The Laziness Double Standard In The Workplace

A number of factors like the extent of the pressures from above (if any), the scope of the workforce they allegedly monitor, the importance of any projects they supervise, the specific industry they are in, and individual personality could all contribute to laziness or productivity on a manager's part.  Managerial authority is not necessarily coupled with a sincere attitude, rationality, professional competence, and respectful behaviors.  As lazy as frontline/low-ranking employees are sometimes fallaciously stereotyped to be (and some of them are), it is those with supervisory roles that can be among the laziest of all.

Stay in the workplace for a while or work for different companies, and it is likely that one will eventually encounter a lazy manager who demands or expects machine-like output and at least the facade of joy out of employees, including the ones that are being actively mistreated by under-compensation, illicit discrimination, or deception.  This kind of management often does nothing but parrot things from higher management and observe other people's work every now and then to appear useful.  Sitting in a private chair while denying workers the chance to consistently catch their breath, refusing to lift a finger to fulfill their own role, and gloating in their capacity to get away with sheer inaction might be routine for them.

There could legitimately be little to nothing for them to do even if they want to have something to pass time or keep them productive.  They could also take advantage of the ability to more easily hide behind their title when dealing with anyone of a higher position and retreat to an office to sit and watch Netflix to get away from those with lower positions.  The nature of the job might call for a lesser involvement with interactions with others and there is no laziness in them, or they could be genuinely relying on the hope that the consequences of their own laziness can be blamed on lower-level workers with less hierarchical authority.

For some consumers, the workers they see/hear when they enter a restaurant, call customer service, or purchase from a supermarket are the ones that they think are lazy for irrelevant reasons.  An employee standing still to keep exhaustion at bay six hours into a shift of constant work is assumed to be lazy.  A worker who is sitting down, though it has no impact on their labor quality, is assumed to be lazy.  Workers objecting to pointless tasks or to doing the work of multiple people all by themselves is assumed, by such observers, to be lazy.  The manager is actually being lazy but refusing to hire in sufficient numbers or forcing additional work onto the people with the least flexibility to reject it.

Some people think managers have earned the right to arrogance or laziness as opposed to lower workers, but it is only hypocrisy to encourage or defend the one and condemn the other.  It is also not as if certain individuals cannot be given managerial positions by means of biased favoritism without working their way up a corporate ladder.  This is like thinking men who commit sexual assault are evil but not women, or that black people with guns are automatically malicious but not white people.  If laziness is some error, it is an error for everyone, but there is nothing about being a standard worker or a manager that means someone is or will be lazy.  Managers can just get away with it more easily in plenty of cases.

Pearls Before Swine

In Matthew 7:6, Jesus makes the following well-known statements: "'Do not give dogs what is sacred; do not throw your pearls to pigs.  If you do, they may trample them under their feet, and then turn and tear you to pieces.'"  The context is one where Jesus is focusing on moral and spiritual issues in a theological sense, but plenty of what he acknowledges here applies to all sorts of philosophical truths.  Since it takes effort to become rationalistic (unless you were an omniscient, rationalistic being by default), it is always more likely that the general populace of Earth will be irrationalists, and since irrationalists refuse, deny, or ignore most logical truths, perhaps not even understanding the necessary truths they are already relying on, they will usually push back when confronted about their stupidity.

Some people choose to be slaves to assumptions, unconcerned with the very idea of morality until they are personally offended by something, and fixated on nothing but their own delusions and meaningless, subjective whims; they make themselves this way.  If only they sincerely tried, they could discover or dwell on logical axioms and a host of metaphysical and epistemological truths, the logical possibility of Christianity among them, without someone else bringing it up to them.  If someone else was to point out various philosophical truths or issues to them, however, they would just cling to their errors in anger, fear, or confusion.  They might sometimes pretend to be rational, but they are very thoroughly irrationalistic.

Of such people, Jesus affirms that they are more likely to become enraged at someone who is trying to push them in the right direction since they will not do it to themselves.  There is nothing wrong with showing mercy and continuing to converse with them, attempting to help them realize the truth about some issue.  That is not what Jesus is saying, and that would contradict core parts of Christian philosophy.  No, he is drawing attention to what tends to happen when someone concerned with only their preferences and assumptions is told of deeper, controversial truths.  Contrary to what some people pretend, even the most benevolent, calm discussions between a rationalist and a non-rationalist do not often have the pragmatic effect of persuading fools, and pragmatism is irrelevant to truth as it is.

Irrationalists will usually still leave this kind of conversation as irrationalists because with or without social prompting, they do not look to reason and have no interest in giving up whatever comforting, appealing ideas seem valid to them or are embedded in their family or general culture.  It is not irrational to hope for their change of worldview, as naturally improbable as it is, but it is irrational to expect the majority of people to come to rationalism on their own or with help.  What Jesus says certainly applies to more than just Christian doctrines, for it is only a very small minority that genuinely care about truth, about knowing what can be known, and about living in accordance with reality.  Swine, or pigs, is a fitting term for the majority of non-rationalists, who are quick to avoid the thought of anything deeper than trivial or practical matters.

Philosophy And The Metric System

It is indeed true, despite how familiar such frameworks can become throughout life, that not only the words for units of measurement are arbitrary human constructs, but also the habit of using one set of units over another.  Yes, though logical truths about them are no such thing (one gallon is by logical necessity one gallon, and 10 sets of 10 centimeters is one meter), units of measurement for spatial distance, weight, and size are happenstance in their cultural prominence.  Distance, weight, and size are objective qualities of physical environments and objects.  The inability to ultimately know a great many things about items in the external world beyond subjective perceptions of them does not mean that whatever physical things exist do not really have a certain size, weight, and so on.  They would have such characteristics, whatever the particulars.

The vast majority of the countries in the world, more than 190, are reported to use the metric system for standardized weights and measures, rather than the imperial system stubbornly held onto by the United States, a holdover from British influence at the time of the country's founding.  Based on multiples of 10, the metric assortment of measures is rather simple; 10 centimeters is a decimeter, 100 centimeters is a meter (and 10 decimeters), 1,000 meters is a kilometer, and so on with similar conversions.  Some people in America, accustomed to something else because of their intra-cultural experiences despite it in actuality being random, might balk at the idea of ever adopting the metric system, perhaps out of nationalistic motivations (desiring to be set apart from other countries without any reason beyond tradition, whim, or feeling).  While the acceptance of the metric system is also a cultural construct--it could have been the case that a system based on multiples of 9 or 13 was popularized, however less simplistic and accessible this would be--some systems are more arbitrary than others.

The imperial system is objectively more complicated than the metric system, and needlessly so, but it is not irrational itself; there is no contradiction between the various units of the imperial system, and nothing about this system contradicts logical axioms, other necessary truths, or the observed features of the natural world.  What is irrational is a person or country holding onto an especially arbitrary set of units for the mere sake of tradition or a nationalistic pride (nationalism already being philosophically erroneous on its own).  Yes, a foot containing 12 inches, a yard containing three feet, and a mile containing 1760 yards is far more randomly complicated than consistent multiples of 10, but there is nothing conceptually false about such relationships.

At this point in history, it would be even more difficult to shift the societal direction of the United States than before, in the sense that there are even more years of custom behind the imperial system's enduring use.  It is nonetheless utterly inconvenient for international interactions to have a small handful of countries that do not use the same units of weight and measures as the rest.  The foremost issues concerning units like those of the metric or imperial systems, nevertheless, are those of logical necessity regarding concepts, the ultimately arbitrary adoption of some units over others, and the difference between units themselves (either the objective concepts that transcend concrete examples or the linguistic symbols assigned to those concepts) and what they are measuring.

Units are not primarily a matter of science, after all, although of course scientific matters of length and weight in the physical world are intimately related.  They are a matter of logical necessity and the consequential relationship between ideas, which do not and cannot change with shifts in the words or mathematical symbols affiliated with units, or with alterations to scientific or broader cultural consensus.  They can only be discovered and not invented--or at least the concepts and logically necessary truths about them, such as numeric relations and the fact that they, as with all other things, are governed by logical axioms.  Whether one given word or another will be used to speak or write of them or whether one set of units will take predominance in one region or another is a separate subject.

Hatred And Mercy

Without even giving up a morally unnecessary but sincere commitment to mercy (which can at most only be supererogatory), a person could still feel and actively express hatred without giving in to emotionalism.  Depending on who or what the hatred is directed towards, what the motivations are (hating irrational people as opposed to people of a certain race, for example), and how someone does or does not treat others in light of it, hatred is either a totally neutral or even morally positive thing.  Merciful or not, someone could enjoy and sink into deep hatred of certain kinds without irrationality or sin--yes, there is no contradiction in being thoroughly merciful and hateful at once.  

