Existence And Essence

The phrase "existence precedes essence" as affiliated with atheistic existentialist Jean-Paul Sartre is supposed to refer to his notion that humans determine everything about their identity being their mere existence.  Exercising freedom as individual creatures of the human species, we must, according to this ideology, construct our own identities and meaning in a life where there is no default, transcendent meaning to already cling to.  In other words, humans exist, and they decide or shape their essence, their nature, across their lives.  There are some aspects of this that are demonstrably true, some that are demonstrably false, and some that no human could possibly know or have known even if they are/were true.

Of course a thing cannot have a particular nature unless it exists.  A person cannot be articulate or introspective without already existing in order to have those qualities, just as a building cannot be tall or unstable unless it first exists to have these characteristics in the first place.  A nonexistent person cannot be introspective, for example.  Yes, logical possibilities that govern real and hypothetical examples of anything at all exist independent of all else because they are logical truths, and the laws of logic both underpin and transcend everything other than themselves, but here I am talking about non-hypothetical examples of things.  If a person or object really does exist, its existence is a logically necessary prerequisite to it actually having any further qualities.

Sartre does not stop here, however.  He not only assumes that atheism is true--even it it was both not possible to prove that there is an uncaused cause and true that there is no deity, atheism would be completely incapable of being proven by beings with human limitations, so in either case, only a fool would be an atheist--he also pretends like humans can construct meaning in the sense of values that are truly meaningful, as if wanting something to be good or valuable (not in the sense of financial value or valuable for understanding the nature of reason, which is true whether or not objective values exist, but valuable in the sense of having moral worth) makes it so and as if the conflicting, subjective perceptions of all humans across history could possibly be simultaneously valid.

This is the typical case of someone who irrationally believes nihilism, which is an inherently irrational belief because nihilism cannot be proven or disproven by humans, even though it is ultimately either true or false, and there could be no direct evidence for nihilism short of logical proof because no amount of perception means that meaning does not exist.  All but perhaps a few nihilists are too stupid to even be consistent with their total assumptions about how there is no moral obligation or meaning by insisting that, even though meaning and morality do not exist, we can actually make them exist in a binding but non-binding way by just wanting certain things to be good, evil, or objectively meaningful.  Nihilists very rarely even remain consistent with nihilism itself despite it allegedly being their worldview.

No amount of trying to will values into existence or out of existence changes anything about reality except for what one is attempting to do at the time.  This, too, is an error on Sartre's part.  There is also the fact that in order to exist as a human, someone must have a nonphysical consciousness inhabiting a very specific kind of body, one that, despite the wide range of possible aesthetic and physiological differences from one person to the next, is bipedal, mammalian, and so on.  There are aspects of being human that are neither determined by one's will nor are secondary to being human: without these traits, someone is not human at all!  Even on this level, Sartre's version of "existence precedes essence" has very overt errors.

Existence precedes essence only in the sense that something must exist for it to actually be part of reality and have any further qualities.  In all other regards, the ideas behind this as associated with Sartre are either easily disproven by pure reason, and thus logically impossible, or epistemologically nothing but random assumptions that could not be proven true even if they were all consistent with each other.  This kind of nuance and specificity is, however, not what many people who analyze the ideas and lives of deceased philosophers tend to seek out.  Here is yet another example of something that in part is demonstrably true and in part contradictory, false, and/or assumed.

When False Accusations Are Capital Sins

Not all Biblical capital offenses, or capital sins, as I sometimes call them, have equal moral weight.  All of them are severe enough that they deserve death according to the Bible, with only utter fools actually believing that to kill people for these actions is not a universal obligation in Christianity, but even then, some are more cruel, more selfish, and more vile than others.  Cursing one's parents (Exodus 21:17) has a nature deserving far less concern than cursing God (Leviticus 24:16) or kidnapping someone (Exodus 21:16), for instance.  Bestiality (Exodus 22:19), the rape of an animal, is more severe a sin than physically striking one's parents outside of self-defense (Exodus 21:15).  In one sense, these acts are all evil by Biblical standards, and in another sense, some are far less depraved.

To falsely accuse someone of murder, rape, kidnapping, adultery, or any other such capital sin is of course not as evil as actually carrying out the acts in question, but that the Bible prescribes the same punishment for malicious, false accusations that the falsely charged sin should receive (Deuteronomy 19:16-19) reveals just how seriously Yahweh takes the matter.  To intentionally accuse an innocent person of something like rape or murder--a person innocent of the particular deed in question at the least, even if they are not innocent of other other major sins--merits the same response as if the accuser himself or herself had actually committed rape or murder.  Now, some cases of intentional, malicious false accusations would only deserve financial damages, a small number of lashes, or (very rarely) the removal of a hand or other body part in accordance with what non-capital crimes of the Bible deserve.  False accusations of capital offenses simply deserve death itself.

So grave is the malicious attempt to have someone punished for a capital sin they did not carry out, even if they wanted to carry it out but did not, that it is also prescribed the very same penalty of execution that would be deserved by the accused if they had indeed done what they were charged with.  Some people might treat accusations of sins deserving death as so weighty that they should never be made at all out of respect for how grave they are and because of the possibility of a community rallying against an innocent person; others might trivialize or forget the severity of saying that anyone at all has sinned, capital offense or not.  There are even ways that theological liberals or conservatives might specifically succumb to the latter of these two general errors.

When liberals pretending to adhere to Biblical ideas call for all women to be assumed to speak the truth about male abuse against them, they are not only sexist, but they do not care about the seriousness of charging someone, male or female, with wrongdoing of any kind.  When conservatives pretending to adhere to Biblical ideas assume conspiracy theories that tend to target their often arbitrarily despised political opponents, they are not only irrational for embracing the unverifiable, but they too do not care about the seriousness of charging someone, regardless of how mysterious they are, with wrongdoing of any kind.  Unfortunately, these liberal and conservative Christians are the ones most commonly confused for the ones who represent the worldview, and they usually do not even handle this issue well despite supposedly caring about justice.

The Spectrum Of Sensuality

Not all pleasures have to do with the senses.  Delight in reason, self-awareness, and the knowledge they provide all pertain to the laws of logic and one's mind, and they are the prerequisites to even understanding experiences by proving truths about them in the first place.  Some pleasures are or could be experienced with or without any sensory input.  Even when it comes to sensory pleasures, without a consciousness animating the body and experiencing the sensory perceptions, there would be no sensory pleasures because there would be no senses.  But what is the real spectrum of sensory pleasures?  In a culture where many people might reserve the word pleasure for describing sexual experiences and could fail to look past words to concepts that transcend sexuality, pleasure's true nature can go unnoticed, or at least unfocused upon.

Sexual pleasure already has mental and bodily components: pleasurable feelings of sexual attraction have to do with the contents of one's consciousness and pleasurable experiences with physical arousal require a body, for instance.  The same is true of other pleasures, for there is always a mental component to recognizing, experiencing, and at least mildly understanding any other pleasure derived from the senses.  It is just that sexual pleasure that comes from seeing, touching, or hearing something sexual (I mean something truly sexual, like having sex with a partner and not just looking at an attractive, exposed body) is but one subset of a wider range of sensory pleasures that almost everyone with functioning senses already experiences every day.

The taste of delicious food, the feel of comfortable clothing, and the sight of a preferred style of architecture can all instill a distinct awareness and appreciation of pleasure, and yet none of these things have anything to do with sexuality despite having to do with the senses.  Even the sensuality of the naked or clothed human body is objectively nonsexual; it is a nonsexual thing that is sometimes perceived and acted upon in a sexual manner.  Pleasure, including pleasure that involves the senses, is far broader than the strictly sexual contexts it is sometimes associated with.  The spectrum of sensuality extends into many things that the word is not necessarily used to reference despite the nature of sensuality being obvious to anyone who contemplates it while making no assumptions and looking to reason.

Sexual pleasure is still one of the deepest, most philosophically and personally stimulating (if one approaches it with rationalistic and introspective depth) kinds of pleasure it is possible to experience, whether it is the pleasure of having and reflecting on sexual feelings or the pleasure of acting upon them alone or with a partner.  This does not mean that sensuality does not need to be understood as fundamentally nonsexual when it does or does not pertain to the sight or feel of the human body--especially if someone wants to have both superior awareness of the nature of things and a fuller range of pleasurable experiences.  The only things to lose are the chains of assumptions and a more limited degree of self-awareness.

