The Physical And Mental Components Of Actions

Suppose I have the urge to get inside my automobile and drive to a restaurant.  While being driven, the car itself might be moving forward because I am not pressing the brake pedal, which would allow the tires to continue rotating, gripping the pavement due to traction.  Physics-related activities occur in the engine, like the movement of the pistons spinning the crankshaft.  Whatever physical causes and effects are engaged would of course be why, on one level, that being the scientific one, the car is driving.  However, in another sense, the phenomenological/psychological one, this is not why I am driving at all: I am driving because I want to go from one place to another by car.

While neither is the entirety of why the car is moving in the first place, the phenomenological reason behind the event is at the very least no less important than that of physics--and it is logical possibility as dictated by consistency with logical axioms that makes either aspect of this possible to begin with, so matter and mind alike, while being of causal relevance, are not the foundation of all reality here or elsewhere.  Yes, I am driving because I am a conscious being that has intentionality, sensory perception, and freedom of the will [1].  I could stop the car or turn it from its path at any moment.

This does not exclude any of the physical causality relationships (yes, observed correlations might not be causes and effects and almost no cause and effect can be proven/known to go together [2], but either way, some sort of physical causality would have to occur) that are required for a car to literally turn on and then become mobile.  There are electrical and mechanical components that have to function a certain way for the vehicle, under the perceived laws of physics, to operate, and to operate in an effective way that gets me from one location to another as desired.  It is just that desire, intentionality, and choice are inherently of the mind rather than the physical world or the laws of nature tied to it.

Every human action that is not within the mind alone, such as introspective concentration, requires a combination of mental and physical factors.  Someone cannot eat without using their jaw to chew and their throat to swallow food, but they also have to will themselves to lift any utensils being used, to open and close their jaw, and so on.  They could stop at any time, and there might be mental reasons for eating beyond just the need for physical sustenance.  For instance, he or she might want to delight in the taste of a particular dish, which is a mental phenomenon rather than a physical one, although it might trigger bodily reactions like salivation.

As such, there are reasons for things like the movement of a car as it is being driven or the consumption of food that go demonstrably beyond any sort of mere physical occurrences.  The mind is logically necessary for the experience of perception that lurks within the body, for it is the immaterial thing that does the perceiving, whatever its exact causal relationship to the body it is confined to.  The body is necessary for there to be a foot on the gas pedal or to engage in the active behavior of eating, as well as the passive process of digestion, but in these and other such examples, it is because of the mind that there is perception and because of the mind that there is intention and thus intentional action.

[1].  https://thechristianrationalist.blogspot.com/2019/07/more-than-biological-machines.html

[2].  https://thechristianrationalist.blogspot.com/2019/07/correlative-relationships.html

Another Dave Ramsey Error

The debt snowball method entails making only the minimum payments on however many debts a person has except for the smallest: with this debt, the method would hold that someone needs to devote as much money past the minimum payment as possible every month to annihilating this particular amount owed.  Once it is gone, the money that would have been assigned to the previously lowest debt is now thrown at the new lowest debt, the amount growing (other circumstances aside) until the highest debt can be addressed all by itself.  The snowball method is not inherently the fastest way to get out of debt, no matter what Dave Ramsey and his employees like George Kamel might say.  His philosophy of debt reduction, really, is only beneficial for idiots, so that they at least make some consistent progress despite their stupidity, or for reassuring the very impulsive spender and debtor that there is a plan they can follow.

The debt snowball Ramsey and his team love to endorse is objectively not the best way to tackle multiple debts of diverse sizes and interest rates.  Logical necessities about interest on principal and the potential disparity between debt sizes alone establish this.  Taking care of a $1,500 debt with 1% interest, to give a random hypothetical example, before putting any resources beyond making minimum payments towards eliminating a $50,000 debt with even just 2% interest, compounding or not, will ultimately cost far more money long-term.  Since the principal and the interest rate are both higher in the latter case, one would not even need to calculate the exact monthly/annual ramifications of this for each debt to realize these things.  When there is a small debt or a host of relatively minor debts along with a significantly greater one, focusing on the largest principal with the largest interest rate is still better for minimizing the time and expenditure of money involved in liberating oneself.

The real benefit of the snowball method, as the Ramsey team might admit, is situational to a person's subjective, individualistic psychological motivation.  Perhaps a person ridding himself or herself of various small debts first, no matter the interest rates or difference in principal between the smallest and largest debts, provides them with a satisfaction or relief that helps them stay personally committed to actually escaping debt across months and years.  This benefit is possible.  However, this method can still take far longer and result in a great deal of money unnecessarily spent as high principal, high interest debts are allowed to grow almost entirely untouched, compounding at much more crippling rates.  The real problem would be in a person's lack of discipline rather than the opposite sort of debt elimination system.

A philosophy of debt reduction strategy is not false just because an individual or many individuals lack the self-control, a totally avoidable thing on their part since actions can be controlled even if desires cannot be, to carry it out consistently or at all.  The snowball method is popular because it can provide quicker elimination of the total number of individual debts, but the individual debts paid off might be much less troublesome in the present and in the future than the ones that have to be ignored to varying extents in order for the snowball approach to be utilized.  Dave Ramsey, as accurate as his advice or that of his cohorts can sometimes be, is reliant on holding to ideas that are at most only applicable in specific situations for specific people and thus are immediately fallacious outside of those contexts, including the snowball debt approach.

The First Impressions Fallacy

The default habit of some where a person is judged based on "first impressions," which almost inevitably involve total assumptions about their worldview or personality or talents (if applicable), is something practiced exclusively by the irrational.  There is often nothing to go off of but emotional perception or how the observed person fits into meaningless cultural norms--though it is not as if knowing someone for a longer time truly bridges minds [1].  The fool tries to participate in whatever sociocultural bullshit their community encourages or forces upon them, maybe even joyfully.  

This kind of person either makes assumptions about others based on very limited exposure (all assumptions are assumptions, though, so no one is justified in having unproven beliefs about others even with more exposure) or they want to bend over backwards to be arbitrarily judged according to someone else's personal biases and cultural constructs about politeness or some other nonsense.  Suppose that someone has a brief verbal/observational encounter with a stranger where the latter is perceived to be arrogant or brutal.  On the level of language, intention, and the actual concepts being communicated, there was no actual harshness, but the former person perceived there to be illusory abrasiveness and, on the basis of how things appeared rather than how they were, made an assumption.

All language is ultimately ambiguous since one is not experiencing any mind but one's own, and one can only know with absolute certainty what one's own words mean, but there are certain things that would almost certainly mean someone is irrational even in an initial conversation.  If someone says that logical axioms are false, that a secondary historical source is as relevant as a primary one, or that Nazism is morally good in your first encounter with them, they are an idiot, yes.  They could change for the better, but the first impression is indeed damning.  They are not a rationalist if they at all mean the standard definitions by those words.  However, things like a supposedly arrogant attitude without any accompanying words or deeds to point towards actual arrogance are irrelevant.

Perhaps the person in question really is arrogant, but mere outward perceptions cannot ever reveal to you the interior of other minds, and simply perceiving how they "come across" to oneself is not even direct evidence of their mental states, much less proof.  Misunderstanding this during a first and potentially only meeting and then fallaciously rejecting the logical possibility of improvements with time, some people not only make assumptions (even proudly), but they also never acknowledge how a person might change for better or worse after a first encounter.

This has consequences for everything from philosophical conversations with non-rationalists (they remain slaves to assumptions and will possibly hate you without any justification) to job hirings and more.  Combined with other biases, someone guilty of the "first impressions fallacy" only sinks more into stupidity and might be genuinely hostile towards someone they do not even know beyond cursory observation.  Non-rationalists can think they are rational for making assumptions, usually selective ones that already appeal to them, but they are worms that fall far short of superior philosophers.  Reality is not knowable through the laziness and haphazard nature of assumptions.

[1].  https://thechristianrationalist.blogspot.com/2022/04/the-gulf-between-minds.html

Movie Review--The Cave

"They built the church to seal the save as a display of God's protective power.  Now, try to imagine these Knights Templar entering the cave and, according to the local legend, fighting these winged... demons."

--Dr. Nicolai, The Cave

"Every cave organism we've discovered so far originated on the surface.  Over time, they've adapted.  Lost pigmentation and sight, developed a heightened sense of hearing and smell."

--Dr. Kathryn Jennings, The Cave

The Cave is almost 20 years old.  A PG-13 horror film with its own mark on the cave subgenre, it has a fair amount of potential that it actually realizes.  It is not quite at the level of The Decent, but The Descent is almost perfect in its execution, a masterpiece near the absolute apex of cave-based horror.  The cast and the subterranean beasts are enough to keep the movie more than afloat.  The way the creature is depicted does improve from the quickly-shifting camera cuts that the more intense moments rely on at first, so one of the more prominent weaknesses gets resolved closer to the end.  Also noteworthy is how most of the special effects, even in 2023, do not have a blatantly outdated look and are right at home in the 2020s just as they were in the 2000s.  The same would probably not be true of a CGI-heavy movie released in the last 10 years.

