lead to ideological stupor and possibly to destruction.  No one has to wait until a legitimate apocalypse to decide to stand on the side of reason and justice and stand against the arrogance, utilitarianism, and cruelty Flagg displays in the streaming adaption.  Even when faced with cataclysmic chaos, it takes a rare kind of person to not stray from the path of rationalism to the left or the right of truth in favor of potentially appealing assumptions and errors.

Gratuitous Fear Of 666

Offending the evangelical world intentionally or unintentionally can be quite an easy thing to accomplish.  All it takes to genuinely frighten or disturb some Christians is a joking mention of the number 666, as if the number is a conscious demon waiting to lunge at anyone who makes a joke about the unbiblical anxiety around the mere combination of three sixes!  Many Christians who would react with internal fright at such a thing inevitably fall into the evangelical camp of legalistic, irrationalistic "thinkers" who have not actually reflected on Revelation 13, the only book of the Bible that addresses the number 666 as something associated with a vile eschatological figure, very thoroughly.

Revelation 13 does not even provide much information about the association between the number and the best.  In fact, only a single verse mentions it at all.  At most, the chapter says that the figure referred to as the beast has the number 666 tied to it.  Since there is no verse in Revelation or other parts of the Bible detailing how to calculate the number of the beast using some elaborate system, one of the only likely meanings of this is that the beast's name, when the letters are interchanged for specific numbers, will have a total numeric value of 666.  If this is the case, several things would follow.

Depending on which number-letter system is used, a very large number of people throughout history could have had names that would "equal" 666 even if they did not in any way resemble the intensified depravity of the beast of Revelation 13.  On some such systems, my own name could be substituted for numbers that add up to 666!  The very process of attaching numbers to letters in any language is an arbitrary one that only tells someone the mostly unspectacular fact that some names could have certain numbers substituted for them.  If the number-letter system was switched, the beast's name could yield a completely different number.

Were it not for Revelation 13's brief references to the "number of a man" that the text identifies as 666, there would not even be any reason to reflect on 666 as a number in an eschatological context.  The only true connection between numbers, morality, and theism is that some things do or do not logically follow from them because logic governs all things.  Numbers pertain to quantities on a conceptual level when reduced down to their very foundation, and morality pertains to whether an action, motivation, or desire is or is not evil.  Numbers therefore have no inherent association with certain moral stances.

The number 666 and its Biblical link to the "beast" of Revelation can be referenced, joked about, and sarcastically or seriously alluded to without sinning (Deuteronomy 4:2).  Gratuitous fear of 666 is simply born from assumptions and fallacies, the same things many other theologically irrelevant fears come from.  Unless a person is literally identifying with a demonic entity or sincerely calling themselves the "beast," there is nothing to Biblically object to.  Evangelicals simply need to shed their legalistic inclinations in favor of a rationalistic understanding of Biblical concepts.  Only then will they truly understand what does and does not follow from something like the Bible's very limited reference to 666.

Movie Review--Zack Snyder's Justice League (Non-Spoiler Review)

"Before mighty Darkseid came to the throne, he searched the universe for the ultimate weapon.  The Anti-Life Equation."

--Steppenwolf, Zack Snyder's Justice League

The Joss Whedon theatrical version of Justice League is nowhere near the worst superhero movie--it is not even the worst one in the DCEU.  Suicide Squad and Aquaman take that status from even the most controversial fellow DCEU films.  The original tampered cut of Justice League had some scenes of promising action and showed a lot of worldbuilding potential at the cost of utter thematic shallowness, one of the most bland, pathetic villains in all of superhero film history, and attempts at humor that sometimes wholly contradicted the tone that earlier DCEU entries had set up.  It is with great relief and satisfaction that I realized Zack Snyder's Justice League is a vastly superior film.  It does not matter which aspect one focuses on--the characterization for both protagonists and antagonists, the urgency of the stakes, the worldbuilding, the comedy, the action, and the buildup to a very excellent finale all tower above the 2017 theatrical version.  Also, just for the sake of confirmation, yes, I will be publishing a spoiler review very soon!

Production Values

With the exception of a handful of scenes, the effects are largely better than those of Whedon's film.  Steppenwolf is a prime example.  Almost every detail of his appearance has been altered to make him more physically imposing, to let him show Akopolips technology in his armor, and to have him express far more emotion.  Orange electricity even arcs from his massive battle axe now.  The pathetic rendition of him in 2017 is left behind in full!  Other visual effects improvements affect things like the look of the parademon blood.  The soundtrack, crafted by Tom Holkenborg of Terminator: Dark Fate's own soundtrack, also has been enhanced with tracks that actually stand out from the more bland, generic scores of recent Marvel films.  However, by far the most important differences between this version of the movie and the last pertain to the characters.

