Clothing Is Not What Separates Humans From Animals

When other excuses for universally opposing public nudity are refuted, one may hear the assertion that clothing must be worn to emphasize the elevation of humans over animals, as if covering the body displays our greater theological importance.  It is used more seldomly than many other objections to nudity, but this does not make it any more difficult to defeat.  This idea has absolutely no basis in the Bible, even though evangelicals are perhaps the most likely to agree with it.

Conservative prudery is almost inevitably what motivates claims like this, and evangelical Christians are quite likely to agree with this idea.  Ironically, the first chapters of Genesis attribute the key differences between humans and animals to something far more significant than the gratuitous wearing of clothes.  Clothing was not even something that God intended humans to regularly wear, or else he would not have created humans naked (Genesis 2:25).

It is not clothing that distinguishes humans from animals, but the metaphysical differences entailed by God's image (Genesis 1:26-27).  Theologically speaking, humans are separated from animals due to resembling the nature of God more closely than animals do, not because of either bodily differences or clothing that hides the body.  The Bible does not clarify the full nature of God's image, but God is described as having characteristics that are also held by humans (like sentience).

The true phenomenology of animals is barred from access to non-telepathic beings like myself, and thus it is hypothetically possible that animals have the same capacity for abstract reasoning as humans even if it cannot be proven.  However, humans have observable characteristics that animals do not: thoroughly developed languages, social depth that transcends that of animals, and overt displays of spirituality.  These things are noticed by practically everyone during their lives.

The inner thoughts of animals, if they are indeed conscious (even other human minds cannot be known to exist), may ultimately mirror ours, but the aforementioned outward features distinguish humans from animals, and every single one of them seems related to the nature of Yahweh.  After all, the early chapters of Genesis portray him as a deity who desired to create human minds in order to communicate with them.

In light of this, only Christians guilty of fallacious eisegesis would hold that clothing theologically separates humans from the other creatures God created.  Their stance is easily defeated on both logical and Biblical grounds!  As with many other instances of opposition to nonsinful displays of the human body, traditions of prudery and a reluctance to give up assumptions are to blame for this pathetic belief.

Balance For The Sake Of Balance

Balance is not always necessary or helpful.  No one needs to sometimes kidnap people and sometimes refrain.  No one grows as a person or accomplishes anything but a lapse into stupidity if they yield to emotionalism.  Where balance is something needed or helpful, it is not because balance, real or perceived, makes something true; it is truth that balance hinges on, and it is impossible for it to ever be the other way around.  Prizing balance for the sake of balance entails a disregard for truth that treats truth as if it hinges on balance, when without truth there would be nothing to know about balance in the first place because there would be no facts about it.

Should someone strive to be partly just and partly unjust?  What if they sometimes murdered or raped people and sometimes did not?  That would be a life of balance.  As a moment of rationalistic contemplation reveals, if something truly is unjust, no one should ever practice it and everyone should oppose it, and most people who pay lip service for balance do not really want balance in everything.  Balance is irrelevant to matters of truth, reason, and justice.  Should someone strive to be partly rationalistic and partly emotionalistic, or perhaps partly concerned with philosophical truths and partly concerned with shallow pursuits?  Again, a second of rationalistic reflection is all that is necessary to expose how self-refuting any rejection of reason and motivation for sidestepping truth is.

A life of total balance would not just mean that a person stops at making time for both deep relationships and professional work or enjoying different kinds of foods on different occasions.  These are specific, limited applications of balance that are helpful for a life of flourishing, but even they are not necessary for either subjective happiness or personal alignment with objective reality.  However, what some people seem to mean by balance is a literal mixture of apathy and interest in matters of ultimate truth, a partial commitment to living out their worldviews, and a selective tendency to tolerate irrational and hypocritical people.  Balance in some areas of life is necessary if one wants to achieve a specific goal, but not all goals are rational, important, or even personally healthy.

Being both purely rationalistic and deeply introspective on an emotional and broader psychological level, for example, is a kind of balance, but it is only because of reason that either can be understood and only because of reason that there are truths about reason itself and emotions.  It is still never anything but utterly stupid to be an emotionalist, just as it is never anything more than inherently rational and helpful to cling to reason in all aspects of life.  Some applications of rationalism and some adherence to emotionalism might be balanced in a sense, but only a fool would think this is rational--and they would have to use reason to argue against it in their mind or with someone else.  Balance is objectively not what truth-oriented philosophy is about.

Thus, balance for the sake of balance is not only pointless and futile because it is not about truth, but it is also something that a rational person will either completely avoid on their own, perhaps even without specifically thinking about it, or actively reject upon encountering this idea in social interactions.  A rational person will indeed understand and seek out some kinds of balance if they wish to, say, cultivate two friendships at once or allow themselves to maintain physical fitness while being inactive at other times.  These things require balance.  When it comes to truth and knowledge, balance has no place except as something that happens to be found in perhaps a few random places (like being perfectly rationalistic and deeply introspective on an emotional level).  Reflection with balance as the goal is a sure way to avoid verifiable truths.

Movie Review--Body Of Evidence

"She is a beautiful woman, but when this trial is over, you will see her no differently than a gun, or a knife, or any other instrument used as a weapon.  She's a killer, and the worst kind: a killer who disguises herself as a loving partner!"

--Robert Garrett, Body of Evidence

Body of Evidence steps into multiple subgenres in order to collectively form an erotic legal drama about the conflicting ways Western culture regards sexuality.  Premised on a murder investigation that inevitably brushes up against the sexual activities of the deceased, it holds a light to more aggressive forms of consensual sexual expression that could easily be misrepresented by conservatives and liberals alike.  Main character Rebecca Carlson even calls many Westerners hypocrites in a discussion where she scoffs at those who outwardly support conservative prudery while not truly aligning with it ideologically.  The film might boldly look into aspects of sexuality even erotic thrillers do not necessarily touch upon, but it does also have more to it than the potential shock value of sexuality.

Production Values

Indeed, one of the key components of Body of Evidence is its performances from cast members like Madonna and Willem Dafoe.  Madonna plays a woman accused of murder and Willem Dafoe plays her lawyer, a man who professes to not care about moral innocence or guilt as much as portraying clients in a positive light.  The majority of the movie revolves around their professional and developing sexual relationship--the latter getting in the way of the lawyer's own marriage.  The relationship involves a challenging of cultural norms that gradually becomes overt and gives both Dafoe and Madonna a chance to combine sexual performance with genuine character development.  Julianne Moore has several scenes as the betrayed wife, a character who starts out seemingly content with her marriage but becomes furious when she discovers the affair.  She may not have many scenes, but Moore provides a solid side character even if she later said she wished she had never starred in the film due to its allegedly terrible quality.  Thankfully, despite critical hostility, Body of Evidence is not a terrible movie, just one that lets its lead characters and mixture of genres pull it along.

Story

Some spoilers are below.

After a wealthy, older man dies during sex with his younger lover Rebecca Carlson, who is viewed with suspicion because her name was in his will.  Rebecca and her lawyer Frank Dulaney navigate a series of relational and legal twists and turns until they decide to have sex despite the fact that Frank is already married.  The court case is used by different parties for various reasons, and evidence surfaces that Rebecca has engaged in suspicious behavior with other older men with heart problems, one of whom attends the trial and even testifies.  Frank becomes more and more conflicted as his romantic relationship with Rebecca and the case intensify.

Intellectual Content

Rebecca's tendency to enjoy BDSM sexual acts despite the cultural suspicion of them leads her to push back against the entrenched prudery of people who secretly crave sexual connection and excitement while pretending like they are just as hostile towards sexuality as much of the culture seems to be outwardly.  While this comment applies to sexual expression as a whole and not just to acts involving both pleasure and physical pain, she specifically calls out people with ideas about sexuality that contradict societal prudery and yet refuse to be open about it.  Ever the ideologically transparent woman, she even says she looks to the animal kingdom for sexual inspiration, as they roughly have sex without hurting each other in a way that somewhat parallels her BDSM practices.  Although she does not say it, humans are just a unique kind of animal--a very unique one, however [1].  What she ignores is that the behavior of non-human animals does not morally justify human behavior whatsoever.  If something is morally wrong for a human to engage in, it does not matter if animals do it, and it likewise does not matter if animals do not do something that is ultimately morally obligatory.  Animal behavior, like social norms and personal feelings, are red herrings.

