On Artistic Inspiration

Unlike the discovery of strictly logical truths, which are the heart of all things and thus do not rely on anything more foundational than themselves, thinking of storytelling concepts is often prompted by experience, though even this cannot be understood apart from reason.  There is nothing logically necessary, other than a few basic aspects, that a story must have.  It can have heroes and villains or just one protagonist.  It can delve into comedy, horror, drama, or action.  It might or might not combine genres and subgenres.  In an experiential vacuum, there is little to nothing to specifically inspire a story, even when logical axioms and their ramifications could be discovered and perfectly understood in an absence of sensory experiences.  Without something to prompt a storyteller to think of a particular fictional narrative, whether a personal experience or another story was the muse, it would be highly difficult to realize how truths, ideas, and events can all come together to form precise stories (yes, logical truths and philophical concepts can inspire art as well, but logical truths alone would likely not bring someone to think of events in narratives as opposed to necessary truths).

One kind of art can even inspire new works in different mediums, as is exemplified in the way the first Alien movie inspired the game Metroid, down to the name of Samus Aran's franchise nemesis Ridley being named after director Ridley Scott, whose film Alien will be mentioned again shortly.  Both feature female protagonists in a hostile science fiction world at a time when it would have been even more groundbreaking to defy the norm of male protagonists in entertainment.  Both feature extraterrestrial creatures the heroine must defeat (or in the case of Alien, one extraterrestrial creature).  Of course, they have their differences, even as the similarities extend to the Weyland Corporation and the Galactic Federation respectively trying to capture, study, and experiment upon the titular alien of each franchise.  

The influence of those who worked on Alien does not stop with Metroid!  Far from it.  Lovecraft's writings, the artwork of H.R. Giger (who also was involved with the creature and set design of Alien), and the film Eyes Wide Shut all inspired the erotic cosmic horror game Lust for Darkness, which combines the eldritch horror of Lovecraftian fiction with sexually evocative environments and even one of the lines from Eyes Wide Shut--just in a very different context.  Cosmic horror is here used as to emphasize the destructiveness of hedonism, which takes this horror subgenre in an unconventional direction while still holding onto some of the norms of Lovecraftian fiction.  It is unfortunate that the production values and gameplay do not live up to the absolutely genius philosophical narrative that the game explores.

Many other examples can be found, such as how Tolkien's Lord of the Rings provoked George R.R. Martin to write his A Song of Ice and Fire books to correct the simplicity of the former.  There is the way the psychological horror video game series Silent Hill inspired Stranger Things, with the Otherworld of the former (an alternate dimension where ordinary laws of physics do not apply) pushing the Duffer brothers to conceive of the Upside Down for the latter.  It is not always art, though, that inspires art.  Author Stephen King says he has found inspiration for some of his most renowned works in random personal experiences throughout his life, such as how his stay at a hotel in Colorado gave him ideas for The Shining.  Lovecraft himself, whose works inspired Stephen King (stories like It definitely veer into cosmic horror territory at points), was inspired by a dream to write the short story The Call of Cthulhu.

Strictly logical truths and personal experiences, though of the two, only the first can be known without prompting from the latter, can inspire incredible artistic narratives that reflect at least something of reality; it is impossible for fiction to ever escape the necessary truths of logical axioms, as that which is truly logically necessary cannot even be contradicted within fiction--it is logically impossible!  For many aspects of entertainment, it would nonetheless be very difficult or impossible to think of the ideas without experience providing psychological material to draw from.  Sometimes these experiences are encounters with someone else's art, and sometimes they are introspective or sensory experiences that have nothing to do with entertainment.  Either way, there is even now, after so many works of entertainment in various mediums that have been responses to other works of entertainment, a plethora of ways to combine themes, genres, and narrative structures to make them original in the sense of novelty, and sometimes this originality is ironically sparked by familiarity with other art.

How To Manipulate Non-Rationalists

What are some ways a rationalist can manipulate non-rationalists?  One is to allow them to reveal what appears to be their true self, including any preferences that they directly or indirectly admit they look to for their worldview, such as psychological fulfillment or a desire to fit in with other people, rather than believing a worldview solely dictated by logical necessity (through epistemological recognition of logical truths).  Without lying or in any way truly misrepresenting one's rationalistic worldview or motivations, be inviting enough that they volunteer information about their philosophy, personality, and lifestyle even if you have no genuine interest in deep friendship with them, but be firm and honest enough that they can see, though they do not really understand it, that you are a rationalist who cares nothing for beliefs borne out of emotion, unverifiable perception, preference, societal pressures, or personal/utilitarian convenience.

This way, you will never have actually been dishonest even if they are still somehow surprised when you twist the knife by using their words against them when it will rightfully pain them the most.  Depending on one's intentions and on how one goes about this, genuinely toying with them in part to entertain oneself, since they are already irrational regardless of how you interact with them, can be done without malice, slander, dehumanization, and so on.  Such manipulation can also be conducted as a way to force them to more directly grapple with the nature of reality, which they will inevitably, as a non-rationalist, have believed in on the basis of assumptions or preferences that they simply find personally persuasive or emotionally appealing.  You can still regard them as full persons while not trivializing or overlooking how irrationalism taints the whole person to the extent it is allowed to--and while manipulating them as lesser beings.

One can even enjoy the anticipation or experience of laying psychological and verbal traps for them or bringing up their errors with the potential motivation of making them feel as stupid as they are, maybe in front of both them and people they desperately want to love or approve of them.  If they are fitheists, give them the chance to verbalize this and then, in their presence, speak disparagingly about fitheists for a different religion or kind of theism.  If they believe in conscience having epistemological validity, as most people do one way or another, organically, casually bring up how your own conscience would have you live--if you submitted to it like a damn emotionalist--in ways that they would find hurtful, shocking, or intimidating.  Revel in your own happenstance moral preferences while making it clear that you can have them without actually basing any ideological stances on them, no matter how frightening or upsetting someone else might subjectively perceived them to be (anyone who really thinks everyone would have the same moral "intuitions" or feelings is idiotic).

When they unrepentantly say something irrational, perhaps you can talk about it later on within their indirect earshot to someone else in a way that mocks or validly belittles both the philosophical idea and anyone who would believe it, at least without giving it up once confronted even if they did not realize its falsity or unverifiability left to themselves.  They should both realize from this, if they are attempting to shed assumptions, that the idea in question is wrong and that you are a friend of the truth before you are an ally to any mere person.  If they refuse to reject their contradictions or assumptions or emotionalism, it is not as if they deserve to be treated as rational, morally upright people.  They are slaves to practically anything but reason.  Since their ideas are demonstrably false or can only be epistemologically assumed, they would be as irrational as their worldviews, and if it is rational or just to hate or mock the broad philosophy of irrationalism, how could it be different with the irrationalists themselves?

It is not that manipulating non-rationalists can only be driven by a selfish desire to mistreat someone as long as one derives pleasure from it, and Biblically, this is not necessarily mistreatment at all as long as one's motive is not to be degrading.  Being loving is the same as doing what the justice of Mosaic Law prescribes (Matthew 22:37-40), and if justice sometimes entails killing people no matter their own objections or feelings (such as with Exodus 22:18-20), then fittingly harsh words in acknowledgement of the truth cannot be erroneous, for to the extent that someone flees from the truth, they have chosen delusion and do not deserve the special affection that a rational, righteous person would.  If truth does not matter, although every logical fact would still be necessarily true and of the utmost foundationality, people cannot matter, for it would have to be true that they have special value.  If truth does matter, forsaking or neglecting it would mean a person has less value than a devoted rationalist while still having whatever baseline human worth there is.  Inside or outside of the Christian worldview, there is no valid objection to the manipulation of non-rationalists in the aforementioned ways.