Practically every major character and even some who were missing from the 2017 cut get at least one or two scenes that establish or portray something very personal about their character.  Aquaman's Vulko and Man of Steel's disguised Martian Manhunter are just two key examples.  Gone are the kinds of jokes that conflicted with the tone of Man of Steel, Batman v Superman, and the first Wonder Woman, replaced with new jokes that do not clash with the genuine gravity of the film's events.  Even the primary villain fares far better.  Not only is Steppenwolf animated much more competently to the point of not looking like a half-rendered PlayStation 3 era character model, but his face also shows conflict and hurt when he talks to DeSaad for the first time.  His true motivations surface and give his actions greater weight.  He does not even fight for ideological reasons like recent depictions of Thanos, Killmonger, and Ares; he wants something far less important but still quite personal.

How about the heroes themselves?  From Cyborg to Flash to the Amazons, the protagonists are all given more screen time, depth, eloquence, and significance regarding their place in the DCEU.  Zack Snyder understands the true power of Cyborg and the warrior nature of Wonder Woman.  The R-rated violence provides a much better context to showcase just how mighty the members of the League truly can be, and it does the same for other protagonists.  The very extended stand of the Amazons against Steppenwolf at times echoes Snyder's own 300--what is often rightly recognized as the best of his previous work for its grand spectacle and blend of fantasy and history, but his Justice League surpasses even this.  Even better than the action, though, is the genuine heart of the characters like Cyborg and Flash that comes across so clearly throughout the four hour runtime.

Story

Some general spoilers are below--but not more than I would normally spoil in an ordinary review of this kind.

The broad plot points of Zack Snyder's Justice League are the same as those of the Joss Whedon theatrical version.  When the death of Superman leaves Earth far more vulnerable to an extraterrestrial invasion, Steppenwolf of Apokolips begins finding the planet's three Mother Boxes so he can terraform the world by creating the Unity, a force created by combining all three artifacts to make a replica of the homeworld Apokolips.  Darkseid, the tyrant who exiled Steppenwolf for some act of betrayal, demands that he conquer numerous planets in his name before he can return.  Meanwhile, Bruce Wayne desperately tries to form a group of metahumans and other powerful beings to repel the impending attack of Darkseid's representatives.  One thing this cut does so much better is actually show things like how Steppenwolf locates the Mother Box held by the Atlanteans and how other things happen so much more smoothly than before.

Intellectual Content

Zack Snyder's Justice League is actually less philosophically oriented than Batman v Superman, which had many obvious and subtle themes about the morality of power and even touched on the comparison of Superman to Jesus in very explicit.  What it does instead is focus on characters that seem very realistic in their griefs, trials, hopes, and fears.  Even Steppenwolf has a scene that conveys his genuine pain because of his exile.  It is this kind of characterization that grants a film true depth even with little to no intentional, major emphasis on philosophical issues.  Still, there are hints at explicitly theological themes like the way that the world (as a whole or in more limited locations) has a reverence for Superman and another member of the League that is comparable to religious respect.  Not all of this more theological bent is philosophically valid, as is the case when Bruce Wayne and Alfred have a brief discussion about faith and reason that misunderstands the nature of both.  Knowing something is hypothetically possible and hoping to accomplish it is not the same as having faith, which would be believing that one knows the outcome--that is what faith would mean in the specific context in which Bruce claims to have faith.  Furthermore, Alfred talks about Bruce's intellect as if it is synonymous with "his" reason, as if the laws of logic are subjective to each individual's level of personal comprehension and not laws that objectively govern all aspects of reality no matter how much they are misunderstood or ignored.

Conclusion

Never before have I seen a director's cut that restores the original vision for such an epic film before.  Zack Snyder has accomplished with his long cut of the movie--a cut that is probably even much longer than what would have been in his own version of the 2017 theatrical cut had it been released instead--what the DCEU needed and deserves: a weighty, character-driven tale that dives into the expansive lore of DC while at least building on the philosophical themes of earlier films.  Even if it never leads to the "Knightmare"-type sequels where Darkseid's forces occupy Earth, Zack Snyder's Justice League would be a grand sendoff to the best storyline the DCEU has at this point.  Because of the lack of unified storytelling as desired by current Warner Bros. leadership, it would be asinine, a sign of further thoughtlessness and randomness on the part of company figures, if Snyder's ideas were completely disregarded.

Content:

 1.  Violence:  This truly is the melding of Zack Snyder's style of action from 300 and Batman v Superman.  Limbs are severed, blood spurts out of bodies, and, in one scene, a parademon is impaled on debris.  Many characters are hurled at walls or stones in expressions of great strength.

 2.  Profanity:  The multiple uses of "fuck" or "fucking" alone would earn the film its R rating, but "shit," "bitch," and "bastard" all get used at least once.