Conclusion

There are so many important truths, nuances, and even paradoxes of sexuality neglected by conservatives and liberals alike that it would be almost impossible for a single film to thoroughly address even a tenth of them.  There are too many logical facts to affirm and too many hypocrisies and fallacies to expose.  Body of Evidence clearly targets the bondage/domination category of sexual behaviors, a category that even erotic thrillers do not always directly focus on.  The special susceptibility of this kind of sexual expression to misunderstanding by prudish and irrationalistic people is particularly obvious in an era with a greater outward emphasis on ensuring sexual encounters are consensual.  In addition to exploring this to some extent, Body of Evidence does offer very competent core performances and blend genres rather well.

Content:

 1.  Profanity:  "Fuck" is exclaimed repeatedly.

 2.  Nudity:  Full-body nudity is shown during and after some sex scenes.

 3.  Sexuality:  There are multiple sex scenes with most of the bodies of the participants showing.  Some of the scenes even involve BDSM-type activities.

[1].  https://thechristianrationalist.blogspot.com/2020/08/are-humans-animals.html

Conservative Pseudo-Individualism

Conservatives are usually very eager to talk about political freedom and its ramifications for the life of individuals, as if they were consistent in actually living without hypocritically contradicting their own claims.  When something they dislike gains cultural favor, they fall back into rightly appealing to a kind of individualism that emphasizes the people at the heart of groups over collectivist ideas.  This is a highly selective application of something philosophically correct (individualism, that is).  As soon as the cultural storm passes, and even during it, conservatives will likely talk and act as if gender stereotypes are anything but personal delusions or social constructs.  While they might or might not oppose racial stereotypes, they will almost certainly support gender stereotypes.

They will say that they think men and women are equal in all but a minority of cases.  They will say that they do not mistreat men or women.  However, they will thoughtlessly or even knowingly, proudly endorse the ideas that lead to men being treated as nothing but sources of physical labor or financial support, to women being perceived as little more than sexual distractions, to the sexual assault of men being denied or mocked, and to women being pressured to stay at home regardless of personal talent or motivation to do otherwise, to name just a handful of examples.  The only way to embrace and live out individualistic freedom is, ironically, to reject conservatism and its gravitation towards genuine sexism: not controversial ideas and acts wrongly thought of as sexist, but true sexism against both men and women.

Conservativism is actually a great match for the fallacies of gender and sometimes racial stereotypes because in order for an idea to even be conservative, it must entail an automatic respect for past or established social norms, or at least nothing more than slow change away from the status quo that conservatives enjoy.  The immense popularity of stereotypes in the past--including stereotypes of young people or people with tattoos or many other subgroups of humanity--despite their clearly fallacious and even false nature is one reason why they remain popular today, and conservatives unsurprisingly perpetuate these mistaken beliefs out of familiarity, irrationalistic laziness, and arrogance.  Stereotypes might be embraced by hypocritical liberals, but a broad conservative would almost be hypocritical if they opposed sexism (they would certainly be hypocritical if they thought traditional norms are morally obligatory or superior by default and then made exceptions).

Conservatism is by default, thanks to its illogical fixation on traditions and norms instead of an emphasis on rationalistically verifiable truths, a pit that traps more and more victims until those standing on the bodies at the bottom and those who never fell into the pit work together to fill it in or place a surface over it.  It is nothing but a love of familiar social norms or inherited ideas falsely elevated to the status of justified belief, as if even a concept that actually reflects reality is rationally accepted if it is accepted on the basis of past societal trends.  Conservative pseudo-individualism will drive its adherents to both call for individuality along freedom from arbitrary coercion and call for belief in sexist stereotypes.  As any rational person could realize in a very short amount of time, believing in both things at once is outright stupidity, and the latter is false anyway.

Logic, people.  It is very fucking helpful.

Starting As A Rationalist

For some people, becoming a rationalist could actually be a terrifying experience, not only because it entails identifying and rejecting assumptions they have made throughout their lives, but also because they might feel overwhelmed at first.  There are so many different issues that demand the attention of a genuine rationalist, some of which are knowable from reason and introspection alone and some of which almost require sensory promoting, and it can seem very difficult for certain people to adjust to this kind of awareness and certainty.  There is much for reason to reveal, but not even the absolute certainty of logical axioms immediately brings people to realize what to reflect on next.

What does a new rationalist need to do in order to become more familiar or comfortable with their philosophical and personal status at this point?  While logical axioms and awareness of them will follow a rationalist wherever they go, there are many truths, concepts, and experiences they will encounter that build on logical axioms--whatever contradicts them is automatically false.  Since everything that is true or possible is consistent with logical axioms and directly hinges on them, they are clearly the starting point of all truths and knowledge.  Recognizing them is still, in another sense, the first step towards deeper knowledge of them and other things.

What a rationalist needs to do at this point is carefully reflect on what logically follows from the nature of axioms, their own existence, and their perceptions.  In some cases, this will lead him or her to realize specific things they do not or cannot know--such as whether other minds truly exist or only seem to.  In other cases, even this emphasizes what they can know--such as the fact that even if it is impossible to know if a forest really exists even when staring at it, the perceptions experienced are an objectively real part of their mind.  There is always something that can be known about every concept and experience, and quickly, clearly letting one logically verifiable idea lead to another (or letting logic show what follows from an unproven idea) can become a normal part of someone's life.

Let one thought or experience lead to another as all of them are examined in the light of reason, without making assumptions about anything, and even someone first starting out as a rationalist can see how easily rationalism is lived out in daily reflections that could rightly become more familiar than outward circumstances.  Rationalism is not an unattainable goal, but a true ideology, and the one ideology that is both inherently true and built on the one thing that all else reduces down to: the metaphysical reality and epistemological necessity of logic.  It is not something to fear; it is the key to the freedom of self-awareness, the fixed nature of absolute certainty, and the empowerment and other benefits of directly, naturally thinking without feeling overwhelmed.

The Gospel

In short, the gospel, or "good news," is about how God grants undeserving beings a second opportunity for eternal life with the only two-sided condition being one of sincere repentance for sin and commitment to Christ--yes, there is still something a person must do to be saved (repent and commit).  The alternative for the masses, according to the Bible, is the literal nonexistence of consciousness (see here [1]), and then there is the fact that evidence-based commitment makes one a Christian, not emotionalistic belief.  The gospel is slandered whenever Christians pretend like the gospel is anything that contradicts this.  There is more to be said about the gospel, including the details of what has already been mentioned in this very paragraph and how salvation relates to things like free will and divine foreknowledge, but this is the gospel of Christianity as put forth by the actual Bible.

This is good news indeed if it is true: the being whose very nature dictates morality has not abandoned humans to a deserved fate of nonexistence, but cares about them enough despite their sin to accept the death of Jesus as a substitute, as someone whose cessation of life foreshadows what awaits the unsaved.  Again, if true, this is incredibly good news!  It still cannot possibly be an accurate summary of Christianity.  There is far more to Christianity than God loving people and offering them salvation--and there are far more important things.  Redemption and eternal life are made important in the context of Christianity by underlying, preceding issues, not the other way around.  If the gospel was not a part of Christianity, to be sure, many self-professed Christians would suddenly lose interest in theology and philosophy, as their commitment to Christianity, which is typically based on epistemological faith instead instead of evidence-driven commitment and rationalistic awareness, would not have a desire for the personal benefit of heaven behind it.

In light of this, examine what must be true in order for the gospel to even be true.  Without logical possibility or necessity, it is impossible for anything to be true; without truth, moral obligations could not exist (though logical truths do not absolutely necessitate moral obligations); without moral obligations, there cannot be sin, as sin is a deviation from moral obligations, and without a deity who has a moral nature, there can be no moral obligations; without sin, there is not a need for justice in the punitive sense; without justice, there cannot be mercy, for mercy is not treating someone as they deserve (in the sense of withholding a deserved penalty).  Without divine mercy, in turn, there cannot be the gracious offer of salvation to all who are willing to repent.  The gospel is from start to finish never the core of reality or even the most foundational or important part of Christian theology.