Mercy is not treating people with the punitive justice they deserve.  Hatred is an intense, perhaps very, very passionate dislike for something or someone.  Just like love, which is either a determination to treat someone as they deserve and thus without any injustice (either by undeserved favor or by undeserved penalty) or a personal affection, mercy does not have to exclude hatred at all.  Whatever the exact details of moral obligations are, if they exist and happen to not be the Biblical ones that are evidentially likely, there is no necessary conflict between any of these attitudes and motivations.

There is nothing but your own subjective willingness to stop you, as neither reason nor Biblical morality [1] is in conflict with this.  Stop short of malice or emotionalism, and hatred is one of the most freeing, empowering, and enjoyable things one will ever experience.  Far more than the calm that comes from peace with fools, far more than pleasures like food, masturbation, or sex, hatred of irrationality and irrationalists can provide personal empowerment derived from both knowing the truth and being the wholehearted enemy of practically anyone who incorrigibly rejects or trivializes it.

Knowing that irrationalists are like insects compared to you regardless of whether something like Christianity is true, and regardless of whether morality of any kind exists, is absolutely a basis for genuine empowerment.  Knowing that one can manipulate them like the lesser beings that they are and how to--such as by preying on their emotionalistic existential insecurities, potentially by forcing them into situations where their asinine beliefs are exposed to people who are not allies or by mocking their stupidity openly--is something that one could righteously draw excitement and eagerness from.

Simply do not hope for stupidity or sin in others so that you can have a reason to hate where it is permissible and thus experience this excitement.  This would be itself irrational and vile, the desire for there to be errors so that one could confront those who believe or hold to them in hatred.  The proper motives and context are what validate loathing.  In the right situation, though, hatred of the legitimate kind is not even something that personally harms the one who harbors it in spite of its permissibility as some insist.  To the contrary, it can be both objectively empowering and subjectively fulfilling as it burns against everyone who unrepentantly neglects reason or disregards the very notion of their emotionalistic, self-absorbed lives being in the wrong.  It does not so much as require abstinence from mercy.

[1].  https://thechristianrationalist.blogspot.com/2021/09/divine-hatred-in-proverbs.html

Nudity Before Marriage

The body of one's spouse is the body that one could see over and over across a lifetime in sexual or nonsexual contexts, and it is a body that one is morally free to go beyond just admiring and mentally craving and actually engaging in all consensual, permissible sexual behaviors with.  The moral freedom to have sexual intercourse is the only thing that separates marriage, legal or otherwise, from what is permitted in dating relationships--Deuteronomy 4:2 makes it clear that whatever God has not directly or indirectly condemned is free to be partaken in by every person.  There are many things pertaining to sexuality or the human body that fall under this category.

For those who are willing, this includes visually savoring the naked body of one's partner in anticipation of having sex in a future marriage or as a prelude to the numerous nonsinful sex acts one could engage in with a partner outside of marriage (again, Deuteronomy 4:2).  Sex specifically belongs in a relationship aimed at marriage or that is already a marriage before God (Exodus 22:16-17), and since general public or private nudity is independently nonsinful (Genesis 1:31 with 2:25 and Mosaic Law's absence of condemnation establish this), it would by necessity be the same if a man and woman bare their bodies to inspire attraction or praise each other.  They would not have casual sex unless they choose to.

It is not that sexual attraction is the most prominent or important part of dating or marriage, but that there is nothing Biblically immoral about appreciating a dating partner's body and being introspectively honest about if one is attracted or not to the point that it is a personal factor in staying or leaving the relationship.  This can be done without dehumanization, without any casual sex following, and even without any lesser interpersonal sexual acts, though deeds like oral sex are Biblically permissible for the same reason seeing someone's nudity in person with the intent of sexual admiration is nonsinful: neither contradicts Yahweh's moral nature as describes by his revealed commands.

Should a dating partner's or spouse's body decay or suffer an accident, the ideal is to love them so much, as a human being and as a significant other, that this would not emotionally deter one from remaining with them.  Marriages in particular are to only be ended in cases of sexual immorality such a as adultery (Matthew 19:9), neglect and abuse (Exodus 21:9-11), and abandonment (1 Corinthians 7:12-16), though things like rape and adultery are already deserving of execution rather than just the release of the mistreated spouse from the marital bond.  Disfigurement and sexual boredom are not valid reasons to leave one's spouse.  If someone would truly not be satisfied with their partner as a spouse, including sexually or physically, they should not proceed with the relationship.

All the same, there is not only nothing evil on the Christian worldview about intentionally or repeatedly seeing the nudity of one's romantic partner who has not yet become one's spouse, even on the very first day of the relationship, but one can also share the great intimacy of interpersonal sensuality (which does not have to be sexual) and better evaluate one's attraction to a potential spouse.  Seeing someone's nudity months or years before one married then can be a penetratingly introspective experience for both the individuals on their own and for their connection as romantic partners.  It can also be a treasured memory of a nonsinful event that a married couple later looks back on with nostalgic delight.

The Ark Of The Covenant Captured

Associated with everything from popular culture thanks to Indiana Jones to conspiracy theories about its whereabouts, the ark of the covenant is not as Biblically mysterious as some might think.  The instructions on how to build the ark of the covenant, called the ark of God in 1 Samuel, are found in Exodus 25:10-22.  Its chest and pole components are designed from acacia wood and gold.  Bezalel has to touch its materials as he crafts them according with the preceding details in Exodus 37:1-9, so of course it does not automatically kill all who see or touch it.  The ark is eventually captured by the Philistines (1 Samuel 4:10-21) but is not seemingly touched incorrectly so as to bring about the death of the holder--more will be said on this below.  What is said to take place afterward touches on everything from the inadequacy of idols to the real metaphysical source of power connected with the ark.

When the Philistines place the ark inside a temple of Dagon, the following day, they are said to have found the statue of Dagon fallen on its face before the ark of God, and the after the image is restored to an upright position, the statue is found fallen yet again the subsequent day, this time with its head and hands broken off (1 Samuel 5:1-5).  It is noteworthy that the image itself is called Dagon, whereas the ark is called the ark of God, this being consistent with the Bible's doctrine of other gods and goddesses really being demons (Leviticus 17, Deuteronomy 32) or mere natural materials that, though they are fashioned to resemble entities, are not really conscious or otherwise representative of an actual deity (Isaiah 44:9-20).

As an object crafted from substances like gold, the ark is just another material thing made from the resources of the world.  As a visible reminder of Yahweh's power--not a tangible representation of Yahweh himself, who has no form (Deuteronomy 4:15-20, Exodus 20:4-6, 22-23)--it is tied to a being greater than any metal or shape.  This is why the ark is presented as having a devastating effect on the Philistines.  Passing it from city to city in a vain attempt to escape tumors and death (1 Samuel 5:6-12), they decide to send it back to Israel with gold models of the tumors and rats that resemble their afflictions from Yahweh (6:1-5).  The Philistines put the gold models inside a chest next to the ark in a cart (1 Samuel 6:8), which is crucial because the text does not say they opened or gazed into the object.

The cows pulling the cart are observed as they return the ark to Israel (6:9-12, 16), with priests (seemingly from among the Philistines) saying that the cart going towards Beth Shemesh would be a sign that the disasters have been from Yahweh and it being brought in another direction would be a confirmation of coincidence.  This would be a total philosophical assumption since it does not follow, because the beasts heading towards Beth Shemesh could also be a chance phenomenon, but on the level of perception, it would provide some evidence that Yahweh is behind these events.  Indeed, the animals take the ark to Beth Shemesh, where there are sacrifices and great celebration (6:13-15).

When they receive the ark, some of the inhabitants of Beth Shemesh are nonetheless killed by God for looking inside it (1 Samuel 6:19), much like what happens to Uzzah later on for touching the ark when it looked like it would fall (2 Samuel 6:6-7).  This is in contrast with what even the Philistines are said to do to the ark.  However, both of these accounts clarify that it is God and not the ark that kills these people.  The ark on its own has no power.  It is a chest made of mere acacia wood overlayed with gold, not a relic with independent power.  Rather than a weapon that can be harnessed by just anyone who takes it for themselves or a token that binds God to the will of whoever possesses it, whatever their ideology, intentions, or deeds, it is presented as a physical object that represents God's favor and power, not God or an irrelevant form assigned to him.

A Roach's Nervous System

The human nervous system, with its brain and spinal cord forming the central part and the rest of the nerves integrated with the general body, is not only far from the only logically possible nervous system, but it is far from the only kind of nervous system reported to be present a plethora of other animals.  Not even every animal is supposed to have a nervous system of any kind (sea sponges are supposedly the only category of creature this applies to)!  Many of the most neurologically "alien" life forms reside in the world's oceans, while some with drastically differing neural networks inhabit the surface along with humans.  Roaches, despised by many, are among the latter.  Somewhat renowned for their ability to live without their heads, the roach's nervous system is such that what should quickly end the bodily life of a human only starts a limited but extended life without its brain.

