Slaves To Philosophy

Some try in vain to "distinguish" philosophy from science or theology, as Stephen Hawking did in his book The Grand Design.  Here, he stupidly declared that philosophy is dead and that science has taken its place.  Philosophy is about the nature of reality, and scientific concepts and religions are by logical necessity, which is the true arbiter of all things, true or false, since they pertain to the nature of reality.  It is reason that governs all rather than God or the cosmos.  If anyone is not a rationalist, at best they are a passive fool neglecting what is self-evident and necessarily true, and at worst, they are an utter hypocrite.  Rationalism is inherently true since reason's falsity would still require its veracity.  Now, someone could reject reason without rejecting all forms of philosophy (as in, irrationalistic philosophy of one kind or another), but philosophy cannot be "rejected" without rejecting reason.

This irrational and therefore necessarily false philosophy is that philosophy is irrelevant or untrue, when there is no single philosophical concept to begin with (and thus some are true and some are false, independent of verifiability), and everything about reality, including every person's beliefs, is inherently philosophical in nature.  There is no exception for religions or scientific paradigms like those proposed by Hawking, as these are just philosophical ideas or systems with particular foundations or an emphasis on certain aspects of or ideas about reality.  All of them are true or false, possible or impossible, and verifiable or unverifiable in accordance with what is dictated by the necessary truths of logic, not customs, beliefs, or subjective preferences, emotional appeal, or persuasion.

We are one and all slaves to philosophy, and the very idea that this is not true contradicts itself, being a philosophical one.  It is just that being a slave to philosophy does not mean that the philosophy in question is true or even logically possible.  It also does not mean that this slavery is a state the person is aware of or intentionally celebrating.  Some go about their lives never beginning to intentionally comprehend logical necessity or anything more abstract than their immediate emotionalistic preference or lifestyle pragmatism.  Others might think themselves more in alignment with reality, as did Hawking by all appearances, despite holding to contradictions as the very core of their worldview.  Only logical necessity is true in itself, and thus only logical necessity could validly be the core of anyone's worldview--yet this transcends and undergirds any scientific or religious concept.

Only when someone refuses to submit to what is true independent of all other things (the laws of logic) would they ever even seriously entertain for more than a moment the idea that philosophy is wholly false or irrelevant to reality.  After all, it is reason's inherent truth, objective in every supreme sense, that makes contradictions impossible to begin with.  Everyone is a slave to philosophy of some kind.  Being a slave to rationalistic philosophy can only be brought about by choice since it involves the active, voluntary, thorough rejection of assumptions and a clinging to logical axioms.  Of course, then someone would not dare think that anything but reason could be the heart of reality and what all else depends upon.  As simple as it is, since there could be nothing more foundational than what cannot be false because then it would still be true, rationalism is too abstract for the petty minds of the masses to naturally seek out.

Logic, people.  It is very fucking helpful, and it is true in itself whether you like it or not.

Hardware And Software

Examples of hardware as contrasted with software include an iPhone as opposed to iOS (an operating system that spans Apple products like phones, tablets, and laptops) or a Chromebook as opposed to Google Chrome (an Internet browser).  A smartphone or laptop is a physical and tangible object; pressing a touchscreen or a keyboard is still not the same as physically touching software itself, only a screen that displays software or a button that controls it.  The hardware is the means of accessing the software, and if the hardware runs out of battery or is removed from a power source respectively, the software stops running.  Thing A is still metaphysically distinct from thing B.

The very concept of software is not that of a physical item, and there are additional differences that perhaps would help the less abstract thinkers of the masses, and thus the more prone to neglect or misunderstand logical necessity, start to grasp this.  Software can be updated wirelessly through an Internet/cellular service connection, but the hardware does not change.  This objective conceptual distinction, which is still true because of and knowable because of reason as opposed to sensory experience, can be brushed up against in the modern world's daily life quite easily.  No matter how many times I update my Nintendo Switch or phone, the device is the same; the software running on it has been altered, and that change has occurred even without a physical connection linking my hardware to other hardware.