The gospel is an undeserved gift to fallen humankind, not the sole or most utterly vital component of all reality.  It cannot be anything but this even in the context of Christianity as a hypothetically true religion, much less in the face of things that underpin the very possibility, probability, of truth of Christianity (logical axioms and metaphysics).  The importance of the gospel has been exaggerated greatly by those who want simplistic falsehoods or comforting ideologies rather than a serious, assumption-free understanding of Biblical theology or broader philosophical truths.  It is as if people in general think the gospel must either be the most important thing of all or something that is of no significance, and neither of these is true.  Inside the context of actual Christianity, the gospel is neither trivial nor the most important Biblical doctrine, and outside the context of just Christianity, it is either a vital truth or a grand lie.

Mercy, a part of the gospel, is incapable of having significance of its own, as it by necessity hinges on their being real moral obligations and real deserved penalties for those who violate them (if moral obligations do not exist, there can be no such thing as mercy, only the misperception that some things are merciful).  It is only a tool to inspire or reward a turning away from irrationality and evil.  Justice, if moral obligations exist, is a necessary and fundamentally crucial aspect of reality, but mercy is an optional add-on.  That some Christians partially grasp this while thinking that the gospel is some moral necessity on the Christian worldview means they care about mercy out of personal appreciation or gain, not because of any philosophical or theological truth.  After all, mercy being necessary or deserved is conceptually impossible!  The gospel can never be fully understood by someone who, due to assumptions or preferences, believes otherwise.

[1]. https://thechristianrationalist.blogspot.com/2017/02/the-truth-of-annihilationism.html

Philosophy In Television (Part 15): Peacemaker

"Please, God . . . I'll do whatever you want me to do . . . for peace."

--Christopher Smith, Peacemaker (season one, episode eight)

The redemptive themes that spring from the two live action Suicide Squad films and from the general Christological bent of the early DCEU remain intact in Peacemaker despite the context they are presented in being far less serious this time.  Peacemaker is built on the accurate premise that even someone as deluded as Christopher Smith, the "Peacemaker" who is willing to murder or torture anyone for the sake of bringing about peace, can change for the better.  It is also devoted to exploring just how nuanced this pseudo-pacifist character is, as he is someone who is opposed to racism but more than willing to be sexist toward both men and women, someone who is so obviously in the clutches of conservatism (as evidenced by his hyper-patriotism and gender complementarianism) but not totally averse to liberalism (he is presented as a practicing bisexual), and someone who loves his extremely cruel father despite disliking some of his father's idiotic philosophical mistakes.  With the shadow of Amanda Waller's tyranny in the background and a new extraterrestrial threat to conquer, Peacemaker must still confront his father's White Dragon identity, the Aryan Empire of white supremacists that the White Dragon leads, and his own foolish hypocrisies.

Peacemaker and White Dragon are ironically both theists, praying to God or talking as if they both have divine favor--ironic in that Peacemaker never seems to connect his moral philosophy with theism very thoroughly and White Dragon severely misrepresents Christianity by talking as if the God of Abraham, which he identifies with, is not described in Genesis as imbuing all people, not just white American males, with his image.  This is even more ironic since White Dragon makes it clear that he is very deeply misandrist, as he almost constantly insults men and boys for not matching the sexist stereotypes that shackle men just as they do women.  This sexism against men with non-stereotypical personalities is one of the ideologies other than theism that the two share despite their enormous differences.  No matter how many fallacious comments or emotionalistic outbursts come from his father Auggie Smith, though, Christopher expresses affection to someone who does not deserve it even after he is repeatedly treated as worthless for being a man while not having White Dragon's even more monstrous personality traits, reflecting the asinine but popular American idea that family has some special moral significance that demands allegiance to people over true ideas.

Intentionally or not, the misandry of Western gender stereotypes is actually at the forefront of the show.  Peacemaker does an excellent job of displaying some forms of sexism against men through the biases against men without a very specific, malicious, egoistic personality that Auggie Smith and sometimes Chris himself voice support for, whether or not James Gunn recognized this as misandry.  Even if this was not the intent, Peacemaker actually illustrates how asinine conservatism and liberalism are, though of course the plot is more overtly aimed at satirizing and criticizing white supremacy and to a lesser extent sexism against women, the latter of which there is sometimes far less of in the show than sexism against men.  However, with characters as incredibly stupid as practically every single person in this show is (when it comes to philosophy, though, the typical person in real life is no better at approaching and understanding even basic knowable truths than Peacemaker or Vigilante are at not fucking up situations), there is never a point at which the series actually has characters do anything more than just express dislike for things like racism.

Yes, racism is inherently irrational because it involves assumptions based on the color of a person's skin, making racism against people of all skin colors equally irrational, but Peacemaker, Vigilante, Harcourt, Economos, and so on at best just react to white supremacy with an emotionalistic aversion rather than even a loose, undeveloped framework that still starts to resemble rationalistic analysis.  Truths about racism as a concept inside and outside the context of the specific American relationship with racism can be effectively communicated by humor as the show attempts to do, but here and elsewhere, Peacemaker dives into issues that themselves have great depth by parodying hyper-conservatism and (rightly) presenting it as an immensely destructive thing, all without ever starting to address why anyone should or should not live in any specific way regardless of how destructive it is.  All that the characters do, from White Dragon to Peacemaker himself, is wallow in the stupidity of preference-based beliefs and actions, yet there is still the occasional flash of direct irony to hint at some of the characters being recognized by James Gunn as hypocritical fools.

For instance, Peacemaker's admirer Adrian Chase, whose "superhero" persona is called Vigilante and who oscillates between somewhat intelligent bursts of practical competence and grave incompetence, has a worldview that he pathetically fails to live out on some of the most basic levels.  Vigilante, whose name is literally Vigilante and who murders people for breaking almost any law, is not only stupid enough to confuse legality for morality, but he also routinely breaks the law he illegally serves by killing people, making him a fool on multiple levels as both an utterly incompetent thinker and an oblivious hypocrite.  No one ever calls him out for this in any unrelenting, rationalistic way, of course!  His idol Peacemaker is too lost himself to ever say more than a few sentences at once that seem to suggest at a deepening concern for anything beyond feeling better about pushing people away or killing Rick Flag in Corto Maltese.

Peacemaker is ultimately a series that is excellent at revealing the more nuanced nature of irrational, selfish, unjust people, but this is in spite of it never doing anything more to make its most significant points than rely on emotion-driven moments for the main characters.  Artistically, other than its extreme tendency to crowd out genuinely dramatic scenes with utterly random humor, it is executed very well.  When it comes to its philosophical themes, though, it offers a great opportunity for some viewers to reflect on issues facing the world today without actually establishing much more than that people with different worldviews will be in conflict.  There is no grand attempt to convey the demonstrable truths that the tenets of racism and sexism--all racism and sexism--are objectively false ideas that have never been embraced on any grounds but preference, assumptions, and social pressures.  There is no strong attempt to explain what evidence there is for Amanda Waller's dehumanizing ideologies actually being evil as opposed to just subjectively unappealing.  These things are taken for granted by people inside and outside of the fictional story who are likely too stupid to even understand the simplest aspects of rationalism on their own.

Openness In Relationships

Openness is not the same as honesty, but the two are inseparably linked in that there is no true openness without honesty.  The lack of ability to see into the minds of others means that before at least one party tries to reveal part of their life with someone else, there is always the possibility that honesty will lead to misunderstandings or outright hostility.   No fully rationalistic person makes assumptions, but many people are not rationalists, and they might be easily frightened or angered, unnecessarily, of course, by genuine honesty and openness even when there is nothing to object to.  Despite this, openness is a key component of any deep friendship or thriving romantic partnership.