Production Values

The greatest two pillars of the film are the underwater cinematography and the acting, with the former at its best when longer, unbroken shots of the team underwater are onscreen, the cave bathed in blue artificial light.  Additionally, there are some shots of the various animals like scorpions that inhabit the cave's serpentine passages, and these also stand among the best of the otherwise adequate but basic camerawork.  Though it is not always directly, clearly shown until well over halfway into the runtime, the creature of The Cave is different enough from the humanoids of The Descent to make it unique.  Moreover, the ensemble cast ensures that the characters are acted well.  Lena Headey, Daniel Dae Kim, Cole Hauser, and the others do not receive a lot of character development, but they do not bring poor performances.

Story

Some spoilers are below.

30 years after some a group of people is trapped in a Romanian cave system under a church floor and suffer a cave-in, scientists hoping to map out and explore the same cave system find success in locating an underwater entrance.  A kind of mole rat is quickly found below the surface, as well as hints of another, more aggressive animal--and a parasite that is present on both the mole rats and a salamander.  A severed claw from the more aggressive organism resembles a part of the supposed demons seen on artwork from Knights Templar.

Intellectual Content

Again, like The Descent, The Cave lightly touches upon evolutionary adaptations and what it would be like to develop new traits in isolation from the surface world, just more as a way to set up a cinematic situation than as a way to really explore biology, evolution, isolation, and all the existential ramifications of these ideas.  As a result, there is not much of a specific philosophical issue that is directly, intentionally examined, whether it is true or false.  The better cave movie I keep mentioning also had subplots and more explicitly moral issues woven into the overall plot, which gave it additional layers that are simply absent in The Cave, and releasing around the same time was never likely to work in favor of the latter when it comes to reputation.

Conclusion

For what it is, The Cave is not a bad movie.  Some of the cinematography during encounters with the creature could have been smoother, the characters could have been more developed (a smaller cast could have helped with this), and more of the backstory for the cave could have come to light.  In spite of these issues, the execution is competent enough and the acting is strong enough to keep The Cave from ever becoming a terrible movie.  It is also a chance to see Lena Headey before she reached the more mainstream status she has now.  This could have been a distinctly better movie, but it also could have turned out much worse.  For a better horror film about a cave network, see The Descent; for a better, more personal drama movie about a creature in water, see The Shallows.  At the same time, there is nothing about The Cave that reaches the cave floor of movie quality no matter its general reception.

Content:

 1.  Violence:  Exposed bone is directly on camera in one scene, and bloody wounds are shown in other scenes, yet many of the sequences where the scientists are attacked have too little light or are portrayed with such rapid camera cuts that nothing truly graphic is seen.

 2.  Profanity:  Words like "shit, "damn," "bitch," and "bastard" are uttered every now and then.

Ideas Require, People Presuppose

I have heard people say that one given idea presupposes another, and I myself might have used this language before, though I really meant that to believe in one idea which is unverifiable requires, at least if one is consistent, that one believe some preceding, prerequisite idea at well.  Otherwise, I meant that the nature of a certain idea hinges on another.  The idea that stars exist, if true, logically requires that matter exists.  The existence of matter does not logically require, or in other words, necessitate, that stars exist.  No, even in my rationalistic embrace of sensory skepticism, I do not think that stars do not exist, for this too is unprovable.  I only mean that of these ideas, one intrinsically requires the other in order to be true, but not the other way around.

As for people rather than ideas, a person could assume an idea is true or believe it without even having any sincere commitment to its ramifications, presupposing it on faith in sheer epistemological stupidity.  People can presuppose/assume that an idea is correct if they allow themselves to, but an idea can only logically require another idea.  The necessary laws of logic and the concepts they govern do not believe in anything because they are not conscious entities; logical necessity and true concepts are true in themselves whether or not they are grasped or believed, and it is an objective fact that an idea necessitated logically by another idea has that relationship even if the "preceding" idea is false.

However, a person is indeed in error anytime, no matter the subject or the extent of their fallacious persuasion, that he or she believes something without logical proof.  A thing can be both true and demonstrable and still be merely assumed by a fool who has put no effort into avoiding assumptions or attempting to verify the issue in question, starting with the metaphysically self-necessary, epistemologically self-evident truths of logical axioms on which all else depends.  No idea can presuppose another even then because necessary truths do not think.  They are grasped by the mind.  Necessary truths do not depend on the mind, for they are true in themselves with or without other metaphysical things, which means they exist independent of all else--since logical axioms being false still entails that they are true (for instance, it cannot be true that truth does not exist, and so it exists necessarily), logic is more foundational and transcendent than even God [1].

Someone might use the wording of one concept presupposing another, but ideas do not perceive, and so they cannot assume anything; they are abstract concepts true or false regardless of belief or perception.  It is people who can be rational or irrational, who can discover, celebrate, neglect, deny, or oppose logical truths.  It is people who can hold the notion that things are true, and in doing so, if they are not rationalistic, they are making assumptions.  Hence, they can presuppose philosophies, but their their philosophies do not presuppose, though they logically require either preceding ideas up to a point or ramifications that would follow from them necessarily if true.  Ideas require, and people presuppose.  The latter do not have to, of course.  It is merely easier to for people who are accustomed to belief based on intuition, social acceptance, personal convenience, emotional persuasion, and so on to continue looking to them.

[1].  https://thechristianrationalist.blogspot.com/2020/10/the-ultimate-being.html

Ideological Family In New Jerusalem

Details about the true nature of the Biblical heaven are scattered about.  John 14:2-3 says that there are "many rooms" in the Father's dwelling place, which will be unveiled to the listening disciples upon the return of Jesus.  Revelation 21-22 goes into the most detail of all the relevant passages, describing it as a city in a universe purified of evil that nations go to and from in a broader land.  In Mark 10:29-30, Jesus touches upon how in this age, whoever gives up family and belongings for him will receive far more of the same things that they lost than they had before, and in the age to come (the days after the resurrection, as clarified by the texts that say the dead are nonexistent or unconscious until then, such as Ecclesiastes 9:5-10), eternal life will be added to these blessings.

The context is the immediate aftermath of the conversation between Jesus and the rich young ruler who left saddened by Christ's instructions to sell what he had and give to the poor.  After Jesus has emphasized how difficult it can be for a person committed to their riches to enter God's kingdom, the disciples ask how anyone can be saved.  Jesus says that though it is harder for a rich person to enter God's kingdom than it is for a camel to go through the eye of a needle, this is possible with God, with whom all logically possible things can be done; the being who controls the laws of nature--not at all the intrinsic necessary truths of logic--could certainly alter or suspend them at whim.

The disciples, hearing how difficult it can be to commit to God, assert that they have left everything to follow Jesus, but he says that anyone who has left family and belongings for his sake will fail to have a hundred times this many siblings, parents, and belongings--and in the age to come, after the resurrection of the righteous (Daniel 12:2, 1 Thessalonians 4:13-18, Revelation 20:4-6), eternal life as well.  Though Jesus says that even in this life, one will have a multitude of family and friends, since they would enjoy the grander kind of "family" relationship that all devoted to the truth share, this would also be true after the resurrection to eternal life.

Thus, the righteous will be left to enjoy unblemished interpersonal relationships with all people in existence, communing in their awareness of reality (including logical necessities that transcend all else and the scientific behaviors of the restored universe) and in their peaceful status before God and others.  New Jerusalem on Earth will be their home.  Among brothers and sisters of a biological and non-biological kind, they will be free to bask in friendships without end.  How ironic it is that so many Christians have shunned these kinds of relationships on Earth, discouraging women and men from pursuing deep friendship together and prioritizing wicked biological family members over superior relationships between ideological family members who are rationalists.

Whether they embraced this kind of relationship on Earth, all of the righteous and repentant will live forever in bliss without evil or evildoers after their resurrection.  Only the logical possibility of evil exists apart from evildoers, as there are no actual evil thoughts, intentions, or deeds apart from those who practice such things.  Since the wicked are to be banished from existence itself (Ezekiel 18:4, 2 Peter 2:6, Romans 6:23, and many more verses affirm this overtly) rather than suffer the injustices of eternal torment, there will come a time if Christianity is true at which there will be no more evil.  As far as beings go, there will be only the righteous, angelic servants of God, and God, Christ, and the Holy Spirit (who are not the same beings at all) according to what the Bible.

The "Spirits In Prison"

1 Peter 3:19 briefly states that Jesus, after being made alive, made proclamations to imprisoned spirits whom verse 20 calls beings who disobeyed in the days of Noah, perhaps making these spirits the "sons of God" or their offspring from Genesis 6 that sexually engaged with humans before the great flood.  There is another group of beings that is very likely the same one Peter speaks of.  In either case, if this passage is at all consistent with the blatant, repeated teaching of the Old Testament on the true state of death before resurrection, it is in no way talking about Jesus seeing souls in Sheol before he resurrected.  The text says he was made alive before his proclamation, and dead humans are currently unconscious or totally nonexistent on the level of the mind (Ecclesiastes 9:5-10). 