As a non-rationalist, they have ignored or betrayed the necessary truths like axioms that are true independent of all else and that all other things hinge on, from the real nature of morality and religion and science and their own lives.  They have lived for something that is meaningless either way: their assumptions and preferences.  Whether they like it or not or realize it, rationalists are their superiors, and yet still whatever human rights exist would still be theirs.  A thorough rationalist would never try to make it more difficult for a finally willing person to embrace the truth, though it might have taken emotional brutality for them to finally be struck by the stupidity of their assumptions and the unverifiability of their subjective perceptions, and they would never seek to mistreat them along the way.  A rational Christian would never penalize someone for their repentance, which can only occur if errors and wrongdoing were pursued beforehand, no matter how worthy of hatred or belittling manipulation someone was before.  Anyone who is not turning from assumptions and falsities to logical truths, however, could not deserve this type of respite.

Navigating Multiple Jobs

All it would take for many workplace problems to end is for employers starting a new business to not go forward without paying their employees a livable wage/salary that allows security (meaning it ultimately has to be more than enough to barely survive on).  Established employers would also need to adjust their compensation for all present workers and give up some of their own surplus earnings if required.  Until that happens, a plethora of workers would continue to severely struggle against the urgency of various personal goals requiring money and the higher and higher costs of living.  That workplace oppression is so normal in some countries does not mean that it cannot come to a stop, but it is unlikely that it will happen anytime soon, at the very least.

In the meantime, how are many people to survive while recognizing the inherent irrationality of plenty of concepts, practices, and intentions associated with the general workplaces of countries like America or India?  They might, for the right reasons (that is, by discovering and embracing logical necessities while avoiding all assumptions, which almost no one actually does), come to reject the philosophical errors of exalting professional labor over all else.  They could flee from the pretense that it is anything more on its own than a social construct and a means to an end that could be altered if their society was restructured, and still they will almost certainly have to work simply to survive in a society that often uses work to express irrationalistic, abusive, or selfish tendencies.

Low wages/salaries, haphazard benefits beyond compensation, insufficient working hours, or harmful workplace conditions, not to mention the typical corporate pettiness, could easily make any single job a kind of hell for workers just trying to get by while perhaps saving money for major goals or spending money on uplifting, nonsinful non-necessities.  When their job is not enough to help them achieve these ends, they can search for a new job to replace the current one, which has its own dangers of giving up any advantages of seniority and possibly taking a lot of time, effort, and luck to bring about.  Another option is to, as frustrating as it is, secure a second job, maybe even a handful of secondary, smaller jobs.

On a pragmatic level, for a time, it can be best to work at least two jobs to gain more base earnings, contribute to multiple 401Ks if possible, and obtain more experience that can be presented to a potential future employer.  This is not how many people would prefer to live, and certainly not myself, but in order to advance under an increasingly difficult set of workplace norms (as inflation leaps forward, compensation might still stagnates), it might be a necessary sacrifice, if just a temporary one.  It is necessary only in the sense that without it one might not escape financial limitations or would escape them much more slowly.  To purposefully set up a society to pressure people to do this by default, a wholly avoidable thing, is to knowingly establish an exploitative system.

Despite the challenges of having even just two jobs and the immense forfeiture of free time and non-professional tasks therein, navigating multiple jobs can be a pathway to greater economic stability or to buying more food, entertainment, and so on without depleting existing savings.  Without ever believing the falsehood that it is the only possible way to become more financially secure, or that it is not ultimately up to employers to end the exploitation of employees that drives some people to seek multiple jobs, a person can have more than one job for part of their life.  It is doable, and it is also irrational for certain people to prefer for others to live this way so that they can continue underpaying or otherwise exploiting them.

No Worse Than Other Types Of Racism

There is a sense in which some evangelicals might regard the Jews as more worthy of attention, aid, and love than others, though this is usually paired with an emotionalistically higher emphasis on American citizens than foreigners as a whole.  While some Christians actively trivialize what the Torah and other parts of the Old Testament say about God's relationship with the ancient Jews in order to seem more inclusive, others commit the inverse error of all but verbally exalting the Jews as superhuman beings, taking the side of people just because they are Jews or affiliated with the modern nation of Israel, perhaps insisting that historical antisemitism means Jews deserve greater concern than the rest of humanity.  Though worthiness of greater respect does not follow, it is indeed the case that Yahweh chose the Jews for a special purpose of sorts.

Deuteronomy 7:6 calls the Jews a holy people and a treasured possession of God, but this is in contrast to those who practiced the pagan activities condemned right before this.  If it is wrong to engage in such rites, it would be immoral for everyone, and it is in this context that Yahweh says he has chosen the Israelites out of the world to be his people and his treasured possession.  All humans equally bear God's image even if there can be great disparity in how much voluntarily pursued moral value a person has beyond this, and neither being a Jew nor a Gentile at any time in history dictates one's status as a human being, one's philosophical stances, or one's individual moral character.  There is nothing racist about God using the ancient Jews as a vessel to express justice, love, and mercy to the other civilizations around them.

God could have selected any group of people, no matter how initially aimless or morally and philosophically lost they were, as his chosen people.  Nothing about being born in a certain region or time to a certain family makes one a superior human.  Moreover, Yahweh's relationship with Israel was always intended to be a way to impact foreigners (Deuteronomy 4:5-8).  The ideas of Genesis 1:26-27 already establish very early that racism or nationalism of any kind is unjust on the Biblical worldview, and Isaiah 56:3 makes the following statement: "'Let no foreigner who is bound to the Lord say, "The Lord will surely exclude me from his people."'"  The Old Testament's lack of racist prescriptions or commands from Yahweh (for or against Jews) did not need a New Covenant.  On the level of metaphysics, morality, and soteriology, Jews and non-Jews alike are valuable for reasons wholly other than their race or ancestry.

The same rationalistic truths (for the humanity of all people is true irregardless of moral and religious truths) and the same moral doctrines of the Bible that make antisemitism erroneous, then, also make the special treatment of Jews as if they are more valuable than others equally invalid.  That "There is neither Jew nor Gentile" (Galatians 3:28) in the sense of moral obligation and soteriology is not a truth that contradicts anything in the Old Testament or that is not explicitly affirmed in the words of the Torah and elsewhere long before the New Testament.  Jesus and Paul only spoke and lived in accordance with something that logically followed from the tenet of Genesis 1, the shared metaphysical likeness to God that all people bear.

Whether it is rooted in eschatological fervor or something else, the evangelical ideology (not that every evangelical believes this) that Jews should be revered for being racially Jewish is thoroughly unbiblical, as is antisemitism.  It is irrational and Biblically unjust to side with Jews just because they are Jews or with the political deeds of Israel just because Jewish individuals are behind them, and, yes, some evangelicals might point to antisemitism as a supposed justification for their racism in the other direction.  Antisemitism is no worse than other types of racism.  Support for Israel for no other reason than that it is for Israel (though on the level of personal motivation, the evangelical who holds to this probably thinks they are securing God's favor for prioritizing Jews above many other people) is also no better than the unflinching support of America, China, or any other country no matter what its leadership believes or does.  Racism and nationalism in favor of Jews are just as erroneous by default as antisemitism.