Even two people who are very familiar with each other can still be reluctant to reveal certain aspects of themselves.  If this is logically possible when it comes to some who have already bonded with each other, the personal stakes can be far higher when first getting to know someone.  There is almost always far more room for potential (but fully avoidable) misunderstanding when there has not been any prior time spent communicating with someone.  Still, anyone who wants a relationship built on truth and deep intimacy, things that rationalists certainly want out of their closest relationships, must journey into openness.

This does not mean that literally every single trivial thought needs to be shared with friends or romantic partners.  In some cases, that could be annoying and place strain on a relationship, but the more foundational fact of the matter is that this is unnecessary even for deep bonding.  It is merely true that the strongest, most mutual, and most holistic relationships will feature a willingness to both introspect deeply and share details about each partner's lives, though not all details are automatically relevant.  It is things like philosophical knowledge, personality traits, and mental health that need to be communicated first and foremost, for they will dictate more than other things if a relationship if worthy of lasting and merely able to last more than all else.

While some things are much more central to a person's existence than others--such as their worldview--far more than just the most foundational or bare minimum things can be shared, and indeed need to be shared if a nonromantic or romantic relationship is ever to progress beyond a state of avoidable superficiality, or just skip that state completely.  A true, lasting unwillingness to show one's true self to a friend or significant other is more than just an unhelpful trend.  It quite literally hinders the potential for relationship stability and might even weaken what progress has been made.

All people who desire to be deeply known by someone else (as deeply known as epistemological limitations allow for, at least) and to in turn be deeply familiar with them will find themselves unable to bring this about without mutual openness that spans the intellectual, emotional, and spiritual components of human life.  Without rationalism, moreover, the only sound grasp of this and its ramifications that a person has is left to chance, in danger of being overturned by assumptions and arbitrary yielding to emotionalism.  It is not just the worldviews and existential standing of a person that are illuminated by rationalism, but the very relationships that are worthy of the greatest investment.

Game Review--N.O.V.A. Legacy (Android)

"The enemies' energy signature emitted the word 'Xenos' over and over.  That must be what the invaders call themselves."

--Yelena, N.O.V.A. Legacy

Modern smartphones are capable of playing games that provide the equivalent of older generation console experiences, all on a device smaller than the 3DS, PS Vita, or Switch.  Smartphone games like Alien Isolation: Blackout [1] exemplify this possibility.  N.O.V.A. Legacy is a very lackluster example of what Android and IOS gaming can actually accomplish.  I remember playing the original version of N.O.V.A. on my iPod Touch back in 2010, and while smartphone/tablet gaming has even greater potential today, N.O.V.A. Legacy does very little to update the game beyond adding microtransactions, making energy units necessary to play campaign missions, and introducing ads.  This franchise that has largely been tied to smartphones and tablets is but a fading shadow of what it could be.

Production Values

When ports of modern console games like Tales from the Borderlands and Ark: Survival Evolved can be purchased on Androids instead of the Switch, PS4, or Xbox One, though with lesser graphics, it is pathetic that Gameloft, a company that once tried to push the boundaries of IOS/smartphone gaming even as it overtly imitated major franchises at almost every step, would release a new edition of an old game and have it look and run like this is a travesty of sorts.  The campaign locations do at least shift from the inside of a spacecraft to a jungle planet (not that the animation is detailed enough to convey this well), but blurry textures, a general lack of animation detail, and periodic slowdown that interferes with the most basic actions all testify to how lazy Gameloft is when it comes to N.O.V.A. Legacy.  The slowness can be at its worst in multiplayer--which has other major issues, like unbalanced rounds pitting new players with lower-level weapons against those with the time or money to upgrade theirs extensively.

Gameplay

Confirming just how limited the scope of the game is, you are not able to run quickly, crouch, or jump, and the only way to fire any weapon is to aim at or right next to an enemy.  There is very little mobility in this game.  Then there is the fact that the levels are extremely short, chopped up to seemingly provide a very quick experience for players who will play when they have little free time--and to give an excuse for the new system that uses two to three out of ten energy units that can be more quickly recharged for making microtransactions.  As annoying as microtransactions can be, they do not objectively ruin the quality of an excellent game, but N.O.V.A. Legacy has very little that is not mediocre, incomplete, or downright pathetic.

Chaining kills and getting headshots does earn additional coins that can be spent without using real currency, and watching ads when the option appears after completing missions doubles either coins or crystals, but not both at once.  Given that there are enough cards for an upgrade, these coins can be spent on upgrades for any of the unlocked weapons or suit shield cores.  Upgrades gradually bestow massive improvements in combat ability and defense, and I do mean gradually.  However, the doubling effect from ads and the large number of coins received for completing three specific achievements in missions can make it somewhat easy to amass more than a thousand coins in a single day.

Basic multiplayer awards coins for participation and it even does not require using the energy units spent on campaign missions (which are recharged after waiting or by spending crystals or actual money), but it can be exceedingly brutal for new players if other players have weapons inaccessible to them.  The difference in weapon power is very significant!  As you slowly buy or earn enough resources to unlock and enhance superior weapons, every mode of the game becomes far easier.  Multiplayer might be enjoyable at this point for players who were too frustrated at the beginning.  It is just that it could take spending actual money or lots of time to reach this point.  Unfortunately, having to wait to for single player energy units to be restored does not help one progress very quickly, delaying more coins and resources to be earned from the campaign.

Story

Some spoilers are below, but there is almost nothing to spoil.

A former Near Orbit Vanguard Alliance member named Kal Wardin joins a fight against an alien faction termed Xenos, his AI companion Yelena giving him advice and updates.  Another AI calling itself Prometheus reveals itself to him and warns Kal of a potential betrayal ahead of time.  Eventually, Kal visits the Xeno homeworld, only to learn of a planned invasion of Earth.  If this seems short, it is because there is literally almost nothing more to the plot than what is described in just the preceding three sentences.

Intellectual Content

A lack of puzzles, collectibles, exploration, philosophical themes, and characterization make N.O.V.A. Legacy one of the most superficial games I have played in years.  Even the handful of other Android games I have played and reviewed have far more substance in either their gameplay and stories or themes.  Gameloft has done something quite unexceptional in every regard with this game, even and especially with the conceptual depth.  There is no effort at all to create a thoughtful story or directly brush up against anything having to do with the aspects of philosophy that are present in science fiction as a genre.

Conclusion

Despite the inherent control limitations for smartphones, short of syncing wireless gaming controllers, "mobile" games could replicate aspects of console or handheld gaming experiences in full.  Indeed, this has already been done with both ports and original games for smartphones.  N.O.V.A. Legacy just does not showcase what Android software is capable of.  Loading times that can last as long as a couple of minutes, a very restrictive energy system that moves N.O.V.A. into full microtransaction territory, unbalanced multiplayer matches, and a very short campaign divided into tiny fragments of what could be more conventional levels do the franchise no favors.  If there is ever a sequel or remaster if older series games, there are many problems or obstacles to smooth gameplay that need to be addressed.

Content:

 1.  Violence:  Bloodless shooting and melee strikes without gore is the only kind of violent in-game behavior.

[1].  https://thechristianrationalist.blogspot.com/2019/04/game-review-alien-blackout-android.html

Death And The Fall

There is more than one important misconception about the connection of death and the opening of Genesis to be found in the church.  On one hand, the relatively mild but still blatant error of believing that no death was present before human sin overlooks how animals were still likely to die and, at a minimum, plants must have died if anything at all was to eat [1].  Only human death is specifically said to have beem foreign to the world until humans sinned.  On the other hand, a more severe error of believing that God's promise that death would follow if Adam and Eve disobeyed his command (Genesis 2:15-17) is trivialized since evangelicals--perhaps the most widespread kind of Christian in the West but the most irrational and unbiblical all the same--generally fail to realize the death instead of eternal torment is the primary penalty for sin in Christian theology.