The only spirits the Bible specifically says are imprisoned would be a subcategory of fallen angels mentioned in 2 Peter 2:4 and likely in Jude 1:6, beings confined with chains in the dungeons of what Peter calls Tartarus until their eschatological judgment.  This lone reference to Tartarus (Jude does not mentioned the name of where its fallen angels are kept) does not clarify what sins these angels committed in order to be bound and set aside until they are moved to the lake of fire (Matthew 25:41).  It does indicate that the demons are not being tormented, just imprisoned.  Even for the demons for whom hell was created, as Jesus says in the aforementioned verse from Matthew 25, torment during the wait for their final judgment and punishment is not justice.

Peter is the New Testament author who says both that Jesus spoke with spirits in prison before he returned to the Jesus in resurrection and that there are certain demons chained in Tartarus until "the great day."  This alone would suggest that these two verses address the same group of spirits, which are not human at all, though 1 Peter could be mentioning a different set of fallen angels.  If 1 Peter 3:19 did teach a conscious intermediate state for the human dead before their resurrection, it would more importantly contradict the Old Testament teaching of unconsciousness for the dead in Sheol (Ecclesiastes 9:5-10 again, as well as Job 3:11-19 and Psalm 88:10-12), which is only disturbed by means such as sorcery (the witch of Endor summoning the spirit of Samuel in 1 Samuel 28 would not at all necessitate that the dead are conscious by default right now!).

Any philosophical conflict between the Old Testament and New Testament, in the case of morality, the afterlife, or anything else, would mean that the New Testament contradicts the preceding ideas and books it itself claims are true.  The Old Testament can be true independent of the New Testament's veracity, but the opposite is not true.  Like how the Quran affirms the Torah, the New Testament affirms the Old Testament, and if it, like the Quran does, also contradicted something that it requires to be true, then it would have to be false on at least that point.  Now, the New Testament does not contradict Ecclesiastes, Job, Psalms, or any other part of the Bible that teaches that the dead are unperceiving--if their consciousness exists at all--until they are resurrected to face eternal bliss or the second, final death.

Jesus could have conversed with spirits at some point before or after his resurrection without them being human spirits, and the dead could be unconscious without anything about this being contradicted or vice versa.  Nothing about 1 Peter 3:19 would require that its own truth, if the New Testament is indeed true, logically necessitates that the dead are anything other than nonexistent or sleeping without thought until their bodies are reformed, their souls are reawakened, and they stand before God to experience their eternal life or to be sentenced to the lake of fire and wholly, permanently die (2 Peter 2:6).  Until that time or some other affiliated eschatological event, the demons of 2 Peter 2:4 wait in chains, almost certainly the particular spirits Peter had already referenced before.

The Neglected Misandry Of Some Biblical Misinterpretations (Part Two)

Each book of the Bible containing part of Mosaic Law has at least two passages that explicitly, distinctly refer to men and women and then use male nouns or pronouns in translations like the King James Version to refer to both of them as a whole, which I provided the verses for in part one.  Two pertain to equivalence in the physical mistreatment of men and women (slaves in the case laws) and how the punishment for mistreating one is the same as that for mistreating the other (Exodus 21:20-21, 21:26-27).  Two pertain to the levitical skin disease laws and how men and women alike are to be examined and, if needed, sent outside of the camp (Leviticus 13:29-39, Numbers 5:1-4).  One is about how the obligation to make restitution in applicable cases is for offending men and women, with their punishment being identical (Numbers 5:5-7).  One is about how men and women can voluntarily make a Nazarite vow (Numbers 6:1-21).  Two are about how men and women who commit the same class of sin, in these examples either enticing someone to worship other gods or going further and carrying this out, are to be executed as applicable--again receiving the same punishment as with Numbers 5:5-7 (Deuteronomy 13:6-10, 17:2-7).  Two others, like Exodus 21:20-21 and 26-27, mention male and female servants and state that Hebrew servants have to be released every seven years, while foreign servants do not (with the exception of those encompassed in Leviticus 19:33-34), since this particular obligation is to one's own countrypeople (Leviticus 25:44-46, Deuteronomy 15:12-17).  Lastly, one of them is about how Israelite men and women are to obey Mosaic Law and, if they follow other gods, would be opposed by Yahweh (Deuteronomy 29:18-20).

Without relying on the logically necessary equivalence (independent of the Bible) of men and women committing or being victimized by the same act, the gender equality at the outset of the Bible (Genesis 1:26-27, 5:1-2), or other such things (like, though it never followed from Exodus 22:18 that only a female sorcerer should die, as opposed to also a man doing the same thing, Deuteronomy 18:9-11 expands this to men), the aforementioned verses above already demonstrate that even an older, more conservative translation of the Bible establishes it is speaking of male and female victims or perpetrators of various sins and then uses subsequent masculine language.  There are of course ramifications for the many commands like that Leviticus 19:13, which says to pay one's workers the day of their labor and uses male language for them.  There is no Biblical injunction against female workers or prescription of male employees--not that it is necessary, but it also says to not add to its commands (Deuteronomy 4:2, 12:32).  In fact, some of the aforementioned verses like Exodus 21:20-21, 26-27, and Deuteronomy 15:12-17 make it plain that it is permissible for both genders to work as servants, including to pay off debts (see also Exodus 20:8-11 and Deuteronomy 5:12-15).

Due to cultural stereotypes and the prevalence of complementarian heresy, some people read various portions of the Torah's commands and think that the male nouns and pronouns of verses like Leviticus 19:13 would mean that men must be workers because they are allegedly more suited to it.  I have dealt with similar people who both accept or reject the Bible while thinking it teaches things like this.  On one hand, if this was what it taught, the Bible would be sexist against women, prescribing for them directly or indirectly either reliance on a man for provision or death, since they would supposedly not be to work outside the home.  On the other hand, it would be sexist against men, confining professional labor to men, treating them as if they are just a means to the end of labor, a human pack mule to be worked.  Only one example is enough to demonstrate not only that the Bible would have to command such things for men and women alike to be consistent with reason, but that it also does often refer to men and women by words like "man" or "men," meaning person or people, which is for the sake of consistency how someone would have to interpret passages that do not specify that they only address men or women.  Women are not exempt from commands that do not literally depend on having male genitalia, which is almost none of them: men are not held to a higher moral standard than women despite being people as they are.

The kind of idiotic literalism holding to the contrary, where the sexist interpretation does not logically follow even from what the text says even as the text itself clarifies otherwise, could distort how someone approaches texts like Exodus 21:12-25.  The original text in Hebrew for verses like Exodus 21:12-25, which address murder, manslaughter, kidnapping, attacking or cursing one's parents, physical assault and battery resulting in neither death nor permanent mutilation, and physical harm to a pregnant woman is supposed to be gender neutral with the wording (except for the words father and mother and the victimized pregnant woman of 21:23-25) as reflected in some more recent English translations.  Even if unnecessary or default masculine wording is/was part of the original wording in Hebrew, in light of the many examples listed in the first paragraph, without relying on the other reasons mentioned here [1] for why such verses would have to be gender egalitarian, these laws are not saying men (or women) can be permissibly hurt in such ways by women or that men can murder or batter non-pregnant women without deserving the same penalties.

However, if male slaves should not be abused as is so with female slaves and likewise deserve immediate emancipation for such treatment (Exodus 21:26-27), it could only follow that logical consistency would require that free men and women be of equal guilt for committing the same acts against each other or equal victimization by the same acts, just as logical necessity would already dictate is the case independent of whether the Bible is true; the act is the same and men and women can both commit or suffer it.  The Bible does not say it is fine to treat male servants more harshly than female servants because their bodies or stereotypical "mental toughness" can take it, or that it takes more mistreatment than it does for women for a man to deserve to go free.  The same would by extension be true of other physical assaults in other contexts.  Just Exodus 21:26-27 alone would require that a woman who unjustly attacks or injures a man has also committed the same broad class of sin in Exodus 21:23-25, unless the Bible said otherwise, which it does not.

Aside from everything else that is relevant inside and outside the Bible, if Exodus 21:26-27 treats the assault of a male and female servant as of an equal nature, why would this not be the case with 18-19 whether or not masculine or gender neutral language (which the original text is consistent with) is used?  If Exodus 21:28-32 emphasizes the equality of neglectfully allowing a previously dangerous animal to kill a free man or woman, a son or daughter, or a male or female servant--a triple emphasis on explicit gender equality in a matter less sinful than intentional murder--along with Exodus 21:20-21 treating murder of a male or female slave by abusive corporal punishment identically, why would this gender equality not be the case with Exodus 21:12-14 even if it seems in some translations to speak of male murderers and male victims?  It would not matter even if it did speak specifically of male-male murder in light of Exodus 21:20-21 and 28-32, because gender equality is still literally taught in the latter verses concerning murder or neglect leading to death anyway!

The King James version of the Bible, like many other translations, does not have to always use exclusively gender neutral words to talk about men and women together as a translation like the NIV is more likely to do.  There are not just other laws to clarify commands having nothing to do with something being sinful or prescribed because someone is male or female (like with Exodus 22:18 and Deuteronomy 18:9-11), but also the 10 diverse, aforementioned instances where male and female people are spoken of in relation to some moral issue only to be jointly referenced as if they are men due to the male words.  One of these would already establish that this is what the default meaning of passages that summarize a command as entailing an obligation to or for men.  Repeated emphasis on this throughout Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy reinforces what would be apparent from Genesis 1:26-27.  Obligations having nothing to do with actual anatomy, like circumcision, could only be for both men and women since something that is good (or evil) and can be done by all is good (or evil) for all.

