The Rich Young Ruler

The core of Biblical ethics is not found in the New Testament at all, but the story of Jesus and the rich young ruler does bring up some very foundational aspects of the Biblical philosophy of wealth, both in what it says and what it does not say.  In Matthew 19:16-30, a wealthy man, called the "rich young ruler" by some, comes to Jesus to pursue eternal life, insisting he has kept all of the commandments Jesus lists to him; Jesus does not deny that the man has upheld these obligations.  Instead, he tells the young man to sell his possessions and give to the poor, for then he will have secured treasure in heaven.  This man, the text says, left Jesus saddened by his words, as "he had great wealth" and clearly did not care enough about anything beyond his riches to obey the person he sought out as a representative of God (it is noteworthy that this is also the passage where Jesus actually distances himself from God, questioning why the rich visitor would ask if Jesus is good when only God is good).  Despite conversing with Jesus about ethics and soteriology, he was too emotionalistically/psychologically attached to his riches to give them up when asked.

This is the context in which Jesus makes the renowned statement that it is easier for a camel to enter the eye of a needle than it is for a rich person to enter the kingdom of God.  He is not saying that no one who is wealthy can receive redemption, for when immediately asked how anyone can be saved, Jesus says that it is only through God that salvation is possible.  Thing that would be impossible apart from God can still be achieved with his permittance--though not even God could do logically impossible things, such as make something exist and not exist at the same time.  The Bible never condemns having riches, after all, given that one did not obtain them through sinful means, but it does repeatedly describe the folly of thinking that wealth will save someone from any sort of moral, existential, or spiritual deterioration, up to and including eventual death of the soul in the lake of fire.

Owning wealth is not ever condemned as sinful, by Mosaic Law, by Jesus, or anything else in the Bible representing God.  Deuteronomy 4:2 and the absence of such a condemnation mean that having wealth is objectively nonsinful on the Christian worldview.  A person could amass it through deception, theft (which includes depriving workers of livable compensation for the sake of owner/investor profits), murder, or some other sin, yet having or even seeking wealth is never the morally problematic thing.  Mosaic Law, not the words of Jesus, is where the Bible details the very foundations of its moral framework, and if Jesus were to contradict this, especially while claiming to stand on the validity of what is now called the Old Testament, then the New Testament would philosophically contradict the Old Testament and would be false regardless of whether the latter is true.  However, Jesus does not say that the rich young ruler should give away his possessions because it is wrong to have possessions--which would lead to its own contradictory ideas--but he presents this as a personal test to this individual.

It is obvious how it could not possibly be morally obligatory for people to give up their wealth to the poor, for then the poor who receive that wealth would have to give it away, and they would have to give it away immediately in order to be righteous if possessions and wealth are evil.  There is also the fact that the men and women parting with their belongings would themselves become poor, at which point someone else would then be obligated to give their own possessions to the people who initially gave theirs away.  Everyone would be or be trying to become poor, because everyone with wealth would be giving it away, including those who are on the receiving end of that very wealth!  This would of course lead to the opposite of the more benevolent intentions behind wealth redistribution, and yet it would only amplify poverty or make it a status that endlessly shifts from person to person.  The stance some liberals think the story of the rich young ruler supports is not what they might want it to be.

Either wealth is sinful and no one should have it, or it is not wealth that is the problem, but prioritizing wealth over reason, truth, justice, God, and even oneself and fellow humans.  Jesus never tells the rich young ruler that he and everyone else must give up their wealth for the sake of morality.  He tells this specific person that he needs to part with his riches in order to fully pursue devotion to God.  Had he meant anything else, Jesus would have deviated from Old Testament philosophy, contradicted his own professed beliefs that are based on the Torah's philosophy, and been prescribing a goal that is hypocritical and unattainable if everyone is not obligated to abandon their wealth altogether at the same time.  This, of course, would entail no wealth redistribution, just wealth abandonment.  Abandonment of all money and possessions is not what Jesus demands of the rich young ruler.  It is not what the Bible demands of anyone, even as it sharply opposes egoism and greed, as well as the economic exploitation of workers.

Other Causes Of Pregnancy

Pregnancy can impact a mother's life immensely, as well as the father's life, especially for those who are psychologically or economically unprepared to have a child (or another child).  Intentionally becoming pregnant is a far greater existential and moral issue than many people like to pretend, as it is nothing to casually pursue.  However, it can come about unexpectedly or even in spite of precautionary measures.  That it can be triggered by sexual activities other than sex, as long as sperm makes its way to an ovum, also has its own massive ramifications for everything from how a couple interacts to how a couple should be treated by others.

Even if sex before legal marriage was Biblically sinful (casual sex is the real sin here according to Exodus 22:16-17), it is not as if it automatically follows from the scientific correlations between sex and pregnancy that intercourse is the only way for a woman to conceive a child.  As long as sperm enters the vagina and makes its way to the uterus, a woman could become pregnant, even if that sperm enters her on her own finger or the finger of a man who has not had sex with her but placed his hand inside her genitalia.  Again, it is scientifically possible for pregnancy to result from more than one act (logical possibility means something does not contradict necessary truths, and thus is far more foundational).

One thing that logically follows from this possibility is that just because an unmarried couple produces a child does not mean that they had premarital sex, not that such a thing us automatically sinful on the Christian worldview anyway.  Many lesser sexual acts between persons, including oral sex or the use of hands to stimulate a partner's genitals, are not condemned by the prohibition of casual sex and would also remain permissible even if sex before a legal marriage was Biblically immoral.  They are not the same actions, and it does not follow from intercourse requiring sincere commitment (not legal approval) between consenting men and women that the same is true of all interpersonal sexual activities.

Not only would plenty of evangelicals and other people deny much of this or have never thought of it, but certain individuals also might harass or threaten an unmarried couple at the first sign of pregnancy.  Even as far as the metaphysically and epistemologically inferior nature (to logic) of sensory observation suggests, there are other causes of pregnancy.  Although treating others justly should be practiced no matter the case, some people would be in the wrong even if sex outside of legal marriage or a publicized union was morally erroneous.  The ostracization of someone for pregnancy when actual sex might not be biologically/causally responsible is irrationalistic either way.

Phone Policies In The Workplace And False Assumptions

Stretching working hours beyond what is needed to actually productively tackle actual work for the sake of workweek tradition is stupid enough on its own, but enforcing penalties for briefly, sporadically using cell phones--even to check for emergency notifications or family plans--adds to the nonsense.  Anything from a quick traffic or order update to taking moments to respond to a friend who has been extremely busy for months (probably from professional work of their own) to sending a text about philosophical matters far above petty business could get someone written up in many companies, and in some cases fired.  At the very least, workers risk being assumed to be lazy, incompetent, or unconcerned with their job performance or the company's success.

On a pragmatic level alone, however, which would be more likely to inspire employee dedication and loyalty over a prolonged period of time?  A company policy that is supposed to eliminate even momentary relief from monotony or treat workers as if professional labor should be all there is to their lives, or the allowance and expectation that they might need random, short breaks to relax and regain energy, perhaps even to stay alert about major personal events?  If any employer thinks the first kind of intention behind a policy is likely to engender attachment to a job, they have only made assumptions on the basis of personal convenience or whatever other egoists might have erroneously told them is true.  They would also be ignoring how constant professional productivity can impede productivity.  An exhausted or frustrated employee might burn out or withdraw their efforts.

The only form of productivity that could truly matter itself is productivity in discovering, focusing on, or celebrating logical truths, metaphysical realities, and moral obligations, and the workplace is nothing by comparison to these things.  Even so, the demand for workers to remain invested in their tasks, still have something to do, and do so with an outward cheerfulness even if it is illusory is idiotic at best.  The dealings of the workplace almost never overlap with pursuing things that actually matter in themselves, and yet there is only so much a given person can consistently accomplish with or without the occasional opportunity to use a phone to reply to a loved one or confirm plans or some other such thing.

Some employers assume that allowing this means it would be misused and no work would be completed.  This does not follow, and even if it occurred, it would not be because of the policy, but because of how individual employees handle it.  They might also assume that technology is only useful or good to the extent it serves the company profit or their own personal ends, rather than the ends of anyone else.  Other possible assumptions could include the belief that workers are less important than owners/managers or that their lives have less turbulent or significant things happening in them.  These are assumptions, yes.  They are also demonstrably false by logical necessity or it can be proven, in the case of the latter ones, that they are unprovable.  It would be impossible to believe them for any reason other than assumptions or anti-truth apathy or emotionalism because they are wrong or unverifiable.