Game Review--The Callisto Protocol (Xbox One)

"Though killed by security forces during the outbreak, the body was transported to the Black Iron lab, forming the basis of the original research program."

--Dr. Caitlyn Mahler, The Callisto Protocol

Very much inspired by Dead Space--the third-person style, the way the firearms display remaining ammunition, the foot stomp mechanic, the isolated science fiction setting, and the extraterrestrial pathogen are all very similar in each game--The Callisto Protocol is a focused single-player game in an era of open world and multiplayer emphasis.  It does at times have a lot of visual or thematic parallels to other iconic stories like Resident Evil or Aliens, but the game executes what it does well with its gameplay and atmosphere, standing apart as its own artistic work.  The story is not anything spectacularly innovative or woefully underdeveloped.  The Callisto Protocol's narrative is enough to ground its atmosphere, which is one of its strongest aspects.  It is set on Jupiter's moon Callisto (Jupiter IV), reportedly the third largest moon in the solar system and the second largest of Jupiter itself.  What the plot does with this setting is not especially innovative even as it is sufficient for holding the game together.

Production Values

Graphically, the game unfortunately suffers on the Xbox One; I do not know if its visuals and performance fare any better on current generation consoles.  Sometimes the textures lose a great amount of detail for a few minutes, and the game stuttered in some cases, as if an aging computer was running it poorly.  There is also extreme motion blur as evidenced by some of my screenshots (this can be eliminated with photo mode from the pause menu.  Aside from all of this, the art style is handled well, as generic as it sometimes can be.  Some enemy designs truly seem pulled right out of Resident Evil with the biophage transformations.  More competent than the graphical consistency is the voice acting by Josh Duhamel as Jacob Lee and Karen Fukuhara (Suicide Squad, The Boys) as Dani Nakamura.  With such few characters, voice acting needed to be excellent, and on this front the title succeeds.  Still, by far the greatest part of the game is the combat.

Gameplay

As much as it imitates its inspiration, not everything in the gameplay is transplanted from another game.  There is a dodge mechanic that is an addition to the Dead Space formula.  All the player has to do is tilt the left stick left or right and Jacob will evade practically any physical blow from an enemy, including from some of the later bosses.  This is especially helpful with the bosses that can devastate you with only a handful of strikes.  With smaller foes, Jacob can attack from a distance with firearms ranging from pistols to an assault rifle or use the GRP, a gravitational manipulation bracelet-like device that can pull enemies in its grip and then hurl them.  The GRP is a mechanic also loosely inherited from Dead Space (where this function was called Kinesis), but this is not so with the expanded melee system where you can use a stun baton to beat limbs off of biophages and, eventually, trigger a lock on option to shoot them up close with whatever gun is equipped.

Searching in non-mandatory rooms will sometimes lead to new weapon models that can be scanned at a 3D printer called a Reforge.  At these stations, one can also purchase upgrades for equipment, sell scavenged machine parts, or buy consumables like ammunition.  There is not an enormous amount of freedom to explore.  Usually, a few rooms will be available or very minimally placed outside of the path to the main objective, but new weapon models, more Callisto credits, and other objects like audio files, health packs, and bullets are there for the taking.  Overall, The Callisto Protocol is antithetical to the massive world maps that dominate many games today.  It is fairly streamlined in its level progression.

Story

A pilot named Jacob is unexpectedly incarcerated in Black Iron Prison, a facility on Callisto affiliated with the United Jupiter Company, when his ship is boarded and crashes onto the surface of Jupiter's second largest moon.  Soon after he receives an implant (this game's version of the RIG from Dead Space), the prison falls into pandemonium when an unspecified event releases prisoners and reveals hints of an infection among the population.  Jacob is forced to work with Dani, the woman who invaded his ship, to search for an escape from this prison that is supposedly meant to reform its inhabitants.

Intellectual Content

For most of the game, Jacob is isolated from most uninfected people and is alone in the premises, but the faux optimism about inmates bettering themselves exuded in holograms from the warden (late-game revelations show that this is insincere on his part) and the progressively evident experimentation on the populace affirm that Black Iron is no place for broad rehabilitation.  The possibility of rehabilitation aside, prison itself is inherently unbiblical (the punishments always relate to the likes of execution, selective amputation, limited lashes, financial damages, temporary servitude, or exile) and it is independently, obviously far worse than any punishment short of prolonged physical torture.

It does not have to involve sexual abuse like in America or pathological experimentation like in the The Callisto Protocol, but either prison in abusive circumstances or prison sentences for life are among the most oppressive legal penalties human societies have invented, having nothing to do with the humane punishments they allegedly offer over the Biblical ones.  To merely keep someone alive in boredom and seclusion for a potentially long lifetime is clearly far harsher than the basic death penalty, even without the physical or sexual abuse that some Americans show their emotionalistic support for.  Pathological experimentation like that of Black Iron or any other such cruel treatment only makes prison worse than it is.

Conclusion

Delving into body horror rather than cosmic horror despite its setting, The Callisto Protocol reaches for the heavens and does not quite do enough to cement itself as a truly excellent story, but it does offer great gameplay.  If you liked the mechanics of Dead Space and are content to weather less developed lore, here is a game that is very, very similar to its spiritual predecessor from 2008.  Other than the location and a handful of added mechanics, its narrative and gameplay are close imitations of that renowned science fiction horror game that led to two sequels and, as of now, a remake.  The Callisto Protocol is a modern successor to a classic that is at its best when it comes to the combat system with its dodges, baton strikes, and firearm lock-ons.  A sequel could establish a more vibrant world for the horror to continue.  Alas, based upon its financial performance records, such a thing might never be produced.

Content:

 1.  Violence:  The Callisto Protocol has plenty of blood and gore between its frequent limb removals.

 2.  Profanity:  Words like "fuck," "bitch," and "bastard" are used.

Deuteronomy 22:13-21 (Part One)

"Frodo," here is more of that attention you seem to want!  I finally had the time to write the first of a two-part, comprehensive series on what Deuteronomy 22:13-21 does and does not mean for you, since you have clearly written as if you deny the premises stated below or what follows from them by necessity, inside or outside of Biblical veracity.  I will try to write the second part soon, but remember that many other posts that have been released this year have been scheduled out months or more than a year in advance in some cases.  I do not at all usually write something and schedule it for a day or so out in advance.  As such, I will write part two when I have the time to devote to it outside of work and the like.  Is the Bible sexist against either gender when it comes to sexual expectations for men and women?  Not at all, as texts like Deuteronomy 22:13-21, which deals with a specific scenario in which a woman lies about her virginity before marriage, do not say or necessitate what some people believe, such as that only women can or should be virgins Biblically speaking, that virginity is strictly equated with an intact hymen, and so on.  Since many philosophical facts independent of the Bible or about what the Bible teaches about general morality are prerequisites to realizing this, I will address them first.