In the context of Christian theology, embracing sensuality actually takes on further significance.  To embrace sensuality without assumptions and irrational beliefs, hedonism, or the pursuit of sinful acts is for Christians ultimately an expression of love for God and what he has created.  This can serve as a way to explore the potential depths of one's own self and the nature of logical truths about pleasure without forfeiting the realization that there is more to existence than pleasure of an intellectual or sensual kind.  It can even be done with prayerful gratefulness for the nonsinful nature of many pleasures--including sexual pleasures of the senses like masturbation.  What a rational person will not cease to believe, though, is that sensuality encompasses more than sexuality and that pleasure encompasses more than sensuality.

Privacy And Isolation From Other Minds

The disconnection between human minds is something that every being like myself experiences whether or not they truly focus on it or understand it.  No matter how strongly it might seem otherwise to someone in the grip of assumptions, there is no way to just tell from facial expressions, outward behaviors, or words what someone really believes or is thinking or intending.  A double-edged sword, this part of human existence can have its desirable and burdensome aspects.  It is the sole reason why people can seemingly protect their thoughts from others (I say seemingly because one cannot tell from outward appearances if other people share the inability to gaze into other minds), though it also keeps us forever separated in one sense.

This first of these two ramifications can bring relief.  If every other person has this same limitation, then they cannot see into one's mind to identify the thoughts one would prefer to keep hidden from them.  Unless others only appear to be incapable of peering into one's actual mind--not facial expressions or implied or verbalized intentions or beliefs, but into one's consciousness itself--then there all of one's thoughts are ultimately private and no one else, save for God and any other telepathic beings, could truly know them.  There is an extreme degree of privacy in this that many people appear to take for granted or not fully comprehend.  At the same time, the very same metaphysical distinctiveness and epistemological barriers that prevent others from seeing into one's mind prevent one and others from the most absolute form of connection.

If you cannot see into the thoughts of others and they cannot see into yours, then there is a kind of isolation present no matter how strongly non-rationalists might feel or believe that they really can totally connect with others with no potential for illusions, misperceptions, or assumptions.  They are not only cut off from having someone else intrude on their thoughts by seeing them without permission (or seeming to not be able to do this, since a person can only know that they cannot look into other minds and cannot know if other minds can see into theirs), but they are also cut off from the potential psychological refuge of knowing that others see them exactly as they are.  For some, recognizing the latter fact makes life incredibly lonely at times.

It is at this time that it needs to be remembered that it is still possible for two beings with this massive limitation of being unable to see each other's minds, thoughts, and feelings to love and genuinely connect with each other.  It is a connection that is devoid of absolute certainty as to whether there even is another mind one has bonded with, and there is always the potential one is being misled even if all evidence points to the contrary, but the gulf between minds does mean that life-giving friendships or marriages cannot be savored all the same.  That true psychological privacy is by necessity accompanied by a grand kind of isolation from whatever other minds might exist does not logically require that people cannot come to deeply connect with each other as far as their limited perceptions allow.

Movie Review--The Abyss

"Look, I don't know what I saw, Bud, okay?  Coffey wants to call it a Russian submersible, fine, it's a Russian submersible."

--Lindsey Brigman, The Abyss

James Cameron's best film is not The Abyss.  Though The Abyss never reaches the same thematic or artistic heights as something like Terminator 2 or Aliens, it does possess its own successes as a story, keeping some of the stylistic and genre touches Cameron has associated himself with even as its setting distinguishes it from his other work.  In fact, few mainstream science fiction movies truly explore the idea of an underwater civilization (Aquaman and Underwater are two of the more recent ones).  This gives The Abyss, especially at its time, a special stage from which to show its characters and events.  It balances a story of alien contact (although there is no reason to think the species discovered truly is extraterrestrial, unlike what a character says), one of reconciliation between lovers, and one of political tension, mostly doing a great job of this across its more than two hour runtime.

Photo credit: Mind on Fire Photography on VisualHunt.com

Production Values

As with some of Cameron's other work like Terminator 2, the digital effects in The Abyss look outdated by comparison to the CGI of modern norms, but they are still far better examples of what older effects could look like than those of something like Predator, which came out only two years earlier.  The scene where the creatures use water that can mimic people's faces and stretch its "neck" across many rooms demonstrates this well.  The physical sets are a great contrast to this because they unsurprisingly look just as natural as they would have in 1989.  No matter how much CGI evolves, practical effects and locations will usually not look as old as digital effects from more than 30 years ago!

The acting and characterization, like the sets, hold up due to their strong quality.  Ed Harris and Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio play an estranged couple that together forms the emotional core of the story--and in which the deepest characterization of the movie is on display.  Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio's Lindsey is also notably not a personality clone of Cameron's Sarah Connor or his take on Ellen Ripley.  She, like the other primary characters, are not unnecessarily made to resemble the characters of other Cameron films.  Michael Biehn, who collaborated with James Cameron in an even more popular film of his, has a very different role than he does in Aliens and Terminator.  His Hiram Coffey is actually the villain of the story instead of a non-human foe, and Biehn shows versatility as an actor by skillfully playing a different kind of character in the movie.

Story

Some spoilers are below.

An American submarine encounters an unidentified submerged object, or USO, traveling at such high speeds that its passing forces the submarine into a collision with rocks.  Trying to recover a nuclear missile, a team of government operatives create tension on an underwater drilling station as a hurricane threatens the surface above and a strange species of aquatic beings are spotted again and again.  A still-married but emotionally detached wife and husband have to work together amidst all of this.  The wife, Dr. Lindsey Brigman, is one of the persons who sees the bizarre underwater species, which tend to trigger a power blackout every time they appear.

Intellectual Content

For a movie that is supposed to partly be about contacting an alien species, The Abyss does a terrible job of establishing that the underwater beings encountered are actually extraterrestrials.  What is does a great job of when it comes to this issue is instead exemplifying how it is objectively impossible to tell that a being is from Earth or another planet just because it was previously unknown or because it looks different from familiar terrestrial creatures.  Lindsey just assumes that the creatures are "nonterrestrial" even though seeing an underwater creature on Earth does not prove that it comes from Earth or from a foreign planet.  As basic rationalistic reflection reveals, the inherent limitations of sensory perceptions and the objective logical possibility of a given newly being coming from either Earth or somewhere else mean that Lindsey's idea is just rooted in irrationality.

Conclusion

The Abyss, although it blends multiple things like mysterious aliens and political paranoia very well, is at its best when focusing on its characters--that being one of James Cameron's strengths as a director.  The themes are not developed as thoroughly as its characters, unlike how they are explored alongside the cast in Cameron's Terminator films, but so much is handled well that the less prominent philosophical themes about the epistemology of alien life and the destructiveness of war are not a detriment, but an opportunity that is simply exploited to a lesser extent.  This is still a unique movie with strong performances and a setting conducive to the isolation, desperation, and mystery called for.  It is not the best from its director, but that does not make it bad.

Content:

 1.  Violence:  A brawl is shown in one scene without gore.

 2.  Profanity:  "Bitch," "damn," and "shit" are used.

 3.  Nudity:  A woman's breasts are briefly uncovered so she can be revived after being unconscious in the ocean.

A God Among Gods

Beyond just mentioning pagan gods like Baal or Moloch, and I use the word gods here loosely because anything other than an uncaused cause is not ultimately a god/goddess, the Bible does occasionally make statements that reference unspecified pagan gods.  An example is the renowned command to have no other gods before Yahweh one can find in the Ten Commandments.  Many readers might completely ignore this, but, when all assumptions are avoided, the language of the Bible here is not necessarily immediately clear on whether it is saying that other gods lesser than Yahweh exist but do not deserve worship or that the others are wholly false gods.  What would the ramifications be if it was the former?

Even if the Bible actually did teach that Yahweh is the supreme deity, the uncaused cause, and that pantheons of lesser "deities" exist, neither the creators of the universe nor humans, but beings in between, little would actually change about Christianity theology other than this significant but limited aspect.  There would still be an uncaused cause that these superhuman entities cannot rival the power or more metaphysically central nature of, the moral commands of Yahweh would not change, and the nature of the life and death of Jesus would not be affected (short of something like Arianism being true of the Biblical teachings, but this is possible either way, though it is impossible to Biblically confirm or refute the idea that Yahweh created Jesus).  The true core of Christianity would scarcely change.

The difference is that Yahweh would be God among "gods," the being responsible for bringing the first contingent beings into existence, either creating or setting in motion the circumstances leading to the creation of these entities with power, perhaps even supernatural power, that greatly exceeds that of humans and yet falls far short of the ability to invent and sustain the cosmos.  From the Greco-Roman pantheon to those of ancient Egypt, Scandinavia, or pre-colonization America, the majority of what people call "gods" and "goddesses" in these hierarchies are not credited with bringing the universe into existence, being the sole standard of moral obligation, or having the ability to preside over the entirety of physical creation.