Life Is In The Blood

Leviticus 17:10-14, though not the only part of the Bible that touches upon the eating of blood (Leviticus 19:26 is just one additional verse that does this), very overtly says that the blood of a creature is not to be eaten.  The reason is provided shortly after.  Blood is what allows for the life of humans and other macroscopic creatures under the specific laws of nature that were realized in this world.  Furthermore, it is the blood of non-human animals that makes atonement through sacrifice and offering to Yahweh (17:11).

The biological function of blood as an integral part of animals that God imbued with a status that is very good (Genesis 1:31) is central.  Without blood, a creature such as the ones observed on Earth dies, and with blood, one can make atonement for sins, the tragic deviations from the obligations without which there is no such thing as justice, goodness, or any sort of rights for conscious beings of any kind.  Life itself, as in the existence of human consciousness within the body and the mental existence of animals, is very good because God, the conscious being whose nature grounds goodness, is good.

Biologically, as far as the fallible perceptions of the senses suggest is true (no, this is absolutely not knowable, like many things, except on the level of logical possibility and perception-based probability), blood also carries oxygen through the body.  Not only is blood a part of most biological, macroscopic creatures observed so far (the likes of jellyfish being the exceptions), but it also carries the hemoglobin that transports oxygen particles.  To not eat blood is in a sense, with the Biblical motivation in mind, to respect life itself.

The obligation to not eat blood is really about the metaphysical status of all creatures that bleed because they are living things that reflect Yahweh's goodness, the blood of some animals also being capable of providing a sort of atonement for sin.  This atonement is not perfect in that it is not final and complete (Hebrews 10:4-5), but it is also cited in Leviticus 17 as a part of why eating blood with or without meat is immoral on the Christian worldview.  This transcends even the other food-related commands of Yahweh.  Not eating blood is about life and atonement and not about unclean categories of animals.

Multiple Uncaused Causes

An uncaused cause must exist by logical necessity as long as there are things that came into existence [1], for this would require an act of creation, and even if the universe contains a vast set of causal relationships, things like self-creation, the past-eternal existence of time or matter, and coming into being uncaused are logically impossible.  Self-creation would necessitate that something existed before it existed, which is a contradiction.  With past-eternal matter and time, the present moment and whatever material events are occurring are never reached, also making this a logical impossibility.  Moreover, something cannot come into existence without being brought into being by something else.  Specific existents like the laws of logic and empty metaphysical space (devoid of matter) can have never had beginnings, but not time or the cosmos.

It follows by necessity that time and the universe would have to be created things.  One can know with absolute certainty that the present moment exists because one must reflect right now, and thus time cannot be an illusion.  As difficult as it is, one can even know that matter of some kind exists [2], though it is neither self-evident like the truth of logical axioms and the existence of one's own consciousness nor obvious from any sensory experiences.  The laws of logic exist in the absence of all other things, true by inherent necessity and thus superior to all else, even to God--and yet as immaterial, intrinsic truths, they are not a being that can create anything.  Thus, something had to precede time, the universe, and all other contingent things and start the great causal chain.  This entity is the uncaused cause, also called God.

Since there is only logical necessity to God's existence in light of the need for an uncaused cause of created things, God cos disappear from existence, as unlikely as it is.  God could have created other beings that themselves created the universe, serving as the start in a more extended sequence of creation that led to whatever universe now exists.  Still, there is an uncaused cause, whether or not it is the God of Christianity as much evidence suggests.  This is knowable.  It is absolutely certain because it is logically necessary.  It can be believed on faith, as fools would succumb to, but it is true and knowable.  What is unknowable for humans is the details such as whether there are multiple uncaused causes.

There cannot not be at least one uncaused cause.  However, there could be two or any other number of uncaused caused that have all always existed without beginning and that co-created the first things to begin to exist (the small handful of immaterial things existing already would by necessity have no beginning).  There could be 6, 17, 51, 72, 300, or any other number of uncaused causes, but only a single deity is logically necessary.  A greater number is logically possible but both unverifiable one way or another and absolutely not required metaphysically.  Along with the laws of logic and empty space, God is the only other uncaused thing to exist by necessity, though of course only logical truths exist by necessity in themselves, for God and matterless space have to be logically possible and necessary in order to exist at all.

Contrary to what so many Christians pretend to know from the Bible, Jesus might not actually be an uncaused cause along with Yahweh, as his creation of the universe along with the Father (John 1) does not require that he was not created before the physical world he helped bring into being.  If this is not the case and both Jesus and Yahweh--separate beings regardless because conventional Trinitarianism is obviously logically impossible--then there were at least two uncaused causes even on the Christian worldview, though the Bible does not actually clarify this issue.  The references to Jesus as the son and begotten son of the Father imply that he is indeed a created being, but there is no explicit affirmation for either possibility.  This would not be polytheism like that of many forms of paganism.  It would be two divine beings in harmony with each other rather than deities with dominion over different parts of nature or with conflicting priorities.

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

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

The Phenomenon Of American Sharecropping

Reaching greater prominence in the Reconstruction era, the time following the American Civil War when African Americans were more and more integrated into broader society (but far too slowly and never to the fullest extent), sharecropping entails laborers working for a landlord in exchange for a portion of the crops the land and their efforts produce.  This land and other resources are provided by the landlord, whom the tenets work for in exchange for part of the harvest.  Seasons of little yield would leave the sharecroppers in progressively worse debt from year to year, and they would still be charged for supplies like seeds and tools provided by the employer.  However, particularly with the poor and African Americans who had just been emancipated, desperation led them to serve the interests of wealthy landowners, who no longer had legalized chattel slaves to rely on after the combination of the Emancipation Proclamation of 1863 and the defeat of the Confederacy in 1865.

When the slavery most familiar to many Americans was still legally allowed and practiced, idiots had sometimes posited that they were on the side of the Bible's God in spite of their participation in a slavery with many aspects that utterly contradicted the commands of Yahweh, from the way slaves were initially acquired (Exodus 21:16) to the physical abuse they frequently suffered (Exodus 21:26-27) to their enslavement based on skin color (Genesis 1:26-27, 5:1-2, Leviticus 24:22) to the legal freedom to retrieve runaway slaves (Deuteronomy 23:15-16) [1].  While differences do exist between historical American slavery and basic sharecropping, sharecropping as structured in this country provided an excuse for wealthy Southerners to do some of the exact same things under a new, more socially accepted guise.

Sharecropping itself is not Biblically sinful given that it is carried out in very specific ways; it is not inherently racist or exploitative in any way.  Racist applications aside, the American form still had its plentiful and severe Biblical errors.  While the practice as expressed in this period was not strictly about white supremacy, as more than half (supposedly about two-thirds) of the sharecroppers were themselves white, for African Americans, it presented a way to continue certain tenets of America's unbiblical slavery under a different name.  After all, these people were still confined to plantations or other agricultural sites while very likely simultaneously being looked down upon for the amoral matter of their skin color, and perhaps these plantations were those of the exact same people who had formally enslaved them in a highly unbiblical manner just prior.  In fact, the same crops like cotton that were tended to by African American slaves beforehand were cultivated under sharecropping.

In either case, sharecroppers were often exploited by being trapped in perpetuating cycles of debt, without being freed every seven years as the Bible demands of masters/mistresses towards their servants from their own countrypeople, no matter the outstanding debt (Exodus 21:2, Deuteronomy 15:1-3, 12-14, Jeremiah 34:12-16).  The only basis for averting this freedom is if the worker loves their living situation enough to voluntarily become a lifetime servant (Exodus 21:5-6, Deuteronomy 15:16-17).  This only adds to the grave distinctions between American slavery along with subsequent labor practices and the servitude allowed by the Bible.  The point of sharecropping in the Reconstruction context might have been to intentionally entrap someone from one's own country for far longer than seven years, and potentially as a way of evolving mistreatment of African Americans at that.  Since even servitude as a Biblical punishment is only temporarily used to repay an otherwise overwhelming debt (Exodus 22:3), American sharecropping was itself illicit according to the religion its supporters probably identified with.

[1].  https://thechristianrationalist.blogspot.com/2022/11/the-fugitive-slave-act.html

To Live Forever

Some people are in such a rush to hopefully live forever that they would, if it was a matter of their preference, blindly choose to have eternal life regardless of what it would actually entail.  Eternal life could be a thing of infinite peace and joy, or it could be what allows for the greatest possible agonies.  An afterlife would not even be logically necessary to live forever, as it is logically possible but highly unlikely that a person will never actually die, that some supernatural or natural power would intervene to keep them from death.  No, death is not and cannot be an absolute certainty for beings with human limitations, for it does not logically follow even from the vast sensory evidence that death is inevitable that this evidence is not some illusion.