Death is the loss of life.  Only an extremely figurative use of the word death would refer to eternal conscious torment, meaning there is no evidence from the text of Genesis 2 and 3 that God had eternal torment in mind when he said that eating the fruit from the tree of knowledge of good and evil, since the word death, left to itself, is used to communicate precisely the opposite of eternal existence.  This literal meaning of death in Genesis 2:17 is the only one that is consistent with what the Bible describes later on as being the fate of the wicked.  As any rationalist has realized to some extent, true inconsistency as opposed to avoidable misperceptions of inconsistency can only mean one thing: part or all of an idea or set of ideas is false.  Taking the language of death from Genesis onward seriously is one of several ways a person who thinks the Bible teaches eternal conscious torment for all unsaved beings can start to see the pathetic, heretical house of cards crumble.

The prediction of Genesis that death would follow eating from the tree does not lead to the kind of fulfillment evangelicals expect.  Even though they have a difficult time understanding the most basic aspects of everything from justice to soteriology, what the Bible says about death being the grand penalty for sin is rather clear when one does not make assumptions as one reads the book or reflects on it.  God's promise of death in Genesis 2 is exactly what the rest of the Bible, save for verses referring to a subgroup of people in Revelation 14, says will befall humans who are not granted eternal life by God.  Sin brings eventual death according to multiple places in the Bible--loss of Earthly life with the first death and loss of conscious existence and all of the possibilities and pleasures therein with the second death.

"The soul that sins will die," says Ezekiel 18:4.  "The wages of sin is death," says Romans 6:23.  God "condemned the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah by burning them to ashes, and made them an example of what is going go happen to the ungodly," says 2 Peter 2:6.  That is without even pointing to Matthew 10:28, John 3:16, 1 Timothy 6:16, and more, all of which contradict the Bible itself or use language almost deceptively unless they simply mean that humans are mortal by nature after they sin and that God must extend his eternal life to them or else they will perish.  Even various statements made in Psalms that might initially seem like they have little to nothing to do with cosmic death in hell are consistent with this, saying the wicked will come to an end and exist no more (see Psalm 37:20 as an example).

When God said that death would result if Adam and Eve ate the fruit he forbade, anything but true death eventually following would make God a liar, or at the very least a fairly poor communicator.  It is evangelicals and their legions of tradition-based biases and assumptions that fail to comprehend this, pretending that death means something other than death even as they pretend their fallacies in other areas are valid.  An unwillingness to avoid assumptions and flee from appeals to tradition will keep the irrational from seeing that annihilationism and conditional immortality, or at least ideas that point to them, are plainly taught as early as the second and third chapters of Genesis.  Anything other than the first and second deaths actually being death distorts God's promise to the first humans mentioned in the Bible.

[1].  https://thechristianrationalist.blogspot.com/2017/02/death-existed-before-fall.html

The Supernatural

The concept of something being supernatural is often mistaken for the concept of something that is merely strange or unfamiliar, as if all it takes for something to be supernatural is that it is different from what is experienced in everyday life.  What is perceived as normal is relative to circumstances that could have been different to begin with, but it is not always relevant to the issue of supernaturalism.  Suppose an angel appeared to me--this would be abnormal in the context of my life, since angelic appearances are not something I recall being a part of my regular life, but so would seeing a spider with a red body.  Are angels and spiders with unusual coloring (at least unusual as compared to my general experiences seeing spiders) both supernatural or both not supernatural?  The concepts behind them are quite different!

A spider is a small creature with a body of matter native to Earth that may or may not be conscious, with consciousness of any kind being immaterial, or nonphysical, yet animal or human consciousness in a living creature is not what most people mean by calling something supernatural (even though literally anything immaterial is supernatural in the strictest sense because it is not a part of the natural world).  An angel, in contrast with a spider from Earth, might be possible of having a physical body, but it is an explicitly spiritual being.  Its consciousness, if angels do indeed exist, is tied to a more obviously nonphysical side of reality, as the conventional concept of an angel is that of a supernatural servant of a deity which can transcend dimensions, converse with God, and fight demonic entities.

That something is "normal" does not make it natural and that something is "abnormal" does not make it supernatural.  All immaterial things that do or do not exist are supernatural by definition, yet something like the nonphysical laws of logic that govern truth and possibility that confine the material world, the metaphysical space that holds matter, and the human consciousness that perceives matter are not what is typically referred to by the word: many people who use the word supernatural, whether they believe something in this category exists or not, are thinking of something like an uncaused cause that preceded the universe, unembodied spirits that can possess people, or nonphysical energy that can shape the physical world.  It is completely lost on many people that supernaturalism is not inherently religious or theistic.

It is also completely lost on many people that logical proof and not perceptions proves that things are true, and logic is an epistemological requirement to even understand the idea of perceptions and begin evaluating one's own perceptions at any given moment.  Ironically, most claims that something is natural or supernatural are just based on assumptions in favor of various things being exactly as they subjectively appear to someone who has probably never thought about anything with explicitly philosophical or rationalistic intentions.  Proving that there is even a world of matter is far more difficult than the vast majority of people realize, and yet it its existence is taken for granted on unevaluated faith by all but a few who either have recognized the sole way to prove it is there or have refrained from believing in that which they cannot prove or have not yet proven to themselves.

Indeed, epistemological limitations render it impossible to actually prove that most particular events are supernatural or natural in nature, if not both in various ways; reason can prove that both matter and some immaterial things (as alluded to earlier) exist, but even this can be exceptionally difficult when coming to these truths for the first time.  It is still possible to prove that there is nothing impossible about any material or supernatural thing existing as long as there is nothing about its nature that contradicts itself or reason.  Mere perceptions of normality or strangeness prove nothing except that something seems normal or strange.  Only biases, other assumptions, and cultural conditioning of various kinds keep people from just looking to reason and establishing at this much.  It is not beyond anyone's reach.

Logic, people.  It is very fucking helpful.

The Superficiality Of Emotionalistic Kindness

Kindness does not transform lives by revealing core truths or proving important aspects of reality--it barely even has any depth on its own.  It is far from the incredibly penetrating and philosophically vital thing it is often treated as.  Moreover, it is not even as pragmatically useful as some like to think!  Think of the various hypocrisies, assumptions, or irrationalistic ideas in a culture: they are not likely to disappear because someone is kind to those who support them.  In fact, kindness can be a form of gentle support or outright intellectual incompetence.  It is objectively foolish for kindness for the sake of kindness to be thought of as anything more than petty emotionalism, in contrast with kindness rooted in rationalistic awareness and personal authenticity.

Kindness will very likely not bring hypocrites to the realization that prison rape and abortion are only tolerated because of idiotic double standards.  Kindness will very likely not bring anyone to the realization that there is no absolute certainty, and thus no true certainty, to be found in assumptions.  Kindness alone will not rescue societies from the irrationalistic perils of racism and sexism.  Kindness does not prove anything about the nature of Christianity or the validity or invalidity of any worldview at all.  In other words, kindness is irrelevant to or even a distraction from genuine epistemological and moral reflection.  It takes a great deal of irrationality to think that reason indicates otherwise on its own or when applied to analyze social experiences.

Emotionalistic kindness is the refuge of fools who have no motivation to believe in something unless they associate arbitrary acts of kindness with it.  This is, ultimately, a sign that someone believes in things that benefit them--or that only appear to benefit them in the moment.  The kind of person who would believe in Christianity or atheism or anything else because they were treated with genuine or feigned kindness is a pathetic individual indeed.  First, they are primarily looking to other people instead of reason, and even then in a reactive instead of active sense.  Second, they are either stupid enough to equate kindness with confirmation of truth or stupid enough to know kindness is absolutely irrelevant and ignore this truth.

The truest type of kindness that can express both rationalistic depth and personal affection is the kind shown to friends, and there is no stronger or more worthy friendship than that based on rationalism.  In this context, there is no desire to manipulate each other or to persuade someone to a certain idea through emotionalism or pragmatism.  There is only the kindness of words and deeds meant to encourage, affirm, or celebrate an equal relationship in which both stand on the knowable truths and mutual love of the other friend.  Kindness is a joy to show and an expression of something far more than shallow, thoughtless actions based on superficial preferences.