The Nature of Conscience

The following is true regardless of whether the Bible is.  Conscience is only a subjective sense of morality.  Conscience could exist if there is nothing good or evil, though if this is/was the case then it simply could not correspond to anything but a person's mind and its feelings or preferences.  If morality does exist--not cultural consensus about what is supposedly good or evil, not personal approval or condemnation of something, and not belief in morality, but actual objective moral obligations--conscience is still subjective.  An individual person's "sense" of morality also might be entirely miscalibrated or lost over time so that it does not align with what is righteous, but the more important fact is that a subjective sense of morality cannot tell you if morality really exists or what its exact obligations are.  All it reveals is that you feel a certain way, that the thought or sight or mention of a particular thing makes one horrified or uncomfortable or furious.  This is all many people go off of when cornered about why they believe in a certain religious moral framework or endorse a particular society's laws.  They can pretend like there is more to their motivations than gratifying personal conscience, but this might not be the case.  If the obligations of Deuteronomy 22:13-21 really do correspond to a moralistic deity's nature, then conscience means nothing.  If Christianity is not true, since there would not be any other moral-theistic system with actual evidence pointing to it, no one would actually hold to moral positions except on the basis of preference.  Maybe a given moral idea is true as long as it does not contradict logical axioms or some other necessary truth, and maybe it is false.  No one would have any basis for actually believing such a thing either way.

Mosaic Law Describes The Biblical God's Unchanging Commands

As for the endurance of Mosaic Law's obligations according to the real tenets of Christianity, the Law is presented as inherently good (Deuteronomy 4:5-8) and as being complete enough that one can find or logically derive all of Yahweh's moral nature from it (Deuteronomy 4:2).  The only things that could change about the universality obligations, which are rooted in the nature of an unchanging deity (Malachi 3:6, James 1:17), is that some of them could not be binding outside of a particular context.  My wife and I cannot be obligated to offer sacrifices to the priests if there is no sacrificial system and priesthood in place, for instance.  This does not even have to do with whether animal sacrifices as prescribed by the Bible are really morally good.  If I cannot do something, it is by logical necessity not evil for me to not do it.  All of the precise sins with the status of crimes and the exact punishments for those sins as outlined in the Bible, from minor assault (Exodus 21:18-19) to cursing one's parents (Leviticus 20:9), are detailed in the Torah and would not be only for a given societal structure to uphold, but for all cultures at all times.

These laws and the obligations they reference (which would not be mere words or customs, but legitimate obligations that transcend the human mind) are not overturned or declared tyrannical in the New Testament.  The moral epistemology of conscience aside, Jesus affirms Mosaic Law and literally says he is not overturning it (Matthew 5:17-19).  He also approves of the execution of people who curse their parents (Exodus 20:17), for instance, while chastising the Pharisees for not doing what the Law actually demands while contriving and submitting to mere social norms (Matthew 15:1-14).  Jesus was not opposed to the very laws the Father he wholly submitted himself to revealed.  As for Paul, he is presented, as any thorough Christian thinker would be, as a theonomist who says he is committed to everything the Law entails (Acts 24:14) and that the Law is not sinful and, in fact, is necessary to know one's moral obligations (Romans 7:7).  This on its own refutes the idea that he believed in conscience over Mosaic Law and that the Law could be improved upon.  Paul's comments on conscience in Romans 2:13-16, after all, are that Mosaic Law is written on people's hearts (this would not contradict conscience being subjective and unverifiable).

Not About Sex Before Legal Marriage

Something that needs to be mentioned about Deuteronomy 22:13-21 is that it obviously is not about sex before legal marriage being evil (it is not necessarily sinful Biblically), and especially not just for women.  From the passage itself, this is clear from how in this limited case law, it is the woman lying about her virginity that is the issue.  Outside of this passage, Exodus 22:16-17 already addresses the scenario of two people who are neither engaged nor married to each other having sex.  The man and woman are under most circumstances to get married, unless there is parental objection (or if the relationship would be abusive for either party, for that is already grounds for divorce in Exodus 21:9-11 and Deuteronomy 24:1-4).  Casual sex is sinful.  Sex before legal marriage is not universally immoral according to the Bible.  Moreover, God did not create human governments; people did.  Legal marriage is inherently a social construct because it by nature cannot exist apart from a culture, and yet, God told the first humans to procreate and called their state very good (Genesis 1:26-31).  Premarital sex in the conventional sense is not automatically sinful, so a woman or man not being a virgin when she/he is married would not inherently be a moral failing.

The Gender Equality Of God's Image

Also of great relevance to the issue of gender and moral obligation is the verse in the referenced portion of Genesis (1:27) that says men and woman are equal.  Men and women, whether or not the Bible is true, could not have moral obligations that are exclusive to them unless it has something to literally do with their anatomy, the only difference (along with physiology) between men and women.  That which is good and could be done by both would be good or even obligatory for both and vice versa.  More than just this, there is not and cannot be such a thing as different personalities that are "masculine" or "feminine" that one's genitalia dictate.  It does not logically follow from having a penis or vagina that one is stoic or emotional, hypersexual or asexual/demisexual, or prone to lead or prone to follow.  It also is not the case that just because one person of a given gender thinks or acts in a certain way that another person of their gender will, for people are individuals.  These truths are not grounded in or revealed by petty science or social customs, but pure logical necessity.

To list just some things, men are not Biblically obligated to put themselves in harm's way specifically for women, disregard their emotionality, or consign themselves to silence or denial if they are sexually abused by women--which happens twice, not that many people acknowledge this, in the very first book of the Bible between Lot's daughters in Genesis 19 and Potiphar's wife with Joseph in Genesis 39.  Women are not to be confined to the home of they do not wish to abstain from professional work elsewhere--my god, Proverbs 31 by itself refutes the idea that the Bible prescribes this for women, as the woman is praised for her business productivity and her husband is the one who in this window of time is not working!  They are not to seek to be or be externally pressured to be a mother if it does not suit their personality, just as they, like men, are not prohibited from leadership in the Torah or showing part or the whole of their bodies publicly [1].  Nothing is sinful on Christianity, certainly not on the basis of gender, that God has not condemned (Deuteronomy 4:2).

Female Masturbation

Now, back to Deuteronomy 22:13-21.  One of the most idiotic things I have ever heard about this passage is that it supposedly condemns female masturbation.  I have already shown that neither women nor men are morally required by default to be virgins when they get married according to the Bible.  Thus, this cannot be what the passage is about.  However, I have also had the person to whom this series is addressed say that women in particular were not allowed to masturbate in Israel because they were allegedly demanded to be virgins prior to marriage, which this person assumes from Deuteronomy 22:13-21 is equated with having an intact hymen (demanded by God or by a Hebrew culture they think is repudiated hy the Bible at large, they did not strictly specify)!  The hyman part will be focused upon in the next part of this series.  Regarding masturbation, only a fool would think that the Bible is condemning something it never directly or directly mentions.

It does not prohibit masturbation, which of course means it does not condemn it for either gender, and to cite Deuteronomy 4:2 yet again, nothing is to be condemned that God has not condemned.  Never once does the Torah or anywhere else in the Bible condemn masturbation by either gender.  It is a permissible act that can be a deeply introspective, delightful expression of sexuality.  Still, even then, a woman could masturbate without "breaking" her hymen, so this objection is based on non sequitur fallacies that are not only logically erroneous, but that also distort what the Bible does and does not say and the scientific possibility of different forms of masturbation for women.  The clitoris could be manually stimulated without ever entering the vagina, for instance.  Neither the exterior nor penetrative kind of female masturbation is Biblically sinful, whether inside or outside marriage or with or without visual/mental stimulation from something like sensual images of the male body.  None of this is condemned directly or by logical extension in Mosaic Law.  Anyone who is a Christian and objects is not only irrationalistic, but a legalist like the kind Jesus opposed among the Pharisees.  Anyone who is not a Christian and objects that this is not what the Bible really teaches is a goddamn fool as well.