The very legitimate logical possibility and evidential probability of death nevertheless drives some to desire one of two things: to never undergo biological death of the body at all or to live on in some kind of afterlife with or without a body to house their consciousness.  Each brings with it its own possibilities for endless torment, though a nonspecific version of each form of eternal life might seem appealing to someone in a moment of longing to overcome death.  What are some logically possible ways that living forever could be something few or no people would actually want?

If the collective universe ceases to exist as the scientific evidence of physical decay points to, but a person was to have eternal life without having biologically died, they would either exist as a consciousness alone or as a consciousness with their body endlessly (the latter requiring that their body is the exception to the universe vanishing), as aeons and aeons pass after the destruction of the cosmos.  A total annihilation of the universe would mean that there is nothing else but logical truths, the uncaused cause, and empty space that would by necessity exist along with this single observer unless the observer is the uncaused cause, who would have little to no sensory stimulation from the void of space without matter to fill it.  While logical truths and introspection alone could occupy someone's mind for an eternity as they savor metaphysical and epistemological necessities, to perceive this lack of matter in all of its variety and familiarity could terrorize the soul that forever outlives the cosmos.

There is also a hypothetical existence where a person's mind would deteriorate, stopping when going further would render them unconscious but existent, which would be far from eternal bliss.  Would someone who wants to never perish voluntarily take this fate instead?  As for afterlives, many different things are logically possible, if not seemingly as unlikely in one sense as someone not dying on Earth.  Some of them could involve eternal life, and not all of these would be objectively or subjectively pleasant.  Eternal torment in an amoral hell would be eternal life, yes (eternal conscious torment is Biblically unjust as many of my other articles detail, but also unjust by logical necessity as a default punishment for finite moral errors if there is morality at all); it would also be a hell that not only is either morally unjust or irrelevant to one's moral standing, but it could not be escaped by death or by one's actions to become free from whatever eldritch entity might inflict such a thing.

I have not even described many potential details of various logically possible afterlives like this, and yet the concepts that have been articulated already disprove the idea that eternal life must be peaceful or pleasant because it is eternal life.  To live forever is not something that is inherently peaceful or desirable.  People who desperately hope to exist forever one way or another as a perceiving consciousness, without caring or knowing about what it would or could truly be like, are incredibly foolish.  To have never come into existence at all would by far be pragmatically better for someone than to experience any of the aforementioned kinds of eternal life that are wildly different than the Biblical type, which is contrasted with a definitive end to the souls of those in hell (John 3:16).

Movie Review--Split Second

"He shows up every month on the night of the new moon.  He kills before midnight in different locations.  Then, he disappears."

--Harley Stone, Split Second

"When chaos reigns, then will the Fallen Angel prevail."

--Dick Durkin, Split Second

Few stories ever reach the level of sheer atmospheric brilliance that Split Second achieves from its earliest scenes.  Climate change has led to flooding of mainland cities, which brings with it an infestation of of rats.  The waterlogged streets, the dilapidated buildings, and the desperation of the characters are a perfect match for the bleakness of this version of 2008 put to film in 1992.  In the midst of this dystopia, a serial killer returns, writing a message in blood for a police officer whose partner it claimed years before.  Exercising restraint when showing the ambiguous antagonist allows for a buildup full of genuine mystery, with a few moments of subtle or well-earned humor showing that even extreme despair and comedy are not at odds when handled right.  That the cast is not particularly mainstream just makes their discovery by contemporary audiences yet another reason someone might appreciate this movie.

Production Values

The desolate, decaying city of the film conveys from the start that the world is facing enormous problems, problems that are of course exacerbated by a renewed killing spree.  Water, dirt, and rats convey the disastrous setting well before the personal trials of the main character add to the woes Split Second explores.  Some great shots showcase both this main character and the world, such as an excellent extended shot of the antagonist holding its hand over the protagonist's face from behind him, all with its body outside the focus of the camera.  That the protagonist is so layered and perfectly acted gives a lot of further weight to what is a fairly strange story.  Rutger Hauer fully embodies this role as Harley Stone, a severely anxious, hyper-focused police officer living self-destructively in order to pursue the killer.  His flashes of broader emotions and facial expressions, when he hears that his former romantic partner (not his former police partner who was killed) works with psychologically troubled kids, are all the more important in establishing his character because it is not common for his face to look anything other than upset or determined.  Kim Cattrall might not have as much to do in the story, but she plays Stone's former girlfriend with the kindness and openness that someone spiralling down into despair would especially benefit from.  Stone's new police partner, who does get more screentime than the talented Kim Cattrall, is wonderfully realized by Alistair Duncan as he transitions from an emotional outsider to Stone to someone just as desperate and alarmed as he is.

Story

Some spoilers are below.

In an alternate 2008, global warming-triggered flooding has devastated cities, and rats have become main residents of cities ilke ( along with humans.  An obsessed police officer with great resolve travels through the flooded streets to a nightclub where he anticipates a murder.  The murder does occur, the body found with its heart ripped out by the words "I'm back" written in blood on a bathroom mirror.  Officer Harley Stone has been deflated and bitter ever since the same killer ended the life of his partner, but evidence mounts that the killer is not even a human being after a dentition cast from the chest bites shows teeth that are certainly not human.

Intellectual Content

Split Second, if it accomplished little else, would at least be a testament to how thematic, plot, and environmental (in the sense of setting, not its global warming backdrop) elements can be seamlessly united without smothering any of them.  It actually spends little time addressing how the world came to be flooded and what the reaction to global warming and its consequences was besides greater use of boats, instead devoting more attention to the genuine complexity and other kinds of depth in protagonist Harley Stone.  Eventually, it does touch upon the logical possibility of supernaturalism, with one of the other characters saying conflicting things about how the apparent crime scene evidence points to a supernatural entity and how he still regards being a religious and "reasoning" human being as separate (though he shows no awareness of the fact that the laws of logic are necessary truths that transcend the human mind, the natural world, and God himself).  The beastly killer, only directly shown at the end, might not be Satan, though it is strongly implied to be something demonic nonetheless, and some of the characters still say that it seems to be Satan himself.  Whether Satan or not, the demonic villain of the film is at the least a spirit-body composite or a spiritual being that has the power to summon and dismiss its physical body at will, but it is presented as an explicitly bodily creature with supernatural abilities.

Conclusion

Split Second is a film better executed than its individual components might make it seem, just one that is not mainstream enough for many to have even heard about it once.  For a 1992 serial killer movie to combine climate change dystopian elements with an almost Se7en-like police hunt and an unconventional kind of supernatural antagonist so effectively is unusual, but Split Second has been overshadowed by other 90s movies.  Not only does its unique combination of what are usually distinct themes and genres work in its favor, expressing artistic creativity, but its lead characters are also acted very well for a film that is not popular or culturally established enough to garner widespread recognition.  The abnormal mixture of genre elements and the relentless grittiness of the setting, along with the excellent acting, lift Split Second up far higher than its minimal cultural visibility might suggest it deserves.

Content:

 1.  Violence:  Multiple corpses are shown with their hearts removed.  A shotgun blast at close range throws a detective from a window, and shortly after, a bathroom with blood sprayed all over and a dead woman with her heart torn out are shown.

 2.  Profanity:  "Fuck," "shit," "bastard," and "bitch" are used.

 3.  Nudity:  A woman's breasts are seen while she is taking a shower in a nonsexual context.

 4.  Sexuality:  At the club where the first killing of the film takes place, there are several erotic dancers.

Adjusting Compensation Through Raises

Cost of living raises, especially in economies with high inflation that erodes the ability to purchase basic necessities, need to be automatic on a yearly basis, if not sooner to more directly keep up with actual inflation rates.  The cost of living applies to everyone, though some are better prepared to weather intensifying financial conditions.  In contrast, merit or seniority raises are individualistic, having to do with a specific worker's performance or the longevity of their career with a company/role.

At minimum, compensation that is livable is the morally required baseline for pay if humans have rights, such as a right to life and to not be taken advantage of in their professional lives.  What exactly constitutes livable wages or salaries would fluctuate with inflation and other factors like the cost of homes, food, and transportation.  There is no single economic value for hourly or yearly compensation that is automatically livable.  Also, by livable, more than just the absolute lowest pay that literally allows someone to survive is in view.  Pay that allows people in ordinary circumstances to steadily save at least steadily, buy necessities, and enjoy some luxuries is livable in a more thorough sense.

Plenty of companies, however, will try to actively sabotage all pay advancement by making raises minimal, infrequent, or untethered to the cost of living or personal merit alike.  For instance, a company that only gives $0.50 raises every year, with today's purchasing power in modern America, absolutely does not treat its workers like full persons with lives and needs, the only reason many of them would work professionally in the first place.  A company that dangles raises to employees and then fights implementing them disregards the humanity and individuality of its workers.