Logic, people.  It is very fucking helpful.

"... And You'll Never Work A Day In Your Life"

As part of the glorification of professional work in America, there is a saying used by people who might be benevolent or encouraging in their intentions, but they espouse something irrational.  "Do what you love, and you'll never work a day in your life" articulates the idea that there as long as you derive pleasure from a job, it is not really work, which then can promote the false idea that work is or should be by default what people find joy in.  Enjoying work can be done without glorifying it above what its nature is, yes.  However, even aside from the issue of work as a low or high priority, there is the logical fact that professional work is always work even if you delight in it.

What some people mean by this phrase might not actually entail a contradiction on a conceptual level, and still the words themselves are so overtly, egregiously incorrect that there is no basis for using them in this manner.  A truth can be conveyed with such misleading or inaccurate language that the communication becomes irrational.  Enjoying a job can make time spent working seem shorter, more emotionally fulfilling, and even something to look forward to, yet by nature, a job is always work.  It is not someone's psychological attitude towards work that makes it what it is.  No, it is work itself and the logical necessities that ground that nature which dictate that.  Professional labor cannot be anything other than professional labor!

Now, aside from the impossibility of the literal idea behind the statement about never working a day, selecting a job with objective moral significance or subjective personal appeal truly can make the many hours of work more bearable.  That this is so desirable for any people suggests that they truly hate or fear having to work without this condition being met.  Work is objectively intrusive, often far more time-consuming than it needs to be (under American capitalism and all equivalent systems), and is very likely to never be rewarded as much as the work merits (again, at least under the likes of American capitalism).

There is no way to labor without working, but there are ways to be careful about choosing a job, although a job that is a great personal fit can still be ruined by terrible employers, long commutes, irrational coworkers, or some other secondary factor to the role itself.  There are also ways to better ensure one does not become disillusioned with what is otherwise a desired career by overworking or allowing work to take focus away from superior things.  Unfortunately, professional labor, handled the right way, is still more useful for certain ends that promote human flourishing than its absence, and tethering oneself to a worthwhile and enjoyable (and morally permissible, of course) job is ideal.

Without Divorce As An Option

It would absolutely be better to never marry, in either the legal or the true Biblical/relational sense (personal, mutual commitment) if divorce was never or almost never a morally legitimate option.  In spite of however much evidence there is that a person is or would make for a great spouse, there is always the possibility, as long as one has these human epistemological barriers, that this is an illusion.  Marriage is already an enormous commitment.  Without divorce ever being a permissible direction to go in for at least some circumstances, it would be an even more uncertain gamble on whether one would wind up in a horrendous, mediocre, or excellent marriage.

The only mind one can know the existence or contents of is one's own.  No being with my limitations knows the future, and there is scarcely anything a person can truly control.  They do not know if their partner is rational, honest, loving, or sincere, only that they appear that way, and there is nothing at all impossible about them suddenly changing for the worst or revealing that their true self scarcely resembled the facade.  A person who seemed otherwise can unveil assumptions, hypocrisy, greed, unfaithfulness, pettiness, jealousy, or other kinds of irrational or immoral traits--or they could acquire these characteristics only after the marriage starts.

What careless person who truly knows these things would ever think marriage should be treated anything other than an almost total gamble that, on a personal and pragmatic level, could not possibly be worth the potential risk of a lifetime of suffering?  Just having an escape possibility, and a potentially morally valid one at that, makes heading into a marriage so much less suffocating and restricting.  There is the logical possibility of ending a marriage and the moral freedom to do so if it is marred by abusive, neglectful, adulterous, or other behaviors (yes, according to the Bible [1]).  Apart from this, human marriage would never truly be liberating or empowering, and every spouse would be locked into their relationships anyway.

Without divorce as an option, only in extremely rare relationships between rationalistic couples--and even then, this could be rare among them--would entertaining the desire to marry be anything more than an utterly pointless or damaging thing.  Marriage is not necessarily objectively good or subjectively fulfilling, and divorce, as unfortunate as it is that any relationship would need to come to it, is certainly worthwhile in more cases than evangelicals would admit.  To marry is not to Biblically remain fastened to someone no matter how philosophically stupid, how morally unstable, or how predatory or selfish they are.  Again, why would anyone ever want to marry if this was the case when marriage itself is not obligatory?

[1].  For instance, see Exodus 21:9-11 and 1 Corinthians 7:12-16.

Wearing A Hijab

Like wearing a cross necklace for the aesthetic appeal or relative commonality of it rather than to express commitment to Christianity, wearing a hijab does not have to stem from any sort of philosophical allegiance to Islam as a religion.  Wherever a person lives, they could possibly choose to wear something popularly associated with a given religion without the commonly assumed motivation of trying to show devotion to its deity.  Seeing someone wearing a hijab, for instance, does not intrinsically mean that they are a Muslim, much less a devout one.  Maybe they are, and maybe they are not (on both counts).  Ultimately, this expectation is not even reflective of the actual religious philosophy and text (the Quran) it supposedly springs from, as is the case with many lifestyle components evangelical Christians in America promote.

The hijab and the much bulkier burqa are absolutely not a part of Quranic Islam, so wearing them is already not about obeying a supposed command of Allah.  In Arabic culture (though outsiders could obviously wear the same styles), the hijab is the head covering wrapped around the hair and neck but not the face.  The burqa is a full-body covering that envelope the arms and hangs over the legs.  One pertains to a much smaller area of the body than the other, though the terms could be used interchangeably by unfamiliar people.  Neither is actually prescribed in the Quran, contrary to what many people might expect, only in the extra-Quranic legalist doctrines of later Islamic figures.  Muslim legalists and Arabic cultural constructs have become confused with Islam itself by some people who think that association at the level of assumptions and tradition is the same as an inherent conceptual connection.  Someone who has no commitment to Islam could still have a personal interest in wearing Arabic fashion, though it would more likely be with the hijab than the burqa.

As for the idea that seeing a hijab on someone means they are a Muslim, this is only a non sequitur assumption.  The epistemological stance here is like that of someone who sees a person in a church and assumes they are a Christian.  They are not necessarily present because they are a formally committed follower of  Yahweh's/Christ's religion or because they have even a fleeting, surface-level interest in Christianity.  Perhaps they go because of family pressures, similar to how some women might wear a hijab only because of cultural norms and all of the pressures that might come with them.  Perhaps they like the cultural history or influence of church service as a whole, without any philosophical commitment, and attend out of a personal desire to be part of something with others.  Independent of whether a religion is true or even whether people think it is true, some might borrow fashion or lifestyle habits from a former religion they adhered to or from a trend that happens to be affiliated with a religion.

With evangelicals I have encountered, there is a tendency to assume intention and philosophical alignment from things that really might have nothing to directly do with a person's core ideology.  An example among some of these Christians is that drinking alcohol publicly or using profanity might be assumed to signify lack of submission to God, who never opposes such things in themselves.  With the hijab, what of people who are forced to insincerely wear one or who wear it as non-Muslims in various countries because they like the way it looks?  A woman of Middle-Eastern descent might wear a hijab for some unconventional reason.  A foreigner might wear one for some reason besides allegiance to Islam.  The real tenets of Islam and the distinction between them and Arabic culture aside, partaking in things that are associated at a cultural level with expression of Islamic commitment can be done for unrelated, individualistic reasons.

Stealing From Corporations

As people steal basic items like food from corporations, some believe that this is not immoral or is even good.  To steal from a company, especially a megacorporation, might have hardly a noticeable impact in a specific case, and many businesses exploit their workers and client/customer base, they insist.  It is not true that a corporation is automatically predatory; this depends on the individual people involved in it and how it is run.  It is also not true that the nature of theft itself changes based upon the severity or situation.

Obviously, a person stealing from a grocery store to eat or a pharmacy to survive, driven by desperation and despair, is not committing as serious an act as a corporate leader who takes so much money from a business's earnings that the employees are not paid liveable wages.  The first is about survival marked by tragedy.  The second is about greed for the sake of egoistic emotionalism or taking from others.  These are very different forms of theft, and the latter is objectively far worse than the former.

Theft is theft no matter its manifestation, though, and thus one kind being less immoral than another would not mean it is ever permissible or good.  What is immoral in itself would still have this nature even when it is done with far less sinister, selfish, irrational motives.  If theft is morally wrong, then yes, stealing from corporations is also wrong no matter how small its impact on the company bottom line is, but this in no way makes it equal to the mass, devastating theft practices by many companies.

Resolving the genuine problems that make stealing from corporations so pragmatically beneficial (in some ways, it is, this just has nothing to do with moral obligation) is the way to best discourage the smaller theft other than adherence to a correct, rationalistic worldview.  For corporate greed, neither its philosophical invalidity nor amoral factors like public scorn (public approval or disapproval in itself has nothing to do with whether something is wrong, only if it is popular) are likely to deter an executive or employer with enough power to withstand any sort of human opposition.