This is not an example of a creature with no nervous system or nothing at all analogous to a brain, but it is an example of an animal that certainly appears by all outward evidences to have its own consciousness and yet does not possess a nervous system like that of humans.  Oh, it is supposed to have neurons, and 1,000,000 of them at that, but these are not massed together anywhere in one central brain.  The more conventional brain is in the head and a lesser bundle of nerves is in the abdomen.  A roach would thus have two structures at opposite ends, hence why it can survive for so long without its head, which contains the primary brain of sorts.  The nerve cluster in the abdomen would be relied on.  Spiracles, small holes in its body, allow it to breathe in the absence of a head, though it cannot drink without its mouth and can succumb to dehydration within around a week.

For this period of a week or (according to some) more, a roach can still breathe, move, and otherwise engage in many of the activities it otherwise could with its full nervous system intact.  If it were not for the need to eat and drink, the second of these being the most pressing, the roach could hypothetically live for far longer than this.  Yes, this post-decapitation survival pertains to differences beyond the strictly neurological, such as the way respiration occurs in roaches and other insects, yet even after losing the head, a roach is biologically alive and, as with before, seemingly conscious in a genuine sense, not like a wind-up doll or lifeless AI program.  Its consciousness before and after decapitation is uncertain for me and any other human observer like me, as we cannot even know if other human minds exist.  As as both probabilistic epistemology (which far transcends petty science) and basic, passive scientific perceptions evidence, roaches are likely conscious in both states.

Unlike the sea sponge, which has no neurons, and unlike cnidarians such as jellyfish and coral polyps, which have neurons but no brain, the roach had neurons and something of a centralized nervous system, but it still differs from the human neural structure.  Whereas sea sponges react to stimuli in the most basic of observed ways, anyone who has seen a roach in their living space has the opportunity to realize that it truly seems to be conscious.  Here is a creature that actively scurries about.  Not that it is logically necessary for there to be a body in order for there to be a mind or for every body to have a mind, but, as is the case with the many other animal types I have touched upon before, if outward scientific neurology is as it appears and if roaches do have their own consciousness which behavior hints at, then there is absolutely nothing about the combination of a formal brain and billions of neurons that is logically or (in a lesser sense) scientifically required to have a mind even as a biological organism in this world.

On The Loss Of Salvation

Yahweh is merciful (Leviticus 26:44, Luke 6:36, Romans 5:8), not always immediately (2 Peter 3:8-9) treating people as they punitively deserve and allowing for the repentant to be restored to him after even grave sins (Numbers 5:5-8, 15:22-31, 2 Samuel 12:13, 1 John 1:9, and so on).  Being ideologically committed to Judeo-Christianity does not mean that a person will not sin, though it is within everyone's power to never sin since this is logically possible, and the Bible does acknowledge this more than once (Deuteronomy 30:12-14, Job 1:1, Luke 1:5-6, Matthew 5:48).  Logically, something cannot be morally required if it is impossible to achieve it, and there is no individual sin that cannot be avoided, if it is even a temptation for a given individual to begin with.  However, the possibility of someone being saved without being totally or unflinchingly morally perfect from that point onward is one of the subjects on which Jesus and Paul share a more obvious overlap in their proposed theologies.  This can be seen in Matthew 5 and 1 Corinthians 3:

Matthew 5:19--"'Therefore anyone who sets aside one of the least of these commands and teaches others accordingly will be called least in the kingdom of heaven, but whoever practices and teaches these commands will be called great in the kingdom of heaven.'"

1 Corinthians 3:12-15--"If anyone builds on this foundation using gold, silver, costly stones, wood, hay or straw, their work will be shown for what it is, because the Day will bring it to light.  It will be revealed with fire, and the fire will test the quality of each person's work.  If what has been built survives, the builder will receive a reward.  If it is burned up, the builder will suffer loss but yet will be saved--even though only as one escaping through the flames."

Neither passage claims that people who fall short of moral perfection at any time are automatically excluded from salvation and the resulting eternal life once becoming a genuine Christian.  Indeed, Matthew 5 strongly suggests that people who actively sinned for prolonged periods will be present in the kingdom of heaven, albeit with a lesser status of sorts.  They will still live forever in the bliss described in Revelation 21:1-4.  At the same time, they will have forfeited a degree of reward (". . . will be called least in the kingdom of heaven"), and Jesus does plainly say that people must be more righteous than the hypocritical, egoistic "righteousness" of the Pharisees (Matthew 15:1-20, 23:1-29) in order to enter the kingdom of heaven at all (Matthew 5:20).  1 Corinthians 3 even more explicitly conveys that a lack of extensive righteous works does not render someone soteriologically unsafe.  They do nonetheless barely escape annihilation in the flames of hell (Matthew 10:28, Romans 6:23, Revelation 20:15).

Perhaps someone commits to Yahweh and/or Christ and dies shortly after, having little opportunity to intentionally cease all sin in their life before they join the unconscious dead waiting for resurrection (Ecclesiastes 9:5, 10, Job 3:11-19, 14:10-12, Daniel 12:2).  Perhaps someone errs greatly but is otherwise consistently devoted to reason and morality.  For example, King David's life is summarized in this way despite multiple grave sins (1 Kings 15:5).  Such a man or woman is not unsaved by default because of this.  Nothing about this contradicts Matthew 3, which says that every tree that does not bear good fruit will be cut down and thrown into the fire.  Similarly, James says that there is not commitment to God without righteous deeds is dead (2:26), even as Jesus says that to truly love him is to obey his commands (John 14:15).  Evil is still evil and by nature is what should not be done, and no one who is saved should continue sinning or mistake salvation for an excuse to sin for the sake of utilitarianism or sheer egoism (Romans 3:5-8, 6:1-2, 12-13).  Moral perfection is what people were saved for according to Paul, just a single verse after his renowned declaration that people are saved by grace and not by their works (Ephesians 2:10).

Going above and beyond is still by logical necessity unnecessary, and also something the Bible goes out of its way to emphasize as optional at best (Deuteronomy 4:2, 12:32).  The low quality materials purged in the fire of 1 Corinthians 3 are sins, therefore--they stand in for active wrongs or failures to do what is obligatory.  Nothing else could possibly, on by Biblical standards or as dictated by what is logically possible to start with, be worthy of burning up.  No one needs to worry about not having a plethora of constant, eager acts where they have gone above the mandates of righteous to do what is good but unnecessary.  Do what is required, and if Christianity is true, what you "build" atop the foundation will survive the fire to that extent.  While anyone who sins cannot know if they are among the saved according to the Bible with absolute certainty, this is not due to Calvinistic fatalism or because they have to push themself far past what is truly obligatory.  It is rather still up to God to show mercy or not to those who persist in sin after repentance.

After all, just because sin does not universally disqualify someone from eternal life if they were already saved does not mean that a person can never forfeit salvation by their own stupidity and selfishness.  Some passages imply or absolutely seem to say that salvation can be lost, though some of them perhaps address more of a premature ending to terrestrial life (for instance, see Ezekiel 33:12-16, John 15:5-8, Hebrews 6:4-8, 10:26-31).  There is also the opportunity to repent as long as a person lives in that it is logically possible to do so, which includes while a person lives after the eschatological resurrection [1].  Lost salvation does not necessarily have to remain lost.  Rewards during eternal life can be diminished by sinning after salvation as 1 Corinthians 3 states, which is loss enough in itself--though people should do what is obligatory because it should be done instead of only being motivated by the utilitarian benefit of reward.  It could be true that salvation can be lost as well, though the only sure way to never be able to repent and potentially be restored to God (2 Peter 3:9) is to remain unrepentant until the very moment a person perishes, ceasing to consciously exist in the lake of fire (John 3:16, 2 Peter 2:6).

[1].  https://thechristianrationalist.blogspot.com/2023/07/while-there-is-life.html

A Consequence Of Mercy

Persistently showing mercy in a world full of irrationalistic people will almost inevitably mean that other people will, out of blind irrationality or negligence, try to keep getting away with as much as you will forgive them for.  If they are given one second chance after another, they will abuse it.  This is not because mercy is wrong.  The motivations behind it can be, but mercy is not made legitimate or illegitimate, though it is made gratuitous, because of the usual outcomes.  Mercy is seemingly often accepted for purely self-serving reasons.

This no different except in the source of the mercy from when certain evangelicals think that they can just sin purposefully and repeatedly and still land in God's mercy.  As with God, they will take advantage as much as they can of the supererogatory kindness showed to them by merciful people.  As long as someone does not assume that mercy will provoke repentance or think that it is obligatory, they can still extend it knowing that it will in many instances be disregarded beyond its initial convenience to them.