Part One's Finale

The wording of laws that happen to mention a specific gender, the relevance of Deuteronomy 22:13-21 to prostitution, the real criteria used to probabilistically evaluate if a woman was a virgin, the frequency in which this law is prescribed to be carried out, and the equivalent male obligation to not lie about virginity will be tackled in the second part.  All of this is either philosophical background to the issue of ethics and gender as a whole and Christian morality in particular, as well as well as setup for the details in the next part that will dive into the Deuteronomy text in question.  No, Yahweh of the Bible is not some sexist bigot against women or men, but whatever is or is not immoral, though we cannot prove that any moral system is true as opposed to probably true (inconsistent moral systems are false by necessity due to contradicting themselves and logical axioms), our feelings and our society's collective habits are necessarily, demonstrably meaningless and irrelevant.

[1].  https://thechristianrationalist.blogspot.com/2017/05/bikinis-are-not-sinful.html

Assumptions That Misrepresent GMOs

Alongside conspiracy theories about the deep state [1], the Illuminati, the United Nations, Jews, and alien invaders, there is the demonization of generically modified organisms, or GMOs.  While any living thing that is genetically altered is a GMO, modified food has been the focus of the belief that an elite group is trying to force the world into reliance on artificially enhanced food, or that the GMOs are inherently unhealthy and outright dangerous.  Malicious proliferation of a damaging food supply or forced dependence on a specific cabal for food is the charge.

For some of those who assume that changes to, say, corn's genetic code must be catastrophic or immoral, things that neither logically follow nor have evidence suggesting them, the concept of chemicals in their food frightens them.  Mere chemicals do not have to be placed by people to already be present in the makeup of the food, and not all artificially placed chemicals would have to inevitably lead to disaster.  GMOs could be used to guard against environmental factors that threaten crops or to augment their health effects when consumed.

Close to 90% of corn in America is supposed to be modified to boost crop yields or better withstand the herbicides that kill competing weeds. Without erasing the genetic components already there, the insertion of a gene like Bt adds new qualities like the enhanced ability to endure insects such as caterpillars. Creatures could develop resistance to genetic modifications, yes, and still GMOs can give a significant advantage to crops.  

Golden rice, for another example, has been engineered to have beta carotene, which lends it the golden coloring while also having the power to help with vitamin A in countries like Bangladesh, where rice is plentiful.  GMOs are conceptually neutral and could be pursued for purposes like eliminating this malnutrition or they could be used recklessly.  Like alcohol, cars, firearms, and social media, how they are used is what can be destructive rather than the thing itself.

GMOs are a faster, more direct way to achieve similar goals to selective breeding, where creatures or plants pass on traits to offspring across multiple generations.  The overlapping outcomes are reached using somewhat differing methods.  With many crops already impacted, it would not be as if GMO usage is a looming but still-future issue.  If someone could alter the genetic code of corn or potatoes to improve the nutritional value or survivability of the crop, they could tamper with it in ways that hinder the nutrition or safety, but this is not because GMOs can only be wielded for harmful or conspiratorial ends.

"Chemicals" would not be the default problem if chemicals are all around us as it is.  Alterations would not be dangerous for humans unless they are particular kinds of modifications, and legitimate problems with the food supply could be resolved or lessened by specific genetic manipulation.  Conspiracy theories, as long as they are consistent with logical axioms and all other facts, could be or could have been true, but they can only be assumed by the typical consumer who only has hearsay and sensory limitations or total assumptions (as in, unprompted by even misunderstandings of sensory experiences) to hold on to.

[1].  https://thechristianrationalist.blogspot.com/2020/06/the-deep-state.html

That Which Defiles

In context, when Jesus says that nothing going into a person's mouth makes them unclean, he is not speaking of eating food prohibited in the dietary laws of Leviticus 11.  He does not mention or even hint at the eating of pork, shark, or crawfish either as a suddenly permissible thing or as something he is touching upon at all.  No, he specifies the exact action he is focusing on early in Matthew 15, when some of the Pharisees complain that his disciples do not wash their hands before eating (15:1-3).

The Pharisees that he says invent asinine traditions supposedly in service to God (in violation of the command of Deuteronomy 4:2 to not add to obligations, as if doing what is good is not enough to truly be righteous) set aside the actual obligations rooted in Yahweh's nature, Jesus points out, such as the obligation to execute those who curse their mothers or fathers (Exodus 21:17, Matthew 15:4).  Instead, they submit to social constructs and personal preferences, all of which are meaningless and irrelevant to the truth.  Washing hands prior to meals is not prescribed in the Torah.

What goes into someone's mouth, even potential dirt, does not defile them, but what comes out of their mouth does, according to Jesus: the context is simply that of him affirming Mosaic Law as just even with its executions, so he is not denying or in any way contradicting the core tenets of the Torah.  Though they are far less central and important than the criminal justice laws or those clarifying how not to act towards God, the dietary laws are among God's commands.  Jesus does not oppose them or say that God's nature has changed regarding this issue (Malachi 3:6).

There is nothing about the dietary laws tied to situational circumstances like the Temple, without which there can be no sin in not offering sacrifices at the Temple, for the building is not standing.  One cannot be obligated to do something one cannot do, and one can go a lifetime eating that which is permitted in Mosaic Law--and there are plenty of foods, from meats to vegetables to fruits to even bugs, that are allowed.  For those who have been eating the prohibited foods on a regular basis, it might be very inconvenient to narrow or shift their diet, but it is not impossible.

Arbitrary customs like praying before meals or always washing hands before eating would be the real morally unnecessary deeds.  One could do certain needless things like these if one wished to, given that they do not violate real obligations by default.  Since they are not obligations, and even if they were, making favorable assumptions about them would be irrational (and any assumptions), and looking to irrelevant factors like conscience or social norms instead of morality is irrational and immoral.  The Pharisees added to Mosaic Law while actively failing to practice it.  This was one of their errors in the story of Matthew 15, and the dietary laws are not even slightly challenged by Jesus here.

Understanding The Nature Of Language

Everyone who reads or speaks is already familiar with some sort of language.  Though it is wholly unnecessary and absolutely dangerous for non-rationalists, some people even think using language instead of just conceiving of abstract concepts or visualizing mental imagery--the danger comes from thinking words are necessary for thought, when one must already be able to think to create or learn words to start with, or in thinking that there are no truths that precedes words, for reason and all else that is objectively true must already be true for words to be assigned to them.  Ignoring these or other facts, such as how there cannot be such a thing as inherent meaning to a word, some people go so far as to hold that familiarity with the technical lexicon of a subject or the words for, ironically, categories of other words (like indirect objects) is needed to understand language, and in turn that language is somehow needed to know reason and introspection or concepts like that of God or morality.

You do not need to know what onomatopoeia means or be familiar with the definition of the phrase coordinate adjective to understand language.  You can know the function of a subject and verb without recalling the terms and can know the seeming intended meaning of a word, even having never formally studied linguistics at any level.  Language is useful between people only as a means of communication more precise than the even greater vagueness of gestures and grunts, and everyone from young children to the elderly can at least somewhat grasp what people seem to mean without knowing the words to call many things, like the future perfect tense or etymology.  There are people who subjectively are fascinated with history or culture and they might not like this.  They also might actively prioritize the metaphysically secondary, epistemologically useless (at actually revealing other minds) nature of language, social interactions, or historical records over things like logical necessities.  After all, they would never think words have inherent meaning or are vital to understanding miscellaneous concepts if they were rational, even very abstract concepts like logical axioms, the uncaused cause, moral obligation, scientific epistemology, and so on.