As such, it would still not be Athena or Odin but Yahweh who has precedence over created reality even if the Bible was acknowledging the actual existence of lesser so-called gods (for they would still not be the uncaused cause, which is what a deity truly is) under Yahweh, as opposed to merely acknowledging that some people conceived of and worshipped such beings even if they do not exist.  "You shall have no other gods before me" from Exodus 20 would still apply even if pagan pseudo-deities like Zeus, Hera, Frigga, Pinga (of Inuit religion), Ra, and Khonsu, which are, again, not uncaused causes, existed.  Since this would remain unchanged, so too would the moral nature of Yahweh, his desire to offer salvation to the willing, and the eventual coming and death of Christ.

At first, the hypothetical possibility of the Bible literally stating that pagan pantheons exist but only as lesser than Yahweh might seem to change so much about Christianity if it is true that the result is unrecognizable, yet in actuality, almost nothing about the genuine heart of Christianity would differ.  This is not affirmation that in referencing other gods, the Bible is teaching that they exist, only an affirmation of what would and would not logically follow about Christian theology.  More foundationally, the logically necessary existence of the uncaused cause prior to the universe would also remain unchanged regardless of whether Christianity is true even if there were/are superhuman beings similar to the Olympian deities.  Something so seemingly extensive in its ramifications really has much more limited ones.

The Megachurch Phenomenon

Church itself is objectively optional for Christians at best according to the Bible, with the only command that is even loosely related to the idea of weekly Sunday morning church being the nonspecific instruction to not give up meeting with fellow Christians in Hebrews 10:25.  Not attending or attending church have nothing whatsoever to do with whether someone is a rational, just, consistent, or selfless person, and never is anything resembling conventional church ever prescribed or even suggested.  Nevertheless, there are different church structures and sizes--I am talking about both the physical buildings in which people gather and the congregations themselves--that sometimes are fallaciously targeted for irrelevant factors.

To clarify, there is nothing wrong with wanting to attend a church every week or with actually attending even a subpar, philosophically/theologically inept, largely useless one, given that a person does not believe anything false or unverifiable, allow the staff or other congregants to influence them, or support whatever idiocy is on display: attending a typical church is just not morally mandatory or damning.  There is also nothing sinful about attending, starting, or otherwise participating in a megachurch, a church with a comparatively enormous base of attendees and likely far more staff members than smaller churches could either find or need.  Again, no Biblical command or condemnation pertains to whether churches of large sizes should exist, even though they are in no way necessities, the same as all other churches.

There is not anything morally illicit about having a church of any particular size (Deuteronomy 4:2, in yet another example of why this one verse's obvious condemnation of going beyond or not adhering to Yahweh's actual commands is so deeply vital to Christian ethics), so objections based on the number of people in attendance are automatically contrary to the Bible.  Megachurches still receive hostility from some Christians who subjectively dislike congregations of an arbitrary size or assume that because some prominent megachurches are filled with heresies, selfishness, and general philosophical stupidity, others must be filled with these things as well.  However, the size of a church is irrelevant to its ideological flaws or even to its successes in having members who actually live out genuine Biblical commands.

The potential for corruption to be concealed and for Biblically inaccurate and philosophically invalid ideas (the latter being invalid whether or not Christianity is true) increases, yes; still, a megachurch being or becoming a place where outright falsehoods or heresies are promoted, tolerated, or trivialized is simply a possibility that might or might not actually come about.  It does not logically follow from a megachurch being a megachurch that it is founded or run in the name of fallacies or that its leaders will aim to deceive or settle for superficiality, contradictions, and emotionalistic appeal to as many fools as can be reached by ideas without substance.  That one megachurch fails on these fronts does not mean another one will, but one that theologically fails is not in failure because it is a megachurch.

As individual megachurches become more and more integrated with popular culture, drawing attention and criticism from secular and Christian circles alike, it needs to be understood that a church's number of attendees does not determine anything about its moral, spiritual, or broader philosophical standing.  A megachurch with terrible leadership is only at fault because of its leader(s), not because it is a megachurch.  The Bible is not against megachurches specifically, though no kind of church gathering is morally required by Yahweh to begin with.  Beliefs founded on hatred of megachurches because of what some megachurch leaders have done or because of a love of traditional church sizes are Biblically invalid.

Understanding And Experiencing

No one needs to be married to understand marriage; no one needs to be personally mistreated on the basis of their race (as someone of any skin color at all) to understand the nature and ramifications of racism.  To list more similar examples, no one needs to face a natural disaster to understand all the ways it could terrify someone, enjoy a particular movie to understand exactly why someone else loves it, or struggle with mental health issues to know that it is logically possible to have such burdens and to understand what they could be like.  It is reason rather than sensory experience that grounds truth and knowledge, and reason is accessible independent of all social interactions and all experiences except for the conscious grasp of reason itself.

Besides sheer stupidity--assumptions and contradictions--no one would ever oppose these facts unless they wanted to feel a sense of uniqueness in that they erroneously believe that someone else cannot relate to or understand them, though this is far from true.  No non-telepathic being can know what others are experiencing, so I cannot know what someone else is truly feeling or thinking, but I can perfectly understand what they seem to be communicating and the possibilities of what they might be experiencing.  Neither I nor anyone else must have all possible experiences in order to understand all knowable philosophical truths, which are what dictate the nature of experience itself and the things being experienced.

I do not need to have cancer to perfectly understand what cancer is supposed to be like.  I do not have to be asexual to understand the various ways someone could experience or live out asexuality--and more importantly, what is true about the concept and what logically follows and does not from it regardless of how anyone feels about it.  I do not have to want to steal to understand theft and why someone might wish to do such a thing.  Only a fool thinks that experience adds anything to knowledge except what it is like to personally experience something.  Yes, experiences can prompt thoughts and rationalistic discoveries, but no one still needs to experience a possible state of mind to understand it, and free of all assumptions at that.

People delude themselves if they believe that they cannot be understood by someone else who is not experiencing their exact emotions, circumstances, and desires.  Perhaps some such people want to feel special or superior in assuming that no one else can understand these things which all willing, thorough people are capable of knowing thanks to reason, which transcends all experiences and is what metaphysically and epistemologically underpins them.  Perhaps they are genuinely stupid enough to think their own completely avoidable experience of not understanding concepts and, ironically, experiences themselves is something all other people share.  Not everything will necessarily be thought of without experiential prompting, but no one has to experience situations or states of mind to understand them.

Logic, people.  It is very fucking helpful.

A Benefit Of Trials

One of the things practically everyone can relate to is suffering of some kind.  Private emotional or psychological struggles, an inability to experience things other people talk about, financial difficulties, epistemological limitations, abuse, relationships that did not turn out as one would have needed or wished--there are many forms that trials can take, and making it through life without facing at least some of them is all but impossible.  One of the primary benefits for people who have endured great suffering and not shied away from it, ironically, is self-awareness and even a capacity for strong relationships with others who have suffered.  By being willing to discuss and honestly put forth one's current or past trials, people can benefit each other in unexpected or incredibly deep ways.

There could almost always be someone or a small group of people experiencing trials that either no one or almost no one else can relate to, perhaps even across all of human history, but at least even then, if they are open about their suffering, they can either help others who might go through the same thing eventually or inspire people in their own separate trials.  After all, the burdens of life as a Christian or non-Christian can be utterly crushing when coupled with relational isolation.  For rationalists, alleviating misery through catharsis by being open with fellow rationalists and celebrating victories over lasting or major trials is only enhanced by the fact that they alone can understand trials and the personal depths of their own heart without slavery to assumptions.  There is greater depth to them and their realizations and interactions with others, and in this case, part of it emerges as a benefit of trials.

Even non-rationalists can find, however, that the presence of other people with whom one can talk freely about the burdens of life can be very liberating.  They cannot understand the nature of trials or their personal reactions to them to the same extent as rationalists can, of course, but the deep healing or relief of sharing what one is going through is not accessible only to rationalists.  This is sometimes the only way to intentionally, preemptively solve certain problems that people would have to experience in all of their harshness before only possibly finding a solution on the other side.  Though they lack the ideological and introspective stability of rationalists, non-rationalists can partake in this much.