Such people are like the pigs Jesus warned against throwing pearls to (Matthew 7:6).  Given the chance, they will attack you if you try to help them.  One can still show mercy and mourn for them without believing the delusion that mercy can only be responded to rightly, but the fact remains that the likely consequence of mercy is that the irrational and unrighteous will only persist in their nonsense.  They will very probably still make assumptions; they will still be hypocrites and emotionalists.

Show mercy as much as you are willing anyway.  As for me, my own turn towards mercy on the level of attitude--my worldview did not need to change--was not because I suddenly assumed that it is going to always result in positive change on the part of the recipient.  I certainly did not start believing that mercy could be anything more than a good thing that can never be deserved.  It was a change I embraced out of a personal desire to provide another chance regardless: out of hope rather than folly or utilitarianism.

The Elusion Of Retirement

Retirement is supposed to be, at best, the attainable, blissful follow-up to the career that one has invested perhaps decades into.  It is the outcome that hopefully makes all the hours and years of labor, planning, financial caution, and willpower worthwhile.  Ideally, no one would ever need to end their retirement to supplement their current savings by returning to the workforce, nor would anything but the most tumultuous economic circumstances on a regional, national, or international level threaten their freedom to rely on what they have accumulated during their years of professional labor.  Maybe they even have relatively passive income sources set up at this point (though no income is purely passive, one way or another).

A genuine, lasting retirement, much less the ideal kind, becomes more and more elusive every time high compensation is locked behind a potentially shrinking number of jobs where arbitrary years of experience and educational background are major barriers for applicants.  It becomes more elusive every time inflation erodes the purchasing power of whatever amount of money someone possesses.  Faced with job scarcity, layoffs, inflation, and low wages/salaries, many workers could find that their retirement will have to be delayed or it will never be fully experienced at all.  Terrible workplaces might deter more people from working to begin with, or at least in certain companies or industries.

There are ways to strive for financial/material security in retirement that do not involve overworking oneself at multiple jobs or in predatory corporate environments for years and years.  The rewards are simply lesser.  Retiring to live more carefully on a smaller than desired amount of money or non-financial resources is an option, though this lacks a greater degree of security.  If one is relying on dwindling savings that were on the smaller side to begin with, many crises could force one back into the labor pool one has escaped from.  However, even if one has a vast fortune in reserve on top of many material necessities and luxuries, it is not as if all of that wealth could not be destroyed quickly by circumstances beyond one's control.  A smaller retirement fund just makes this more difficult to guard against.

Having a significant other who was also able to work and contribute to mutual savings is another option leading up to retirement, but should the right disability befall them, they would not longer be able to generate an income during what would be their working years, and whether or not their partner has retired, resources would have to be used to take care of them.  Dating or marrying primarily or solely for economic reasons is asinine, of course; the only valid reasons to commit to someone in this way are ideological and affection-based ones (other things, like sexual attraction and wealth, are great additional benefits, but only if the other factors are already present).  In America, the contemporary expenses and inconveniences of healthcare make this more of a burden--not the person who is sick or disabled, but the trials of providing for them in a country dominated by America's delusional version of capitalism.

There are many factors involved with a careful, safe retirement, and unfortunately, they are becoming more overwhelming and resting more beyond the control of many workers.  The elusion of retirement is that the ability to permanently end one's professional labor is becoming more challenging to attain, if one is lucky enough to be able to pursue it.  To live a life unpolluted by the social constructs of the workplace and the demands and Irrationality of American capitalism is itself a luxury in one sense.  With a more stable economy and greatly amplified capacity to save money from a wider range of jobs, all while still living a healthy, comfortable life in the meantime, retirement would not be so far from the grasp of as many people at this time.  Slavery to abusive corporations, economic reductionism, and financial worry will have to be alleviated on a broad scale before the freedom to retire to be enjoyed by truly anyone who is monetarily responsible.

Generative AI

Artificial intelligence is not conscious unless it really does mentally perceive, a prerequisite to grasping reason.  More vitally, even if a given AI really is conscious, like any other being [1], it is not intelligent by having the passive capacity for intelligence, but by at least actively grasping the necessary truths of reason that start with logical axioms and making no assumptions.  This is true intelligence (rationality): the simultaneous purposeful avoidance of assumptions with active awareness of logical axioms is the only standard of intelligence for all beings, whether biological or artificial.

Chat-GPT is a variation of generative AI, as is the novel summary system presented at the top of the screen upon many Google searches.  In both cases, like other kinds of generative AI, the user inputs some sort of word or goal, and the software generates (hence the name) a result, namely text or imagery that is supposed to fit the parameters of the input.  Not only is AI not genuinely intelligent without being truly conscious and grasping pure reason free of assumptions, but for the same reasons, human users are not intelligent by virtue of exposure to or reliance on AI-compiled information.

Generative AI like Google's can be very helpful in summarizing information to prompt reflection or locating sources pertaining to matters that are not logically self-evident like axioms, or even truly demonstrable (such as that there was a battle of Gettysburg in 1863 or that there are subatomic particles we call quarks).  For such things, only fallible, probabilistic evidence can be obtained, not proof through logical necessity.  If a person believes in such unverifiable albeit logically possible things due to the responses from generative AI, this would just be another appeal to authority.  Even then, one could not know that the AI summary accurately reflects the source's claims without checking the source, and any source that contradicts pure reason is in error!

The article or other resource being pulled from simply has no necessary veracity like reason does, and so there are only two ultimate possibilities.  On one hand, a particular idea is true or false by strict logical necessity, and so prompting or input from humans or AI is epistemologically unnecessary for realizing this; reason can be consulted without the involvement of any sources, since its truths is inherent and thus directly accessible.  If nothing is true, for instance, then this would be true, so truth exists in itself because reality (truth) could not be any other way.  This is a logical fact, and it hinges on nothing but its own intrinsic veracity.  Human persuasion, scholarly consensus, and probabilistic evidence like that yielded from empirical testing are entirely irrelevant.

On the other hand, if it is true that an idea is logically possible yet epistemologically unverifiable for humans, no amount of "expert" approval or written claims will change this.  It is unknowable, though it is still demonstrably true that it depends on logical axioms for its very possibility, and that certain things do or do not follow from it by necessity.  Generative AI will only call something unknown or unknowable if the sources it pulls from say so.  Depending on what question is asked, the answer might also contradict another answer the same AI would provide for a different question.  Logic illuminates how contradictions cannot be true (because otherwise the concept of non-contradiction would be false, and thus conflicting ideas still cannot be simultaneously true!).

It is just that generative AI is not about summarizing statements that are in accordance with logical necessity, which transcends belief and language altogether in the first place.  True knowledge is derived from reason and introspection, which physical and digital texts (like those on the Internet) and the inherently unverifiable but commonplace phenomenon of hearsay can never invalidate, undermine, or supercede.  There is a very real sense in which the only legitimate use of generative AI for epistemological purposes is to check what hearsay is being promoted online and/or investigate any linked sources to see what other people claim.  The individual claims still must be examined in light of reason.  That is why I am not a hypocrite for contributing to this very blog--I want readers to celebrate necessary truths they already know or be prompted by my words to discover some given logical fact that does not depend on my words.

[1].  https://thechristianrationalist.blogspot.com/2024/04/the-criteria-for-animal-intelligence.html

Exodus 21:26-27 And Divorce

Biblical slavery is not a cruel system; the man or woman actually has the option of staying a willing slave for life because of economic gain, comfort with their present lifestyle, or love of their master or mistress and their family; otherwise, they go free in the seventh year (Exodus 21:2-6, Deuteronomy 15:12-18).  Exodus 21:3-6 also addresses how this permanent slavery could be desired because it puts them in closer proximity to their family, such as a spouse who is a slave.  This person has pledged themself as a voluntary life servant.  Even so, Exodus 21:26-27 provides two clear examples from the broader category of physical mistreatment (and anything worse would also be applicable) that require the immediate freedom of a slave: striking them so that their eye is destroyed or a tooth is dislodged.  They personally committed to serve someone for the rest of their life, and yet the Bible very explicitly says they are to go free if certain treatment is given to them.  There are distinct parallels between this sort of slavery and marriage.

Crucially, the obligations behind Exodus 21:26-27 free a male or female slave even if he or she, out of love for their master or mistress and whatever comforts or stability this life otherwise offers them, freely chose to live with and serve them for a lifetime.  If one instance of mistreatment like this entitles a slave to leave their master or mistress no matter what promises or declarations of intent had been exclaimed before in either direction, it could only be the case that divorce for the same or worse treatment would be a Biblical right of all people.  Yet evangelical philosophy holds that under supposedly "imperfect" laws that are called righteous and just (Romans 7:7, 12, Hebrews 2:2), slaves go free for mistreatment even if they still owe money (Exodus 22:3) or have already pledged themselves as willing slaves for life, while a person is almost inescapably bound for life to their spouse no matter their behavior under the allegedly "improved", "fully" revealed principles of the New Testament.  This is even more pathetic since the New Testament itself says over and over Yahweh's Torah laws are just and righteous and enduring (Matthew 5:17-19, 1 Timothy 1:8-11).