The hypocrisy of condemning theft by corporations and supporting theft by consumers is glaring, although one is often far worse than the other.  Both of these things are true at once.  There are people who are emotionalistically in favor of either of these forms of stealing.  Like with murder or kidnapping, the core nature of theft is the same in one scenario and another.  People with fallacious hostility towards either consumers/employees or corporate leaders regardless of their personal status just do not like this.

Scientific Awe

The superior nature of the laws of logic, both when it comes to metaphysical self-necessity that is not dependent on anything else and when it comes to its absolute certainty and supreme epistemological foundationality, might weaken a person's enamorment with science in all of its facets, especially because scientific events and correlations are not even verifiable beyond the level of subjective perceptions.  They are secondary either way to reason, hinging on it.  None of this actually has to interfere with someone's appreciation for scientific laws or the scientific method, whether that involves focusing on correlations they personally observe in daily life or ideas they would have no reason to reflect on unless prompted by hearsay (such as quantum physics, volcanic geology, and so on).

I have encountered people who trivialize scientific clarity, to the very limited, ambiguous extent that science brings clarity only to what seems to be occurring specifically to the metaphysically contingent (on the laws of logic, the uncaused cause, and preceding empty space) external world of matter, for a separate reason.  This one is not legitimate.  They suppose that having more scientific information weakens a person's ability to experience awe/wonder, as if there is some apparent moral obligation to feel awe or as if this is not a subjective reaction altogether.  Aside from matters that have not yet been fully explored with the senses directly or by technological extensions, even familiar scientific laws or events could sustain fascination, time after time, in someone's mind.

It is in a sense strange that a certain kind of light (that from a solar body approximately 93 million miles distant) would darken the skin, and the results of this correlation last differing amounts of time for different people.  It is strange that out of all the objective logical possibilities that transcend mind and matter, there are creatures very much unlike those of the planet's landmasses reported all the way down to the bottom of the oceans, where pressure and darkness and scarcity of opportunities to eat present their own impact on life.  It is strange that, again, out of everything that is logically possible--and anything that does not contradict axioms or what follows by necessity from something else is possible even if untrue--there would be billions of microorganisms teeming within one's body, unnoticed by macroscopic, external perception.

Would it be expected based upon ordinary macroscopic experience that there would be nuclei of protons and neutrons orbited by electrons, particles which supposedly do not break down into other extremely miniscule particles, while the units of the nucleus reduce to various quarks?  Even if familiar to many, the phenomenon of gravity and how it holds objects on the world could be subjectively alluring, though it is far from being as central as the inherent truth of logical axioms, the uncaused cause behind the universe one way or another, and the direct, absolutely certain nature of introspection.  Radiation, genetics, thermodynamics, and more all have their own nuances, and, though these nuances are utterly trivial compared to those of higher philosophical issues like strictly logical truths or God's nature whether or not the uncaused cause is the Yahweh of the Christian religion, they can inspire deep captivation.

A person could be fascinated by these concepts and their seeming observational, probabilistic evidence even knowing that much of what is experienced in the external world could be an illusion and the truth of this is unverifiable either way.  In fact, having more scientific information could make them experience a deeper fixation that does not exclusively pertain to curiosity towards unexplored aspects of nature, but to what is already perceived.  Awe or wonder is never the inevitable reaction of a mind to scientific notions or experiences, but it is also not automatically quelled by observational or experimental information.  A still stronger fascination could be had towards the deeper ways that science depends on more fundamental philosophical truths than anything having to do with laws of nature.  

No one can know if scientific events exist apart from conscious, subjective perception, for instance, for no one can observe them apart from observation to discover this and there is no independent logical necessity in this being the case, and the subjective intoxication of awe can be united here with the absolutely certain knowledge of reason, the supreme reality, as what logically follows from scientific experiences and concepts in particular is grasped.  What one person feels towards science does not dictate its nature in any way. While the objective, intrinsic laws of logic reveal that science is far from inherent--there could have never been an external world at all, much less the exact correlative events we see therein--and while scientific laws are not metaphysically central whatsoever, feelings of wonder are not contrary to having more clarity about the cosmos.

No Fault Divorce

The Bible not restricting divorce to only adultery or, hell, sexual immorality does not mean anything remotely similar to no fault divorce is authorized.  Matthew 19:9 is not the only verse on the morality of divorce: Exodus 21:9-11 addresses neglect and abuse as justifications for divorce, Deuteronomy 24:1-4 addresses general sin in this context but does not specify which sins are not severe enough, and 1 Corinthians 7:12-16 addresses abandonment.  In no way is this divorce for any and every reason, as some think Mosaic Law allows, for this is not the same as the broadness of the no fault divorce laws of America.  Leaving a spouse for even a minor or easily correctable error at least is to do so because of something more than sheer preference!

With a no fault divorce, a wife and husband could casually, even amicably end their legal marriage while maintaining that neither of them has committed some grievous wrong.  One of them could have literally had the sudden arbitrary whim upon waking up to get divorced even though the relationship is otherwise safe, loving, and, most importantly, perhaps even up until that point based on rationality (though it would be irrational for either spouse to actually leave for this reason).  Acting on this would be subjectivist or emotionalistic.  In this type of scenario, the couple could terminate the marriage through no fault divorce by indicating that there is no fault that is to blame, only a divergence of personal interest.  This course of legal action can also be pursued to quickly escape the likes of an actual abuser less expensively and painfully.

Just calling a divorce no fault would not actually have to mean that there was no divorce-worthy problem lurking behind the scenes, as it could be the case that neither party is accusing the other of such a thing even though it did occur.  Still, in spite of how there might have ultimately been infidelity or abuse, it would be unjust to present the marriage to friends as if it is ending for unrelated, trivial reasons.  Divorce for the sake of mere emotional preference or a sudden lack of attraction is not legitimate, and a cheating (which is adultery, not flirtation, having opposite gender friends, and so on) or abusive spouse deserves to be confronted and cast aside on those grounds.  Whether this is brought to the attention of the legal system is a separate matter.

A romantic commitment to someone is no small thing, especially if one will live with, have sex with, and spend a great deal of time with them.  It is irrational to charge into a dating or marriage relationship blindly or to stay no matter what comes from it out due to the same emotionalism that might lead some to flippantly abandon their relationship.  Yes, it is also no small thing to leave a relationship, particularly if it had progressed to the point of marriage, on a legal level or in the sense of greater commitment.  There would need to be specific realizations and motivations to make this rational.

The Biblical position on divorce is not that it is always evil or that it is only permissible in an extremely rare, narrow kind of circumstance.  It is multiple different kinds of sins that free the other spouse to totally sever themselves from the marriage.  They must actually be moral offenses (Deuteronomy 24:1-4), though, not subjective whims!  The kind of divorce Jesus contrasts the Biblical kind with in Matthew 19 could not be some no fault divorce of Mosaic Law because the Torah does not permit actual no fault divorce (again, this does not mean legal opportunity for no fault divorce cannot be used pragmatically to a victimized spouse's advantage).  Entering or leaving a romantic partnership for anything less than rational responses to whatever evidence one has access to about the other person is baseless.

The Neglected Misandry Of Some Biblical Misinterpretations (Part One)

Some translations of the Bible, such as the King James Version (KJV), use masculine pronouns like "he" or "him" in moral prescriptions when they are really talking about/addressing things applicable to either men or women.  Actually, passages in Mosaic Law like Exodus 21:20-21, 26-27, Leviticus 13:29-39, 25:44-46, Numbers 5:1-7, 6:1-21, Deuteronomy 13:6-10, 15:12-17, 17:2-7, and 29:18-20 all clarify explicitly at first that they are referring to male and female people, often as the perpetrator of a given sin or its victim, and then default to masculine pronouns for all parties involved afterward.  Obviously, even as an older, more conservative translation much less likely to reflect genuine gender neutrality already in the original language (at least in meaning), the King James Bible gives example after example of cases in Mosaic Law itself where it is not, for instance, saying that only male or only female servants are to be freed if abused (Exodus 21:26-27), though the pronouns tend to be as if for men.  Some people severely misinterpret Biblical statements in reaction due to their own false assumptions about gender or what they have been told about historical Christian interpretation.  Beyond doing the same with basic necessary truths of reason that are not denied by the Bible even in the King James, they must distort or neglect whatever the Bible nonetheless does or does not say which is contrary to their stances on what it proclaims.

Of course, it is not as if even such statements as that of Exodus 21:12-14 in the King James Version would only apply to men irrespective of its blatant, repeated tendency to use male language for women it just mentioned.  While the language, in a purely literal sense, would seem to speak of how an adult human male who murders another adult human male should be executed, the Bible never says something such as "A man who murders another shall be put to death, but not a woman who murders", or "A man shall not murder a man, but he may murder a woman".  While mistranslations of gender neutral pronouns can certainly make the Bible very superficially seem to be misogynistic in its philosophy with some things, it also makes the Bible seem to be very distinctively misandrist, or sexist against men.  For instance, Deuteronomy 17:12 would then, according to this flawed interpretation/approach, teach that only a man who opposes a judge or priest of Yahweh is to be killed, not a woman who does the exact same thing that any person who can speak is capable of doing if they wished.  Deuteronomy 21:18-21 would then hold that a son who engages in the specified form of disobedience to parents should die, but not a daughter who does the exact same thing (and there are worse ramifications than this).