Never in any other situation or with any other motive is kindness as complete, wholehearted, and deep as it is here.  Beyond this, there is belief in ideas based on kindness received when truth is not determined or revealed by kindness, there is a shallower motivation behind it (the appeasement of arbitrary, subjective desires) or there is an intention to manipulate others without doing so for the sake of some grand and true worldview.  Kindness without a rationalistic context is like a corpse without a consciousness.  It is a dead, futile way to knowingly or unknowingly act upon mere assumptions, unexamined desires, or superficial moral perceptions.  When shown to equals or with something more than emotionalism or ideological aimlessness behind it, it is actually a very rational, liberating, authentic thing to pursue.

How Poverty Can Perpetuate Mental Health Issues

Mental health is in many cases more crucial to personal flourishing than physical health could ever be.  A person could be crippled but full of contentment and joy, or perhaps struggling with a disease but still intellectually and emotionally thriving.  A healthy body with a mind plagued by mental health issues, especially something like extreme depression or emotional numbness, does not necessarily allow for anywhere near the same degree of pleasure, the same level of excitement, or even the motivation to overcome problems and celebrate philosophical awareness.  In spite of the advances in psychiatry and the greater accessibility of medications and treatments, obstacles like poverty can still keep people from benefitting from them.

Not only can poverty lead to mental health issues like circumstance-based depression, but it can also stop people from having the economic ability to afford needed treatments.  Depression, anxiety, emotional numbness are just some of the conditions that poverty could trap people in because they do not have enough financial resources to seek treatment while still paying for things like housing, food, and clothing.  Mental health is more important for contentment and existential peace than the solution to any of these physical needs, so it is no small thing for anyone who does not generate an income above a certain level to be incapable of doing anything substantial to resolve a mental illness that cannot be cured on one's own or by improving life circumstances.

There is no way to know just how many people might suffer from mental health conditions they have not even fully recognized and identified.  For some living in poverty, even the thought of how treatments might be too expensive could deter them from thinking about their condition.  Other people with or without mental illnesses, especially of a more severe kind, could easily take their lack of mental health problems for granted.  Someone with both consistent economic security and no mental illness could be especially prone to take these aspects of their life for granted.  On the contrary, the frustration or pain of someone who has little economic security and yet is aware of some sort of mental illness could be devastating.

Someone living in poverty could be intelligent enough to reason out and understand a plethora of truths about their condition, and they could even figure out which therapists, psychologists, or psychiatrists seem likely to be the best to seek help from, but without enough money, they will have no way to actively receive the kind of help they might need.  Not all mental health conditions resolve themselves as time passes or even disappear once the life circumstances that brought them change; moreover, some might be rooted in changes to someone's nervous system that they will not be able to fix with willpower, patience, or a number of widely accessible therapies like spending time in nature.

Poverty is a serious problem for reasons beyond how it can hinder treatments for mental illnesses, but its ability to keep people separated from treatments and medications that they could otherwise access is one of its gravest consequences for those who face rare or overwhelming mental illnesses.  A person or society that takes mental health seriously will not be able to avoid dwelling on how poverty, mental illness, and the cost of treatments relate to each other forever.  Past a certain point, wealth is what separates those who can receive the help they need from those who cannot.  The way economic status connects with this is no trivial thing.

Movie Review--I Know What You Did Last Summer

"Look, you're all wrong.  They get back to the girl's house, and they find the lunatic's bloody hook in the car door.  Now, that's the original story.  That's the way it really happened."

--Ray, I Know What You Did Last Summer

The late 1900s gave birth to many of today's prolonged slasher franchises, from Child's Play to Nightmare on Elm Street to Halloween.  Among those franchises is I Know What You Did Last Summer.  With an Amazon series on the way, I Know What You Did Last Summer is not quite dead as a franchise quite yet.  It very loosely builds off of a story called "the Hook" about a killer with a hook on his arm who tries to open a car.  A car and a hook both have a prominent role in the film, just in a very different sense than they do in the urban legend.  A fateful accident leads to an act of great selfishness that haunts the protagonists for the next year.  This movie is neither the best nor the worst slasher film, but it is not incompetently crafted.

Production Values

Little to no non-practical effects are called for in a story like this.  To the movie's credit, elaborate but soon-to-be outdated digital effects were not shoehorned in just for the sake of having them, as most, if not all, of what is shown onscreen really is practical effects.  There are no solely supernatural opponents like ghosts or bizarre creatures like werewolves to overcome.  Acted well but almost never given serious depth or transformations, the characters are just what they need to be to stop the overall story from slipping into mediocrity.  Jennifer Love Hewitt, Freddie Prinze Jr., Sarah Michelle Gellar, and Ryan Phillippe are all perfectly adequate in their roles as the four main characters, but none of their characters have many scenes that go to more than minimal lengths to establish or build their personalities.  This is, of course, not a negative thing on its own, just an aspect that could have been better!  The murder mystery takes precedence over the depth of how the characters are presented.

Story

Some spoilers are below.

A set of four friends, two couples between them, celebrate their impending departure from high school, eventually talking about the folk story of the escaped convict with a hook trying to open the door of a car with someone inside.  Irresponsibility leads to their car running over a stranger on the drive home.  The man is killed, his body dumped into water after a desperate discussion about how even the accidental killing would land the four in grave trouble.  Only one person stumbles upon them before they can hide the body and is suspicious of the situation.  Just before the body is put in water, though, the victim turns out to still be alive--and yet he is placed in the water all the same.  A year later, Julie, one of the four, comes back to town and finds a note saying "I KNOW WHAT YOU DID LAST SUMMER."

Intellectual Content

One of the most specific and unique issues periodically brought up is the supposed symbolism of the hook story, the hook of the convict that is found in the car door allegedly representing a metaphorical castration, with the hook serving (according to one character) as a phallic symbol.  It is one thing for a storyteller to intend such a meaning, no matter how strange or conceptually irrelevant a specific kind of symbolism might be to the story.  It is another thing and an asinine leap to read symbolism into a story where the creator or the text/movie/image/game itself does not establish or even hint at something.  Like in all things, artistic analysis is irrational when someone believes they know from mere appearances what a story is about or when they suggest an interpretation as true or likely with no evidence for it.  Stupidity is stupidity and fallacies are fallacies even with relatively trivial assumptions about the nature of random works of entertainment/art, but this is the same kind of irrationality that is behind dangerous or obviously speculative misinterpretations of even works like the Bible that are more than mere entertainment.

Conclusion

There are horror films (and slasher films in particular) that are far better at bringing thematic and storytelling depth to their plots than I Know What You Did Last Summer.  Candyman, Saw and its sequels, and the reboot of Halloween are all examples of this.  The viewer who approaches I Know What You Did Last Summer recognizing it as a generally competent work that lacks some of the greater depth to be found elsewhere in its genre or subgenre will still find plenty to admire.  For one, its lack of reliance on digital effects is noteworthy.  Its strong acting is as well.  Its sequels which I have not seen might be terrible (or not), but the starting point of the series is far from having such a term fit it.

Content:

 1.  Violence:  Several characters are attacked or killed with a hook or a vehicle.  Some blood is seen.

 2.  Profanity:  "Shit" and "fuck" or variations of them are used.

An Approach To Dating

A host of legalistic ideas about how to approach dating are supposedly meant to stop people from rushing into poor relationships and yet can end up hindering the quality of a person's search for a dating partner.  The misconceptions of many Biblically innocent things as "adulterous" or sexually immoral makes it more difficult for some kinds of people to authentically get to know others and evaluate their options without feeling trapped or unnecessarily restricted.  The push (in more overtly conservative evangelical circles) for a man and woman to immediately commit to formally dating each other early on can discourage people from thinking about other possible partners who are more compatible--and getting to know them better with a potential dating relationship in mind while doing the same with others as well.

Talking to multiple members of the opposite gender at the same time specifically to evaluate them as possible dating partners is not necessarily the manipulative, selfish using of others or leading them on when there is no intention of doing anything more than toying with them.  Non-rationalistic Christians in particular, thanks to legalistic ideas about many aspects of dating and sexuality, might not just feel but also think that they are doing something degrading to others by getting to know more than one specific person of the opposite gender in an effort to find a dating partner.  In truth, as long as all parties are sincere, honest, and do not pledge any sort of commitment that they are not ready to give and that the other party is not worthy of, this can be a beneficial arrangement for a time.