Not Knowing A Truth Does Not Damn One To Errors

There is a fact about knowledge and ignorance that could bring relief and liberation to some who are turning from fallacies to truth: someone who has yet to recognize a particular truth is not fated to embrace an error in the meantime.  Even someone who has failed to reason out very basic, foundational aspects of reality, such as that reason cannot be attacked without being affirmed in the process, can remain ignorant without actually going so far as to make an assumption or contradict their own self in the meantime.  Reasoning logical facts out might take plenty of effort at first, but it also takes at least some mental effort to embrace something without contemplating it or rationally proving it.  Otherwise, one could never align with or oppose any particular idea!

An example is not needed to understand that not yet knowing something does not free someone to either make an assumption or construct a false belief, yet it can still be helpful regardless.  For instance, it is possible to not know that an external world exists without believing that there is no external world.  Many people profess to believe a world of matter outside of their consciousness exists without having ever arrived at the only logical proof of such a thing, which I have detailed here [1] and elsewhere, which means that even though it is true that there is an external world and true that this can be proven, they do not have the intellectual right to believe it exists for their current reasons.  Either way, however, it would be asinine to believe that matter is an illusion--even if it could not be proven to exist or not exist.

Ignorance, even completely avoidable ignorance of how logical axioms cannot be false and how perception of any kind proves that one's consciousness exists, never pushes someone to a fallacious belief on its own.  Whether the belief itself is true or false is a separate matter; the point at hand is that it remains true that no one is forced to embrace a fallacy simply because they have not thought deeply about a given issue.  For this reason, no one deserves special treatment for their philosophical mistakes simply because they did not think about some logical fact properly beforehand.  An ignorant person can still realize that they are ignorant and refrain from siding with assumptions even when they do not deeply understand the epistemological necessity or possibility of making no assumptions whatsoever in a direct search for truth.

This is a freeing truth about knowledge and belief: no one is doomed to believe falsities even when they have not personally pursued logical truths with full awareness of their infallibility.  In fact, a person is ironically closer to rationality when they have not taken the side of assumption or error than when they choose to not consciously think about an issue at all.  Ignorance of the only self-evident truths (the ones that cannot be denied without contradiction and therefore error, like the fact that deductive reasoning inherently leads to fixed truths and the fact that one's own consciousness exists) at least does not become an embrace of falsehoods left to itself.  In order to take that step, someone must commit a double treason against logic by ignoring it despite its omnipresence and inherent veracity and then by believing something that contradicts it.

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

The Rains Of Castamere: The Disguised Selfishness Of Tywin Lannister

"'And who are you,' the proud lord said, 'that I must bow so low? / Only a cat of a different coat, that's all the truth I know / In a coat of gold or a coat of red, a lion still has claws / Mine are long and sharp like yours, as long and sharp as yours' / And so he spoke, and so he spoke, that lord of Castamere / And now the rains weep o'er his hall, and not a soul to hear . . ."
--The Rains of Castamere, Game of Thrones


Family is far from an inherently positive thing.  Some families and cultures would rather look the other way and hold families to a different standard than they do individuals, treating the former as if they deserve unconditional, automatic loyalty and individuals as if they must earn respect.  Since families are comprised of people, entire families do not deserve affection or personal loyalty by default any more than individuals!  This is not the case according to the flawed worldview of Tywin Lannister as he expresses it, as he claims that by virtue of outlasting the individual, family becomes a thing of utmost importance that transcends the individual in its value.  This, of course, is asinine nonsense: that one thing lasts longer than another does not establish that it has the cosmic significance Tywin attributes to family.  Family can perish just like individuals, which negates at least part of his basis for regarding it so highly, but lasting longer than an individual life

In the name of family, Tywin Lannister ordered or overlooked atrocities performed by his own soldiers, including murder and rape.  One of the most renowned of his atrocities in Westeros, even if it is not the worst, is the annihilation of House Reyne, an event thrust into public consciousness by the song The Rains of Castamere.  His arrogance based on the Lannister name and his fixation on preserving family influence underpinned his slaughter of the remnants of a house that had already surrendered.  When House Reyne refused to submit to Lannister rule, Tywin acted to inspire fear of his family line by destroying the remnants of a house that had already surrendered.

Tywin has only disguised his own arrogance and selfishness by putting a transparent cloak of family allegiance around them, all while deluding himself into acting like he is not the type of prideful figure the song of his victory over the Reynes characterises the lord of Castamere as.  Praising little other than the supposed lasting nature of family, he provides no genuine evidence that he is concerned with reason, truth, and morality for their own sakes.  If he consistently cared at all about such things, he would not let the savage Ser Gregor, also called "the Mountain," use mass rape and murder as weapons of terror, nor would he authorize the torture of captives or his own soldiers (as happened at Harenhall in season two of the HBO series).

The Lannister family is riddled with self-delusion, but Tywin does more to outwardly defend that delusion and make it appear as if it was royalty.  In doing so, his character provides an excellent example of the folly of prioritizing family over anything else by default.  Family can be a haven from the lunacy of others or a chief contributor to the stupidity or injustices a person will encounter.  Allegiance to family based on the biological link will never allow a person to fully understand which their family is, and it keeps people bound to an ideological prison that can be easily escaped with awareness and effort.  Whatever siblings and parents one may have, like all other people, stand or fall on their own merits rather than their blood relationships.