A marriage unspoiled by sin should indeed last for life, for it is only sin of some kind that frees a partner to divorce licitly (as in Deuteronomy 24:1-4).  This is what the Bible teaches beyond Matthew 19 or Mark 10.  It does not say that Jesus arbitrarily thought Yahweh's laws tyrannical and incomplete (as if that would make it so!) or that God changed his moral nature during inter-testament silence.  It also does not say that the Torah, revealed before Christ's incarnation, allows for divorce over amoral reasons, and that God only tolerated this temporarily due to human stubbornness when he could have easily told the Israelites the "actual" truth of the matter if there was a differing Biblical stance on the subject to begin with.  The real ramifications of evangelical ethical stances, if they hold to consistent ideas and those that actually follow from the others, are that the release of slaves for abuse no matter promises of permanent servitude has been superceded by something "better" that is said to reflect God's loving nature: obligatory, lifelong slavery of relational shackles to one's spouse and marriage unless they commit physical adultery.  No matter how irrational, selfish, verbally cruel, physically abusive, or otherwise sinful the partner is is, they, by typical evangelical standards, have to stay married unless adultery occurs.

Remarriage to and sex with a new partner  are also supposedly universally sinful otherwise, although God never condemned remarriage after legitimate divorce (for reasons far broader than adultery, which deserves execution and not divorce as described in Leviticus 20:10), instead condemning the sequence of divorcing someone, marrying a new partner, and then remarrying the former spouse (Deuteronomy 24:1-4).  However, it could not possibly be an ethical step "forward" for husbands and wives to suddenly not have a moral right that even the lowest on the social hierarchy are said to have by the Bible, as if what is good and evil changed in the time of Jesus anyway.  Just as a liberated slave does not err in seeking out a new master or mistress, a person liberated from a validly annulled marriage does not err in seeking a new husband or wife.  It is not that God lied about morality or compelled people to sin with the Torah's laws (James 1:13-15), or himself changed (Malachi 3:6, James 1:17) in between testaments.  The laws in Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy are blatantly said to be from God in the text, such as in Exodus 21:1 with the prior context of 20:22 (God started speaking to Moses and has not stopped at any point in Exodus 21).  There is no such thing as it being "Biblical" that Moses was introducing erroneous human constructs in the Pentateuch that Jesus had to reject.  If Jesus or Paul or any other New Testament figure denied this, they would by logical necessity be a heretic according to the very books the New Testament relies on.

There can be no such thing, ironically, as the New Testament philosophically requiring the validity of Mosaic Law only to overturn it if the New Testament is true.  The Old Testament can be true independent of the New Testament's veracity.  The New Testament has to be consistent with the Old Testament to be true, both chronologically and in the sense of moral philosophy, among other things, including because it direct affirms Yahweh's laws as morally perfect.  Jesus acknowledged that the Torah is from God, that to obey its revealed obligations is righteousness, and that to disregard or disobey it is wickedness (Matthew 15:1-20, Mark 7:1-13).  He would not have been against anything about Exodus 21:26-27 or its logically necessarily ramifications for marriage and divorce.  No, Exodus 21:26-27 is not about divorce in the exact content of its wording, but it follows logically that the same moral rights and obligations related to the treatment of literal slaves/servants would be possessed by husbands and wives by virtue of being humans.  It is not far before this, however, that divorce is directly addressed in Exodus 21:10-11.

Jesus in Matthew 5:31-32, 19:1-9, Mark 10:1-12, and Luke 16:18 would have to be talking about a very limited situation that obviously does not amount to every divorce scenario--either every possible situation in itself or every situation that the Bible explicitly permits divorce in.  Exodus 21:10-11 addresses one of those latter circumstances.  If depriving a spouse of food, clothing, and love (or sex) by either passive neglect or active intentionality frees what would otherwise be a servant woman from both servitude and marriage, then of course the same treatment or anything equal or worse would free any husband or wife to divorce.  Thus, by necessity, Exodus 21:10-11 is not strictly authorizing divorce for deprivation of food and clothing and love, of a sexual and nonsexual kind (1 Corinthians 7:2-5, Romans 13:8-10).  It would by extension allow divorce for all sorts of things that entail not treating one's spouse as their human rights deserve.  Alongside this, verses 26-27 of Exodus 21 indirectly touch on another category of behavior that liberates any willing partner ahead of Deuteronomy 24's allowance of divorce for nonspecific sin, or ultimately for any kind, for we are not to be partners with the unrepentant except out of optional mercy (Ephesians 5:3-7).

An Ancient Cosmos

The concepts of 30,000 years or 1,000,000 years or 13,500,000 years or any other duration are not a mental or social construct, but words are, having exclusively arbitrary meanings.  If someone says the universe is ancient, it really matters what they mean more than what words they use.  They might mean that the universe is only thousands of years old--very "young" compared to the standard cosmological model popular right now, but absolutely ancient compared to the relatively brief lifespan of the typical human or even of civilizations across the historical record.  They could also mean that it has existed for billions and billions of years.  What, if anything, is the evidence for the material universe being of this age, one so vast (13.5+ billion years) that a human life is like a millisecond by comparison?

A light-year is not really a unit of time, but of distance.  It is approximately how far light can travel in a year.  Some stars seem billions of light-years away (or what we see of them now, since we would be perceiving what took place that amount of time ago), and thus the universe would appear to be billions of years old.  As for more local observations, radiometric dating, which has to do with the rate of isotope decay, suggests that the geological matter of Earth is around four billion years old.  The rate of decay supposedly remains stable, and thus is extrapolated backwards.  Yes, this does not provide absolute certainty of anything other than what seems to be the case based upon subjective perceptions through the senses.  It is what the reported evidence points to all the same.

Like all scientific matters, this is only about perception on an epistemological level, so there is no such thing as proving (as long as human limitations endure) the universe existed two seconds ago or that the laws of nature I observe, like electromagnetism, are really persistent or even as they immediately appear.  One can only amass fallible evidence that the universe has a specific age.  Oh, it has a particular age one way or another, no matter what that really is, but the precise duration of its existence is not some verifiable or even particularly important philosophical point.  Logical axioms are still true in themselves without regard to God or the natural world, the latter of which actually depend on them for their very possibility rather than the other way around.  God still exists, just perhaps not the Christian deity.  I still exist.  Any moral obligations that exist would transcend the cosmos anyway since they are tied to the divine nature rather than anything pertaining to conscience or physics.

Logically, it is necessarily true that there could only be a finite sequence of past events and moments of time, and science is irrelevant to this absolute certainty.  However, no matter how long it has existed, whether for moments or billions of years, if the universe has an age, it had a beginning, and if it had a beginning, it had/has a metaphysical cause that would by necessity not be part of the universe itself.  Self-creation requires that the universe existed before it existed, an impossibility.  A past-eternal universe is logically impossible because the present could never be reached (an infinite number or moments and events had to happen before this point).  Coming into existence without a cause is impossible since an absence of something cannot produce anything--only things like the laws of logic, the uncaused cause, and empty space do not have a beginning and thus cannot have been created.

Is the universe ancient, though?  It depends on what is meant by this, and any scientific evidence could of course be a phenomenological/sensory illusion, but the cosmological and geological evidence certainly makes it appear that the universe is much older than the time-frames that many people can relate to within their lives, and much older than the 6,000-10,000 years a certain group of assumption-driven people pretend.  This is all ultimately trivial either way except for how it relates to something like the truth/probability of Biblical Christianity, yet it is very much the case that empirical evidences point to a cosmos that is billions of years old.  This can be subjectively fascinating despite its relatively minor significance.  What is actually philosophically important here is the comparative unimportance of how old the cosmos is, as well as things that are ultimately tangentially associated with it.

There Would Be No Need For Unions

If only employers paid livable compensation, as well as enough additional money to account for any personal merit or special qualifications, there would be no need for unions at all.  Why would workers need to rely on collective bargaining to withstand employer pressure if they were already given what they need and more importantly what they deserve (on the Biblical worldview, at least, as conscience and convenience are irrelevant)?  Slippery slope fallacies are universally invalid, so unions are only called for when there has already been mistreatment or evidence of looming mistreatment.