We have very strong evidence, though evidence can be very misleading and thus no assumptions are ever logically justified, that software is created and sustained by hardware.  This could be analogous to the ontological relationship between mind and body for composite creatures like myself.  Perhaps the body, and especially the nervous system, generates consciousness, as would seem to be the case from sensory evidence: bodies that are biologically dead no longer show any evidential signs of a conscious presence, and the lack of evidence for pre-womb conscious existence makes it seem like humans become conscious during bodily development.  The mind is either way immaterial, distinct from the body in "substance".

A thought is by logical necessity not conceptually the same as a neuron.  Mental states cannot be tangibly grasped; staring at a living brain is not the same as gazing into a being's actual thoughts.  It is logically possible for consciousness to exist entirely independent of a physical form, which could not be true if the two were identical or if the mind was just one part of the body.  There would be no difference between a living person and a fresh corpse if consciousness was not immaterial--the body is the same other body!  Also, hallucinating the perception of stimuli that are not physically present is only logically possible, again, if mind is immaterial, as is demonstrably the case whether someone likes it or not.

The parallels between software/hardware and mind/body are very distinct even apart from the seeming casual relationship.  One thing which is immaterial has a presence inside another thing which is comprised of physical substance.  With software and hardware, emergent naturalism appears to be the case as might also very well be true of the human mind and body: this entails an immaterial existent ironically being brought into being by something material.  As paradoxical as this is, it is not logically impossible because it does not contradict anything that cannot be false (logical axioms).  Some immaterial things must exist without dependence on matter one way or another, like the necessary truths of logic, the metaphysical space that holds matter, and the uncaused cause.

Matter could not exist if this was not consistent with the inherent truths of logical axioms, if there was no space to hold it, and if the uncaused cause never acted or if there was no uncaused cause to start the causal chain.  As unprovable as it is, with software and human minds, a very different metaphysical relationship would exist, with physical substance being the seeming cause of select immaterial existents like human and general animal consciousness and software.  In these cases, the nonphysical existent would depend on matter rather than matter depending on it as is true by necessity with the aforementioned examples of logic, space, and the uncaused cause.  The analogous nature of software and embodied consciousness is still correct irrespective of whether emergent naturalism is true in these particular cases.

Desperate Workers

Desperation can be powerful indeed.  It could make irrationality seem alluring to people, though they are solely at fault of they succumb to irrationality.  A desperate person might have to devote so much energy, focus, and time, even if they are perfectly rational, to trying to address the source of their plight that they have to stay in subpar circumstances.  In the contemporary American workplace, desperation is the norm: why else would anyone need to work for trivial compensation if they were not in economic crisis or trying to stave it off?  Why would or should anyone want work for almost invariably low pay in the face of inflation, irrational company leaders, and the perpetuating cycle of the workweek unless they truly needed to?

Desperate workers will as a whole, since most of them are irrationalists anyway, be easier for abusive employers or managers to control, since they might knowingly submit to asinine policies or blatant oppression because of financial need.  If they do not work, they will not just forfeit the acquisition of more luxuries that make life more bearable on the level of everyday experiences.  They will risk homelessness, starvation, and lack of access to water and medical care.  In America, since homelessness can easily land someone in incarceration, not even this is a safe escape from the utter drudgery and stupidity of the general workplace.  Even so, homelessness brings incredible vulnerability, so it is not just the threat of incarceration that is relevant here.

Low compensation, harmful working conditions, uncaring or outright antagonistic employers, and the like all contribute to the desperation of workers unfortunate enough to be caught by chance in the trap of poverty or at least financial stagnation.  They work to earn money to spend it on necessities, spend it on non-necessities that are still personally important for providing relief (not that there are not plenty of these purchases that workers would be stupid to make, such as those fueling substance addictions), or saving their income to prepare for a more stable life.  Whenever the job that is supposed to deliver them makes their lives miserable, especially when it actually hinders economic progress, it is a major part of their woes.