It is just that many people are hyper-fixated on whether passages that are plainly not sexist against women in context (like Ephesians 5:21-22, even in the wording of the King James) to the point of seemingly not caring about how, on their misinterpretations of the Bible, it would follow that Christianity discriminates against men just as much or moreso than they think it does towards women (and it does not).  This reinforces still other misperceptions and beliefs on outright errors, not that a person cannot avoid assumptions and recognize various truths about the matter regardless by looking to reason, that lead them to the interpret passages like Deuteronomy 20:10-15 [1] in sexist ways, and here I particularly mean sexist against men.  For aforementioned passages like Exodus 21:12-14, which deals with murder and its prescribed punishment of death, though it might erroneously seem to teach that murdering a woman is permissible (if the literal pronoun wording is as vital as so many pretend in other passages), it would also seem to say that women murdering men is not as serious as a man sinning in this way by not mentioning specifically female perpetrators in the case law as well.

With the subject of murder, almost no one would be stupid enough to think that the Bible literally teaches that it is a sin for men to murder, but not for women to murder men.  Perhaps they think of Exodus 20:13 and Deuteronomy 5:17, which say in various translations, without mentioning gender one way or another, "You shall not murder," "Do not murder," or, in the KJV, "Thou shalt not kill" (as in murder).  Here, they might be more willing than in other cases to admit the logical equivalence in itself, independent of direct mention of it in the Bible, of murder committed by or against men or women, as well as how the two both bearing God's image (Genesis 1:26-27, 5:1-2) would mean there is no difference concerning the depravity of murder, no matter the gender of the murderer or the victim.  They do not tend to approach certain other verses like this (like Deuteronomy 22:25-27, which addresses a very specific kind of rape and yet outright says the act itself is like an instance of murder), so they are hypocrites, since there is not anything in the direct wording, the broader context, or the strictly logical necessities true of all concepts that requires many other ideas supposedly taught in the Bible.  Among these which are ultimately foreign or rejected by the text would be that rape is only committed by men, or that the rape of men by women is of lesser severity morally and psychologically.

In part two, I will specify additional reasons why the gender-specific interpretations of statements like the KJV's version of Exodus 21:12-14, save for those about things like circumcision of male babies or menstruation, could only be assumed and, more than this, false whether or not the Bible is true.  I will also tackle the ramifications one way or another for issues like physical and sexual assaults not involving murder.  Look past the fact that if Christianity as put forth in the Bible is true, it must be consistent with logically necessary truths, such as how a man and woman who commit or are victimized by the same act are logically equivalent, so an action that can be committed by both genders, if morality exists at all, cannot be good or evil for just one of them.  Similarly, look past the fact that Genesis 1:26-27 and 5:1-2 make it clear that the Biblical position is that men and women are equal before God metaphysically, both bearing his image.  Look past how the Bible makes no statements about an act being truly sinful for just one gender of the nonexistent kind for murder discussed above (compare Exodus 21:1-11 with Deuteronomy 15:12-17, Numbers 30:1-16 with Deuteronomy 23:21-23, or Exodus 22:18 with Deuteronomy 18:9-11 for three examples of how a statement mentioning one gender or the other is clarified later on, though there are reasons why the sexist interpretation does not follow from the initial text in each).  Whether it gives case laws specifying a male aggressor and female victims (as with Deuteronomy 22:25-27) or uses purely masculine language all the way through a passage in the KJV, the Bible mentions many kinds of physical and sexual assaults in Mosaic Law, yet these are absolutely never presented in a misandrist or misogynistic way.  This is of no minor importance.

[1].  https://thechristianrationalist.blogspot.com/2024/05/the-torah-on-treatment-of-wartime-male.html

Rejecting Conscience

There is no shortage of non-rationalists who will very likely try to force or convince you to bow to their personal preferences about morality: political figures, church leaders, acquaintances, significant others, parents, strangers, and more are lost in the delusions of irrationalism if they have not forsaken assumptions here and elsewhere.  They all share this in common.  One key assumption that could be devastating for them to give up is that, inside or outside of the Christian worldview, conscience or personal pragmatism have anything to do with how people should live, if there is such a thing.

In itself, it is logically necessary that emotion or preference reflects only one's personal perceptions or wishes.  They do not have any relevance to the most ultimate truths other than the importance of how utterly unimportant they are in this sense.  Even if Christianity is true, feelings mean nothing here by default, and the stupidity and darkness of emotionalism is on grand display in how so many people confuse Biblical commands for options within the Christian worldview and nonsinful, permissible things for moral duties.  Such non-rationalists try to appease others or themselves while thinking themselves justified in betraying reason.  A rationalist can on the contrary do as they want as long as they do not believe or do anything irrational or immoral.

This is not an emotionalistic individualism, or, in other words, just another form of false subjectivism.  It is how one is free to act and should react, short of totally voluntary submission or a very gratuitous mercy, to anyone at all who wants one to abstain from what is not irrational/evil or do what is not obligatory.  The fact that there is nothing anyone's conscience or desires have to do with what is good, amoral, or evil one way or another could be terrifying, but it can be liberating for those who truly embrace that they have no reason to care about being offensive or even incidentally hurtful towards others when pushing back against irrationality.

As long as a person is rational, he or she is in the right; as long as they are right, anyone who opposes them in any way must by necessity be wrong in the same way that a truth renders all that contradicts it false.  The one who genuinely thinks that their beliefs are validated by intense emotional reactions towards whatever arbitrary thing triggers them is objectively in the wrong.  The person who does not care if they are in the wrong has reality against them and is thus intellectually and, if morality exists, morally inferior to the rationalist.

Logical axioms are true no matter what else is and are true in themselves, all recognition or approval being intrinsically irrelevant.  Any moral obligations that exist are neither true by inherent necessity nor epistemologically self-evident like axioms, but they do not depend on desire.  Someone who allows themself to be lost in assumptions, even if what they assume is true and also demonstrable through reason, has no authority to the extent they do not grasp logical necessities.  Seeing through their errors means one has the right, or at least could not be in the wrong, to forcefully resist their demands and openly taunt them.

Hypocrisy In Seeking Money As An Employer And Employee

One thing people might hear about business is that an employer will or should always only be concerned for the financial or reputational impact of something on their company, from employees to customer relations to product/service quality.  This excuse is given when a business leader does something cruel, selfish, or apathetic towards anything but profitability.  After all, "it's a business, not a charity," some insist.  Yes, a business is not a charity, but neither has to be driven by greed.

The hypocrisy--though the assumptions and selfishness are already irrational--is that the same people who believe these ideas almost universally believe that workers should not be motivated by money, either at all or primarily.  Employees are expected to labor sometimes more intensely than those above them for a usually much smaller level of reward, not even enough to live comfortably or without the assistance of family.  They are treated as useful tools to be discarded at whim.

In many cases, employers are only involved in business for money that they no longer need or for extended wealth, reputation, or power, while they will try to make employees feel bad or outright penalize them for openly wanting to just earn money they need to do more than merely survive.  The latter is not greed.  It is not the invalid elevation of money, status, or materialism over most things or all else.  However, employers might be encouraged to do the same thing employees are condemned for by some.

Something that is immoral in itself is immoral for everyone.  Wanting to survive or prosper is not synonymous with greed as it is, but the inconsistency of thinking that being an employer or worker is what makes this morally legitimate or problematic would be obvious to anyone who does not make assumptions.  Either as a business owner or employee, the same moral obligations would exist when it comes to neither being materialistic with money nor ignoring that there is no ultimate reason to labor on either side of a business except for fair compensation of some kind.

Workers need money to live.  A successful business leader has had far more chances to acquire and maintain wealth, and if they wanted to, they have a better chance at being able to slip into freedom from work.  Employees often need to build wealth more carefully because of low pay and other factors setting up avoidable obstacles to their financial wellbeing.  Certain employers who are in error act like it is an abomination for a worker to come to a job mostly or exclusively for monetary reasons, while they themselves simultaneously live for sheer greed.

Hoping A Romantic Partnership Will Resolve Personal Problems

Some people might seek out romantic relationships and cling to them in the hopes that all of their personal problems, many of which could have nothing to do with romantic loneliness or burning sexual attraction, will disappear.  Dating and marriage are not statuses that resolve irrelevant woes or fix a person, especially if the problem is a moral fault.  Someone who is a slave to assumptions and contradictions is not going to have their worldview corrected by marriage; while it does not hurt to have the support of a loving partner, they are not going to shed egoism, hypocrisy, or philosophical apathy just because they are suddenly married.

For a less inherently dramatic example, a person who is insecure (which is on its own not an ideological or moral error) will very likely not be "cured" by a romantic relationship, because the issue was never really them being in a relationship, but what they have assumed and/or felt about themself.  Depending on them as an individual, they might have just used their romantic partner as either a crutch to intentionally neglect addressing their own problems or they would have treated their partner as the cause of the insecurity, when they are the one who brought it into the relationship.