This potential stage of searching for a dating partner--at which point a person is not formally dating anyone, much less multiple people at once--could help some think more carefully about whether they truly know someone well enough to commit to them.  It is more likely to be the kind of situation that keeps someone with a tendency to prematurely overlook more intellectually and spiritually mature partners free of an emotionalistic haze they are unwilling to break free of or avoid.  Someone could even use a scenario like this to perhaps reflect for the first time, in a serious, accepting way, that many men and women are going to be romantically or sexually attracted to more than one person at once.

There is no formal, mutual decision of commitment as a couple even if two people meet together specifically for a date, as a single introductory date is not the same as dating.  The same is true even when talking with or seeing multiple people for such a purpose.  Nothing about getting to know more than one person in this way is a betrayal.  Where there is no formal commitment, there is no betrayal, and where there is no desire to deceive or use people as mere pastimes, there is no manipulation of others as if they are nothing but temporary playthings.  How much more careful, self-aware, and socially attuned would people be when this approach to finding a suitable partner was not dismissed automatically?  Christians have nothing important to lose but plenty of thorough benefits to gain.

The Tim Keller Style Of Vagueness And Incomplete Brevity

Donald Trump, Neil DeGrasse Tyson, and Tim Keller are some of the figures on social media with whom I have been most amused.  While the first two might have a lesser influence over the most sincere evangelical Christians (even if Trump has somehow persuaded plenty of evangelicals that he is actually concerned with ultimate philosophical truths and genuine Christianity beyond using them as tools for personal gain), Tim Keller is a figure held up as a more sophisticated, thoughtful evangelical by some.  A quick examination of his Facebook posts from 2021 alone refutes any serious claim to consistent philosophical validity that he has, both inside and outside the context of Christian theology.

For example, Keller, on August 4th, 2021, said on Facebook that religion is about obeying God to get desired things from him, while the gospel is about obeying God to get God.  The glaring flaw here is that the gospel of Christianity is part of a religion based on the Bible.  There is no such thing as a Christian doctrine that is not an aspect of a religion because Christianity is a religion.  Thanks to obvious superficiality, church culture conditioning, and stupidity, there are plenty of evangelical Christians who actually think their misinterpretations of a religious text are non-religious, as if uniqueness among other theological systems means Biblical ideas are not religious in nature.  This is not even a particularly deep truth on its own, just one that is surprisingly overlooked and denied in the modern church!

On July 21st of 2021, Keller said that grace is at the heart of all heart and social change.  However, it is logically possible for anyone at all to change because there is nothing contradictory about the concept of a person with their own volition changing, for better or for worse, out of a love of truth, after deep self-examination, or for some other reason.  One could go on and on providing examples of random, false statements he makes that are quite at home in the midst of evangelical ideology.  Part of Keller's problems seems to originate with how he communicates, as he posts generally short messages that are as vague and brief as they are conceptually incorrect.  The rest is about sheer philosophical assumptions and presenting ideas that are true as if they go alongside ideas that are not.

Many truths can be communicated concisely, but conciseness is never a sign of truth.  Conciseness is also not a sign that an idea is complete--or even worth specifically having or articulating for its own sake.  Consider the following brief statement from January 24th, 2021: "God loves cities because there are people in cities and he loves people."  This is like specifically singling out that blue is a color, and colors are parts of human experience, and therefore blue is a part of human experience.  There is nothing epistemologically, metaphysically, or Biblically pressing about specifying without context that God loves cities because cities have people and God loves people.  In fact, there are far more crucial things pertaining to Christian theology and broader philosophy which go unacknowledged by most people, including Tim Keller (the inherent truth of logical axioms, the possibility of absolute certainty, the irrelevance of conscience and tradition to truths about morality, and so on).

The issue is not even just that God loving people is not provable even if there is evidence for it, though Tim Keller almost certainly believes this to be true and knowable as opposed to merely probable.  The issue is not that someone is emphasizing the Christian deity's love of humanity.  If someone specifically focused on God's love for people in a way that emphasizes cities, they have not automatically become shallow.  It is focusing on this ramification of Christianity in vague, non sequitur ways while failing to even stand on a foundation of pure rationalism and theology without appeals to tradition, instead of mysticism or assumptions of any kind, that is the problem.  Tim Keller is very proficient at throwing out precisely this kind of vague, incomplete idea as he ignores provable logical facts that are more foundational, important, and all-reaching in their ramifications, and as he ignores so many truly Biblical doctrines like anti-legalism, the rejection of prudery, non-Trinitarianism, annihilationism, theonomy, and many others.

The Avoidability Of Biases

The idea that biases are unavoidable is quite predictably almost only brought up by people who are ironically biased against rationalism, as they are content to favor biases they are comfortable with and, when confronted with true rationalism and its rejection of all biases, they will pretend like biases are inescapable rather than just give up the biases they find appealing.  There is nothing irrational about realizing that one has been wrong or at least blind about philosophical beliefs (and all beliefs are philosophical).  It is the height of irrationality, though, to cling to assumptions of any sort while fallaciously using reason in vain to "justify" the inherent falsehood that reason is untrue or incapable of being consistently aligned with.

This gives them an alleged excuse to ignore some biases instead of others, to not even try to avoid all assumptions--which is a logically possible thing to do, but something that takes genuine effort and intelligence.  Of course, if something is logically necessary, such as the fact that only a total lack of assumptions and an emphasis on strictly logical truths as the inherent foundation of all things allows someone to arrive at provable truths without accident, whether it is a useful or appealing idea is of no relevance to its truth.  Even if every person did not intentionally try to avoid rejecting all assumptions to make their worldviews simpler, it would still be true that no one can know something and assume it at the same time--and that all assumptions are avoidable.

There is no such thing as a bias that someone is truly helpless against.  Anyone who merely thinks rationally could identify or at least avoid all biases in favor of various ideas.  Whether the bias is an assumption that theism or atheism is true, that a man or woman must have certain personality traits, that other people exist, and so on, it is always rooted in the failure of a person to rationalistically approach ideas.  There is no individually or socially inspired assumption that anyone must believe, and anyone who believes otherwise is either just trying to excuse their own asinine assumptions or use supposed knowledge to reject the fact that some knowledge is possible.  Such a stance has a contradiction at its heart.

If everyone was an inevitable, helpless slave to biases and even to less intentional assumptions, no one at all would even be able to recognize this.  If everyone was biased about everything, no one would know anything because biases would get in the way of rationalistic knowledge, even knowledge of how everyone is biased.  This becomes just another self-refuting epistemological and metaphysical position that cannot be true by default.  Starting with the self-verifying nature of reason and one's own existence and then not making any assumptions at all is not only possible, but it is the only way to avoid biases.  Anyone who would dispute this in their own mind or while conversing with others will be using reason, albeit from a false starting point, to argue against true knowledge gained by reason.

It is not impossibility but discomfort, stupidity, and laziness that keeps people from fully embracing rationalism.  A lack of willpower or intelligence is what stops someone from recognizing any foundational or less central biases that they might have, and there is nothing beyond a lack of willingness to align with reason that stops them from realizing this without any special life circumstances or social conversations to spark it.  Biases are not inescapable and the same biases are not universal among non-rationalists anyway.  The only way to escape the most trivial, small bias and the most devastating, obvious bias alike is to refrain from believing in anything that cannot be logically proven--even beliefs that are a source of great comfort and inspiration.  Sheer unwillingness and stupidity is what keeps assumptions of all kinds from being totally rejected.

The Prosperity Gospel's Heresy

There are Biblical examples of how wealth can be directly granted by God as an expression of favor, one of the best examples being Job.  The entire book is about his life of prosperity getting thoroughly disrupted after Satan claims that he would certainly curse God if he was no longer protected from misery and did not have such abundant possessions (Job 1:9-11).  After this, Job is tested severely with the loss of health, family members, and animals, yet he refuses to curse God or falsely think his tragedies are punishment for evil he has committed--God calls Job blameless when Satan questions his commitment to God.  Only after extreme suffering is Job restored and blessed by God even more than before.