What is self-evident (the basic truth of axioms and the existence of one's own mind), what follows from this, or what one immediately perceives are knowable, just not on the basis of random words that one has to invent or learn in order to describe what is already true.  There is not even any set of symbols that automatically fits a particular idea except in the context of a linguistic system that can only be arbitrary at the core.  Words are neither necessary truths nor found in the natural world. They are nothing but constructs of minds or cultures used for a utilitarian purpose (with an end goal) for communication or out of personal infatuation.  No examples are necessary for this to be true by necessity, and none are required to know this with absolute certainty, but there are many examples stemming from the already-fixed truth of how words are purely arbitrary constructs.  The word terminal, as one instance, could in the English language refer to a part of a battery, an airport, or the lethality of a condition (a terminal illness).  

Even on the level of what more unexamined experience points to, none of these things is the meaning of the word terminal.  It could by contemporary social patterns be used in any of these contexts, so it has no single intended concept behind it.  Still, a word with a single conventional definition has no intrinsic meaning.  There is not a single phonetic unit or written character that could escape this, and even then, if the speaker/author means something unusual or novel by a word, then that is objectively what the meaning is in this case.  People can be terrible communicators or can gratuitously use words outside the normal context of what other people seem to generally mean, but their words mean only whatever they are intended to.  People can still point out the misuse of words according to what an established but arbitrary language's norms are, but one cannot "know" what a word intrinsically means because there cannot be such a thing.  Epistemologically, there is fallible evidence in a given context that someone else's words merely mean a specific thing in probability.  With one's own words, one can just introspect to directly known without ambiguity what one means by it!

Those who regard language far above its real nature, again, might not like this.  They might love noticing patterns in historical usage of words more than actually looking to reason and concepts, which are independent of language.  They could be more interested in the relatively superficial nature of how communication can bring people together than in what is actually or seemingly being communicated.  They might be emotionalistically enamored with the potential trappings of academia's approach to language to the point of thinking people cannot know the concepts behind their own words without knowing the literally made-up linguistic conventions.  You do not need to have heard of Egyptian hieroglyphics or remember what the word phonetics means to understand language if only you are rationalistic and direct your attention to language.  As for those who would reject any of this, these people are pathetic fools, too inept or egoistic to look to the truth.

Motivations For Paganism

The term paganism can refer to nature/animist religions, ranging from variations of pantheism to a more spiritualistic version of panpsychism, and it can also refer to general non-Christian religions, which would in a broader sense include Islam and also philosophies that were adhered to before the days of Jesus.  Like any worldview, paganism can be believed or practiced for a variety of reasons, but in this case, none of them are valid.  Either the concepts are outright false, as they contradict logical axioms or some other truth (like in the case of pluralistic or pantheistic paganism), or they cannot be proven, or even evidentially supported, making pagans guilty of idiotic assumptions at best and consciously charging into emotionalism at worst.

They might long to feel connected to something larger than themselves by aligning with traditional metaphysics and religions of their homeland, looking to assumptions and social norms/approval instead of the necessary laws of logic that transcend all else to fulfill this desire.  They might love nature, a subjective and thus irrelevant state of mind, confusing a material world for an animistic one--this could be true, but it is neither logically necessary nor evidentially likely, and either way, there is still an uncaused cause separate from nature and any lesser, created spirits like those assigned to different environments in some paganism.  Irrationality is inherent in any of these motivations and beliefs, even as love of nature is neither irrational nor unbiblical in itself.  It is the emotionalism or assumptions that are asinine.

Another potential motivation for paganism is emotionalistic disdain for Christianity, almost inevitably on the basis of misunderstandings--that it is metaphysically (logically) impossible, that it is epistemologically without evidence, that it teaches cruelty is righteous, that it teaches any kind of gender complementarianism, that it encourages environmental exploitation, and so on.  For some pagans, this might not even be about rejecting a supposedly false or oppressive religion, but merely about being different from what is more mainstream, though true Christianity is so different from its mainstream distortions that they scarcely resemble each other (its real doctrines of epistemology, morality, hell, love, sexuality, and far more are almost unheard of among theological conservatives and liberals alike).

Perhaps related to the misunderstanding that Christianity is sexist against women, which would by necessity also entail sexism against men even if this goes unacknowledged, pagans might even be responding to misogyny with misandry given how female-centric some kinds of paganism are.  If so, they would be hypocrites even with regard for their own supposed moral beliefs.  Whether it is misandry rooted in the neglect of how both men and women have a role in procreation, stereotypes that slander men or deny their full humanity, or special reverence for women that is withheld from men, pagans could, whether or not it is even consistent with their other tenets, be extremely sexist against either men or women.

Paganism of course has no evidence in its favor aside from these aforementioned delusions of pagans even where some of its aspects are logically possible.  Yes, certain versions of it are logically possible: since they do not contradict axioms or the existence of an uncaused cause, they could have been true even if they are not. However, Christianity is not only fully consistent with all necessary truths of reason, including in ways that are almost universally undiscovered, but it also has immense amounts of historical evidence in its favor.  No form of paganism does, from vague nature religions to animistic philosophies.  Pluralistic spiritualism is false in any case because contradictory beliefs cannot be valid all at once, rendering the most inclusive types of paganism logically impossible by default.  The rest often neglect how the uncaused cause is the deity that could deserve worship, whatever its moral nature.

A Prohibition Of Shaving?

Leviticus 19:27, even for the Christians who mistakenly think that the majority of Mosaic Law is not universally obligatory on the Christian worldview (Deuteronomy 4:5-8, Malachi 3:6, Matthew 5:17-20, Luke 16:17), might strike many readers as odd.  It addresses an issue that is trivial either way by comparison to much that the Torah deals with: it says to not cut the hair at the side of one's head or, for men, the edge of one's beard.  Sometimes confused for a prohibition of shaving, the verse says nothing about the whole of the hair on someone's face or general head, focusing exclusively on the hair in the two aforementioned places.  There are clear reasons why this is not a universal condemnation of shaving or trimming hair, even male facial hair, and there are also very direct contextual cues that all but certainly limit this to the avoidance of pagan practices that have nothing to do with why many moderners cut their hair in any bodily area.

Even if this verse did mean what some might assume, allowing a beard to grow out inches and inches before cutting half of its length away, for instance, would not be the same as just trimming the edges.  From this alone, the command could be kept without resulting in permanently untrimmed, unkempt facial hair.  It also does not condemn shaving all facial hair away as opposed to only cutting the very edges while leaving the rest untouched.  This is perfectly analogous to how cutting down a tree does not involve trimming its protruding branches.  It would obviously still be possible for someone to have kept this command and removed their beard altogether or in part.  In truth, it should not have to take someone more than a few moments of not making assumptions and of dwelling on what logically does and does not follow from this to realize everything so far.

There are also strong hints that the context of surrounding verses might apply to verse 27.  Immediately before, verse 26 says not to seek omens or engage in divination, which is trying to learn of future events by supernatural means (though this would not apply to Yahweh and his prophets as legitimate predictors).  Verse 28 says immediately after to not cut your body for the dead.  Disfiguring the body out of mourning over or attempts to rouse the dead is disallowed.  The phrase "for the dead" indicates that this is about spiritualistic practices that are contrary to Christian metaphysics and ethics.  In actuality, according to the Bible, the dead know nothing (Ecclesiastes 9:5-10, Job 3:11-19) in their unconsciousness or nonexistence unless stirred by means like sorcery (1 Samuel 28).  The command about cutting the beard seems to specifically be about avoiding pagan activities of the day.