Without actually working on their worldview, priorities, psychological problems, or actions as needed, they will end up doing one of two things.  They will at best severely hinder the quality of the relationship even if neither member notices or does anything about it.  At worst, the relationship will be almost hopelessly crippled and both people will suffer heavily for it.  Their blame might be misdirected towards one false cause or another, but the partner who refuses to actually forsake assumptions, give up emotionalism, and make any changes necessary is really devastating the connection they supposedly love.

If someone is not stable apart from you, they are not truly stable.  They are instead able to situationally suppress aspects of themselves in order to try to convince themself or others that they are not afflicted by whatever their delusion or trial is.  No, having trauma, complex emotions, or unmet expectations is not a delusion, even though these things are almost never handled well by non-rationalists and even then are only navigated well by them on accident.  When pain can be deeply challenging for perfect rationalists, though they never use it as an alleged justification to err, some suffering is almost unbearable as a non-rationalist.

It is the personal pain or inconvenience of confronting these things and addressing them introspectively (and if done correctly, rationalistically) or by interpersonal communication that makes them such stubborn difficulties, and non-rationalists do not even know assumptions from truth and knowledge, so of course they would be prone to blind errors.  There is relief from at least some problems that can be found, however, in simply embracing the truth and in knowing oneself in light of reason and living accordingly.  A romantic relationship where both partners submit to reason in all things is certainly going to be far easier, though the trials of life can still rage, than it could ever otherwise be.

Highly Different Afterlives

Just because there is an afterlife does not mean everyone would necessarily receive it.  For those who do, the nature of their afterlife could be random, but still logically possible, varying enormously from one person to another.  One person might be reincarnated to Earth, another reincarnated to a separate planet, while another might float in a void, another might face God or other spiritual entities, and still another might be tormented amorally by a malevolent being.

It would not be logically impossible for someone to enter a hellish dimension for a time only to be rescued by God or something else.  Perhaps their soul and whatever bodily construct it might inhabit once again would perish and be revived, the afterlife being a series of metaphysical resuscitations to consecutively face very different conditions.  Someone might exist in a blissful garden for a year while another person exists in the same location eternally.

Even then, the subjective experience might differ in that one person enjoys what others dread.  Floating in an infinite void of matter would seem freeing and peaceful to some, while to others the experience might be so dull or vast that it is terrifying to think about it at all.  Subjectivity is an aspect of minds, and if there is an afterlife, there might not be a new body that consciousness inhabits, but there must be necessity be a mind or else there would be no experience.

The true randomness that is logically possible for afterlives is such that even if a specific afterlife or contrasting fates turns out to be universal, it could have been true that the afterlife is very divergent from person to person.  As strange as it is, as almost totally undiscovered as this truth is in many circles, nothing about it contradicts logical axioms, so all of this remains possible.  Moreover, not everything that is logically possible is positive.

There is an uncaused cause.  Consciousness is metaphysically distinct from the body whatever the causal or correlative relationship ultimately is.  From either of these things, it does not follow that there is an afterlife of any sort, though of course nothing about an afterlife contradicts logical axioms.  Only certain ideas of an afterlife where logical axioms are untrue or where something like eternal torment is justice are impossible because these things contradict necessary truths.  This leaves an extraordinary number of highly different afterlives a genuine logical possibility, even all at once.

Longing For Rest

Whoever searches for respite in the modern workplace will probably not find anything but a string of assignments and expectations that never relent until one quits working altogether.  In addition to the pressure to work as endlessly as one can for the often disproportionate enrichment of someone else, there are all the inconveniences and struggles of general life, such as sickness, relational strife, physical deterioration, and even the recurring efforts to cook or clean in one's living area that can so easily sap time and energy from people over time.  Rest means forfeiting or postponing whatever else could have been done at the time, but it is necessary to best ensure short and long-term health--of a physical and mental kind.

It is not mere pragmatism that is the basis of the Sabbath obligation.  The sanctity of human flourishing is at the heart of it (Mark 2:27).  While every exact personal reaction to steady, invasive work and trials is subjective, the Sabbath is no minor thing.  Not only is intentional violation of it a capital sin (Exodus 35:2), but the Sabbath is also needed so very much by people who otherwise are consumed with labor or striving of one kind of another left to themselves.  While it does not eliminate the need to labor outside of the Sabbath day, this day of rest provides a chance for healing, freedom, and peace that is otherwise easy for some to continually exclude themselves from.  Only one such day of rest is required, and even then, it is helpful for those who can financially afford it to perhaps take an additional day or two out of every week to recuperate or simply celebrate how labor of professional kinds especially is nowhere near the pinnacle of human existence.

Laboring professionally or otherwise through drudgery, disappoinment, and exhaustion in hopes that the next day(s) off will be the hypothetical time of rejuvenation, people can find just enough motivation to continue the draining cycle of addressing work and trials.  It might be the case that someone who initially expected to never lose their energy or focus in the workplace or amidst the sometimes unrelenting challenges of life finds themself desperately longing for rest.  In such circumstances, it is far more than a single day of avoiding unnecessary physical activity or professional concerns altogether that might be sought, but a longer period that, through leisure, can restore their legitimate enjoyment of life.

The Sabbath does not erase all of life's difficulties, not even the ones that have to do with toil and exhaustion.  Still, it is far more than a potential option for hopeful psychological and physical health.  The core idea of the Sabbath, of having at least one day out of every seven to devote to personal rest and direct reflection on the nature of reality (anyone could engage in this even during strenuous labor, but this makes it easier), is absolutely vital to sustained flourishing as a human.  The longing to rest is not necessarily born out of laziness.  Inside and outside of the Christian worldview, relaxation is a deep, needed, life-giving thing, something that is Biblically important enough to kill people who forsake it.

No, Salary Is Not Necessarily Better Than Wages

The word wages might be used as an informal reference for all compensation in general, but it can be used more precisely as a reference to hourly payments at a fixed rate (other than overtime and the like).  Wages are in contrast to salaries: fixed yearly pay that is distributed in equal or almost equal portions every pay period that do not depend on hours worked.  There are in some cases cultural pressures for people to choose jobs with salaries by default over those with wages, and this is utterly irrational.  As an aside, task-based compensation is not the focus here, though similar truths are the case.

A salary could be low, unable to cover the mandatory expenses of modern civilization even as it grants employers additional leeway with taking the free time of workers.  Salaries workers might work unpaid overtime despite having greater demands placed on them and less flexibility in their core schedule.  As appealing as they are presented to be, sometimes in an illusory way, salaried jobs are not necessarily anything but cages with softer-looking pillows inside.

Aside from the other artificial limitations that might come with a salary, is not as if there is anything about a salaried role that makes it automatically superior to hourly roles on the basis on compensation alone.  Someone making $30 an hour for a typical 40 hour workweek, every week in a year, earns more than $60,000 annually, whereas a salary could be set at $33,000 a year.  Pay, the most important part of a job as far as the reasons to work are concerned, is not necessarily high or low for either an hourly or salaried position.

Salary does bring some protections, albeit limited ones, such as compensation for each pay period remaining stable even if hours are cut.  The same thing that allows for more than ordinary working hours without more pay also allows for fewer than normal working hours to receive the same pay.  However, high hourly compensation can be accompanied by far greater flexibility, similar or greater pay (at the very least livable wages), and less responsibility and scrutiny from employers (this last part can depend upon the job, though).

The push by certain people to secure salaries over hourly wages without any other goal than this is rooted more in the delusional, meaningless pursuit of prestige than anything else.  Yes, salaries might be regarded more highly than hourly compensation by some people, but this is because of assumption (for demonstrably false ideas, no less) and the conflation of corporate status and the worth of people as humans.  Salary is absolutely not better than the alternative by necessity.  Certain salaries are better than certain wages.

The Unfortunate, Near-Universal Futility Of Mercy

Mercy cannot make anyone turn towards truth either through the act itself or its psychological effect on the recipient or observers.  This the fact that it by nature cannot be morally obligatory, only good but optional at best, and the fact that almost no one actually chooses to turn towards reason and morality because of mercy make it an objective waste of time in almost every single case.  Anyone who gravitates towards actively, repeatedly showing mercy to others, as I have moreso in recent times, cannot be rational without realizing this.

Morally, mercy is nothing but optional.  Pragmatically, it is doomed to utter failure or triviality in almost all cases.  Even as someone who--so far--has been far more merciful since earlier in this year, I know that there is ultimately no real point to being merciful other than sheer preference, and almost no one truly benefits from it on either end.  Mercy making an impact is an almost universal futility, a fool's hope that some cling to out of sheer emotionalistic desire to receive mercy themselves if or when they were to need it.

When non-rationalists are already in greater sin against the nature of reality just by existing without being rationalists than a rationalist would be to literally murder them, and eagerly, mercy is wasted on anything but an authentic attempt to allow them to change for the better--knowing that it will almost certainly absolutely never turn out this way.  To hope for mercy from God, if the uncaused cause is the Christian deity, is one thing; those who sincerely seek this mercy receive it in some form.  To broadly expect mercy to make any sort of philosophical impact on one's fellow humans is lunacy.