In the workplace, exploitation can take many forms, from sexism to sexual harassment by those with enough power to shield themselves to severe underpayment.  The last of these has become a more visible problem in recent years thanks to inflation, layoffs, and large executive compensation packages.  Inflation has reduced the buying power of money while the scarcity of well-paying jobs, which become scarcer with layoffs, and the overpayment of many executives highlights how there is a trend of anti-worker phenomena in the workplace (of countries like America, that is).

Worker's unions are a measure to eliminate, thwart, or minimize the degree of predatory norms within a business or industry.  All of the aforementioned types of mistreatment and more can be more easily kept secret when it seems like an individual employee is the only victim, or when they are not open and unified in their resistance to corporate stupidity.  Together, if they all push back or walk away, they can ensure that the business will be unable to remain standing unless it replaces everyone.  If this was to keep happening with each batch or hires, or if there are industry-spanning unions, the company would be forced to amend its ways or die.

There is nothing about a business existing from which it follows that there will or must be evil motives and behaviors from the organization's leaders.  Even on the level of examples from sensory experience, which are absolutely unnecessary to know the logical possibility of such a thing, there are companies and figures that do intentionally avoid exploitation, at least of key kinds.  Every single business that refuses to be a morally neutral or positive workplace, and especially those that can only remain in operation if there is underpayment or other exploitation, cannot deserve to continue unless the problem is rectified.  In those cases where a company refuses, unionization is a spectacular response.

Unions do not have to be tainted with the greed and arrogance they can defend against.  They can provide security for job longevity, working conditions, compensation, and benefits that are truly livable and that actually allow people to flourish.  As a safeguard against active greed, selfishness, and cruelty in a work setting, unions are one of the best options since their workers have the best chance of being recognized and ceded to when the very survival of the business is at stake.  Without unions, plenty of employees laboring for irrational, abusive employers might only have a matter of time before they receive the same injustices as others.

Heating On The Sabbath

Although it has nothing to do with Saturday or Sunday being the day required by God, the Sabbath obligation is obviously still part of ongoing Biblical demands for all people.  Yahweh's core moral nature does not change (Malachi 3:6, James 1:17) and, unlike how there cannot be an obligation to sacrifice animals at the Temple irregardless of Christ's death if there is no Temple around, there is nothing about the Sabbath that logically necessitates that it would be a moral obligation bound by time or geography.  Sabbath violation is one of the more casual capital sins modern Christians commit (Exodus 35:2).  As if it being mentioned in the New Testament or not has any relevance to its validity, it gets ignored because of pathetic objections like this.

Many of the first verses that address the Sabbath nevertheless do not specify what is and is not the condemned type of work to be reserved for the other six days of the week.  Unless the Sabbath was intended to literally exterminate all people, something that obviously contradicts the plain teachings of the Bible since Yahweh's followers are offered prolonged earthly lives for obedience (Deuteronomy 30), the likes of breathing and drinking and eating are all permitted, so it is not as if any mental or physical activity that involves effort is the prohibited work.  The priests were commanded to sacrifice animals on the Sabbath (Numbers 28:9-10) and Jesus healed on the Sabbath, pointing to the aforementioned weekly sacrifices as outright Biblical examples of exceptions (Matthew 12:5).

To starve or be deprived of vital nutrients on the Sabbath would not be the goal of this rest, for Jesus says that the Sabbath is for humans benefit rather than people being made for the Sabbath (Mark 2:27).  With all of this being the case, when Exodus 35:3 says to not light a fire inside dwelling places on the Sabbath, it would have to not be a universal prohibition on cooking or heating unless it was to contradict other very clear Biblical doctrines.  God is not saying to let babies or the elderly or sick die from extreme cold in the winter, nor is he saying to voluntarily resign oneself to death if one was to have a medical need to consume food that must be freshly cooked on a daily basis.  Again, the Sabbath is for the freedom and benefit of humanity as Jesus described.

This is not because it is logically necessary for any moral obligation that turns out to exist to be about human wellbeing.  If reality was such that it was evil to not slaughter every living thing one comes across or ever try to reduce ones mental or physical pain, one would still be obligated to avoid evil, but these are simply not the actual obligations of Christianity.  Biblical morality is about justice and human wellbeing.  In either case, modern interior heating does not require a human to be constantly maintaining a flame by using sticks.  This is neither necessary for cooking nor for climate control within housing.  As such, no one would be sinning by the Torah's standards for enjoying a heated home on Sabbath days.

Even in life or death situations, such as isolation in an icy wilderness, since the Sabbath is there to aid human flourishing rather than constrict it, it would be permissible to manually generate heat by a fire on the Sabbath if one was stranded apart from technology, shelter, or other people.  Jesus healed on the Sabbath because doing his Father's work is not the same as engaging in unnecessary physical labor (Matthew 12:11-12, Mark 3:3-4), especially for monetary gain, on the day of rest.  He specifically mentions in such passages how saving life on the Sabbath is lawful to Yahweh.  Setting aside a potentially revolving day of rest for every six days of labor is not the same as damning oneself or one's family to misery.  This would indeed be the opposite of the Christian doctrine.

Open Door Policies In The Workplace

Used by a company with competent leaders, an open door policy, where employees are invited to provide any feedback or complaints to management, leads to benevolent employers hearing of asinine dealings within the workplace they were not aware of and then actually doing what they can to end them.  Literally or not, it is as if the door is open for anyone to step inside to discuss something with an employer, with management, or with HR.  This is the ideal implementation of an open door policy in business, and it is at least what some employers pay lip service to when they encourage their workers to immediately bring any concerns to leadership.  It is not impossible for a company to use this in legitimate ways, yes.

Since many people are irrationalists and business leaders are people, open door policies do not necessarily result in something like an oppressive manager being fired or demoted or someone illicitly discriminating against employees being dealt with.  No, the first priority of an egoistic employee would be to preserve the stability of their business or their own standing at the expense of whatever problems are present or how those problems are impacting workers.  The concept of an open door policies is wonderful for the transparency it could allow for, but fools can always prevent the best of policies from being utilized rationally or effectively.

Complain about dehumanizing or hypocritical work expectations, and it probably will not lead to anything other than superficial appearances getting altered.  Articulate legitimate objections about the company's top figures on the hierarchy, and it is very unlikely that they will suddenly align with reason or treat others justly.  Their reaction to power is to do whatever they can to ensure they feel special, mighty, or insulated from their flaws even though they do not deserve it, and any open door policy they offer is just a way to make it seem like employees will be listened to and given what they need to 1) be treated as human beings and 2) succeed in their roles.

The illusion of relief for employees is the real goal of open door policies in a company like this.  All that the person in charge, such as the president of an exploitative small business, either intends to do or ends up doing is simply having employees talk with him/her or with HR in order to feel like they are getting somewhere by voicing their objections.  In reality, the objections fall on the deaf ears of apathetic, selfish, or assumption-enslaved irrationalists who will only maintain whatever they can of the business's status quo for as long as possible.

Open door policies are also are no replacement for worker's unions and are not a guarantee that a workplace's real woes will be resolved, much less addressed competently on any level, as some employers might pretend.  At the same time, they are not inevitably misused.  The people in a company decide if their business misuses them or not.  These truths are logical necessities, not the happenstance of a particular example or experience in the world.  Even if everyone had only positive or only negative experiences with open door policies, these truths do not change.  There is no such thing as a business being honest, transparent, and morally innocent or being any of the alternatives to these things by default.  A company is made that way by the people who comprise it.

Game Review--Chronos: Before The Ashes (Switch)

"Then came the beasts.  From inside one of the Rusted Places.  Hunted us.  Drove us into the cracks and crevices.  Came the beasts on orders.  Directed by the will of one.  The Dragon."

--Grandmother, Chronos: Before The Ashes

Chronos, originally a VR game from 2016 before its 2020 enhanced release for consoles and a prequel to Remnant: From the Ashes, introduces an exceptionally unique gameplay mechanic in a game with little thoroughness in its overall production values: every time the player avatar dies, the in-game character ages by one year.  You start at age 18 after choosing your gender and then head out into an enigmatic, threatening world containing occasional orange crystals with teleportation capabilities.  Reaching milestone ages like 20, 30, and so on gives you a choice between three permanent bonuses, but dying enough times shifts your character away from strength and agility based combat into greater reliance on the arcane (magic).  The very bland level of graphical detail and simplistic range of attacks hold it back so that it is still ultimately a very mixed game, one with genuine innovations and very lackluster elements all at once.