This is one of the grand ramifications of how we handle trials.  The fact that we suffer can sometimes mean that other people do not have to, or that they can find more relief amidst their suffering than they otherwise could have through personal connections that help them weather their difficulties or through the sharing of information that could resolve certain problems.  Although this is only a helpful side effect of the suffering that almost everyone would simply prefer had never been there in the first place, this is one way to make the most of life's unavoidable struggles.  In a life like this, troubles could spring up at any moment, and there is always the potential for one trial to become worse than the last.  Openness with others and, most vitally, rationality, along with valid philosophical beliefs, are the obvious keys to endurance.

The Epistemological Folly Of Psychoanalysis

The psyche is a word typically referring to a person's consciousness, their nonphysical seat of thought and perception, and the word analysis refers to a conceptual dissection of ideas and experiences with the light of deductive reasoning.  The word psychoanalysis is connected with something distinct, although the combination of other terms would on its own imply a strictly rationalistic (if done without assumptions) philosophical examination of the metaphysical and epistemological nature of consciousness, and perhaps one's own individual experiences, motivations, and perceptions as a conscious being.  Psychoanalysis in the sense associated with Freud is the process of supposedly exploring the interconnected conscious and unconscious (also called the subconscious) minds to better understand a person's psychological standing.  Particular methods like free association, where a person can write or speak whatever comes to their mind without constant prompting, might be used to supposedly tease out elements of the subconscious and see how they impact beliefs and behaviors.

The obvious epistemological problem with this, or at least the problem that is obvious to any unbiased person who understands the concept of the subconscious mind, is that something outside of one's ability to perceive could not be proven to exist with pure reason or with introspective experiences (which still hinge on reason, as all things inescapably do).  Having a conscious thought or experience--literally the only kind of thought or experience that one could know the existence of--could never prove the existence of a subconscious side of the mind.  Conscious experience does not even suggest a part of the mind inaccessible to actual perception, and pure reason, as opposed to logical truths specifically pertaining to the nature and knowability of consciousness, does not prove the existence of the subconscious because it does not exist by sheer logical necessity and is not epistemologically self-evident.

Here, there is a vital clarification that needs to be grasped.  Someone could "subconsciously" do something in the sense of performing an action while focusing so heavily on something else that there is little to no direct awareness of what they are doing.  On the level of belief, someone could passively and avoidably assume something, but they could never know an idea is true or be aware of their own belief without consciously dwelling on it.  Outward actions are different.  However, this kind of subconscious behavior is not something that cannot be directly experienced no matter what someone tries to do.  Someone with concentration difficulties could directly perceive their actions with intentional effort, yet a truly subconscious thought is not perceived at all or else it would not be subconscious, and there is nothing in the range of human experiences that is both experienced and subconscious.

Not everything in Freudian psychology is logically disprovable, epistemologically based in mere assumptions, or even at odds with Biblical doctrines.  The subconscious is not among them, as no one can believe in a subconscious part of the mind without making glaring assumptions.  Freudian psychoanalysis is irrational at the level of epistemology from the start even aside from the possible or impossible parts of his ideology.  Still, even if a subconscious part of the mind does exist, and it is possible, it would not causally dictate someone's beliefs, motivations, or actions, for it would only be like a room shut off from another room, without the light that the adjoined room has.  At most, it would be a collection of inaccessible memories or something similar, not the most foundational part of consciousness.  Consciousness is by necessity something that is or can be experienced, so a true subconscious side of the mind, while not logically incoherent when it comes to metaphysics by default, is by nature not just something voluntarily outside of one's focus for a time, but something that cannot be perceived at all.

The Reactions Of Determinists

There are forms of determinism that are believed by some inside the church and outside of it.  On one hand, Calvinists irrationally pretend like the Bible denies human free will.  On the other hand, naturalistic determinists assume that the external world they perceive not only exists and behaves as they merely perceive it to, but also that it renders all perceptions of free will illusory (the only way to prove free will exists [1] has nothing to do with perceptions, though).  In both cases, one thing about their reactions suggests they do not fully believe what they profess--they still react to other people as if they think others can make choices uncompelled (but not necessarily uninfluenced) by external forces.  If their philosophical conclusions were true, then even their inconsistent beliefs and responses would be beyond their control, but not only is free will demonstrable (as I have addressed separately, such as in the linked article), but such people are still hypocrites.

Now, it is folly to believe that other minds even exist because only perception-based evidence supports this; there is no way to prove this logically, although one can prove that it is logically possible for other minds to either exist or not exist and prove that it does seem as if other people and creatures are separately conscious.  No rational person believes that other minds are actually there just because it seems like they are.  Since free will requires a will and a will cannot exist apart from a consciousness, it follows that it must also be irrational to believe that other people have free will, just that it appears that they have free will, just as it appears that they truly are their own conscious beings rather than hallucinations or inanimate entities.  Even proof of one's own free will would not prove that other people exist or have their own ability to make conscious, autonomous, free choices.

The unknowability of the existence or contents of other minds does not mean one's own free will is unprovable or nonexistent, and it in fact can be proven [1], even though it is not self-evident like the existence of one's own general consciousness is.  It means that it is impossible to know if other people are conscious or have their own free will regardless of what can be known about one's own nature.  That determinists of any kind, theological or naturalistic, act as if they either believe that people do have the ability to freely think, speak, and act in at least some sense means that they seem to not actually embrace their own ideologies and are extrapolating from their own strong perceptions of free will to others, despite perceptions being ultimately irrelevant to anything but epistemological consideration.  It is hypocrisy or insincerity of a very obvious kind once a person has recognized it.

They still tend to get upset when others do something they assume or feel is morally wrong, just as they still tend to act as if the philosophical or practical mistakes of others were avoidable--an impossible thing if all mistakes are inescapable due to deterministic outcomes.  Again, they might believe that even this asinine tendency to not live out what they claim is true is itself predetermined by forces that override all true volition, but it nonetheless shows that they are not consistent.  They themselves, as people, can be scoffingly dismissed and the ideas in question analyzed separately from their blunders.  Calvinists and naturalists who would act in such a manner seemingly betray their true worldview.  It is not that this hypocrisy refutes determinism itself, for only logical proof that determinism is impossible by default or contradictory to some other provable truth that accomplishes that.  It is that hypocrisy and other stupidity is not any less irrational because a Calvinist or naturalistic determinist pretend otherwise.

[1].  https://thechristianrationalist.blogspot.com/2017/09/explaining-free-will.html

An Evangelical Reaction To Non-Legalists

Of all the pathetic excuses legalistic Christians try to appeal to when someone does not bow to their extra-Biblical demands of others, there is one that leaps beyond epistemological and Biblical errors (since they must pretend to "know" that something is Biblically required when the Bible does not say it).  Legalists might assume that the motives of anyone who pushes back against or rejects their arbitrary whims is only trying to sin and make themselves feel or believe they are somehow justified in doing this.  Instead of addressing the actual crux of the matter--whether conscience or tradition have any epistemological or metaphysical value and whether the Bible actually condemns or permits something--this type of legalist will slanderously attack someone's motives.  One of several key errors here is the idea that everyone who knows or even blindly believes that something is not sinful does not always want to partake in it.

Not everyone who realizes the Bible does not condemn alcohol (directly or indirectly) and understands Deuteronomy 4:2 actually drinks or even wants to drink alcohol--this is for some reason one of the less controversial examples that could be given, yet it remains controversial some evangelical churches all the same.  Not everyone who realizes that profanity is Biblically nonsinful actually uses or wants to use profanity, despite knowing it is objectively not evil on the real Christian worldview as opposed to the asinine misconceptions of it that are popular inside and outside of the church.  It does not logically follow from perfectly understanding the permissibility of something in a certain worldview, whether or not there is proof of or evidence for that worldview, that everyone who embraces that ideological system will do everything that is permissible therein.

Other examples could be given.  Not everyone who knows that masturbation is Biblically nonsinful will actually perform the action.  Perhaps they think they would become addicted to it, or they have no interest at all.  They might have interest but be distracted or more concerned with other activities and thus by happenstance not devote time to enjoying an act that is not at all sinful in itself according to the Bible (even when paired with mental imagery, thoughts or images of people of the opposite gender, and so on).  In addition to this, someone might fully realize the nonsinful nature of seeing sexual or nonsexual nudity in entertainment but, without making any philosophical assumptions or contradicting the truth, not be personally comfortable with viewing such a thing.

This does not mean that abstaining from everything that is nonsinful by Biblical standards is always nonsinful.  For instance, refusing to have friendships with one gender or the other or with people of certain nationalities or skin colors is sinful because this is illicit discrimination disregarding the Biblical doctrine that everyone bears God's image, having the same moral rights and obligations.  It is nonsinful to have close friends of the opposite gender or to bond deeply with people of other skin colors, to name some examples, but it would be hypocrisy to discriminate against entire groups of people by intentionally avoiding them or failing to interact with them as if they are fellow humans.