One objection to granting a raise is that if one person has their compensation adjusted to the cost of living, their personal performance, or their seniority, other employees would also have to have their pay adjusted in order for it to be fair.  This could involve significantly increasing the compensation of all sorts of other workers within a company or industry.  In an effort to supposedly be fair by not giving one person a deserved or needed raise while not giving the same to others, these companies end up being unfair to practically everyone, depriving them all of what is deserved or needed.

Adjusting compensation through raises in a broad sense might be desperately needed in many organizations.  Yes, it could be very costly to employers, but they do not deserve to be in business if they cannot "afford" to pay their workers what is livable and reflective of their personal competences.  Some companies that could easily or at least very manageably withstand spending more on pay could still use this fallacious excuse anyway.  Whatever false or irrelevant thing they can cling to in an effort to continue their status quo, these selfish parasites of employers will fight harder to resist raises than many employees would fight to secure them.

Allegiance To Oneself

I am the only person I can guarantee is perfectly rational and righteous.  Likewise, any other being like myself has only the power to choose their own respective beliefs, true or false and verifiable or unverifiable, and their own actions.  From this fact, it follows logically that I am the only person who could conditionally deserve my full allegiance becaue I alone have a mind that I can know the existence and contents of.  Yes, this allegiance is still conditional just like it should be for anyone else.  If I was to err, I would have to allow myself to, and self-allegiance is only valid as long as someone is in submission to reason and morality.

Rational, morally legitimate allegiance to a person is not about emotionalism, preference, or pragmatism, but about alignment with reality.  No one deserves extensive devotion because they feel like they do or because someone else finds this idea emotionally satisfying.  If they feel this way, it only means that they have a subjective emotional state that, if they are the one they think deserves automatic allegiance no matter their worldview or behaviors, is extremely irrationalistic and selfish.  Their feelings and any actual obligations are distinct and the latter cannot be known from the former.

Them perceiving that they are entitled to unconditional, unending affection, commitment, or kindness (and withholding kindness is not the same as exhibiting cruelty) necessitates only that they feel this entitlement or have this perception.  Of course a thoroughly irrational person might think that they should never be confronted, hated, mocked, or relationally abandoned; their worldview is about assumptions, which are often believed on the basis of self-serving fallacies.  It is not irrational or unjust to simply withdraw personal allegiance if someone no longer merits it.

The truth is that there is not a single other person one can ever know the future of as long as there is a gulf between minds.  Strangers, coworkers, close friends, and spouses cannot be known beyond external perceptions and evidential probabilities.  Even perfect outward expressions of rationality and righteousness do not mean someone will always be a slave to these things.  No, without warning, they could change, and only one's own self is known and controlled by one regardless of how pathetic other people are.  In light of this, there can be nothing erroneous about being willing to retreat from almost any human relationship under the right circumstances while always remaining devoted to oneself.

This is is not egoism if you are rational and other people are not.  This is not neglect of obligation to others if you are not mistreating them and instead merely refrain from staying loyal to people unworthy of it.  Whether it takes the form of even backing away from a once-wonderful friendship or ending a marriage (when permissible), having very conditional loyalty to other people is a necessity to be on the side of logical truths and moral duties.  Of course this also goes for one's own self.  A person can only deserve their own allegiance if they are in the right, the same reason an outside person would also deserve it.

The Testimony Of Two Or Three Witnesses

Deuteronomy 17:6 specifically clarifies that no one is to be executed on the testimony of a single witness.  At a minimum, two or three witnesses are required.  Deuteronomy 19:15 demands two or three witnesses for all punishable sins, not just capital ones, and still Deuteronomy 22:25-27 says that someone who is raped in the countryside in isolation is the victim of a capital sin.  The rapist is to be killed despite the offense occurring away from additional witnesses, as the victim had no one around to call to for aid even if they were able to scream (it does not logically follow, as some insects believe, that the Bible teaches that silence as opposed to screaming is what means someone consented to sex any more than it teaches that only women can be raped, which is not at all the case).

In fact, rape can easily be far worse than mere murder because it is a more intimate cruelty and one that a surviving victim has to live with.  Logically, rape is no less severe than murder or is far worse, and the Bible acknowledges this truth.  Deuteronomy 25:26 directly says that rape itself is like murder, which itself always deserves death regardless of the gender, age, or marital status of either the victim or the perpetrator (Exodus 21:12-14).  Nevertheless, what about the requirement of two or three witnesses for legitimate prosecution and punishment if a rape victim could be abused away from everyone but the victim and abuser?

As my wife has acknowledged, the victim and the rapist himself/herself are already two witnesses, even if the latter will not be eager to testify against themself.  Someone who saw the rapist (though they might have no idea they are a rapist) leave a certain area close to the rape would also be a witness that the perpetrator was in a certain location, perhaps with visible signs of a fight on their skin or clothing.  This would be an additional eyewitness experience that would certainly be relevant in an investigation.  As such, even if there was not a second witness alongside the victim that actually saw a sin take place, there could absolutely still be two or three witnesses that could help a court of Mosaic Law, as much as can be the case with what is always still epistemological hearsay, proceed with fining (Exodus 21:18-19), flogging (Deuteronomy 25:1-3), or, in the case of countryside rape, execution.

No, no human can know that the past has existed for more than a moment--by the time they reflect on the present moment, it has already given way to a new present moment--or that their visual perceptions of the senses are accurate in any instance, so a crime can never be logically proven, just evidentially supported.  There is no such thing as me or a being like me knowing that any particular human event happened in the past, including offenses like rape.  However, because of these epistemological limitations, a mere accusation is not enough to warrant criminal punishment in the name of Yahweh.  If Christianity is true, of course, this means that it would be sinful for anyone to prosecute on such grounds because obligations would be the same for all people and not just those committed to Yahweh.  There would not be different obligations for different nationalities, races, and genders.

It would still be true that it being just to execute a rapist whose only other direct witness to their sexual assault is their victim requires the step of having more than a single witness.  Aside from the possibility of indirect witnesses whose personal experiences are still relevant to the case, there are still two witnesses to the rape: the victim and the guilty party.  Rape (and other capital sins) can deserve death, no matter how isolated from outside observers they are, and two or three witnesses can still be morally necessary in order to enact just punishment, be it execution like with rape (again, Deuteronomy 22:25-27) or some lesser penalty like financial damages for other criminal sins.  There is no logical contradiction in both concepts united.

Changing A Desire

Worldview (something ideological in nature that does not have to be believed due to emotion unless a person allows this of themself), external circumstances, psychological/emotional flexibility, and willpower are all factors that can lead to a person voluntarily, directly changing their own desires.  Some of these factors are internal to someone's consciousness; some are external and still have an impact on the mind though they do not originate from there.  Some, the ideological ones, are objectively true or false if they align with reality and yet can have a dramatic effect on someone's priorities and, consequently, their subjective intentions and desires.  Whichever desires one is experiencing, either way, can be known with absolute certainty by rationalistic self-awareness, for one's mind is directly experienced, as long as one is free of assumptions.

Every desire of one's heart can change.  Yes, it might be unlikely for some people or some specific inclinations or preferences to do so.  This is nonetheless logically possible, as firm and penetrating as a given desire might be--or might only superficially seem to someone who fails to look to reason and deep introspection over initial, unfocused, passive experience from which they stoop to assumptions.  These impulses could shift even without any philosophical or circumstantial changes.  There is no logical necessity in them remaining constant from one second to the next.  Not the desire for knowledge, safety, excitement, sex, food, leisure, and more is one inevitably locked into a person's mind.  Hell, these desires and others are not even by necessity shared by all people, and certainly not at all times.

One person might want to kill and another does not.  One person might want to kill out of active, intentional disregard for life, while another might do so because they rightly or wrongly hold that they are morally obligated or permitted to do so.  A person might easily desire to know reason and its inherent truths, some other person hating the thought of core reality not being dictated by whims and wishing otherwise.  Someone might long to engage in productive professional endeavors as their friend or sibling wishes to avoid professional labor at all costs.  Any such feeling, motivation, or goal might vanish, intensify, or lessen without warning and no matter what another part of a person might simultaneously hope for.  If someone seeks to change their desires for moral reasons, however, not only will they find that they cannot always just will it away, but a rational person can realize that desire is not even what truly needs to be changed.

Desire alone does not necessarily make someone evil since it can be involuntary and perfectly controlled so that it does not influence worldview or treatment of other beings (or even oneself, such as with the desire to self-harm).  There might still be some things that bother someone about themself even if only on a wholly subjective, morally irrelevant level, like if someone wishes to murder for whatever reason but also wishes that they did not have this impulse while knowing that logical truths and any existing moral obligation do not depend on their preferences.  It is only the desire to act on, to give in to, such a desire that would or even could by default be fought and altered by personal effort.  This might require nothing more than immediate willpower or it might take sustained intentionality.