Leviticus 14:8-9, in addition to this, very plainly says that someone was to remove all hair in cases of defiling skin conditions.  Shaving off all of one's hair as verse 8 describes would by necessity include the beard on a male already, but verse 9 mentions the beard.  It was to be shaved away along with the hair of a person's scalp, eyebrow area, and the rest of their body.  Thus, there is not only no command in Leviticus 19 to not trim any facial hair at all and no demand to not trim the edges outside the context of condemning pagan rites, but five chapters earlier, there was already permission and the ceremonial requirement to remove all hair from one's body, which would span the head, the neck, the torso, the groin, arms, and legs.  A priest could not examine someone's body to see if every trace of a skin disease was gone otherwise (14:3).  Beards would have to be removed to fulfill this.

Movie Review--Hellraiser (2022)

"It's a puzzle.  See?  The pieces move.  If you get 'em to lock into place, then you solve a part of it.  But now, it's like... It's... It's on the next step or something."

--Riley, Hellraiser

"So, according to Voight, the puzzle box, it has six sides and six configurations.  There are three left.  And then it says whoever possesses the final configuration is granted a passage to another realm to an 'audience with God.'"

--Riley, Hellraiser

A wholehearted exploration of the darkness of exalting pleasure above all else as the Cenobites do, experiencing and pursuing endless pleasure and pain intertwined, the Hellraiser reboot does justice to the metaphysics, aesthetic, lore, and atmosphere of its franchise.  Wonderful acting benefits an already atmospheric film, one that does not shy away from the uniqueness and thematic brutality of Hellraiser.  The main and supporting cast does an excellent job of elevating every role in the film, working in flawless tandem with the cosmic and body horror that marks the series.  Yes, there is cosmic horror in Hellraiser, as the nature of reality within this universe (and by universe I do not just mean the physical cosmos) is where the horror dimensions are derived from, even if it is rather different in some ways from Lovecraftian cosmic horror.

Production Values

From the first scene onward, the visual side of the 2022 Hellraiser absolutely captures the high personal stakes of using the lament configuration and the alien appearance of the Cenobites and their realm.  Not once does the opening of the pathway to Hell or the menacing look and stride of the Cenobites reflect anything less than quality production values, down to the multiple settings of the lament configuration that are shown throughout the film, which sometimes rearranges itself without human touch.  The new Pinhead, played by Jamie Clayton, is right at home among other Cenobites with their flayed bodies.  The performance of this gender-swapped Pinhead is without error.  Odessa A'Zion is also fantastic in her role as the central human character that receives the most screentime.  Shuffling between desperation, curiosity, frustration, and fear, Odessa is stellar in her use of facial expressions.  Scenes such as her Riley pouring out pills and then picking them up off of the parking lot so perfectly establish her inner conflict as a half-heartedly recovering addict.  Every other actor or actress does well with their part, however secondary or limited their roles are by comparison.

Story

Some spoilers are below.

Trapped for the time being in poverty, a troubled woman named Riley agrees to steal from a warehouse with her boyfriend, relapse into drinking after recovering from an addiction, finding a mysterious cube in a lone safe within a warehouse shipment.  Riley toys with the box after being kicked out of her apartment by her brother, and when a blade from the lament configuration shoots out and misses her hand, a Cenobite appears and tells her that she needs to bring another person if she is not to be taken.  Her brother finds her out of worry, but he accidentally pierces his hand with the still-protruding blade.  He soon disappears.  His sister uses the box and information from someone associated with the warehouse to give her direction in her quest to save her missing sibling.

Intellectual Content

Sadistic or selfish people are often shown in pursuit of the lament configuration and the pleasure or power they want from it throughput the series.  Human cruelty and Cenobite cruelty are compared and contrasted at times, and the differing perceptions that certain individuals might have of these beings is articulated when Mr. Voight call them angels, but a woman who worked for him says she would expect for a devil (Mr. Voight) to recognize a devil.  I have heard that one of the older Hellraiser movies is supposed to actually identify the Cenobites with Christian demons (what an unbiblical equivalence!), and the religious wording and ideas are also somewhat raised here.  Pinhead states that salvation, which a human victim says she prays for, is lesser than the pursuit of change, later clarifying that she (Pinhead) believes that the only worthy response to finding one threshold of experience is to search for another.  A different Cenobite says their kind only liberates people rather than "take" them, and one of Pinhead's comments does suggest that this torment does indeed have a finite duration, as she tells Nora that she will reach an end.  One Cenobite is even ripped apart by the chains of its realm when it is stabbed by the lament configuration, and it appears to truly die without being reformed elsewhere or continuing to exist on a purely spiritual level.

Whereas the Bible says that at least Satan and two demonic beings will suffer endlessly in the lake of fire (Revelation 20:10), not only does it not say the same about general humanity (Revelation 20:14-15), but it also teaches that they will literally perish in hell (Matthew 10:28, Ezekiel 18:4, Romans 6:23).  This Hellraiser shows a partial inversion of this: the Cenobite that dies is torn apart quickly and seemingly without resurrection or a continued conscious existence, and the humans targeted by Cenobites have at the very least a more prolonged existence of suffering before death.  No matter their intentions and no matter if it is only finite, there is a great deal of savagery in the Cenobite treatment of people, though the Cenobites are implied to have all once been people--at least one man is seen becoming one of them.  When Pinhead offers Riley a choice between being brought to the Cenobite dimension or offering up sacrifices in her place, Riley faces the immense moral issue of giving other people for what might be endless torture at the hands of extradimensional beings in order to save yourself or bring back a loved one.  Through the actions that lead to the Cenobite presence, the perils of seeking hedonism are ironically given great attention as selfishly chasing pleasure and gratification leads to damning ends. 

Conclusion

While some of the supporting characters could have been developed more, this is a mostly excellent remake/reboot of an icon horror film.  Hellraiser reintroduces key elements from franchise lore while evolving some of them.  Its new, female Pinhead is great, its performances have no weak link, and its aesthetic is practically without flaw.  The main character is acted extraordinarily well as she wrestles with very personal and very metaphysical issues of ethics, love, and desire.  It is indeed the case that this new Hellraiser is more about torture and pain in general than it is about sexual gratification in pain, but this is not a problem, just a difference between it and the original movie.  A renewed series could certainly build upon the many successes within this reboot.

Content:

 1.  Violence:  Over and over, the lament configuration is shown with its blade lodged in hands or backs.  A person is shown with their skin flayed off, and the Cenobites themselves appear with skin or other body parts removed or pulled into unnatural positions or pins dotting their bodies.  Human victims are dragged away or suspended by otherworldly hooks that penetrate their flesh.  One Cenobite is even ripped apart in direct view of the camera.

 2.  Profanity:  "Fuck" and "shit" are used in the dialogue.

 3.  Nudity:  A naked man is shown from behind for a few moments as he takes a shower, a nonsexual context.  Another man is shown nude as he is transformed into a Cenobite, his penis vanishing as his body changes.

 4.  Sexuality:  A sex scene is placed near the beginning as the main character and her boyfriend are introduced, and they have another, more quiet, gentle sex scene later on, but in neither case is what is shown all that graphic.