An employer who realizes this might intentionally lean on this fact if they are irrationalistic egoists.  As long as the status quo still benefits them, they are willing to engage in or overlook all sorts of employee exploitation.  After all, when workers have or feel like they have no other strong options but to endure the nonsense, they could stay far longer with awful jobs or companies, where they are treated like subhuman creatures only existing as a means to the end of someone with power.  Even if some workers were to remain in poverty because of irrational decisions, a collective workforce with a comfortable life and savings--which would not come about in America without the absence of longstanding exploitation norms--would not have as much of a need to take almost any job at all just to survive.

No Immediate Afterlife

There is no afterlife for those who have just died according to the Bible itself--not yet.  Literal unconsciousness awaits the righteous and wicked together in Sheol, it says, a complete absence of perception being the state of the mind before resurrection if it even still exists (Ecclesiastes 9:5-10, Job 3:11-19, Psalm 88:10-12).  The body decays in or on the ground or with the waters of the planet, the mind as lifeless as the body.  There is no immediate arrival in heaven or hell, and certainly not an arrival of the spirit independent of the mind-body unity.  The Biblical afterlife is a very physical place and not just a realm of necessary truths consciousness, and empty space (see the description of New Jerusalem in Revelation 21, for instance).

In truth, the afterlife for the human dead comes long after most of humanity has died, unless a spirit is temporarily revived before its resurrection as was the case with the prophet Samuel in 2 Samuel 28 and Moses in Matthew 17.  Aside from the multiple passages that blatantly teach the lack of experience in Sheol, such as the explicitly direct Ecclesiastes 9:5-10, there are passages that are more subtle but still literally would describe a sleep of the soul before resurrection (like Daniel 12:2).  Aside from even these, there are passages that could only be accurate if unconsciousness until resurrection is the case.

In John 14:1-4, for example, when Jesus says he will return so that his followers will be with him, what he says outright contradicts the notion that all the saved are with him before his return and before their simultaneous resurrection (1 Thessalonians 4:13-18 combined with Revelation 19:11-13 and John 1:1-14 clarifies that these events happen at the same time).  He says his return occurs before Christians are reunited with him.  They cannot, if this is true, go to heaven before their bodily resurrections and be in his presence prior to his return as many believe!

Again, there is no immediate Biblical afterlife (outside the type of exceptions mentioned above).  There is none until the joint awakening of the soul and body potentially millennia or millions of years after one's death according to true Biblical teachings.  The Biblical Sheol would look like no afterlife at all if a person somehow experienced the truest blankness of a total lack of experience, and they could only do this in a partial way because they would have to experience total unconsciousness, an impossibility.  At most, someone could experience a lack of many different aspects of ordinary human consciousness, but they would have no perceptions of even their lack of perceptions if they truly were not conscious.  Even a dream logically requires active consciousness.

As far as conscious awareness is concerned, Sheol is indeed no afterlife at all.  There is no perception, not even the knowledge of self-evident logical axioms or one's own mind and its thoughts, in Sheol.  Just because there is not an afterlife right after death, though, does not mean there never will or could be one, and even billions of years would seem like only a moment at most to a soul that ceases terrestrial life and is resurrected in the future with no experience in between.  A person could in this regard, as far as the experience right before death and after resurrection might make it seem to an assumption-ensnared mind, appear right before God after dying.

When Emotionalists Think They Are The Exception

Observe what many people say or do, and disparities will almost always arise unless they are among the few true rationalists one might encounter.  One way or another, emotional motivations drive them, and they must either ignore truth or think themselves in the right to continue living in this manner.  Whatever the manifest, so many people do this.  Emotionalism is almost never something people need to be pressured into by society.  A culture of non-rationalists is comprised of many individuals who do this already.

An irony other than people thinking or acting as if emotionalism is rational/valid at all is when they object to the emotionalism of others while treating their own as different.  That other person might be stupid for reacting selfishly, hypocritically, or based on assumptions and blaming it on their childhood or stress or something else, but not me, they might believe.  Whatever trials they experienced in the past or are experiencing in the present, the only moment in which we ever actually suffer, they think they have an excuse to believe or act as they wish because it makes their lives more bearable.