There is still no way to guarantee one can automatically, universally change one's the more underlying desires--the desire to murder, for example, and not the subsequent desire to fight this preceding want--simply by, ironically, desiring this outcome, no matter a person's worldview or subjective wishes.  This is something that some individuals could be proficient at while others struggle with immensely, and from moment to moment or desire to desire, a person might find that his or her mental status in this regard fluctuates.  What would need to always stay resolute despite all variance of emotion or longing is alignment with the objective truths of reason and a commitment to whatever obligations exist, no matter how difficult it is to maintain this.

David Hume's Enquiry And Causality (Part Two)

After elaborating on the truth (though it is true and knowable because of reason, not because of psychological persuasion or sensory experience like the reading of literature such as David Hume's book) that the effects of an object--the things it causes to happen, like explosions from gunpowder--are not knowable from cursory observation, David Hume uses the example of a table-based game.  Plenty of people would think that they might just "know" or be able to easily prove from reason, upon seeing an item for the first time, what effects will come about from the alleged cause.  Hume summarizes this tendency with the following words:

"We fancy, that were we brought, on a sudden, into this world, we could at first have inferred, that one Billiard-ball would communicate motion to another upon impulse; and that we needed not to have waited for the event, in order to pronounce with certainty concerning it." (18)

Really, such people, all of them irrationalistic in some way or else they would avoid non sequiturs like this, could assume the motion and behavior of the balls ahead of time, but they would have no way to know.  There is nothing logically necessary about one possible outcome or another being the exact thing that will occur.  Including in some upcoming quotations, Hume admits this much in his Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding.  Also, these people would have no previous sensory experiences or memories of this particular object and phenomena to look to, not that either visual sensory perceptions or memories of past events can be proven to be correct in their alignment with anything beyond the mind.  As Hume puts it:

"Were any object presented to us, and were we required to pronounce concerning the effect, which will result from it, without consulting past observation; after what manner, I beseech you, must the mind proceed in this operation?  It must invent or imagine some event, which it ascribes to the object as its effect; and it is plain that this invention must be entirely arbitrary." (18)

Ironically, modern scientists might think this is what they avoid doing, yet anyone at all who thinks that the testimony of senses like sight and sound is verifiable or utterly foundational to truth and knowledge of the truth (it is none of these things!) is highly irrational.  This kind of person is always likely to think that there is some empirical law or correlation that is apparent in itself, when this is not true; such causality is unknowable ultimately, the senses and the mind that contains those senses must by necessity precede scientific observation, and it is logical axioms alone that are true in themselves and without the possibility of being false.  Even when a scientist is more careful in approaching some personally unfamiliar natural phenomena, he or she likely does with something else what Hume acknowledges the folly of.

Focusing on how an effect is not knowable from its real or apparent cause, David Hume soon speaks of how one Billiard-ball's motion is separate from that of the second which it might hit, the latter not being necessarily hinted at by the former.  Stone and metal fall to the ground when dropped.  As directly recognizable as gravity can be, no one, short of something like omniscience, would know a priori which logical possibility is the case--would the object fall upward, downward, in some other direction, or remain in place?  This is not predictable in any rational sense.  Hume returns to his example of billiards after this yet again.  One "Billiard-ball" heading towards another reveals nothing to an observer about what will happen, just what seems likely after recalled observation:

"May not both these balls remain at absolute rest?  May not the first ball return in a straight line, or leap off from the second in any line or direction?  All these suppositions are consistent and conceivable." (18-19)

It is only because they have seen or heard of what is supposed to happen when striking a ball in billiards, leading to it potentially colliding with other balls, that someone would expect any particular outcome in this at all.  The only possible exception would be the case if they lack the same epistemological barriers that I myself have, such as by being omniscient.  That something as seemingly practical or trivial as a game of billiards would be subject to such limitations of knowledge about metaphysical existents and their nature would all but certainly confuse, shock, or irritate the typical person.  Although he conflates reason itself and the human intellect and dives into other utterly irrational beliefs in the very work examined here, at least Hume does not assert something many moderners blindly hold to: that there is any scientific correlation so obvious that it can be inferred prior to observation.

An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding.  Hume, David.  Indiana: Hackett Publishing Company, 1993.  Print.

The Sacrifice Of Animals

As the uncaused cause, God would have no need for the life or death of an animal for his own sustenance because it is animals, including people, that would metaphysically depend on him.  They are not where his existence is derived from or something he consumes (Psalm 50:12-13).  This is what God's words in Psalm 50:9-11 are about.  No animal from a person's pens or stalls was ever required by God on this level because all animals already belong to him as their creator.  When God says that he owns the cattle on a thousand hills (50:10), the context makes it clear that this is really a reference to him having all cattle under his domain and power just as he knows and has ownership over all birds and creatures of the field (50:11).  Of course, simply being the uncaused cause would already grant it this status regardless of whether the Bible says this directly.

Despite every organism already being his, the deity of the Bible does not refuse or dislike animal sacrifices by default.  Psalm 50:8, from the same chapter, says God does not rebuke people for merely offering sacrifices to him, verse 14 says to sacrifice thank offerings and fulfill vows to Yahweh, and verse 23 says that whoever sacrifices thank offerings (obviously with sincere intentions or it would otherwise be wicked) to God honors him.  More foundationally, entire sections of Mosaic Law prescribe or regulate sacrifices.  Nothing in Psalm 50 states or necessitates that divine ownership over the totality of life on Earth, and by extension the cosmos as a whole, means that there is nothing good or pleasing to God about offering animals to him in accordance with the methods and situations prescribed in the Torah.

It is not as if the Bible teaches that the blood of animals could ultimately atone for sins (Hebrews 10:4) as it is; it is repentance and commitment to God, which is in the deepest sense marked by subsequent obedience (Romans 6:1-2, James 2:26), that God truly wants, as Psalm 51:17 affirms.  Here, David says, speaking of sacrifices for sins rather than the voluntary kind of thank offerings (Leviticus 7:11-18), that the sacrifices of God are really a broken and contrite (repentant) spirit.  If there is such a thing as morality, it would by necessity be better to never sin or to cease wrongdoing than to offer animal sacrifices for one's evil.  This is what David would be referring to.  The sacrifices themselves, in the proper context and with the right motivations, are demanded by God in the Torah.  Still, to give a sin offering means one has erred, and the deeper remedy is to stop sinning.

Giving animals to God by sacrifice was/would not be handing things over to him which he had no control over beforehand, nor would it be a way to purify an unwilling sinner who thinks that insincere offerings will deliver them.  Psalm 50:16-17 adds in the midst of the aforementioned verses, "But to the wicked, God says: 'What right have you to recite my laws or take my covenant on your lips?  You hate my instruction and cast my words behind you.'"  In Jeremiah 7:21-23, God says that he did not just give the Israelites commands about burnt offerings and sacrifices, but also told them to obey him in other things (Deuteronomy 4:5-8), which would nullify the need for many sacrifices altogether (not all are for sin, like those required by Leviticus 12).  Sacrifice neither extends divine ownership nor absolves those who are not truly repentant.

The First Resurrection

A general resurrection of the dead is promised repeatedly in the Old Testament, with the fates afterward only being specified as eternal life for the righteous and being the objects of contempt for the wicked (Daniel 12:2).  Job and David speak of this.  The former says that his physical form will be reinstated after death at an indeterminate time for him to experience conscious existence confined to his body yet again (Job 14:11-15, 19:25-27), saying that he will see God in his own flesh and live again, remembered by his creator.  Until then, Job expected to either not exist whatsoever as a mind or to exist in an unconscious state, which he longed for as an escape from his many troubles (Job 3:1-19).  The latter speaks of how he will eventually be rescued from Sheol, the grave, rather than be eternally abandoned in the coming unconsciousness (Psalm 6:5 and 16:10 together clarify this).

Though he raised a handful of people from the dead ahead of this grand, eschatological resurrection, Jesus is of course rightfully the most renowned out of all those who speak of or receive resurrection in the Bible.  His own resurrection (John 20) is a foretaste of what resurrection will be like for all those who submit to Yahweh and Christ according to Paul (1 Corinthians 15:20-26).  Jesus was resurrected, and Christians will follow.  Paul elsewhere describes how the dead who are "asleep" in Christ will be restored to both consciousness and bodily life--at the coming of God, there will be a last trumpet (1 Corinthians 15:51-55, 1 Thessalonians 4:15-18), and those who are dead in Christ will be restored from the unconsciousness of Sheol (Ecclesiastes 9:5-10, Psalm 88:10-12) to their eternal life.  Twice, the New Testament mentions a trumpet that marks this resurrection, and Paul adds in 1 Thessalonians 4 that this occurs at the coming of God, which coincides with the Second Coming of Christ (Yahweh and Jesus are very blatantly not the same metaphysical beings in Christian theology, and if they were, the Bible would be teaching logically impossible things about them!).