Yahweh's And Allah's Eschatological Justice (Part Two)

The wicked and the righteous are, according to the Quran in Surah 2:81-82, both going to live forever in the Hereafter, either in the Garden/Paradise or in the Fire, aka the Islamic hell.  Numerous other passages from the Quran affirm the eternal nature of the pain the unforgiven human sinners are said to experience [1].  The Bible, no matter how popular the idea to the contrary is, teaches that any suffering in hell is temporary and that death is the final consequence of true justice for sinful humans--among other verses, see see Matthew 10:28, 2 Peter 2:6, John 3:16, Ezekiel 18:4, Romans 6:23, Revelation 20:15 as listed in part one [1].  As if these verses are not as or almost as clear as language can be on the matter, what of Matthew 25:46, which says the wicked will go to eternal punishment and the righteous to eternal life?  Not only does it not follow from a punishment being eternal that it must entail suffering, but the very contrast in this verse could only apply if the wicked do not live forever (all of this is addressed more thoroughly below).

The concepts behind the "There they will remain" for both groups in Surah 2:81-82 and the "eternal punishment" of Matthew 25:46 are not equivalent.  If someone is in agony and will remain there forever, with no escape (see Surah 2:167, 217, 275-276), then they will suffer eternally.  There they will remain.  Eternal punishment, however, does not have to involve endless suffering depending on what exactly the punishment is.  All it has to do is be final and irrevocable.  It could even involve no torment at all if death itself, the cessation of life and exclusion from all the potential joys therein, is the full punishment or the culmination of it.  The effects, the status of nonexistence, would just have to last forever.  Now, the Bible does not say that the wicked will immediately be exterminated in hell, only that their death, their literal purging from conscious existence, is the outcome.  Yahweh's justice is death with the potential for some torment beforehand (Luke 12:47-48).

Matthew 25's contrast of eternal life with something else also means that the other experience or fate, however long it lasts, cannot involve eternal conscious existence, or else both parties would really be receiving eternal life, just of a different kind.  On a linguistic level, this would be as asinine as saying that something unprovable is actually provable (which is the ultimate foundation of many people's worldviews when it comes down to it!), and on a logical and conceptual level, it is inherently impossible.  Someone who does not have eternal life cannot be alive in order to be tormented.  Unlike the Bible, the Quran simply never contrasts eternal life with the punishment of hell.  Both the righteous and wicked are explicitly said to live forever in their respective abodes with the only linguistic ambiguity whatsoever being that baseline level of unknowability which no language can avoid.  Only the meanings of our own words are known with absolute certainty because there is no inherent meaning to a vocal sound or written symbol [2] and non-telepathic beings do not know other minds.

Both the Biblical and Quranic hell are described as featuring fire.  The Biblical hell is even called the lake of fire, which is the second death (Revelation 20:15).  Beyond things like this and how they are both supposedly manifestations of divine justice, they are rather different.  Revelation 14:9-11 and 20:10 are at most talking about specific groups of beings and not everyone else, and if they are literal, then they would have nothing to do with the fate of the wicked masses, and if they are figurative, numerous other Biblical passages already establish that the Christian hell is not one of eternal conscious torment.  The beast and devil mentioned in Revelation as receiving eternal agony are also described in other places as still being killed/destroyed, as with a seeming singular antichrist figure in 2 Thessalonians 2:8 and seemingly with Satan in Ezekiel 28:11-19.  Yahweh's and Allah's justice are not the same when it comes to criminal punishment in this life or hell in the next.  Yahweh's is logically possible and evidentially probable, but Allah's is self-contradictory.  The Quran's presentation of Allah as if he is the undistorted version of Yahweh is far more egregiously seen with the nature of hell in each religion than it is with Allah's conditional, non-universal love (Surah 4:107).

[1].  https://thechristianrationalist.blogspot.com/2023/09/yahwehs-and-allahs-eschatological.html

[2].  https://thechristianrationalist.blogspot.com/2022/12/examples-of-linguistic-ambiguity.html

The Consumption Of Meat

Many typical stances on the moral nature of eating meat, as well as the reasons those stances are adhered to, are quite irrational one way or another.  While the dietary restrictions in Mosaic Law never forbid meat itself, there are kinds of meat that are initially prohibited, yet many Christians, even if the dietary laws were universally obligatory like other parts of Mosaic Law, would almost certainly never abstain from meat if it was required of them.  It would be perceived as too inconvenient.  Non-Christians (and plenty of Christians too), though, look to subjective conscience and emotional comfort, social agreement, or cultural norms for what are ultimately their moral assumptions.  Even as people who like to eat meat might believe it is morally permissible to do so because they are used to it, whether or not they are Christian, others might object to the consumption of meat based on how the animals were treated before the slaughter or simply because an animal must die.

It is possible to raise and kill animals without torturous methods, and meat is one of the best foods for people with health or aesthetic conditions that are worsened by eating carbs, such as certain aggressive skin inflammations like seborrheic dermatitis.  All cruelty in preparing animals for death can be fully avoided, though of course their death would still occur in order for their meat to be secured.  Artificial/synthetic meat would do away with this by allowing us to sidestep the death of a creature in order to obtain and enjoy a substitute for animal flesh.  While other animal products might still need to actually come from animals unless synthetic versions of them were also concocted, if artificial meat--not plant-based substitutes, but artificial meat--was to become a normalized option for human meals, the Biblical obligation is clear.

Should synthetic meat be accessibly distributed, then it would certainly be better on the Christian worldview to consume artificial meat with the same flavor or nutrition than it would be to, at that point, unnecessarily kill a creature that is a part of God's creation (whether directly or indirectly, God is responsible for the existence of life according to Genesis), a creature that God has called "very good" (Genesis 1:31).  Neither killing animals nor consuming their meat is inherently a moral problem by Biblical standards.  It is the abuse of animals, the reckless slaughter of creatures in a way that devastates the natural world and its ability to produce food for us (such as by eating or wasting too much meat that animals would grow scarce), and the needless killing of animals themselves, even if it does not otherwise devastate the environment, that is sinful.

Animal life would have some degree of objective moral value for the same reason the physical planet and cosmos and the human body and mind would: they are creations of God or at least have their value grounded in his nature, without which nothing could be good even though some things would still exist (the laws of logic and empty space) and still be true.  If meat is synthetically replicated, as well as easily accessible in an economic and distribution sense, it would very obviously follow logically from Biblical ideas stated as early as Genesis that such a substitute would be morally superior.  For someone to willingly, consistently consume artificial meat when possible instead of animal flesh is not to treat animals as the equals of humans, but it is another way to enjoy the taste or other benefits of meat while honoring God and his creations beneath humanity.

Animals are sub-human, not that this means they deserve malice or neglect.  Even as their own death was part of God's good creation--human sin seems to have only introduced human death (Romans 5:12, 6:23), and even herbivores would have to kill something in order to survive before the fall of the first humans--to gratuitously kill an animal is to trivialize a thing that still by all appearances shares, in a lesser kind of way, the breath of conscious life that God imbued in humans, a living thing that God regards as very good.  The Biblical stance towards animals is not that one must brutalize, ignore, or be apathetic towards them, even as it is not that they are to be revered as having the same metaphysical status as humans, the supreme animal which alone is said to have the full image of God (Genesis 1:26-27).  The common deviations from acknowledging these doctrines are all abominations in their own way.