An Antidote To Sexual Anxieties

Deeply entrenched prudery has made sexuality seem like a forbidden subject to many Americans, but the irrational fixation on a handful of comparatively trivial sexual sins has kept the church as a whole in fear of nonsinful sexual impulses and behaviors.  One consequence is that nonsexual behaviors and clothing (aka, all types of clothing [1]) might be universally or at least largely perceived as sexual, with real or perceived sexual connotations seen as vile rebellion against God's wishes.  Christians usually misdefine lust as sexual attraction or excitement and thus feel trapped when a desire to be righteous does not make them asexual beings--after all, sexual feelings and attractions are not themselves sinful!

Even Christians that have shed the sexual legalism of the evangelical world, a false ideology which has seemingly been present in some form since the beginning of Christianity, can find themselves struggling to feel at peace with their sexualities after they no longer believe unbiblical ideas about sexual morality.  Even worse, those who adhere to sexual legalism may feel like they have committed some sort of cosmic treason against God simply by letting themselves dwell on sexual attraction to the opposite gender even though God himself created human sexuality.

For Christians that fall in both categories, directly exposing themselves to the human body can be an instrumental part of emotionally accepting their sexualities, as becoming accustomed to the nonsexuality of the body while not panicking if sexual attraction occasionally surfaces is a vital experience.  There is nothing to fear if there is no sexual attraction or arousal when men and women see each other's bodies; there is nothing to fear if there is sexual attraction and physiological arousal when men and women see each others bodies.  Some people may not be able to fully affirm this beyond intellectual recognition until they let themselves experience it.

One of the best things that a Christian man or woman struggling with controlling how they act upon their sexual attractions is experiencing the nonsexual nature of the human body more directly.  It might seem counterproductive to some, but the kind of person who would regard exposure to the human body as problematic for their personal self-control is exactly the kind of person who needs to become familiar with the sight and thought of the opposite gender's body.  Fighting the urge to look at and contemplate God's ultimate physical creation does not help anyone develop self-control.

The experience of seeing the human body in nonsexual contexts can greatly facilitate the psychological transformation of someone who was once immersed in a culture of legalism.  Acknowledging, viewing, and appreciating the human body can be the antidote to the emotional and spiritual difficulties that come from the heresy of those who think the Bible prescribes prudery.  With a rational understanding of both sexuality and their own selves, anyone who has been deeply affected by sexual legalism might feel free to both bask in their sexual attractions to the opposite gender (some members of them) and exalt the nonsexual sensuality of the human body without fear of sinning.


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

Movie Review--Doom: Annihilation

"Earth was theirs long before it was ours.  Language, science, math, they gave us everything.  Without them, we couldn't evolve."

--Dr. Malcolm Bertruger, Doom: Annihilation

The atrocious 2005 Doom movie with Dwayne Johnson and Karl Urban is no longer the only film based on the Doom video game franchise.  Thankfully, it is also not the best one.  2019's Doom: Annihilation towers above the nonsense of the previous attempt to translate Doom into the cinematic format in many ways.  Its very limited budget is apparent in scenes involving outward CGI shots of a base on Phobos, but at least the acting and execution of the setup's promise are handled well in spite of the small resources behind the film.  The acting actually elevates characterization that in many cases is not especially extensive (though some characters do stand out in this area).  Annihilation is even a far better work of entertainment overall than the first two Doom games [1], which, despite offering great combat and exploration for their time, had some of the most lackluster storytelling, lore building, and thematic structure of any game I have ever played.

Production Values

Even though the aforementioned small budget is very noticeable in some shots of a base on a Mars moon from the outside, most of the sets do a very effective job of having the appearance that might be expected from a higher budget.  A scene near the very end set in Hell itself actually has the best of the non-practical effects.  This same scene, like many of the others, captures the thematic essence of Doom as a series quite well.  However, there is no Doom Slayer to rescue the main characters from Hell's demons.  The handful of Marines introduced in one of the first scenes fight the aliens alone.  Not every Marine gets the same amount of character development, but Amy Manson's Lieutenant Joan Dark serves as a more nuanced replacement for "Doomguy," otherwise known as the Doom Slayer.  Another actor stands out very distinctly for his intensity and sincerity: Dr. Malcolm Betruger in particular is realized very well by Dominic Mafham's performance--in fact, he towers above the other cast members to the point of eclipsing even Amy Manson, whose Joan Dark is the main protagonist.