The aforementioned passages from Paul actually do not specify if the return of Jesus is at this same point, but Revelation 20 does when it talks of Jesus ruling with Christians after his descent from heaven to defeat the beast (Revelation 19:11-21).  "Blessed and holy are those who have part in the first resurrection.  The second death has no power over them," the text states in verse six.  If this resurrection for the righteous or redeemed only includes those who were beheaded by the beast or his supporters for not worshipping him or taking his mark, then the recipients would still be blessed because they get the privilege of reigning with Jesus for a thousand years (20:5).  If it is a resurrection for all of the righteous or saved across all of history, and Paul's resurrection could not happen earlier or else this would not be the first resurrection, then the recipients are blessed because all of them get paradise, or something closer to Edenic bliss, for a millennium and then eternity in New Jerusalem.  They do not in any case have to fear the extinction of consciousness and bodily life in hell that awaits the wicked and unrepentant (Revelation 20:15).

Again, since this is the first resurrection, there could not have been a prior resurrection of the righteous at the last trumpet, meaning Revelation 20:4-6 would very likely refer to the same resurrection as Paul.  It is only after the thousand years have passed that Revelation says the resurrection of the remaining dead takes place (Revelation 20:5, 11-13).  Job does say the heavens would be no more at his resurrection (Job 14:11-12), which somewhat parallels how John says "Earth and sky fled" from God's presence at the next resurrection (Revelation 20:11).  For these dead, or at least many of them, there is a resurrection to judgment, and they are thrown into hell with their consciousness reinstated and their bodies returned to life (Revelation 20:13-15, Matthew 18:8).

Theirs is the second death, which is the truest form of death: they are again reduced to unconsciousness like before, but if the unconsciousness between death and the resurrection is one of a soul that exists and sleeps dreamlessly, then this is not their fate all over.  They perish, totally and permanently dying on both the level of mind and body (Ezekiel 18:4, Matthew 10:28).  The first resurrection is the revival to eternal life, those without it perishing once and for all as God abandons them to nonexistence for their sins and lack of repentance (John 3:16).  This is the second death that John had already said the recipients of the first resurrection are exempt from.  When the final opponent of God is killed in hell, then the last enemy, death, is finally destroyed (1 Corinthians 15:26).  Death itself is no more when there is no one left to die.

A Specific Kind Of Irrationalism

It is obvious to any willing thinker that reason is inherently true.  Nothing else could be obvious in itself.  For it to be false, it would still have to logically follow from something that deductive reasoning (the logical facts themselves as well as the mental recognition of them) is false; it would have to be true that a concept or object is not what it is, but is instead something other than itself, which would still be what it is.  It would have to be true that truth does not exist in any form, which still requires that something is true, and it would still be true if contradictions are possible that non-contradiction is false, again demanding its own error.  No one could try to "disprove" reason without relying on it and thus their ideology is impossible by default.

Irrationalism of all sorts cannot be true.  Its veracity would by necessity entail its falsity!  The kind of irrationalism mentioned above, however, is not just the idea that believing in something on the basis of something other than logical necessity with no assumptions is valid, such as belief in the assumed accuracy of scientific observation, epistemological faith, intuition, hearsay, and so on.  It is the idea that logical axioms are metaphysically false or nonexistent and that reason is a illusion, though this would still require that it logically follows from reason being subjective that it does not connect with anything about external reality.

Ignoring or unaware of this impossibility, a certain kind of irrationalist might think or say that relying on reason does not prove logic is necessarily true or self-evident if only someone does not try to use reason: they would just believe blindly that axioms are false or unverifiable.  While relying on reason is not the core reason why logical axioms are true, as they are true in themselves independent of awareness or anything else, is is the case that noticing how one must use deductive reasoning to assess anything is often an easy way to start discovering that deductive reasoning verifies itself.  What if someone just did not try to actively reason out why reason is supposedly false?

They would actually still be relying on reason, which would have to be something other than their subjective thoughts to be valid anyway, because of the fact that they are somewhat recognizing that if they are not using reason, they would never realize that reason must be used in vain to disprove itself.  They are inevitably still relying on the fact that logical axioms like the intrinsic truths of deductive reasoning dictate reality!  A self-evident necessary truth cannot be false due to any perception or circumstance because all possible perceptions and circumstances could not contradict it.  Nothing that contradicts a necessary truth could itself be true.

It does also follow from reason being necessarily true on its own that it exists as as the only metaphysical thing that could not possibly not exist.  Logical axioms and what follows from them are more than just epistemological truths or things that are only true of and thus because of other things.  One could know that reason is intrinsically true without realizing this, that the laws of logic exist in the absence of all else and that even God could cease to exist, but not them.  All it would take is for them to perhaps first think about how they are already relying on reason despite making vague assumptions about it, and then they could focus directly on reason, which could lead to them fully embracing how axioms are self-verifying and inherently true regardless of one's perceptions.  Even trying to blankly believe reason is false, though, still relies on reason metaphysically and epistemologically!

Conflating The Mind And The Body

If blood stops pumping when the heart is inactive, it still is not the case that blood literally is the same thing as the heart.  There would be a causal or at minimum correlative relationship of some kind, but the two things are not the same, blood and the heart.  When a car's engine is turned off, its radio shuts off (as far as my sensory observations perceive), but the car radio is not the same as the engine.  Likewise, a light switch is not the same as the light bulb that it powers or the wiring that connects with the light bulb, and I have never encountered someone whose words confused one for the other(s).

A television screen is not the same as the electricity that provides it with power, and a shirt is not the sensation of wearing a shirt.  A thing and what causes it or what it in turn causes are not the same.  With miscellaneous examples such as the ones provided, there is often little to no actual pushback: the irrationalistic belief that correlation is causation or that scientific causation can even be proven at all does not usually seem to stop people from vaguely seeing that a shirt is not the sensation of wearing a shirt if someone else mentions it.

People tend to be far, far more likely to conflate separate correlative or causal factors for the same metaphysical entity more specifically when it comes to the mind and the body, and more precisely the mind and the brain or extended nervous system.  The body and mind are thought of as the same existent by certain people, though this is very obviously false when one does not make assumptions and looks to reason.  A perceiving thing and mass of tissue are not identical and this is plain.  One does not need to experience a hypothetical afterlife where the mind is free of the body to know this with absolute logical certainty.

No, making no assumptions, and knowing that logic is inherently true, they only need to realize that a mind is an immaterial seat of thought and perception, that no one could ever tangibly grasp a thought because it is not a neuron or any other physical body part and that having a body does not logically necessitate having the senses, which are mental in nature.  The fact that it would be logically possible--not necessarily contingently true in actuality--for a mind to exist separately from a bodily shell also could only be true if consciousness is not the same as the body.

Many also get so focused in the unknowable (for humans) reality of whether the mind causes the body or the body causes the mind to come into existence, as well as whether or not consciousness continues to exist outside of the body after biological death, to realize how simultaneously abstract and simple the matter really is.  Some things about consciousness are knowable, including that one is conscious, that having the experience of one's mind cannot be an illusion and is thus absolutely certain, that one's own mind exists even if others do not, and so on.  Its fundamental immateriality is among these things.

Natural Philosophy

Whatever of the cosmos really exists outside of my mind, it would by necessity be part of reality, and thus every idea about the universe is true or false, and in turn everything about nature--which material environments and bodies exist, their physical composition, their relationship to immaterial things like reason [1] and the uncaused cause [2], and the way that different material bodies interact with each other--is entirely philosophical.  Whether the sun is composed largely of hydrogen atoms is a matter of metaphysics, albeit a lower kind than the existence or nature of logic, consciousness, and morality.  Other scientific issues like whether or why lightning tends to strike higher points of contact, massages relax the myofascial tissue encompassing muscles, or bones survive natural fires intact are likewise connected with what the physical world is and is not like.

One could go on and on with examples from everyday life or from the reports of others: soap killing or dislodging bacteria, the power of electric fish to stun other organisms, the buoyancy of many woods, and so on are all a matter of truth or falsity (though just seeing something does not in any way require that it is really there or as it appears, so much testimony from the senses is utterly unprovable).  As far as epistemology goes, lock someone in a room or allow them to wander about the landscape without the aid of technology, and they, as long as they have functioning senses, can still perceive basic physical objects and natural correlations, such as how if they manually release a dish or a stick, it will fall to the ground if no support is placed under it.  They will not have access to any sensory hint of microscopic bacteria or of atomic structure, but they will still have some direct capacity for scientific observation and experimentation.  Still, they could realize logical truths about science either way and would have a limited ability to conduct observation.  All of this is philosophical.