It is just demonstrably true that it does not follow from something being nonsinful that everyone wants to do it or, even if they would like to, that they really engage in those activities.  A belief to the contrary might be in mind when an evangelical tries in vain to think of a rational and Biblical objection to something like profanity or basic erotic media: they might erroneously say that "The only reason you think that activity is not sinful is because you want to do it!"  In reality, they are the deluded fool, desperate to contradict their own supposed worldview for the sake of conformity with unbiblical traditions or mere subjective preferences.  Legalism is every single one of its forms, from the smallest and least clear condemnation of something nonsinful (or prescription of that which is not obligatory) to the most extreme, destructive kind, is only emotionalism or cultural norms confused for Biblical demands.

Movie Review--Prey

"This is as far as you go.  No more.  This is it."

--Naru, Prey

Prey has a very different tone than that of the horrid 2018 film The Predator that was at war with itself, having two very conflicting sides as one of the most blatantly violent movies of the past few years and an MCU-style comedy--and not the good kind of MCU comedy.  Thankfully, this is exactly what the struggling series needed for the resurrection of its often hit or miss quality.  Not horror, but an action drama with the novel setting of early 1700's Comanche society, Prey does take the basic structure of the 1987 Predator film and not change much on the level of the broad narrative, but the Native American context, the somewhat different appearance of the Predator and its technology, and the sheer quality of the action and buildup elevate it to great heights.  That a strong Native American cast (yes, it is noteworthy for such a large Native American cast to be given prominence in a movie like this, and this alone is something to celebrate) gets the spotlight also means Prey accomplishes something unique behind the camera even as it returns the franchise to glory in other ways.

Production Values

Two things in particular stand out in the effects and cinematography side of Prey, or, in other words, in its visual side.  The colors grey and red are utilized very well in maintaining an aesthetic identity, with the red from the Predator's cloaking system perhaps being a different color this time because this is set hundreds of years before the original film, so just like humans, the Predators would have had time to evolve their technological status before that fateful 1987 showdown.  With the cinematography, the greatest successes come in the form of avoiding rapid, close-up shots during action sequences and allowing prolonged single shots to elapse with a lot happening before the camera cuts away.  Some of the later fights with the Predator immensely benefit not just from very smooth and clever action choreography as it showcases a diversity of alien weapons, but also from just letting the viewer have a clear, unbroken look at these events.  Prey stands far above the manner many action scenes are shot and edited today.

Only a small human cast persists throughout the film, either because of character deaths or because they simply are not part of the main events, yet Amber Midthunder makes for a great lead actress as Naru (and she is an Amber who seems to deserve a bright future in cinema for once!), a Comanche woman eager to establish herself as a capable hunter.  Prey is her movie just as it is the Predator's.  Whereas Arnold Schwarzenegger served as a gender-bent final girl in the first movie, Naru is an actual final girl who expresses a lot of strategic cleverness.  Her brother Taabe is played by Dakota Beavers with similar talent as he comes to approve of her determination and skill.  Not many human characters get more than a few minutes of total screentime across the movie, but Midthunder and Beavers share enough scenes with each other for their bond as siblings who look out for each other, even if they have disputes, to be established very well.

Story

Some spoilers are below.

In the context of a Comanche community that does not encourage her desire to become a hunter, Naru sees what she assumes is a thunderbird, which actually is an extraterrestrial vessel dropping a Predator off on Earth.  This creature disrupts the local wildlife, inspiring caution in Naru even as her warnings are dismissed.  The alien visitor, meanwhile, watches how various animals interact with each other and begins killing the greatest predators among them.  Before long, it has attacked a group of Comanche, and Naru realizes that the only reason it once spared her is that it no longer regarded her as a threat.  She uses 1700s firearms, Native American tools, and a clever strategy to her advantage as she prepares to kill this beast after this discovery.

Intellectual Content

Despite not exploring any particularly foundational while still having its own artistic merit, Prey does touch upon subjects like the humanity of the Comanche, the idiocy of gender stereotypes (Naru receives dismissal in wanting to be a hunter, and her gender seems to be a factor in some cases), and the evolving nature of technology are all woven into the story at times.  Human technological development is not particularly unusual to explore in science fiction, but something less popular is cinematic depictions of how extraterrestrials develop their technology over time.  That the Yautja (that is actually the official name of the Predator species) of Prey is seen with a bone mask and weapons that are either not necessarily electric or not as refined as that of the later Predators addresses this.  As an aside, the way the Predator observes various animal relationships and targets the predator among them in some of its earlier scenes (I actually saw this movie with a fellow rationalist who has not seen the prior movies or forgot about them, and they realized just from these scenes what the Predator's targets all have in common) is also illustrated quite well, and it is utilized as a great way to visually communicate the Predator tendency to attack creatures that exhibit aggressive traits.  Yautja technology and culture get explored enough that even a franchise newcomer could glean key details fairly quickly.

Conclusion

For all of the narrative similarities it shares with the original film in some ways, Prey does change the setting to one that permits a greater contrast between the vulnerability of humans with now-outdated weapons and an alien hunter with its own weapons that are primitive by Predator standards of 200+ years later.  Making almost every scene justify its inclusion in the finished cut and leaning into the best aspects of long camera shots were excellent artistic decisions as well.  Prey is by far one of the best Predator movies of all and is at least close to the original in the strength of its competent simplicity: this is not simplicity in the sense of gratuitous repetition and lackluster execution.  It is simplicity in the sense of veering away from gratuitous scenes and unfocused plot threads.  If Prey is an indicator as to what the quality of the franchise will likely be going forward, then it is a very positive indicator indeed.

Content:

 1.  Violence:  In multiple cases, body parts are cut off or shown after they have been severed, and green Yautja blood is spilled many times.

 2.  Profanity:  Occasionally, words like "shit" are used.

Calmness Is Not Rationality

Not only do many people not understand the difference between the laws of logic and rationality, the latter being the grasp of reason and not reason itself, but they also might think that the presence of emotion automatically means that a person cannot understand reason or consistently cling to reason over arbitrary whims and perceptions.  This, in turn, leads to some people being dismissed as irrational when they have thought or said nothing involving assumptions or contradictions, while other people get perceived as rational simply for exhibiting a calm outward demeanor, even if their beliefs and basis for those beliefs are false and rooted in assumptions, and even when they are inconsistent with their own delusional ideas.

Someone could be perfectly calm on the outside and yet still cling to assumptions, embrace inconsistencies even when it means betraying their already false or unprovable ideas, or be totally apathetic towards the core nature of reality.  Someone could be very expressive--though outward words and actions never even prove that a person has emotions or that they are not being deceptive or misleading about their feelings--to the point of subjectively frightening or puzzling onlookers and yet still be perfectly rational, making no assumptions, looking to reason while realizing it is distinct from psychological perceptions and the laws of nature, and consciously or effortlessly avoiding all assumptions that entrap lesser thinkers so easily.

Confusing calmness for rationality and expressiveness or more energetic words and actions as irrational is a pathetic error that only someone unintelligent would actually fall for.  Rationality is nothing but how directly and consistently a person voluntarily understands reason.  Still, there are those who relentlessly try to pressure others into believing the easily disproven notion that rationality is really an absence of emotion, conformity to random social norms, having a certain kind of emotional state, having an excellent memory, being able to express one's thoughts through language, or perhaps some other totally irrelevant factor that does not reveal or ground a person's alignment with reason.

To see someone who shows their anger, sadness, or excitement on their face or in their words and believe that they must be irrational because of their emotion is to make an assumption, and an assumption that is rooted in the objectively false idea that someone has to give up something other than irrationality to be rational.  Even the deepest, most complicated, and most personal emotions do not make a person believe in assumptions, reject truths that can be logically proven, deny the inherent truth of logical axioms, or contradict themselves on the level of belief or living out accurate beliefs.  Moreover, fierce anger directed towards irrational people is incapable of being irrational itself unless the angry individual has false, unprovable, or inconsistent reasons for feeling this way; only how someone handles it and the exact basis and motivations of their anger could be irrational.

Calmness is not rationality and anger, joy, sadness, or frustration are not irrationality.  This is not only true by necessity, as the concepts for each of these emotions and the nature of reason itself and of rationality--which, again, are not the same things--are obviously distinct, but this truth is also incredibly liberating.  No one needs to be a slave to emotionalism or to ignore their emotions to be rational.  Self-awareness is in fact a component of thorough rationality, just as emotional openness with others can be an expression of this fundamental philosophical truth.  Whether one is calm or expressive, this is never what makes one a rational person, and anyone who would make assumptions one way or another about someone based on this is in the voluntary grip of stupidity.