Betruger's name actually calls back to a character in Doom 3 with the exact same name and title, one of many connections to the ideas used in video game series.  A host of other references to Doom lore and even a reference to Wolfenstein, another first-person shooter franchise from the creators of the Doom games, are scattered throughout the runtime so that observant series fans are rarely more than a short time away from seeing or hearing more.  One of the more obvious ones is a statement made when Lieutenant Joan Dark obtains the BFG (an acronym for Big Fucking Gun), casually referring to it as a "big fucking gun."  Others include an AI called Daisy (the name of Doomguy's pet rabbit in the older games) and the identification of Sergeant William Blazkowicz's corpse, Blaskowicz being the primary protagonist of the Wolfenstein games.

Story

Some spoilers are below, but the basic premise is that of the original Doom, Doom 3, and the 2016 Doom reboot.

When Union Aerospace Corporation (UAC) scientists successfully teleport a human from and back to a base on the Mars moon Phobos, hell spills over as alien life forms invade the facility, possessing the noncombatants present and setting the stage for a planned demonic takeover of Earth.  A group of UAC soldiers is tasked with securing the facility after communication stops, finding the base overrun after the teleportation experiments.  Soon after, alien beings hunt them, which forces the surviving team members to attempt an escape using the teleporter that started the UAC's dangerous investigation.  Evidence comes to light suggesting that the alien life forms actually gave the Sumerian language to humans and potentially intervened at other points in history.

Intellectual Content

Like Prometheus, Doom: Annihilation touches upon theological issues by having a main character who lost her parents have a personal connection to a religion (seemingly Christianity), and, as with Prometheus once again, the "ancient astronaut" concept of aliens interfering with humans thousands or millions or years ago has a central place in the story.  The Hell of the film is a physical realm inhabited by organized extraterrestrial creatures of different appearances that have used teleporters to visit Earth and directly impact human societies.  In this rendition of the Doom universe, the extraterrestrials seem to have given humans ancient languages and helped accelerate mathematical and scientific discoveries, as Dr. Betruger says, but his statement that they provided humans with language, mathematics, and science is misleading at best even in the context of the fictional universe.

Language is a social construct by default, so even if the demons gave humans a specific language, they are not responsible for either the human ability to use language or for any languages that preceded or followed their arrival.  Mathematical knowledge--knowledge of actual truths pertaining to numbers and not arbitrary ideas that are associated with mathematics in the present day (like certain unverifiable cosmological notions)--is immediately accessed on some level by everyone who realizes that one number is distinct from another, both on the purely abstract plane of numeric concepts and the plane of physical matter which could not be outside the necessary truths of math.  Regarding science, again, the demons could only have introduced certain ideas beyond immediately perceived scientific laws at an earlier time than humans might have discovered them later.

Of course, the UAC member who makes the false claim that humans owe potentially "everything" to the demons only reflects a broader range of fallacious ideas held by workers of the UAC.  Another scientist insists that "We are violating the laws of physics" when testing the teleportation gates created by alien life, as if manipulating the unimpeded laws of physics is the same as violating them.  Violating the laws of physics requires a superhuman ability to control the behavior or existence of matter in a sense far beyond using gravity, electricity, or some other natural phenomena to manipulate each other or create something new.  Manipulating laws of nature (which are contingent on matter and the uncaused cause that created the universe and could even change at any time as it is) for specific ends is the most that humans can hope for, and the separate laws of logic that are necessary, abstract, and fixed, unlike scientific laws, cannot even be manipulated due to their intrinsic veracity.

Conclusion

Doom: Annihilation would have certainly benefited from a larger budget, but it does honor many norms of the game franchise while taking a more directly intellectual approach to a familiar premise.  This is fairly unique in comparison to many of the Doom games: while they are all excellent representatives of the FPS genre from their respective times in gaming history, very few of them even start to provide detailed lore or thematic depth.  The 2016 Doom and, to a much greater extent, the recent Doom Eternal do have far more developed lore and exploration reminiscent of Metroid Prime, yet most of the lore in the 2016 game is found in optional collectibles.  This means Doom: Annihilation actually has some of the strongest immediate worldbuilding of anything that bears the Doom name.  That a massive budget is ideal for an adaption like this does not mean the movie does not have its very competent aspects.  In spite of the popular criticisms of Annihilation, this much is clear.

Content:

 1.  Violence:  True to the game series the film is based on, Doom: Annihilation has many scenes of dismemberment, shooting, and general savagery (not that killing with guns is savage at all on its own!).  Severed body parts are shown onscreen several times.

 2.  Profanity:  "Shit" and "fuck" are used multiple times.

[1].  See here:

 A.  https://thechristianrationalist.blogspot.com/2020/03/game-review-doom-1993-switch.html

 B.  https://thechristianrationalist.blogspot.com/2020/02/game-review-doom-ii-switch.html

The Epistemological And Metaphysical Nature Of Logic

Realizing that some things conceptually follow from others and that this form of sound deductive reasoning cannot be false--or else it would still be true, as its own falsity would require that some things still follow from certain ideas--is one of the vital first steps in understanding anything about reality with absolute certainty.  There is no point in epistemology where one has escaped logical axioms even if the issue being contemplated is not about the very foundations of knowledge or the attainability of absolute certainty.  In this regard, the self-evidence of logic is always confronted even when it is not considered or recognized.