Indeed, the exact same fallacies or behaviors that they themselves commit might be repulsive to them in other people, and they might still think they are the exceptions.  Their emotionalism is allegedly justified because they experience whatever peace, security, or relief they only derive from illusions.  It is not anyone else who emotionally benefits from delusion.  It is they themselves, so they are content with their errors.  This is a major basis for their stupidity and hypocrisy.

Someone else's greed or disloyalty or disregard for anything more than their own arbitrary whims can still offend them.  They are like the hypocrites Paul talks of in Romans 2, people who condemn themselves even as they inconsistently judge others (2:1-3).  Theft or adultery are the examples Paul later uses (2:21-23), yet there are far more than this.  Inconsistency of belief (though belief is only valid anyway if it is consistent with reason and actually true) and inconsistency of action and belief are all hypocrisy no matter how personally desperate someone is.

Such emotionalists or broader irrationalists think that it is their situation, their feelings, and their outcome that reality hinges on.  If not, they actively, persistently do that which is hypocritical regardless, which requires what is in some ways a deeper level of delusion.  In no case are they rational or righteous.  At business, in friendship, and beyond, they are slaves to the sheer, asinine laziness of thinking that whatever is easy or seemingly beneficial for them must be the correct belief or course of action.

Gender Equality In The Torah's Skin Disease Laws

Gender egalitarianism is not something foreign to the philosophy of the Bible.  Just as I have done with numerous other issues in separate posts, here I will focus on Biblical gender equality in a very particular category: the skin disease laws of the Torah, found largely in Leviticus.  Unlike the punishments for miscellaneous criminal sins, which would be tied to the moral nature of the sins they are connected with and in turn to God's unchanging moral nature (Malachi 3:6, James 1:17; cultural relativism is logically possible either way, since contradictory punishments cannot all be just at once), these defiling skin disease obligations could be limited in their binding nature.  Aside from the subject of whether they would be obligatory if there was still a Levitical priesthood or if it was to resume, one cannot be obligated to do that which one cannot carry out, so if there are no priests to consult, at least that much is objectively not sinful in such scenarios.  Now, men and women could also not have rights or obligations pertaining only to their gender wherever they could be the victim or doer of some act, whether good or evil in the case of the latter.

The Torah does draw blatant attention to this over and over in specific ways--and at least in Old Testament Israel, which even evangelical antinomian relativists often still acknowledge, not following the commands regarding skin diseases was sinful.  Leviticus 13:29-39 puts forth one of these cases that has to do with disease and the affiliated isolation, shaving, and examination.  Because Leviticus 13:29-39 is a very long passage, though there is no deviation from an emphasis on both men and women between verse 29 and 38, I have presented the key portions in isolation below.  Numbers 5 also touches upon these laws without providing details beyond the overarching means of dealing with skin diseases and general uncleanness by quarantining both men and women.

Leviticus 13:29-31--"'If a man or woman has a sore on their head or chin, the priest is to examine the sore, and if it appears to be more than skin deep and the hair in it is yellow and thin, the priest shall pronounce them unclean; it is a defiling skin disease on the head or the chin.  But if, when the priest examines the sore, it does not seem to be more than skin deep and there is no black hair in it, then the priest is to isolate the affected person for for seven days . . . '"

Leviticus 13:38-39--"'When a man or woman has white spots on the skin, the priest is to examine them, and if the spots are dull white, it is a harmless rash that has broken out on the skin; they are clean.'"

Numbers 5:1-4--"The Lord said to Moses, 'Command the Israelites to send away from the camp anyone who has a defiling skin disease or a discharge of any kind, or who is ceremonially unclean because of a dead body.  Send away male and female alike; send them outside the camp so they will not defile their camp, where I dwell among them.'  The Israelites did so; they sent them outside the camp.  They did just as the Lord had instructed Moses."

In Numbers, there is also a narrative where Yahweh gives Miriam leprosy (Numbers 12:10-12) for a particular sin of hers that Aaron also shares in.  The two speak unjustly against Moses because of his Cushite wife (12:1-2) and act in defiance of the special role God has assigned Moses (12:4-8) in communicating moral obligations and uncleanness rites to the collective Israelites.  When Moses pleads with God to heal her (12:13), Yahweh says to isolate her from the rest of the camp for seven days.  She receives no greater freedom and no greater isolation than a male person who suffered the same condition.