Christology In Revelation

Some Christians might forget or have never heard that the word revelation left to itself simply means an unveiling of truth, not something that is inherently apocalyptic in nature.  The word being the name of the book of the Bible that seems mostly fixated on eschatological events probably became the basis of the mere assumption, and demonstrably false assumption at that, that the word revelation always pertains to end times prophecies when used in a theological context.  While the book of Revelation in part presents itself as a reaction to visions of eschatological calamities preceding the return of Christ, there is more to the book than just this, despite this being the more popular and controversial part of the book and its reputation.

From the letters to the seven churches with specific commendations or condemnations from Christ to the rider on a white horse who slaughters an army with a sword from his mouth, Revelation is a heavily Christological book.  The very first verse of chapter one directly states that the book is a "revelation of Jesus Christ," followed by a second verse that summarizes John's visions as "the word of God and the testimony of Jesus Christ."  Revelation starts with an emphasis on the the general soteriological/metaphysical role of Jesus in Christianity and ends with his eschatological role in recreating the universe.  In light of this, Revelation is not totally irrelevant to even some of the things Christians whom the book makes uncomfortable might focus on.

That is not to say that the gospel, Christ's resurrection, or so on is the most foundational part of even Christianity itself, or that Revelation is necessary to understand them and many of their ramifications.  Though Christianity references Christ in its very name, the metaphysics and moral side of a particular kind of theism are plainly the parts on which all else in Christianity hinges, without which the gospel and the very figure of Christ are not even important and which the gospel is trivial by comparison to.  Inside or outside of the context of Christianity, it is by logical necessity impossible for Christology to be the thing on which all else hinges or the most important part of philosophy and theology [1].

It is objectively impossible for anything other than logical axioms--not scientific paradigms and laws of nature, God's very existence and moral nature, or human experiences and accomplishments--to be the uttermost foundation of all reality.  After all, if the concept of God or Christ was not logically possible, it would be incompatible with the logical axioms/truths that are true by necessity in spite of all else.  Thus, I do not in any way mean that Jesus or Yahweh ("the Father," as he is called) is epistemologically self-evident, capable of changing logical axioms, the heart of all philosophical truths, and so on.  All I mean is that the Bible, which does have a great deal of evidence in favor of its veracity, has Jesus call himself the way, the truth, and the life, and thus since Revelation is about an unveiling of Christ, the book is even more foundationally about the triumph of Jesus as a divine figure than it is about eschatological events.

While Revelation is clearly about far more than just Jesus and his ultimate victory over the devil (addressed in Revelation 20), as its most prolonged or ambiguous passages do not all strictly pertain to Christology by any means, the fact that Revelation 1 quickly affirms that the book is about the revealing of Christ helps the reader see the relevance of eschatology and the other components of Revelation to a Biblical analysis of Christ's nature.  Eschatology does not need to be set aside indefinitely as it is by some Christians out of apathy or intellectual fear, but there is no book of the Bible solely about eschatology.  Revelation being less central to the moralism and broad metaphysics of Christianity than certain other books does not make it unconnected to them.

[1].  https://thechristianrationalist.blogspot.com/2022/02/the-gospel.html

Surviving American Capitalism

There are many evidences strongly suggesting that a great deal of American capitalism is tainted by utter selfishness and desperation.  Corporate leaders who only care about making working conditions easier to live with for the sake of maximizing employee morale and thus company productivity rather than the wellbeing of others betray this in several ways.  When a company only improves the standing of employees when it benefits the leadership, even if they can afford to grant better pay and benefits anyway while still making massive profits, its leaders are apathetic, intentionally blind, lazy, or outright egoistic, all of which spring from irrationality.

Capitalism and socialism alike do not have to be implemented in any single way, so the moral and broader philosophical stupidity of the American status quo are not merely a product of basic capitalism.  Yes, many people objecting to the current state of the American economic/corporate system are only against it because of emotion or personal preferences, but this is also the case when it comes to those in favor of the American style of capitalism.  How can those with little financial and social power survive low pay, benefits denied to them behind the condition of full time employment that is never extended to them, and the uncertainty of human life as it pertains to job security and wealth acquisition?  While concerned people try to bring change to key areas of the country's economy, people must survive in the meantime.

Slowly save money, refrain from spending enormous amounts of money gratuitously (though sometimes spending money even on unecessary things can help calm the desire to spend), and take advantage of random opportunities to spend money on necessities when they are cheaper, and it is still possible, even with relatively small annual pay, to eventually reach the point of having a great deal of financial and non-financial resources.  However, anything from repeated car problems to health issues, ranging from preexisting conditions to short health scares, to some emergency could quickly undo months or years of progress for some people.  The issue is not that American capitalism cannot be survived, for it most certainly can.  The issue is that it is survivable in spite of the many gratuitous or unjust obstacles, many of them the result of false beliefs about money or poverty, to financial security in modern America.

Again, basic capitalism itself is not predatory or extraordinarily difficult to navigate by default, so the aforementioned obstacles to financial wellbeing under American capitalism are not logically necessary components of all capitalistic systems.  Still, there are numerous examples of just how greed-drenched America's version of capitalism is.  The trends of concealing wages from potential employees, discouraging transparency among employees about their pay, charging people more with insurance than they would pay for certain services with a cash price, and more all would not be present if the American corporate culture was not for the most part built on some people acquiring money at the expense of practically all else.

Surviving in this kind of society can be done for those who through birth or life circumstances were unable to have the best opportunities available to them, not to mention those who simply (and rightly) have other priorities that stop them from pretending like a career is the most important part of life.  It just takes rationality, patience, luck, assistance from others, or all four together to make the most of the more limited chances for economic progression and stability that the lower class faces.  In many cases, it will just not be a quick ascension from poverty.  Minimal spontaneous expenses and a general commitment to emphasizing future stability over immediate spending, where possible, might be some of the requirements, but not all of this is even within a person's control.

The Supposed Hierarchy Of Needs

The hierarchy of needs as attributed to Abraham Maslow is often visualized as a pyramid with the lower needs supposedly needing to be addressed before one can move on to confronting the higher needs.  Starting at the bottom with physiological needs like food and ending at the top with self-actualization, the maximizing of personal potential in different aspects of one's life, this version of the hierarchy has become quite popular in the West.  It nonetheless is based on false or assumed ideas, one of them being that the needs that are put at the top of the pyramid cannot be met before the lower and less existential needs are taken care of.  This is all the more erroneous given that the overtly philosophical exploration that would be associated with the top level of the hierarchy is actually omnipresent in all parts of life to some degree and can be accessed at any time.

Someone could reach intellectual and emotional peaks without even having a strong relationship with family or the relative safety of a house.  Some people might also never understand or care about even basic but abstract metaphysical or moral truths even if they have all the physical comforts they desire, no mental or physical health issues, immense wealth, social approval, and constant free time.  While many people would probably not even begin to understand how how logical axioms are at the heart of everything, including truths and experiences pertaining to what the hierarchy of needs addresses like food, shelter, or social interactions, it is true that anyone at all, including the poor or homeless or starving, can look to reason and understand it regardless of their various life circumstances.

At the same time, helping some people with physiological needs, as Maslow called them, might prompt them to pay attention to the philosophical ideas of their savior in ways they never would have done on their own or with help from others even if they had never needed assistance for physiological needs in the first place.  For a relevant Biblical side to this, consider how Jesus is said to have healed people before he actually addressed their theological and broader philosophical standing.  This is not because people are incapable of understanding logical axioms, their own consciousness, and more until they have eaten or been relieved of medical problems, but because people who are not already used to dwelling on explicitly philosophical truths/concepts might never think about them while they are sick, hungry, or thirsty.

The possibility of people ignoring or embracing the weightier nature of logic and existential issues despite the status of their physiological needs is one of the most significant errors in this hierarchy.  According to how Maslow's arrangement of needs is commonly described, people need to satisfy the the lower or supposedly more foundational parts of the pyramid to move onto other needs.  However, some of what would typically be considered in the self-actualization category at the top is either present at all times or accessible no matter how many unfulfilled needs or desires a person has in the other categories.  Rationalistic knowledge, deep self-awareness in the light of reason, and all that a pursuit of abstract, ultimate truths entails is not only for people who have every social belonging, physical safety, and esteem need met.  They are parts of reality that all people can immediately discover and savor to some extent.