Yes, since most people are always more likely to be irrationalists who only believe or pursue things for emotional appeal, pragmatic convenience, or assumptions, it is always thus more likely that the masses will never care for mercy beyond what they think will serve them selfishly.  They want exemption from true justice because they do not like the idea of deserving anything close to the second death of the Bible (Matthew 10:28) or even the first death of the Torah's capital punishment, which murder is sometimes at worst but a somewhat immoral distortion of to begin with.  Mercy is wasted on them.  However, strict pragmatism is not why a rational person would want to be merciful anyway.

Mutually Proposing Marriage

Though both women and men can yearn to marry, and though men and women are both equally capable of planning and communication, pressures on each gender have manipulated many people to assume that men should or want to propose marriage to women, while women should or want to be a passive recipient of this gesture up until they accept or decline.  Like all gender stereotypes, these ideas contradict reason because gender is a type of physical body, not something connected to moral obligation or personality characteristics.  It does not follow from having certain genitalia that one will or should act in any given way.

The expectation for men to initiate romantic or sexual interactions as a whole is the foundation of the "normal" execution of a marriage proposal.  However, do men not want to be pursued?  Of course they do or could; this is a matter of individual preference or how much a man has allowed himself to give in to social conditioning, not his biological bodily structure.  Do women want to contribute nothing to what sparks their own formal engagement?  This too could only be a matter of individuality or yielding to social pressures.  Gender has nothing to do with it one way or another.  A man could be someone who naturally hopes for his girlfriend to ask to marry him, escalating the relationship from one of dating to one of formal marriage.

A man can propose to a woman without being sexist against men or women, just as a woman can propose to a man without being sexist in any direction as well.  Also, neither kind of proposal requires misogynistic or misandrist motivations.  A joint proposal where both the female and male member of a couple participate in each role is certainly a great way to express egalitarianism, but either type of unilateral request for marriage can also express egalitarianism.  As long as the individuals are not being pressured to act in accordance with tradition or any sexist, and thus invalid, ideology--whether it primarily targets men or women--this act can be entirely egalitarian.

When there are no fallacies, assumptions, or immoral motives present, it does not matter who asks their partner for legal marriage.  any of the three aforementioned scenarios, which are the only ones possible with one man and one woman, are legitimate.  No one sacrifices their rationalism or egalitarianism (not that there are many rationalists whatsoever!) by doing sometimes that happens to match a social construct, if the thing itself is not irrational and they are not doing it out of cultural relativism, emotionalism, or any other manifestation of irrationalism.  Mutual marriage proposals are one of many ways to express the individuality of a couple as long as this is a natural reflection of it.

Rationalistic Skepticism

Everything is either true or false and it is logically impossible for this to be any other way.  Not everything is knowable, however, although something is knowable about everything--everything is governed by logical axioms and other necessities about what does and does not follow, so at least this much can be known.  Total skepticism is illegitimate because logical axioms, which would still have to be true even if they were false [1], and one's own existence [2] are absolutely certain when approached without assumptions, as are certain other things, though they are very precise truths, such as that one feels cold and perceives snow instead of knowing that there is a snowy environment outside of one's consciousness.

A great many things are still not knowable, even if they seem to be true.  Whether the uncaused cause loves me or murder is immoral are among these.  I cannot prove them because they do not follow by logical necessity from anything that is inherently true, like axioms, and it would not matter if these were things pertaining to direct sensory experiences; besides the basic existence of some sort of external world, which is far more difficult to discover than many think [3], nothing but the subjective experience of perceptions is confirmed by the senses.  Some people talk as if in not knowing something is true despite it being logically possible means they know it is false, or at least are justified in believing it is false short of absolute proof.  They might still call themselves skeptics!

Being uncertain, for legitimate or irrational reasons, if there is an external world is not the same as believing it does not exist.  A skeptic of the deep state, moreover, would not believe that there is no deep state, but that there is no way to know.  A skeptic of God's existence would not be an atheist, but an agnostic, though it is the concepts and their relationship to logical necessities rather than the words that matter.  A skeptic of morality or extraterrestrial life has to believe that they do not or cannot know if moral obligation or life outside of Earth exists.  If they believe that no alien life forms of any kind exist, then they are not a skeptic.  If they believe there is no such thing as morality, they are a moral nihilist and not a moral skeptic.

It can be objectively true that something is unknowable for a given being and thus skepticism is the only valid position for them on that point, but being skeptical about knowing if something is true is not the same as holding that it is false, and if it is ultimately true after all, its veracity is not nullified by the asinine irrationalism of the fallacious kind of "skeptic."  Knowledge cannot be had, in addition to the inherent prerequisite of inherent logical truths and at least one consciousness in existence to know them, without two things: something being true and the logical necessity which requires its truth also being knowable.  The second listed requirement for knowledge is utterly unattainable for humans in many matters.

[1].  https://thechristianrationalist.blogspot.com/2021/03/the-epistemological-and-metaphysical.html

[2].  https://thechristianrationalist.blogspot.com/2017/10/consciousness-cannot-be-illusory.html

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

Property Taxes

Determined by the fair market value of a property as relates to certain other factors, property taxes in America could vary from state to state and county to county.  New York City, which encompasses five boroughs, has a different rate for each borough.  Texas has a high property tax rate to make up for its absence of an income tax.  Within the same region of a state, the amount paid by an individual for their home could differ: a higher property value multiplied by the same ratios as a smaller property value would by necessity always lead to a larger sum.  What they all have in common is that property taxes are imposed on properties and by extension their owners even after a home mortgage has been fully paid off, with the IRS (Internal Revenue Service) having the legal ability to seize the property if they are not paid.  The lender of the mortgage first has the legal right of seizure due to lack of payments, as agreed upon prior, and then it is the IRS afterward.

There is indeed the threat of eviction when one is still actively repaying the amount borrowed to purchase a home, yes.  The foreclosure process might not be immediate, usually taking a reported 60 days or more (so approximately at least two months) before the process is actually initiated.  Defaulting on the loan, as in not paying the monthly mortgage minimum, is an easy way to jeopardize one's home ownership.  However, when the mortgage is a thing of the past, the presence of ongoing annual property taxes means that even when whatever debt the home brought is gone, there would be a very real sense in which you do not fully have ownership.  It is as if one has bought a computer, book, or couch and even though the full price has been paid, you must consistently pay more lest the belonging be confiscated from you.  The housing that protects Americans from the elements or even from other people has this legal threat hanging over it.

This has nothing to do with whether it is morally permissible, much less just, for home ownership to be subjected to this annual taxation long after the property value has been resolved in full.  The moral validity of a law would depend on if it corresponds with any objective obligations that exist, not with majority preference, personal feelings, or utilitarian outcome.  It is nonetheless the unfortunate situation that collective American residents find themselves in.  A car could eventually be impounded upon the failure to pay annual registration fees.  So, too, can a house be taken away.  With some exemptions, the inconvenience and unjust elements of property taxes can be diminished.  Section 11.13 of the Texas Tax Code, for instance, provides exemptions such as $10,000 for owners of 65 years of age or older [1].  The very taxation of general homeowners for something they have already paid for, though, treats their ownership as if it is something that should never be permanent or secure even when someone has committed no wrong that merits compensation that cannot be given without selling property.

A house, like a chair or a car, morally or legally (the two are not synonymous though they could overlap) either belongs to the personal property owner in an ultimate sense or it does not.  American law treats homes as if no amount of mortgage payment really entitles the buyer to what they have exchanged their wealth for.  Taxation itself can be hypothetically legitimate when it is used to fund public necessities or voluntarily desired conveniences that anyone who partakes in would need to contribute to in order for there to be some kind of fairness.  Without exceeding the required amount for a given project/service (which could always be adjusted later if the taxes are insufficient), taxes could be extracted from other sources that do not erode the stability of owning a place to live after paying for it.  The very attachment of the property tax to a home makes it so that "owning" a house is like continually renting a movie.  You might have paid enormous, hard-earned amounts for it, but it is regarded as if it is on loan from the IRS.

As contrary to the nature of personal property as this tax is, one might as well take advantage of any legacy offered exemptions.  No matter how arbitrary the exemptions or how many are permitted by various states, they offer some respite from the often uncontrollable factors like rising property valuation that could help force an owner or family out of their own purchased residence.  Property tax is a form of legal theft that can be more insidious than other forms of taxation for this reason.  There is no basis for this of all taxes other than greed or stupidity, and it is against the basic security of a property owner's very place to sleep and accumulate their broader wealth.  If true ownership rights objectively exist, the property tax violates them thoroughly.  As pivotal a "belonging" as a home is, American law trivializes the nature of a home, the concept of actual ownership, the notion of property rights, and the effort that can go into buying a house.

[1].  A.  https://comptroller.texas.gov/taxes/property-tax/exemptions/#:~:text=Tax%20Code%20Section%2011.13(d,cannot%20be%20less%20than%20%243%2C000.

  B.  https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&opi=89978449&url=https://statutes.capitol.texas.gov/Docs/TX/pdf/TX.11.pdf&ved=2ahUKEwjj_brV0NWAAxXImWoFHZklBkgQFnoECBsQAQ&usg=AOvVaw00QjUdz09KWRreRCBYVkPK