The pre-Socratics, philosophers of ancient Greece like Pythagoras, Zeno, Thales, and Democritus, are reputed to have often focused on what was called natural philosophy, or metaphysical ideologies or epistemological inquiries about the nature of the physical world on the level of, say, causality or composition.  Thales, for instance, is said to have believed water to be the most fundamental or vital physical substance to the substance of nature.  Democritus proposed that atoms, what he thought of as indivisible, miniscule units of matter, are at the core of matter and that they exist in a void of matter, or empty space.  Natural philosophy is a subset of scientific matters and science-adjacent worldviews, but it is still philosophy because it would still have to do with ideas about reality, which are by logical necessity either true or false like any individual religious, moral, or other concept.

It is just nowhere near as abstract and foundational as logical necessities like axioms themselves--or verifiable, since scientific laws are not inherently necessary truths like logical facts and are perceived from a purely subjective standpoint we cannot escape (though we can know the objective logical possibilities and what does follow from certain scientific ideas thanks to reason).  Now, science is neither the foundation of truth (metaphysically) or the revealer of it (epistemologically), for that could only be reason, and because logical axioms and other necessary truths are true in themselves without depending on anything else, it could never have been otherwise.  The erroneous ideology holding that science has this place of reason is a self-contradictory one called scientism, since all truths must be consistent with reason to be true, and reason is distinct from scientific laws and the scientific method.  It could also only be true that science is a subcategory of philosophy rather than separate from it, for this notion is itself a philosophy, and a logically false one at that.

Furthermore, everything related to science is at absolute best secondary or even more removed than this from the core of reality (logic, the uncaused cause, etc.) and even uncertain things that would, if true, be of higher significance than mere matter, such as the obligations of morality.  Whether or not the expansion of the universe exceeds the speed of light is nothing compared to whether any activity at all is objectively good or evil; whether or not the strong force is what holds subatomic particles together in the nucleus of each atom is nothing compared to the inherent truth of logic, such as with how everything either does or does not necessitate something else: logic being false would mean it follows that everything in particular that would have been true because of logic is false, which itself requires that reason be metaphysically true in order to be correct.

Science, despite being less important than such issues by far, is of course philosophy because all things are philosophical: they are true or false and verifiable or unverifiable.  It is regardless one of the lowest categories of philosophy, having to do with mere perceptions (unlike reason, which is both intrinsically true and absolutely certain), practicality, happenstance natural objects and laws that could have differed, and/or subjective interest and curiosity.  Natural philosophy has captivated many moderners without them even realizing it is philosophical in the sense that a true rationalist would recognize.  For all of its pragmatic triumphs, science--the perceives (and seemingly real) patterns and behaviors of the natural world as well as the epistemological scientific method--is but one manifestation of something greater and deeper than itself.

[1].  https://thechristianrationalist.blogspot.com/2024/01/the-ultimate-primacy-of-logic.html

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

Ambiguity In Music

Music can excel at expressing the emotion of its maker, even though no one can know what someone else's music is truly supposed to inspire, and yet, with or without lyrics, it is the worst medium when it comes to conveying any sort of detailed or accurate philosophical truths.  Films have the option to rely on spoken dialogue, visual imagery, and music, while video games have all of this and the additional component of direct input from the player.  Songs or instrumentals typically last far less time than even shorter films and games, and even with words, the exact things being conveyed are very often vague--either intentionally because of artistic and ideological stupidity or because of the much more limited nature of the medium.

Without lyrics, music only has instrumentation that might wonderfully express the ideas and feelings of the creator in one sense, yet another listener might perceive it to establish a different atmosphere, one objectively different from the musician's intentions.  However, everyone can distinguish between their subjective perceptions of the ideas behind mere instrumental music, the music itself, ideas themselves, and what the creator might claim to have meant by their work.  With lyrics, many songs manage to paradoxically compound the ambiguity for listeners.  Words could be and are sometimes used to provide more context or genuinely provide key details about the philosophical stances or psychological state of an artist.  This would of course still be more restricted in its communicative ability than other forms of art like gaming and cinema.  Still, music with lyrics is often more about combining random words that rhyme or match a musical rhythm than even trying to convey a specific, coherent concept.

The song Holy Diver, to give an example of a song that exemplifies this, is supposedly about a Christ figure who comes to a planet with an extraterrestrial species, offers salvation, and then is selfishly asked to not depart to bring deliverance to other planets.  This is according to the singer himself.  Do the lyrics even hint at this?  Not exactly!  The opening lyrics go as follows: "Holy diver, you've been down too long in the midnight sea / Oh, what's becoming of me / Ride the tiger / You can see his stripes, so you know he's clean / Oh, don't you see what I mean".  The remaining lyrics do not come any closer to clarifying if there even is anything particular the songwriter had in mind beyond putting together words that rhyme enough to fit a song but that do not communicate anything effectively.

Songs can be philosophically accurate or deep, as unrelated to the artistic quality of the instrumentation as this is.  The song Hell by Disturbed is another rock/metal song that, while artistically strong in some ways, has absolutely pathetic lyrical depth due to its lack of any sort of conceptual focus (though Disturbed avoids this pitfall in plenty of other songs across its discography).  It is not true that music and its accompanying lyrics cannot ever communicate things more precise than the type of utter linguistic nonsense found in the likes of Holy Diver or Hell, but the norm in many cases is to not even attempt anything more.  It would still be true that even if its greatest lyrical precision and most consistent artistic quality were more persistently achieved, music remains the least effective medium at communicating specific details about reality.  Only when overlapped with imagery or additional factors, as might be found in a movie or video game, is music able to rise above its greater capacity for ambiguity or randomness.

Movie Review--Van Helsing

"Where are you going to run, Victor?  Your peculiar experiments have made you unwelcome in most of the civilized world."

--Count Dracula, Van Helsing

"What are you complaining about?  This is why you were made!  To prove that God is not the only one who can create life!"

--Dracula, Van Helsing

Universal has not enjoyed a perfect success rate with its horror/monster films in recent years, with its 2017 Mummy reboot, supposed to launch its MCU-style "Dark Universe" of horror projects, failing to secure the foundation for its follow-ups.  Almost two decades ago, though, Universal released an ensemble monster movie called Van Helsing that put the threads of different stories together.  Van Helsing is an homage to earlier horror movies and honors some of the most culturally impactful fictional creatures/characters from film and literature, including Mr. Hyde, Dracula, and Frankenstein's monster.  The basic premise and the weaving together of horror icons are brilliant, but the rest is decimated by what seems to be intentionally unnatural acting and pointless humor.  Brendan fraser's Mummy trilogy, also by Universal, has a somewhat lighthearted, silly tone that was executed splendidly, but the same is not true of Van Helsing.  Its execution is more comparable to that of Hansel and Gretel: Witch Hunters, not exactly the greatest of films.  A film that brings different monsters from across fiction into one unified narrative had more potential than Van Helsing actually utilizes, yet falling short of this promise does not stop it from having flashes of that promise.  A story where different legendary figures have actual narrative justification for appearing together with Dracula hoping to defy God could have been a masterpiece of atmosphere, acting, and sensuality instead of what it ended up becoming.

Production Values

Glimmers of creativity still seep through, like in how the introductory scene set in 1887 Transylvania is in black and white.  A flash of light reveal Count Dracula's vampire face for a moment, and the lack of a full range of colors imitates how some of the older Universal horror movies--though Van Helsing itself barely dips its toes into actual horror.  It is more of a fantasy drama.  The creature effects, though, show their age, as modern as they might have been back in 2004.  In spite of the sometimes very obvious CGI in his transformations, Richard Roxburgh still stands out as a Dracula that rises above most of the other characters for his flair and relative sincerity in the role, playing a Dracula that seems to genuinely relish his anti-theistic schemes.  Hugh Jackman is far from the prime performance that he exhibits in something like Logan despite the titular character of Van Helsing having lots of potential for a story like this.  All the faults of the script are not his own, and he makes as much of his character and his infinity ammunition crossbow as the tone allows.  Kate Beckinsale, though, is right at home in this kind of movie in the sense that she is associated with horror fantasy and yet is not the best actress, or at least has not had any great roles that I have seen.  Elena Anaya, Silvia Colloca, and Josie Maran seem to put more in their performances, but holy hell are their performances quite cheesy.  David Wenham is also over the top, much unlike his persona in Lord of the Rings and 300.

Story

Some spoilers are below.