Whether or not they realize it, people are fully relying on logical axioms to even understand less explicitly philosophical things like physiological needs or a random, unexamined desire for social acceptance (which would correspond to the hierarchy's "esteem needs"), and direct awareness of reason is the deepest, most all-encompassing (nothing but the laws of logic can even be all-encompassing since possibility, necessity, and thus truth itself depend on reason!), and most foundational thing a person could have.  From start to finish, all of life hinges on reason despite most people being utterly inept at understanding and wielding it, and all truths about everything, from the most abstract to the most practical facts that always overlap to some degree, are both made true and revealed by reason.  At best, most categories in Maslow's hierarchy of needs are just a means to an end instead of the foundation of reality itself.

The Point Of Understanding The Brain In A Vat Possibility

The objective fact that many of the senses one uses in daily life prove nothing but that one has senses and that specific sensory perceptions are being experienced is in no way trivial.  Although the epistemological disconnect between having sensory perceptions and knowing all of those perceptions are accurate is directly knowable apart from familiarity with particular hypothetical scenarios like the the brain in a vat possibility, these examples of various ways that one's senses might be inaccurately perceiving the material world range from a supernatural entity distorting one's perceptions to a technological cause.  Of course, I could not possibly know that any of these situations are or are not true, but the brain in a vat possibility, the logically possible idea that my true body is a brain stimulated by technological means into producing the conscious perception that I am a person with two arms and legs, is sometimes dismissed as irrelevant to practicality and life.

Other than the psychological and ideological ramifications of the realization that this is possible--which are already deeper and more personal than any amount of practicality could ever be, for metaphysics and epistemology are more foundational to both reality and living in reality than the whole of practicality--there is no difference in how one lives if one is either inside a simulation of some kind or perceiving the true external world.  However, absolute certainty, rationality, truth, and basic philosophical consistency are all involved in actually understanding that one's sensory perceptions are not necessarily accurate and, for the most part, prove nothing except that one is perceiving seeming external objects and environments of matter (the sense of touch can be recognized to logically necessitate that a world of matter exists [1], but no other sense that is not related to this one proves anything more than that sensory perceptions exist without regard to whether they correspond to matter outside of nonphysical consciousness).

Perhaps the sound of someone else's voice really is coming from another person, or perhaps the other person one is looking at does not exist except as a mental construct that amounts to a sensory illusion.  In either case, yes, the basic experience of perceiving that another person is speaking to you is the same, but anyone who believes that which contradicts any of the aforementioned epistemological truths has an objectively asinine, false worldview.  Only a fool believes that external objects exist just because they seem to, and only a fool believes that any sensory perception alone truly proves that the world exists and exists as it is perceived.  The fact that people who have and have not thought about sensory skepticism must live somewhat similarly as far as outward actions goes does not in any way conflict with these logical truths or make sensory skepticism trivial.

The real reasons why anyone would push back against or not embrace sensory skepticism are always irrationality and fear.  Since sensory perceptions alone do not prove anything except that one is perceiving things that might or might not be more than purely private mental experiences, it is irrational to believe otherwise no matter what anyone prefers.  Since so many of our experiences pertain to the external world despite this, realizing how epistemologically unhelpful most of the senses are in an ultimate sense could just be overwhelming and terrifying for some people, enough to make them wish to ignore inconvenient truths.  Indeed, many people talk and act as if it is truly difficult for them to avoid assumptions and merely be consistent with the truth or even with what they mistakenly believe to be true. 

People who do not care about truth really care about the truth that they are too stupid or self-absorbed to look past themselves, or they are trying desperately to not let go of unexamined or false ideas.  That some people emphasize sensory skepticism over more fundamental or all-encompassing parts of philosophy or mistake it for total skepticism about all of reality (when logic and introspection, at a minimum, are still absolutely certain) does not change the enormity and gravity of understanding what does not logically follow from everyday experiences with the senses.  It is true that sensory skepticism, the nuances of it, and the knowable logical truths that underpin it are not the most foundational part of philosophy.  It is not all-encompassing like logical axioms and their many inflexible ramifications.  However, the truths about sensory skepticism and human sensory experiences are still vital and somewhat central in understanding what can be known of reality.

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

Biblical Angels

Across various books of the Bible, the first interaction between an angel and a human is sometimes presented as a terrifying or shocking experience for the humans involved.  This is largely because of the potentially exotic, alien appearance and the abnormality of such a visitation instead of hostility shown by the angel to the human they reveal themself to; Biblical angels, despite having superhuman abilities, do not often threaten or kill humans.  Their appearance can nonetheless be far more difficult to describe than many Christians believe.  Ultimately, some Biblical angels share more similarities with the eldritch creatures of Lovecraftian cosmic horror than they do with mainstream artistic representations of angels.

Ezekiel 10, for example, describes two kinds of angelic beings, neither of which match the conventional, popular look of angels in much of Christian and secular art.  The standard depiction of an angel is just a portrayal of an often attractive man or woman with wings, which presents angels as mostly relatable creatures other than their role as divine messengers or warriors.  True Biblical angels look more like (compared to humans or other animals) bizarre extraterrestrials with a more explicitly supernatural presence.  Each category of angels in Ezekiel 10 affirms that, as is the case with hell, morality, and almost everything else, even the popular ideas about Christianity one would likely find in much of the church are thoroughly unbiblical.

What do these angels of Ezekiel 10 actually look like, though?  The more exotic type angelic entity is described as looking like a wheel intersecting a wheel that is covered with eyes (Ezekiel 10:10).  Unlike the cherubim, the wheels are not even humanoid, though the cherubim also have numerous eyes scattered around their frame.  The cherubim are said to have human-like hands, but also four faces, one being distinctly angelic, one being a human face, one being the face of a lion, and the other being the face of an eagle (10:14).  Although the cherubim and wheels scarcely resemble each other, one thing they have in common is an appearance that would shock and perhaps intimidate many people who hypothetically viewed them.

If a person saw such a being outside of a portrayal in entertainment, the experience might trigger an enormous existential crisis or make them terrified that at any moment, they might encounter the being again.  The outcome for many would probably not be very different from the consequences of seeing the alien entities of cosmic horror, which emphasizes foreign beings that transcend at least some human concerns and limitations: sheer terror, extreme confusion (though any rationalist who has thought about the logical possibility of such beings would not necessarily be confused to any extent, even if he or she was frightened), and a desire to revisit their worldview would likely be experienced.

The revelation of Lovecraftian extraterrestrials and the manifestation of Biblical angels in the scriptural texts ironically are more alike than some might think.  That many people assume that Biblical angels must resemble the conventional artistic look ascribed to them exemplifies how so many are willing to just assume the contents of a book like the Bible or Quran without actually reading it.  Some angels of the Bible appear as relatively humanoid, but not all of them.  Whether it is the Bible, Christian theology, science, or broader philosophy, the typical person is neither a rationalist nor willing to go any further than the shallow misconceptions embraced by a culture of imbecilic non-rationalists.  Christian angels are actually one of the more trivial aspects of theology/philosophy that this happens with and yet still exemplify it well.

Movie Review--The Avengers

"The Tesseract has awakened.  It is on a little world, a human world.  They would wield its power, but our ally knows its workings as they never will."

--The Other, The Avengers

"I am Loki, of Asgard, and I am burdened with glorious purpose."

--Loki, The Avengers

"Is this not your natural state?  It's the unspoken truth of humanity, that you crave subjugation.  The bright lure of freedom diminishes your life's joy in a mad scramble for power, for identity.  You were made to be ruled.  In the end, you always kneel."

--Loki, The Avengers

A movie that is not of poor quality does not become terrible or lesser just because better movies have come out since its release.  All the same, later releases might help people to see the true merits or failings of a work by comparison to other examples.  The Avengers, in 2012, was the first grand live action superhero film featuring an ensemble team of different heroes who had been introduced in prior movies.  This has made some people more willing to overlook its periodic blunders like blandness and overemphasis on attempting comedy when it is actually far from both the elevated character drama of Infinity War and the pathetically relentless comedy of Age of Ultron (which ruined what could have been a far darker, more thoughtful movie that still had moments of humor), presenting genuinely clever character moments, strong action, and the seeds of the MCU's worst flaws alike.

Production Values

The Avengers has clearly been dwarfed by the effects of later MCU phases, and the small glimpse of Thanos in the first credits scene is pitifully animated compared to his later appearances, but scenes like the Chitauri invasion of New York hold up well visually even almost a decade after the movie came out.  It helps that most of the effects budget could be used for the climactic fight due to the story only having smaller action scenes or dialogue scenes up until the end.  Not all of the characters even get one moment of something beyond more generic or trivial scenes, but there are some that stand out thanks to the casting.