Production Values

A sluggish framerate, general lack of visual detail, and disappearing/reappearing objects make for a very underdeveloped level of aesthetic quality.  Ground vegetation can appear and disappear with slight camera movements when you are already right next to it, as opposed to simply phasing into view upon reaching a certain distance from the plants.  What makes this more unfortunate than mere wasted potential is that the design of the environments as far as the gameplay sequence goes is not abysmal at all--much of the game is played in a series of serpentine regions linked by teleportation of some kind, and one of the later areas of the game does have a more unique layout, with floor pieces that are constructed ahead of you as you walk.  The voice acting fares significantly better; there is simply not much of it, which is not an automatically negative characteristic in itself.  With all of the genuinely significant visual drawbacks, though, the game would as a whole be hardly even mediocre on the Switch (perhaps it has stronger production values on other platforms) if it was not for the gameplay, where conventional, sometimes limited combat is supplemented by an aging system and numerous puzzles.

Gameplay

Remnant is a shooter with melee attacks; the combat of Chronos is exclusively about blocking and physically striking enemies.  The style resembles a mixture of Legend of Zelda and Dark Souls, combining the lock-on mechanics of the former and the slow, stamina-based dodges and blows of the latter.  The stamina bar depletes when blocking attacks with the shield but recovers even when holding the shield in a defensive position, albeit at a slower rate than when it is lowered.  Despite the sharp simplicity of the move set, enemies can wreak havoc on you if you are careless, yet revisiting older locations after leveling up many times and spending the affiliated points shows just how far you have come in durability and power.

The very unique aging mechanic is the highlight of the game, or at least the specter in the background during combat.  Aging by a year with each player death (in-game, they spend the year finding their way back to the closest World Stone) changes the character's appearance over time, though there are special permanent bonuses available at the aforementioned intervals.  Counterbalancing such features, the fact that you cannot refill your health bar except by two means increases the challenge: you can level up, which requires more experience points with each jump, and use a dragon heart, an item of very limited quantity that is itself only refilled when the player literally dies.  At the hands of enemies ranging from bosses to elemental priests to werewolf-like fiends of a molten appearance, death can be very close at hand.

The whole of the game is nonetheless not spent fighting creatures.  Environmental navigation and a host of puzzles occupy much of the playthrough.  Passageways that are initially locked are eventually opened, items are gathered, and puzzles solved.  Items can sometimes be reduced to their parts of merged together as needed for progression, a mechanic that slightly sets Chronos apart from other games with inventory systems. Some of the puzzles are even quite clever in other ways.  For instance, a tiny slate in a locked bookshelf turns out to be a portal that you can exit in shrunken form by aligning runes on a normal-sized teleportation mirror elsewhere.  More developed than the limited combat, the puzzles provide variety and greater gameplay depth.

Story

Some spoilers are below.

Set in a future where a dragon and its monstrous cohorts have forced humans out of the technology-based society of the 1960s, Chronos follows a young warrior as he or she (depending on player choice) journeys through remnants of the former human civilization and through several other regions inhabited by cyclopes, pans, and other creatures.  The hero connects with a spirit that grants aid at key moments, such as by providing a flame ability that can briefly empower weapons, traveling from one region of an interconnected multiverse to another.

Intellectual Content

It is expected that players will die in Chronos, hence the prominent nature of the aging system.  Though the general lack of dialogue allows the themes to largely manifest themselves to the players on their own, dying over and over is set up to naturally prompt reflection about mortality and human life at different ages.  The character grows visibly older depending on how many times you die--up to the point of 80 years old when the character no longer ages, I have merely read, as I beat the game at age 36.  The explanatory messages do not lie to the player about dying enough times erasing progress so that you have to start the whole game over, as with Senua's Sacrifice.  This does not mean there is no ambiguity about what is true in the plot.  To a much lesser extent than its seeming inspirations like Dark Souls, Chronos does benefit from genuine ambiguity about certain metaphysical and epistemological matters.  

It comes to light by utilizing a key card found in the Pan world, which opens a sealed door on Earth (at least, it appears to be Earth), that there are humans on life support systems integrated into what look like virtual reality headsets tied to major bosses in various realms.  The final sequence of the game involves one such subject grabbing the protagonist and pulling him or her into another landscape to fight the former in dragon form, who claims to be an "infinite mind" that has outlasted civilizations and given humans enough prompting to discover teleportation and other worlds.  Clearly, these are very philosophically charged matters, but the game uses them more for ambiguous narrative purposes than for exploration of logical necessities for the sake of truth itself, logical necessity being the only thing that has to be true in itself, and thus the only thing that has to exist in all real or hypothetical scenarios.

Conclusion

A game with elements that together bring its quality to the middle of the spectrum is not unusual, but Chronos is especially aggressive in its characteristics of conflicting strengths.  Its low points are very low, and the high points are very high.  What the game does successfully offer, besides the more unique and well-implemented mechanics, is a more introductory example of a pseudo-Souls game.  Not as punishing as the likes of Dark Souls or Bloodborne yet still requiring consistent attentiveness in combat, here is a prequel to Remnant with a very different combat style and one of the most novel game features in years.  The terrible visual production values that fail to hint at the true capacities of the Switch do not cancel out the highly creative aspects of the game.

Content:

 1.  Violence:  The player avatar swings melee weapons to strike enemies.  Small amounts of dark blood might appear for a short time when killing certain creatures like Pans.

All Of The Bible?

Contradictions can never be true because their falsity is necessitated by the intrinsic truth of logic.  If contradictions were true, then the idea that contradictions are impossible would still be true, since even the truth of a single contradiction would exclude no contradictions being true or possible.  Thus, the logical law of non-contradiction is true either way in itself, along with other logical axioms like the fact that if nothing was true, then this fact would be true, and so the nonexistence of truth is inherently impossible.  The same is true of one thing following by necessity from another and a thing (be it a concept, physical object, or anything else) being what it is as opposed to having any other nature.  With all such axioms, anything that contradicts them has to be false, since the axioms have to be true no matter what.  Logical axioms cannot be erroneous; anything else has to be consistent with reason to at a minimum be possible.

With other matters less immediately pertaining to axioms, though still depending on their self-necessary truth, a contradiction does not mean that all aspects of an idea or all concepts from a set of ideas are untrue.  It just cannot be possible for all of them to be true at once, whatever their proponents might think to the contrary.  For example, if the Bible had said that owning any animal is evil, and in another passage prescribed owning an ox, it is not that owning an ox cannot possibly be sinful inside or outside of Judeo-Christianity, or that God could not have (in the narrative or in reality) commanded that humans own animals.  It simply could not be the case that both of these things are simultaneously correct.  All of the Bible would not be rendered philosophically false by this.  Indeed, at least certain tenets could only be true, although these have to do with direct agreement or consistency with various logical necessities [1].

If the content of the Pauline writings is false because it contradicts logical axioms, any stemming necessary truths, or some prerequisite part of the Bible, this necessitates nothing about the gospel accounts (other than Luke's perhaps, given his connection to Paul through the book of Acts) also being false.  In turn, if the gospel accounts are false, this does not in itself require the falsity of the Old Testament prophetic writings, and if the latter is false, it does not mean that the Torah is false as well.  There are portions of the Bible espousing doctrines that absolutely can be true independent of others, and there are portions articulating ideas that cannot possibly be correct if they truly do/did contradict others.  The typical self-professing Christian I have met is simply to far removed from rationalism to ever discover such logical facts about Biblical doctrines.

Yes, there is no intrinsic veracity of the Bible (or any other religion, or a scientific or historical concept).  Reason being false still requires that reason is true for it to be false, and thus it is true in itself, independent of every other aspect of reality.  The Bible's ideologies, just like everything else, have to be consistent with such necessary truths to be possible at all.  Much of the Bible is very overtly logically possible in itself or alongside other content and it should not take a rationalist long to identify this in many instances.  Logical possibility will still lead the person making no assumptions to a host of ideas that might subjectively seem "bizarre" or that might go unspoken or undiscovered among the world's masses of non-rationalists, yet they do not contradict reason, as opposed to someone's irrational beliefs or subjective preferences or mere perceptions.

One of these is that some parts of the Bible as commonly assembled could be from God and others from delusional humans, whose ideas contradict those in the more foundational sections of the Bible they hope to build on.  They must regardless be consistent with what cannot be false (logical necessities) to be true or possible, as well as consistent with any contingent truths.  There is no exemption for Christian philosophy (or for any other religious worldview).  Since the philosophy of the New Testament is where most of the supposed abstract contradictions in Judeo-Christianity are introduced, it must be remembered that even if the New Testament does contradict the Old Testament, nothing about the Old Testament is disproven by this.  Since the New Testament hinges on the Old but not the other way around, it would only require that the New Testament or the passage/book/author in question is wrong.

Reason is inherently true, and nothing else is--or could have this intrinsic nature of reason since everything else requires that logical axioms are already true.  All other truths are only so because it is logically necessary and/or possible; all else that is knowable beyond self-evident logical axioms, which cannot be rejected or doubted without relying on them because they are true in themselves, is knowable one way or another because its truth can be demonstrated by logical necessity.  A seeming contradiction is not necessarily a genuine one, but if something does entail a contradiction, it is either false by default because it directly conflicts with reason itself or at best partially true, though this is still because logic necessitates it.  In the Bible's case, this means that if one passage does truly contradict another, depending on what is said, one or both individual concepts could still be true on their own.