Even years of constant reflection on the self-verifying nature of reason and logical axioms might not get a person to the realization that logic is not merely an epistemologically true method of understanding things other than itself.  Its nature exceeds this, as if having all epistemological matters hinge on logic is not significant enough: reason is a metaphysical thing.  It is a set of necessary truths and laws that exist without depending on anything else, whereas everything else that exists, nonphysical or physical, only exists out of logical necessity or logical possibility.  In fact, logic is the one thing that spans all of reality without relying on anything other than itself, but it is also the only thing that cannot not exist due to its own nature.

Epistemology and metaphysics are inseparably intertwined in that one cannot know anything apart from one's own existence and grasp of reason, both of which are things that actually exist.  Knowledge stands on metaphysics.  The epistemological nature of logic can nonetheless be distinguished from its metaphysical nature.  The vast majority of people who intentionally share their philosophical ideas seem to not even understand the epistemological nature of reason, much less its metaphysical nature that can be revealed by sound epistemology.  Logic, when it is considered directly, is more likely to be mistaken for a process, personal comprehension, or a means to an end than a thing that truly exists in its own right.

If God and the universe themselves ceased to exist, reason would still exist because nothing can remove that which must exist due to intrinsic necessity.  Certain conclusions would still follow from certain premises, and certain necessary premises would still be true: there would still be a reality and all logical truths, including that specific conclusions follow from premises which would not be true in such a scenario, would still possess inherent veracity.  Reason is so much more than an epistemological tool or just one of several "ways of thinking."  It is the set of laws that dictate what must be true!

These distinctions are of the utmost importance in both understanding the nature of reason to the fullest extent possible and identifying certain truths that have been neglected or contradicted by almost everyone one could either converse with or find in the historical record [1].  Both goals are philosophically significant.  All the same, both appear to have few concerned with them.  Some truths are only realized by a minority of devoted rationalists, such as the metaphysically necessary existence of reason in the absence of all other things, and some truths I plan on addressing in future articles may not have even been discovered by others at all apart (I have hinted at this set of potentially unheard of philosophical truths before, such as here [2]), and this matter falls into the first of the two categories.

[1].  https://thechristianrationalist.blogspot.com/2018/12/a-list-of-neglected-truths.html

[2].  https://thechristianrationalist.blogspot.com/2020/04/online-information-storage-part-2.html

The Stupidity Of America's Drinking Age

Not everyone has to push back against the desire to abuse alcohol because not everyone has a desire to abuse alcohol or to even use it to begin with, but intelligence and self-control are not connected to someone's age.  Someone under the age of 21 is therefore not lacking in self-awareness and self-control simply because they are younger than 21--if they even wish to drink alcohol at all.  Biases against teenagers and young men and women because of their relative youth have simply convinced many Americans that a minimum legal drinking age (MLDA) is necessary due to slippery slopes.

Indeed, slippery slopes are all that MLDA proponents can appeal to besides mere feelings, preferences, or agreement.  The mere possibility that someone under 21 could abuse alcohol is often all it takes for a MLDA to be encouraged.  Deterrence is often the objective, even though deterrence does not make a law just; it is a happenstance byproduct of laws regardless of whether or not they are just, and whether they deter someone is a purely subjective matter.  Subjectively discouraging people from merely using alcohol before their 21st birthday is incapable of being a legitimate foundation for law.

A minimum drinking age law does not prevent teenagers or young adults from using alcohol if they have the opportunity and desire, but laws, by their own nature, have no power to override anyone's will.  Even if drinking age laws could somehow prevent violation automatically, though, it is asinine to treat laws as if they have any basis unless they reflect moral obligations that deserve to be codified by legal systems.  Utilitarian concerns, emotional security, conscience, personal preference, and collective agreement are philosophically invalid reasons to erect a law to begin with.

Biases against the young are just as erroneous as biases against the old, and the belief that everyone under 21 is incapable of handling alcohol in a morally and personally responsible way is a clear example of a bias against the young.  Assumptions and stereotypes, being irrational and fallacious, have nothing to do with what ideas should be codified into a nation's legal system.  Setting a minimum legal drinking age at 21 is arbitrary, unhelpful, and, most importantly, inherently irrational.  There is no particular age past which anyone is intellectually, morally, and spiritually mature.