Chris Evans, Scarlett Johansson, Chris Hemsworth, and Tom Hiddleston give the performances most focused on the story's core drama and their scenes are the strongest in the film.  Tony Stark is played as a woefully generic comedic character who almost never stops making stupid jokes, and even Samuel L Jackson gives a much less outwardly invested performance than he does in later MCU movies like Captain America: The Winter Soldier and Captain Marvel.  However, to the credit of the film, it does not conflate the personalities of almost all of the characters to the point that they all spew the same kind of petty jokes like many of them do in Age of Ultron or Civil War.  This is a huge benefit in iconic scenes like where Natasha talks to a confined Loki, as they do not suffer from having the better developed characters sound unnaturally similar to each other or prone to jokes.

Story

Some spoilers are below.

In the aftermath of the events of Thor, Loki, the Asgardian "God of Mischief," makes an alliance with an initially undisclosed alien being.  He is to conquer Earth with a loaned army of extraterrestrial cyborgs in exchange for securing the Tesseract for his ally.  Since Nick Fury temporarily gave up pursuing the "Avengers Initiative" and the world's most powerful known individuals are not yet functioning as an organized team, Earth is at first an easy target for Loki.  S.H.I.E.L.D. quickly gathers people like Captain America and Iron Man in response, facing both the threat Loki poses and the overt disunity within the group itself.

Intellectual Content

Other MCU movies like Captain America: The Winter Soldier and Doctor Strange have far more significant philosophical depth, with The Avengers having a much less abstract bent.  Loki does still espouse an ideology centered on freedom from freedom--for humans and not him, of course.  For humans, according to him, the only natural state of humanity is servitude to another species.  He conveniently sidesteps the utter idiocy of freedom from freedom actually being a coherent idea that is even capable of possibly being obligatory or true, but there is at least somewhat more to his intentions than just total philosophical thoughtlessness and lack of self-awareness.  Loki has very little of the nuance, depth, and connection with genuine existential themes that he does in his Disney+ show, but that is no fault of Hiddleston.  The writers just did not explore Loki's somewhat common authoritarian idea with a specially self-refuting, speciesist bent.

Conclusion

The Avengers is far from the best of the MCU even compared to some of what came before it.  The Incredible Hulk is much better at characterization and personal stakes, The Winter Soldier is much better at balancing everything from humor to action to thematic depth, Doctor Strange is much better at showcasing philosophical concepts, Infinity War is much better at handling even more characters while giving all of the primary cast at least one scene of great depth, and so on.  Nevertheless, this first ensemble MCU offering is far better than the second Avengers film and has recently been shown to have even more significance in what it leads to.  One of the absolute best retrospective qualities of its place in the MCU is that it set the stage for the Disney+ show Loki, which explores the villain of The Avengers, the nature of personal identity, and so much more very boldly even if it is sometimes philosophically asinine.

Content:

 1.  Violence:  Most of the fights are very mild PG-13 in execution, with only a handful of truly intense brawls or impalings getting shown.

 2.  Profanity:  Words like "bastard" are used very infrequently.

Workers' Unions

Being an employer or someone with power over others in the workplace does not mean someone is cruel or selfish, but oftentimes all that would stop some employers who intentionally or neglectfully allow their workers to face needless difficulties, ranging from unliveable pay to unsafe conditions, is external pressure.  Many people are not rational or righteous enough to even care about things that do not directly benefit them or their friends, and thus employers who do not have personal affection for their workers might not treat them well.  Workers' unions can be a very helpful tool for discouraging abuse or neglect of employees.

What is a union?  Unions are formed by groups of workers in a business or industry that come together to secure power in numbers for negotiation with managers or other leaders over them.  Whatever random ideas anyone has that contradict this do not truly reflect unions.  Some specific unions might be full of selfish, lazy, or incompetent people, but this does not establish anything about the core concept of employees uniting for the sake of ensuring they are not oppressed.  Indeed, effective unions could help eliminate or drastically reduce the extent of problems that plague the lives of almost everyone in their company or field.

It is asinine for selfish employers to expect anyone to want to work for them without a minimum of safety wherever it can be secured, pay that is sufficient to live on (short of temporary or intentionally part-time jobs), and a lack of gratuitous hostility towards workers.  If these three conditions were met, workers would be freed from a plethora of burdens and could even focus on enjoying jobs that they might otherwise have resented or fled from.  In turn, this would benefit employers themselves!  If those over lower-level employees will not intentionally provide livable pay and worker safety on their own, unions can ultimately bring about conditions that allow everyone in a company to better thrive.

There is no valid reason to think that workers' unions are an automatic threat to economic stability or to the interests of workers.  Other than a philosophically ignorant or incompetent person, the only kind of person who would oppose the gathering of workers to collectively negotiate safe working conditions or non-exploitative pay is someone who wants workers to be organizationally defenseless against predatory employers--and the latter kind of person is still philosophically incompetent, but clings to malice as well.  There are no reasons why a person would oppose workers' unions that do not ultimately and obviously reduce down to these very reasons.

Who does fighting the basic presence of unions benefit except for business leaders with abusive tendencies?  Not every manager, CEO, or miscellaneous leader in the workplace has such traits, to be sure; stereotypes are inherently false because they ascribe to a person qualities that they do not necessarily have because of traits like corporate standing, and even if an employer or manager was cruel and selfish, it is not because they are over employees.  All the same, the objective of workers' unions is a necessity for providing employees with the power to withstand or even overturn working conditions and pay that are not suitable for human flourishing.

Uniqueness And Authenticity

The fact that two people with the same rationality and personality traits would still be metaphysically distinct already necessitates that even two people who look, sound, or think the same are still unique in one sense regardless of all of their similarities, or else they could not both exist at once.  Yes, uniqueness is on one level an inherent quality of existing in any way, as a person or thing is by necessity distinct from all else despite any similarities they share.  However, the desire for uniqueness that extends beyond this, as well as examples of uniqueness other than this kind, can easily be found deep in the heart of many people.  There are many ways that various people are or could be unique by comparison to many other people but perhaps not to everyone, though uniqueness is not necessarily positive and is far from the most important of traits.

Uniqueness is not always going to be the same as authenticity and rationality.  As previously explained, it is impossible for a person to not be unique to some extent simply by being their own metaphysical being, but uniqueness alone will not abolish all insecurities, make someone rational, or force them to grapple with the full depth and complexity of being an individual person with human epistemological and metaphysical limitations that is still capable of obtaining some absolute certainties.  Embracing all of this can help avoid the kind of psychological suffering that comes from not being totally different from other people--an impossibility, or else others could not be people, lest one share that similarity with them, and it would not be possible for them to exist as long as one exists or have any other thing in common--but more vitally, it removes obstacles to misunderstanding the nature of reality.

What if everyone had the same few key personality traits?  One's personality would not be unique beyond the fact that it still belongs to you and not to others, but one could still autonomously understand and embrace it, thereby living out the authenticity of rationality and self-awareness regardless of the similarities between people.  What if everyone personally understood and appreciated every knowable logical truth?  Their rationality would not be unique in the sense of no one else sharing that same perfect rationality, but one could still autonomously reflect on, revisit, and savor every logical truth they could know, and none of them would be irrational or lesser for this!  Uniqueness is not everything, and, indeed, only certain types of uniqueness could be significant anyway: someone who is unique in their stupidity, lack of self-awareness, and apathy towards the truly deep aspects of reality is not truly unique in a way that lifts them out of a pathetic self-imposed stupor.

Uniqueness on its own, without respect to any other more substantial thing or quality, is not a rational goal at all!  No one rational wants to be unique by being emotionalistic or otherwise fallacious, and no one rational would trivialize rationality because people besides their own self can also access the necessary truths of reason.  Beyond autonomy and general rationality, the authenticity of self-awareness and of accepting one's personality and history while never using them to excuse irrationality still leave authenticity within everyone's grasp.  Autonomy, rationality, self-awareness, and contentment, where it can be found, are all one needs to be deeply authentic in spite of whatever similarities or differences one has with other people.

Rationality is always rational, self-awareness is always personal, moral character is always obligatory, and the various types of nuance and depth that come with each of these is always full of substance.  Whether a person is the only one to have intentionally, systematically developed these things is completely secondary to actually having them for their own sake, regardless of how unique or similar to other people it will make them.  However, it is never the case that the originality and uniqueness of being authentic and rational, introspective, and morally upright would be nonexistent since intellectual and volitional autonomy is a necessary requirement to have, understand, and savor these things in the deepest sense.