[1].  https://thechristianrationalist.blogspot.com/2019/01/christianity-and-skepticism.html

Micro Dissociation

The presence of one's own mind is self-evident in that once could not doubt or deny its existence without relying on its existence to do so, though a non-rationalist could go their entire life without ever realizing this extraordinarily basic but deep truth.  However, absolute certainty about the existence of one's consciousness, which is itself in all ways dependent upon the absolute certainty and self-evidence of the logical axioms that underpin even this, does not mean that one can have certainty about the accuracy of externally-facing sensory perceptions, experiences it is logically possible for a person to actually dissociate from entirely.

Spacing out for several seconds by happenstance or because of stress or interest in something is dissociation, albeit a very minor and perhaps easily forgettable version of it that many can relate to on a weekly basis.  A person might literally forget if they momentarily detach in this manner many times throughout the same day.  In fact, it seems utterly normal for people to frequently experience this.  Becoming so inwardly focused that one realizes there is no recollection of sensory events for up to hours or days is just a more extreme type of dissociation that is far more noticeable to both the individual perceiving this and outside observers.

As an incidental occurrence or an outright coping mechanism, dissociation has the power to very literally allow a person to lose themself in thoughts or in a very precise sliver of their current experiences, so that it is as if they are only experiencing a much narrower part of what would otherwise be their perceptions.  That this is possible is of great metaphysical and epistemological significance.  After all, it is relevant to how one's senses can be ignored on the level of immediate focus and how sensory experiences are not the same as introspective states of mind, something which is true independent of dissociation and knowable whether someone has dissociated themself.

Dissociative identity disorder is just an even more potent example of this sort of intentional or involuntary compartmentalization.  Micro dissociation is just that: a separation of concentration from the whole of one's experiences to a specific part or category of them.  Despite how I cannot know if there is a subconscious part of my mind (in that there could be an inaccessible part of my mind beyond my awareness, as unprovable as this would be by default) or if most of my senses are accurate, I can always know my immediate mental experiences and devote attention to whichever parts I wish.

In turn, this self-awareness of one's existence and the contents of one's consciousness hinge on logical axioms for their possiblity and knowability, though the existence of my own mind is also self-evident.  Not even an intensively dissociating person can escape logical axioms or their own self, for these are the only self-verifying truths and the only ones that all other knowledge depends upon.  The exact thoughts, emotions, and other perceptions of my mind are not self-evident since they are not specifically what must be true in order to even doubt them; they require my mind to precede them, and thus my mind's existence is what is self-evident along with axioms, which are more foundational since they are true even if any being did not discover them.

With dissociation, though, either myself or other people could be separating their attention away from an even broader range of experiences that they have forgotten or locked away.  This is one of many possible ways that certain perceptions might not connect with anything outside of one's mind.  The mind is existent and absolutely certain.  So, too, are its direct experiences.  Whether these correspond to anything outside of my consciousness, other than verifiable, distinct existents like the laws of logic themselves, some sort of external world, space, and time, is epistemologically up in the air.

The Real Severity Of Death

Of all the punishments in Mosaic Law, the most severe is death--not because there are not forms of torture that are far worse than death, but because the only forms of torture permitted by Yahweh, the only ones that are just on Christianity, are so limited or relatively minor that they are not as weighty as permanently exiling someone from this life.  Lashes are never to exceed 40 strikes, for example (Deuteronomy 25:1-3), and they are not paired with execution or any other means of inflicting physical pain.  Unhindered torture in many forms is very plainly more severe than simple execution or the death it brings.  Endless torment in hell would certainly be worse than mere death; anyone who would need more than a moment or two to logically prove this to themself would be incredibly philosophically inept if they had already discovered the foundation of logical axioms that governs all truths.

Capital punishment is still very much a penalty of Mosaic Law.  Used justly or unjustly (and both the method of execution and the offense that execution is imposed for must both be correct for capital punishment to be justice), it ends lives.  Short of some logically possible--yes, all sorts of things do not contradict logical axioms!--but extremely unlikely resurrection, someone who dies or is killed would no longer be able to experience any joy or peace or rest unless their spirit continues to exist.  According to the Bible, this is not what happens: the dead perceive nothing either real or illusory until they are resurrected (Ecclesiastes 9:5-10, Daniel 12:2).

After their resurrection, there might be additional chances for the wicked to repent.  Indeed, and thankfully, this is actually probable within the context of Biblical philosophy [1].  While there is life, there is at least the logical possibility of restoration to God, and if the uncaused cause that exists by logical necessity is Yahweh as great evidences point to, he desires for no one to perish (2 Peter 3:9).  Jesus still acknowledges that, as is probable by default, most people would not repent regardless of whether they have another opportunity after their resurrection (Matthew 7:13-14).  For those resolute in their irrationality, egoism, and other sins, the lake of fire will be their abode, and they will not exist there forever.  They will be destroyed by hellfire, their body ashes (2 Peter 2:6) and their souls nonexistent (Ezekiel 18:4, Matthew 10:28).  This is justice, not mercy.

Eternal torment could never be just because the very nature of an offense is that it is finite.  Some think that annihilation makes the the final punishment for sin trivial.  Yes, it is less harsh than eternal torture, but the latter is inherently cruel and disproportionate, things justice never is.  The true severity of death, however, is not insignificant despite its lesser severity.  In this life or after the resurrection, a dead person is unable to experience any sort of relief or love of reality (of reason, of God, of morality, of their own self, of fellow people, of nature, of sexuality, or of anything else).  They are incapable of pursuing repentance and being included in eternal life in New Jerusalem, where there is conscious existence in a physical universe, but one unblemished by sin and misery (Revelation 21:1-4).

Existence brings the possibility of suffering, but it also brings the possibility for love and peace in the truth, in the necessary truths of reason that transcend all else and in the nature of God and creation that are inevitably consistent with these logical necessities.  It brings the chance for experiencing psychological and physical pleasure (though all pleasure is ultimately mental, for bodily sensations could not be experienced without consciousness, but not vice versa).  To die a second time without any future resurrection, to truly perish (John 3:16), is in no way something inconsequential on an existential level.  There could be nothing greater than communing with reality in the absence of pain, boredom, or regret forever.  As capital punishment in this life exiles someone from this lifetime, the second death in the lake of fire does the same on an eternal scale (Revelation 20:15).  

[1].  https://thechristianrationalist.blogspot.com/2023/07/while-there-is-life.html

Intensity Of Personality

Some rationalists might not experience fury or naturally have abrasive, bulldozing personalities.  Others might not be this intense but still have a great situational fierceness.  Certainly, it is possible for non-rationalists to be this way too, although they are to one degree or another deluded by assumptions they find appealing.  A rationalist can be in the right now matter what they feel so long as they do not forsake reason.  Lesser people could easily find all of this intimidating, terrifying, or upsetting.

There is the fact that them disliking or fearing it does not have anything to do with whether it is good or bad, along with how, if they do not think all intensity is evil, they must believe that there is some arbitrary level of intensity that they know makes it wrong.  Their feelings are irrelevant and they can only assume that any amount of intensity at all is evil because of supposed cruelty, arrogance, or selfishness.  In each of these cases, intensity does not require anything erroneous; it can be present without irrationality, cruelty, arrogance, and so on.

The person who cannot handle someone else's intensity, which is especially irrational if they themselves are intense but in an emotionalistic way, likely prioritizes their own subjective self-esteem or peace over the truth, and of course he or she deserves no respite from the very torment of that ferocity or potency.  How could they?  They reject reality or are not satisfied with it enough to submit to it.  What else could they have to stand on in order to deserve accommodation other than reality?  Their hypocrisy is immense.

Since reality does not depend on the preferences of those who object to intensity, they are the ones who need to change their hearts, remain silent, or at least never tell anyone to stop being intense out of emotional offense--or as much as believe this is the case in the privacy of their thoughts.  Anyone else is free to do as they please as long as they believe nothing irrational and violate no moral obligation.  Conscience and social norms do not make anything right or wrong, ferocity included.  Someone rationalistic who has an extreme intensity of personality cannot be in error because another person is bothered by them.

Should they wish to relent, a fiery or even sadistic (if they control this correctly) rationalist is not necessarily wrong.  It is just that they are not intellectually or morally problematic just because they have intense personalities.  They are not making assumptions.  They are not slaves to emotions.  They do not yield from the truth to social pressures.  Rationalists are the superior individuals, if anything.  Anyone else is either in the wrong or at best to some extent at the mercy of those who do not share their preferences.