Transylvania is stormed in 1887 just as Victor Frankenstein brings a corpse experiment to life using electrical stimulation under Dracula's oversight.  When Dr. Frankenstein refuses to hand his now-living creation over to Dracula to use to spite God, the reanimated corpse (made of parts from multiple corpses) carries Frankenstein away to a windmill, asking why the peasants hate it so much, yet they have already thrown their torches at the structure.  A year later, a servant of the Vatican, Van Helsing, hunts creatures like Dracula, initiating an investigation that brings him into contact with the descendant of a family that swore to kill Dracula and with the vampire himself--and his three vampire wives.

Intellectual Content

Van Helsing is rather wild in a distinctly gratuitous, hindering sort of way, but its story does touch upon some very philosophical issues.  They are just utilized as storytelling points moreso than anything else.  Starting in the opening scene, the subject of humans or inhuman creatures creating life without God's direct aid is established as a major part of the film.  Frankenstein's monster is called a triumph of science over God by Dracula, who it turns out hopes to use the electrical stimulation of Dr. Frankenstein to bring his dead children (his vampire children are born dead) to life specifically to relish that God is not the sole being that can create living things.  Dracula and his companions actually do succeed in bringing his offspring to life, albeit using electrical stimulation methods discovered by the more benevolent and seeming theist Dr. Frankenstein, but he cannot sustain that life until he harnesses Frankenstein's monster.  Up to that point, the reanimated corpse was the only thing brought to life by scientific means, though the unchanging distinction between living matter and an immaterial consciousness inhabiting that body is not addressed either way.

Conclusion

As pointlessly silly as the tone can be, Van Helsing had some great ideas that shine through in the finished film.  Tone and execution can hold back even a movie with a brilliant general plot, a charismatic villain, and a central thematic concept that is at a minimum somewhat unique among horror and fantasy films.  Long before some of the biggest franchises of today reached their enormous sizes, Van Helsing built upon the crossovers of older cinematic stories from Universal and reintroduced some of the industry's longtime archetypes and creatures.  Again, this could have been a masterpiece, but even as it foreshadowed the sharp upcoming turn towards the shared cinematic universes of the 10 to 15 years, it also foreshadowed the unfortunate turn towards cheap silliness, which in this case is tied to some unnaturally exaggerated performances.

Content:

 1.  Violence:  Mr. Hyde's arm is cut off in an early scene, fully in view of the camera.  Though other characters get impaled or shot, there is no gore, just sometimes blood.

 2.  Profanity:  Occasionally, something like "damn" is said.

Corporate Tyranny

An abusive corporate leader has the power to wreak extensive havoc on his or her employee's lives.  This could even extend to things outside of the workplace itself given how much of a person's schedule and activities typically have to be planned around work.  Almost no one works professionally under such a figure without desperation, spite, or apathy guiding them, and there is plenty in the American workplace, as well as that of other countries, that inspires desperation.  The phrase office politics somewhat references how businesses and organizations are like governmental bodies, just without any sort of inherent governing power outside of a business context.  Like a tyrannical government leader, tyrannical employers or managers can engage in philosophical idiocy, illicit discrimination, physical or sexual abuse, hypocrisy, deception, and manipulation of a dehumanizing kind.

However, employees might remain with a company where these things are happening because they need the pay or benefits, such as insurance, that they can only easily obtain through a job they despise or dread.  Again, desperation can keep people rooted in place although their workplace is destroying their physical or mental health, subjecting them to overt cruelty, or holding them back financially.  Business itself is not the issue.  Cultural infatuation with greed, abusing power, selfishness, and philosophical emotionalism are what contribute to the terrible state of the American workplace, and it is not as if simply starting or working for smaller businesses will necessarily thwart the tyranny that can so easily flourish in the workplace.

Small businesses can be just as suffocating as larger organizations or worse, for the company is smaller, high positions might be staffed with family members (which would not be a problem unless they are, for instance, incompetent or biased in favor of whatever the owner/leadership wants), and there might be even greater pressures to treat even heinous coworkers as if they are "family."  There is still potential for a small business employer or manager to be just as hypocritical, arrogant, selfish, cruel, generally irrationalistic as the wealthiest megacorporation C-suite executive, but the size makes a small business more confining and there might be more of a push to ignore offenses because rocking the boat could be more difficult to hide from the consumer base.  With small businesses, as with much larger business organizations, the power an individual worker has is dependent largely on factors beyond their control.

One of the best protections workers of various kinds can grant themselves is unions.  Other than a just government that regulates businesses in accordance with moral obligations rather than cultural norms, convenience, or greed, unions are the best measure to stand up to corporate tyranny because it is only together that every worker has more power in the business world than whatever their arbitrary connections, tenure, and skills give them, not that any of these things make someone invulnerable to corporate wrath.  Professional competence, past favor, and dedication to a company or leader will not stop an irrationalistic employer from changing their whims and acting on those whims.  No matter how much a non-rationalist boss appears to show a worker favor, they might overwork them, cut their hours, slander them, or fire them the moment it becomes convenient.

This is not some logically necessary trait of being a business leader, of course, and one employer being oppressive does not mean another one will or that they cannot change for the better.  It is just that there is a great deal of vulnerability on the part of many workers, and that vulnerability is amplified significantly in most businesses unless there is a collective of workers to dissuade an egoistic corporate tyrant.  No matter its size, a company is like a government, and any government could plunge its subjects into oppressive treatment if only the wrong person takes power.  Unfortunately, it has been very easy for irrationalistic, selfish men and women to take corporate power, and though it might not be easy to establish them, more unionization is indeed one of the best things workers could pursue for the sake of job security, livable compensation, and healthy working conditions.

Redemption For Fallen Angels

The Bible might not mention fallen angels being offered salvation or any of them being restored to Yahweh's side, but it is absolutely possible for a deity that wants everyone to be saved (2 Peter 3:9) to have that same desire for the redemption of rebellious angels, which would also to some extent bear the "image" of God.  By having consciousness with an intellect (though demons would have to either make assumptions or ignore reason and thus would knowingly disregard it in order to oppose Yahweh), a will, and moral responsibility, angels would share at least many qualities of humans that are likely what Genesis means when it says humans have God's image (1:26-27).  Out of all the somewhat sparse details the Bible actually reveals about angels serving God or that serve Satan, nothing is included that would contradict the redemption of fallen angels.

Demons are at first introduced as malevolent spirits that oppose Yahweh, with Genesis, the rest of the Torah, and much of the Old Testament not focusing on them despite the occasional reference--not even "the devil, or Satan" (Revelation 12:9), has his origins or his betrayal of Yahweh detailed until Ezekiel 28, and that is if the fallen cherub mentioned there really is Satan.  Genesis does not so much as specify that the serpent in Eden was Satan (the aforementioned verse in Revelation 12 touches upon that at the end of the Bible).  A great deal of what many people believe or are told about Christian demonology is unrelated to what the Bible says about the matter, or it is assumed on the basis of hearsay (a kind of pathetic epistemological faith).  Some insist that demons are excluded from salvation because they are not human, yet this is not a Biblical teaching.

Perhaps, if Christianity is true (as seems to be the case), demons can be saved, and perhaps not.  Either option is logically possible and its alternative could have been the case instead, since whether angels are redeemed is ultimately about God's willingness to offer redemption to them and either of these responses to evil spirits does not conflict with logical axioms.  All that the Bible says to address the fate of general demons is that hell was created for them (Matthew 25:41), that there will be torment when justice is imposed on them (Matthew 8:29), and that some of them are already confined in "Tartarus" as they await their eventual judgment (2 Peter 2:4).  Of Satan specifically, Revelation 20:10 says he will be placed in the lake of fire and suffer eternally, though Ezekiel 28:18-19, if the devil is the demon being spoken of, very plainly states that he will actually at some point be reduced to nonexistence as other verses promise for unrepentant humans.  Matthew 10:28 is one place emphasizing that for humans, justice is their annihilation, and Revelation 20:10 might in part be a very figurative exaggeration.

The Biblical fate of demons being hell is fairly obvious.  It is clear from reason and from the lack of exclusivity with what the Bible does say that their punishment in hell might potentially culminate in erasure from existence as with the humans who will die in hell (Ezekiel 18:4, 2 Peter 2:6).  Still, just as the fate of fallen humans is destruction unless they repent and commit to Yahweh/Christ, it would not follow that demons cannot or will not repent and rededicate their allegiance to God.  Satan entering the lake of fire as punishment does not mean that God never extends him or any other demon an offer of reconciliation; if this was to happen, then the verses about his defeat and potential death in hell would only necessitate that he refuses to repent and chooses irrationality and arrogance that damns him to punishment.  This is fully compatible with what the Bible does say.