Job's status at the beginning and end of the book is one of wealth, his wealth at the end surpassing his wealth at the start.  This material prosperity is specifically stated to be brought about by God in the final chapter.  Job 42:10 says that God, once Job had emerged from his hellacious trials, "made him prosperous again and gave him twice as much as he had before," and verse 12 in the same chapter adds that God "blessed the latter part of Job's life more than the first."  Consistent with this description, this chapter of Job clarifies that he had 14,000 sheep, 6,000 camels, and two thousand other animals.  At both ends of the story, ownership of an enormous number of animals is used to convey the wealth Job was given.

It would be a serious mistake and an obvious non sequitur fallacy, however, to think that this is always how the rest of the Bible treats wealth, as if everyone who is not wealthy is forsaken by or an enemy of God and everyone who is wealthy is divinely blessed.  Like health or physical beauty, and other such characteristics of a person, financial standing is conceptually unrelated to someone's moral standing even though God occasionally rewards someone by granting them one of these things.  The idea that financial security and economic success reflect moral character and soteriological security is part of the heresy of the prosperity gospel, a contra-Biblical kind of glorification of money and the status it can bring.

The prosperity gospel's flaw is not holding that money (and in broader versions, physical or mental health as well) could be something God bestows in response to commitment to him and his commands of justice.  The error is in the notion that this is a universal or integral part of Biblical teachings about the relationship between salvation, moral character, and prosperity.  At that point, a possibility that might be the case in a handful of situations is twisted into a nonexistent promise from God that actually contradicts what the Bible does say.  The fools who actually think this theological stance has anything to do with the Bible are not just guilty of making assumptions and betraying reason and actual Biblical doctrines, but in danger of being crushed by disappointment when they do not receive what they hope for.

The easiest way to avoid this gratuitous disappointment based on mere assumptions and distortions is to realize that sometimes material prosperity is a sign of divine favor in Biblical stories and sometimes it is not.  It takes only a moment to realize that it does not logically follow from someone having any particular degree of wealth that this is because God is personally blessing them, but even the Bible itself illustrates this point through examples, all without necessarily saying that wealth could be but is not always a mark of God's approval.  The beliefs that wealth on its own is either sinful or the divine reward for righteousness are asinine and unbiblical.  As is so often the case, it is easy for the irrational to be swept aside by fallacies leading to one side of a truth or the other.

What Qualifies As Propoganda

Propaganda is a more flexible term than many people might think.  A statement or visual message is not propaganda just because it originated from a certain person, and fallacious or refutable ideas are not automatically propaganda.  Conservatives and liberals are sometimes so accustomed to assuming that claims from the other side are false or misleading that they might accuse each other of propaganda without any serious analysis of the epistemology or intentions of the ideas at hand.  This is actually the very approach to truth and philosophy at the heart of all propaganda, regardless of who it comes from or how aware they are of their irrationality.  It is the intentions that make the expression of an idea fall into this category.

What qualifies as propaganda is not actually just lies or assumptions.  Even a truth could be used as part of a propaganda campaign if it is brought up and celebrated for the sake of political power instead of truth itself.  Propaganda, after all, is about using either truths, or at least partial truths, or lies to manipulate people into agreement with some assumed idea or grand goal of a person with power.  The goal is to use frequency of exposure or social pressure to influence someone to embrace an idea for reasons other than philosophical proof.  In some cases, the idea might be true and provable, while in others it might be true but unprovable, false but impossible to disprove, or verifiably false (if it contains contradictions or conflicts with the necessary truths of reason).

This is not what plenty of people specifically seem to mean by the term when controversy erupts.  Republicans and democrats alike will decry propaganda from the other side, and sometimes they will even object to claims that are not necessarily propaganda as if they were, while they indulge in the very thing they pretend to condemn.  Charges of propaganda from popular political factions might just be propaganda themselves.  This is the irony that results when conservative and liberal groups are so desperate to exert influence on those willing to believe their fallacies that they end up using some of the same strategies their opponents use, or at least supposedly use (since both factions have their glaring fallacies they cling to no matter what, they both use propaganda at times, but not all cases of fallacies or misinformation are automatically propaganda).

The political climate is so fragile that such truths about the actual nature of propaganda can easily go unrecognized.  Indeed, the truth is not what most people want; they want to feel justified in whatever biases, general assumptions, and preferences they have.  That actual truths which are verifiable can be politically used for purposes not related to knowing truth is not comforting to many others.  Truth itself can be used as propaganda--and not because it is appealed to out of context or in an incomplete way, but because the people behind the propaganda are not concerned with ultimate truth, rationalism and absolute certainty, instead appealing to random ideas because it is helpful for them.

Still, not all promotion of ideas is propaganda: the mass publication of information that is true and not meant to inspire assumptions and biases is not propaganda no matter how thoroughly it is spread across a culture or how fierce its adherents are.  The antidote to propaganda of all kinds is merely the pursuit of truth without assumptions, no matter how disliked or seemingly bizarre a truth might be.  It is just that the pursuit of truth is something each individual must come to for rationalistic reasons instead of bowing to even correct cultural ideas because of social pressures.  Someone unwilling to be manipulated by propaganda must be a rationalist if their opposition to it is in any way deeper than emotionalistic reactions, which is what anti-propaganda thinkers would allegedly want their opposition to be.

Pain And Sin

Not every pain arises because of sin.  While some Biblically defined sins cause physical or mental pain to the victim (like abuse) and some sins can bring anguish to the one who performed them through guilt (not that guilt makes anything wrong or epistemologically reveals morality), it is entirely possible for people to experience displeasure, regret, or sadness over things that are ultimately unrelated to sin.  Sometimes these are just the product of subjective mental states that flare up even though they have nothing to do with morality.  In other words, neither moral perfection nor avoiding victimization at the hands of evil individuals is automatically going to stop someone from having a painful life.

Even in a world free of all evil intentions and actions, it would still be logically possible for people to get hurt emotionally by subjective reactions to things that are amoral, simply not as they would prefer.  Not every person who is in psychological pain is suffering because of anything that is necessarily related to the capacity for sin.  Even people who have not experienced such a situation can understand this, and it could be especially comforting to sincere, rationalistic Christians (meaning they are likely to not be legalistic or reach non sequitur conclusions about what actually follows from Biblical theology).  This is a truth that could provide strength during personal trials that do indeed not spring from sin.

Consider how two close, rational, selfless dating partners might break up for reasons that have nothing to do with intellectual misunderstandings or moral flaws.  They could understand themselves and each other as much as epistemological limitations allow for, have a thriving relationship built on shared rationalism and Christianity, be committed to clear communication, and cherish each other as intellectual and spiritual equals.  It still might be the case that life circumstances will make it so that they dissolve their romantic bond without either person having been abused, manipulated, or lied to by the other.  Neither party made assumptions or was irrational or selfish in any way.  Ultimately, they stop dating despite the pain it brings them because it is best for the sake of broader life stability.

This is just one possible example.  Although pain and sin are not always linked, Revelation 21:4 speaks of the absence of pain and tears in New Jerusalem as if there will be none of either--even though not all pain and tears have anything to do with carrying out evil, being victimized by it, or reflecting on it.  In Christian theology, even though not all pains and trials originate from sin one way or another, New Jerusalem is said to be entirely free of them.  Christians who have endured various pains that had nothing to do with personal sin or someone else's sin are all the more likely to long for a respite from even these trials.  A short amount of time spent with such pain is all that is needed to make someone wish for relief, and rationalistic optimism about the future can make all pain more bearable.

Even if Christianity as put forth in the Bible is false in part (things like an uncaused cause creating a world of matter and mind and body simply being distinct from each other are logically provable either way), one thing it is correct in positing is the fact that human life in its current state is one of trials.  Jesus might have been referring to the aftermath of his death when he tells his disciples in John 16:33 that they will have trouble in this world, but this is something true of far more than just the lives of certain people in the first century Middle East.  Whether tied to sin or not, pain is a part of human life, and sometimes for no reason other than that various people subjectively feel hurt or discouraged by circumstances that are not problematic on their own.