Philosophy In Television (Part 3): 11.22.63

". . . the past doesn't want to be changed.  There are times when you feel it pushing back . . ."
--Al Templeton, 11.22.63 (episode one)

11.22.63, based on the Stephen King novel of the same name, explicitly distances itself from the type of storytelling that denies a forward flow of events from past to present to future, defying longstanding trends in entertainment that portray the relationship between past and future in a backwards or otherwise impossible way.  Its tale of a man utilizing a bizarre characteristic of a present day building to travel to the 1960s offers a time travel system without the same contradictions that have become fairly standard.  Its supernatural tale is thus able to potentially help philosophically muddled viewers who have accepted the contradictions of other works as "hypothetical possibilities" better understand the true nature of time.

The show follows a teacher named Jake Epping as he is introduced to the ability of a neighbor's closet to transport him to the same location at a specific time in October of 1960.  Al Templeton, the man who owns the diner with the closet in question, says that each time someone goes to the past, only two minutes have passed by the time they return, no matter how long they might have stayed in the 60s.  Actions performed in 1960 can change the future; however, returning to the past resets whatever actions were taken in the last visit to that part of the timeline.  If a time traveler wanted the changes to remain, Al insists, they must not return.  The stakes of a successful attempt to change the past in the desired way are too high to undo them with a subsequent visit.

Al hopes that Jake can prevent the assassination of John F. Kennedy and thus avert the Vietnam War.  He needs Jake to first stay "undercover" for three years, discover if Lee Harvey Oswald truly did shoot JFK, and stop the killing from ever occurring.  Of course, since 11.22.63 acknowledges that the past necessarily leads to the future and thus shapes it, unlike the logically impossible kind of time travel described (but not shown) in something like Avengers: Endgame, none of the same obvious contradictions and therefore impossibilities that plague plenty of other mainstream time travel stories blemish the Stephen King adaption.  One thing that 11.22.63 does work into its story of time travel is the way in which vital events can be genuinely thwarted and yet still occur or almost occur for a reason other than the causal chain stopping.

X-Men: Days of Future Past and Terminator: Dark Fate have included a similar concept in their plots, with particular events of an apocalyptic nature either occurring even after their first iteration was averted or being discussed as if they might be inevitable, even if the surrounding events are changed.  11.22.63 shares this story element, as Al warns Jake not to "fuck" with the past or else it will "fuck" right back with him.  In both of the formerly mentioned cases, decisions made out of free will only changed the circumstances around how the key events eventually came about.  In 11.22.63, it seems as if free decisions can still prevent some obstacles to the mission, only for others to replace them.

No event, not even the creation of the universe and of time itself, has to happen.  There is nothing about a particular event that cannot not be part of reality in the way that the truth of logical axioms is inherent in all possible realities where other aspects are different.  Perhaps an attempt to postpone or prevent a certain event will somehow lead to it.  Perhaps something that truly was stopped will happen for an unrelated reason.  Nonetheless, in no case it logically necessary for a specific occurrence to happen instead of another logically possible event.  Two things make the future malleable and allow for this: the fact that anything that is logically possible could happen even if most possible events will not and the ability for humans to make decisions.

I have yet to see a work of entertainment specifically point out how merely visiting the past would not dramatically transform the future on its own without a time traveler going beyond merely observing.  After all, an atemporal or omniscient being (like God) could see the future without affecting it because observation is not manipulation.  Even a human who traveled from the then-present to the past will not necessarily have affected anything more than trivial events simply by going back in time.  At the very least, 11.22.63 does not succumb to the popular errors of having past events hinge on future events happening first (as in The Terminator, Interstellar, and Blair Witch) or Endgame's impossible concept of the past not impacting the future, which the plot of the film itself contradicted.  It just shows that altering the past could be a process with "pushback."

Science's Irrelevance To Existentialism

For one reason or another, atheists and mainstream Christian apologists sometimes bring up the topic of the destruction of the universe as if it is of grand importance to whether objective values exist.  Atheists might say that the finite life of the universe (as if its end is logically certain as opposed to probabilistically suggested) gives temporary human lives existential significance and urgency, while some theists treat the end of the physical universe as if this is what leads to nihilism on an atheistic framework.  Both of these stances regard the universe as of deep existential significance when this is not the case at all.  It is actually not particularly noteworthy in a scientific existentialist sense because logical and ultimate metaphysical truths, not science, are more immediately relevant to issues of meaning.  In fact, a deeper truth about the concept of the universe ceasing to exist is that such an end is actually irrelevant to the issue of whether or not existence has any meaning!

Why should anyone care?  There is no objective reason to care--not in a strictly logical sense or in the sense of scientific or Biblical evidence.  It is not that the death of the universe might have existential significance or relate to the possibility of objective meaning even though such a thing cannot be proven, but that the existence or nonexistence of the universe has no bearing on existential matters at all on its own.  In fact, the whole of science itself is a red herring to core issues of existentialism, epistemology, and metaphysics.  Subjective desires for meaning are matters of introspection that have no inherent connection to awareness of the universe, and the concept of objective meaning is philosophically connected to specific kinds of theism.

So what if the universe will end at some future point?  So what if the universe will last forever?  Although scientific and Biblical evidence both favor the first of the two possibilities, the former suggesting an eventual degradation of the cosmos and the latter predicting at least a grand destruction and rebuilding of the cosmos, the existence or nonexistence of objective meaning does not come down to how long the physical world will persist.  Existential significance of an objective kind would transcend the world of matter; existential feelings of fulfillment on a subjective level are inherently meaningless on their own because they have no connection to whether objective meaning does or does not exist.

If life is objectively meaningless, even a future-eternal universe cannot change that fact.  If life is objectively meaningful, the looming end of the universe would not change that fact.  The irrelevance of the universe's existence would not even have to be thought about or brought up at all in this context except to dismiss it as a red herring, and even then it would not even necessarily be thought of unless someone else mentioned it!  Of course, most people merely believe that there is an external world because there seems to be one, meaning that they do not know how to even prove that matter itself exists in the first place--though such a thing is entirely possible, albeit very specific to the point of being almost unheard of from non-rationalists [1].  The belief that the end of the universe has existential ramifications for human life in the sense of significance, therefore, is an unprovable assumption based on an unnecessary assumption that a world exists.

Theists who think that scientific evidence for an eventual end of the cosmos is somehow relevant to the logical fact that the existence of a deity with a moral nature is the only way for meaning to exist are delusional.  So, too, are atheists who think that the existence of a material world has anything to do with some cosmic meaning except as a mere background issue.  It does not follow from something lasting forever that it therefore has or does not have meaning, and it does not follow from something being temporary that it has or does not have meaning.  The universe itself has no grand status on its own.  Inevitably, any meaning or purpose (and the two are distinct) reduces down to an issue of theism, yet even the provable existence of an uncaused cause [2] does not automatically mean that cosmic significance, or existential meaning, exists.

Logic, people.  It is very fucking helpful.

[1].  https://thechristianrationalist.blogspot.com/2017/07/dreams-and-consciousness.html

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

Probabilistic Patterns

Logical deductions are infallibly certain as long as no assumptions are made and the starting premise is verifiably true.  The only way they can be false is if they are true, since even logic being false would mean that some things necessarily follow from others--for example, it would follow from logic being false that logic would not provide absolute certainty.  If it does not follow from a verifiable idea that another idea is true, then anyone who believes otherwise has accepted something based on an assumption, not on purely rational deduction.  "Inductive" reasoning, which extrapolates unverifiable patterns from individual events or units, does not establish any grander truth than the premise it starts with even if someone uses it "correctly."

Many people still openly assume that inductive reasoning is philosophically valid, or at least they act exactly like they would if they held this belief, which can only be held by an intentional or unintentional assumption.  The mere mention of the logical fact that one cannot know if patterns in our sensory experiences--experiences that can seem very stable, at that--will continue is enough to confuse or even frustrate them.  Of course, when they appeal to the supposed knowability of a pattern's continued occurrence in the future, they must appeal to ignorance, emotion, authority, or popularity.  They have no way whatsoever to prove that something like gravitation or electricity will persist.  Furthermore, if they do persist, these blind advocates of inductive reasoning have no way to prove that they will continue without some major change.

There is no way to prove exactly how probable it is that a car will turn on when the keys are inserted and twisted, how probable it is that the sun will rise tomorrow, or how probable it is that Jesus rose from the dead in terms of mathematical percentages.  There is not even a way to know every variable and relevant piece of evidence!  In the case of the former two examples, the sharp distinction between correlation and causation means no amount of repetition proves the same events will occur after that which has always preceded them, and in the case of the latter, there is no way to even know exactly how many unbiased historical texts support the resurrection of Jesus.  How many honest or dishonest documentations of his life may have been lost?

To think of probabilities of this sort in mathematical terms is asinine.  Every probabilistic claim is either true or false, and only whether the claim is true or false is up in the air without a way to even know if 20%, 76%, or some other percentage of the available evidence slants in favor of one possibility or the other.  What can be known is that one of the two exclusive possibilities regarding whether a given claim/idea is true or false must be correct, that certain things follow or do not follow from either possibility, that there is or is not accessible evidence for one possibility or the other, and that the inherent truth of logical facts is unaffected by unknown probabilities.  None of this makes it 90% probable that the sun will rise tomorrow (or makes any other specific percentage valid).

Nonetheless, we are left with genuine evidence that the sun will rise again in the form of memories of the pattern of sunset and later sunrise, even if memory and sensory perceptions fall short of proving anything other than recalled experiences.  One can still reflect on memories of the sun rising and setting; one can still analyze those memories and the concepts of things like the sun's rising and setting.  Genuine probabilistic patterns are supported by evidence.  There is nevertheless also evidence that points to key disruptions of certain probabilistic patterns, such as the position hat Jesus resurrected.  For multiple reasons, including the absolute certainty and therefore non-probabilistic nature of sound logical deductions and the possibility or probability of abnormal events, probabilism is not the height of epistemology.