Numbers 12:10-11, 14-15--"When the cloud lifted from above the tent, Miriam's skin was leprous--it became white as snow.  Aaron turned toward her and saw that she had a defiling skin disease, and he said to Moses, 'Please, my lord, I ask you not to hold against us the sin we have so foolishly committed . . . The Lord replied to Moses, 'If her father had spit in her face, would she not have been in disgrace for seven days?  Confine her outside the camp for seven days; after that she can be brought back.'  So Miriam was confined outside the camp for seven days, and the people did not move on till she was brought back."

Being a prophetess (Exodus 15:20) did not spare Miriam from divine punishment of leprosy or a similar skin condition, one that Aaron laments makes her look like a baby whose flesh is dead, nor did God say to treat her any differently than anyone else with such a condition.  He commands her to go outside the camp, which waits for her a full seven days before she rejoins them in their migration.  Aaron's own exemption from this fate, which is temporary in Miriam's case, is not because of misogyny on the part of Yahweh or Moses or Judeo-Christian philosophy.  He acknowledges his own sin as no different than Miriam's since they committed the same offense (which is perfectly rational), but as the high priest, a defiling skin condition on his body would render Israel without a high priest for a time--that figure was not to ever make himself unclean, not even for his father or mother (Leviticus 21:10-12), with uncleanness encompassing defiling skin diseases as Leviticus 13 and Numbers 5 affirm.

Also, Aaron was to approach the curtain shielding the ark of the covenant and tend special lamps (Leviticus 24:1-4) and offer food before God (24:5-9), yet Leviticus 22:16-23 forbids a priest from approaching the curtain and offering the food if he has any physical defect, though he may still eat of the food.  Furthermore, anyone with a defiling skin disease was to go before Aaron or one of his sons (Leviticus 13:1-3), so Miriam would depend on Aaron, who was still living, to examine her.  It is not as if sexism against women is the only possible reason why he does not receive leprosy as well, and other parts of the Torah address why the two were in one very specific sense treated divergently by Yahweh.  Regardless, the fact that Miriam is made to follow the prescriptions concerning defiling skin conditions exemplifies in narrative form, with Numbers 12 clearly indicating that God is behind these events and the command to isolate her, that women were not given any special treatment in matters of disease, quarantine, and divine judgment.  God does not, contrary to some versions of complementarian theology, hold men to a stricter moral standard or punish them more severely for the same offenses, which would be irrational and unjust, yet misandrist instead of misogynistic.

Deuteronomy also references the incident with Miriam and reiterates that no one is to disregard the skin disease laws, which are to be enforced as God commands, not Moses or the priests, who must be in alignment with what God revealed to be in the right.  The text calls attention to Miriam in a way that again requires there to be no differential treatment of men and women:

Deuteronomy 24:8-9--"In cases of defiling skin diseases, be very careful to do exactly as the Levitical priests instruct you.  You must follow carefully what I have commanded them.  Remember what the Lord your God did to Miriam along the way after you came out of Egypt."

As with many other matters, like violence (Exodus 21:15, 20-21, 26-32, and more), parents and parenting (Exodus 20:12, 21:17, Leviticus 19:3, and so on), nudity and clothing (Genesis 2:24, Deuteronomy 22:5), labor and rest (Exodus 20:8-11, Deuteronomy 5:12-15, 15:12-17, and many more), religious commitment (Numbers 6:21, Deuteronomy 13:6-10, etc.), sexual morality (Leviticus 20:15-16, Deuteronomy 23:17-18, and so on), corporal punishment (Exodus 21:20-21), and other criminal justice (Leviticus 20:15-16, 27, Numbers 5:5-7, Deuteronomy 17:2-5, and so on), the Torah teaches strict gender equality with its defiling skin disease laws.  Both men and women have skin, whereas their genitalia and certain other anatomical and physiological matters differ.  No discriminatory advantage or disadvantage, accordingly, is prescribed for men and women in issues of skin diseases both can share.

Game Review--Destroy All Humans! (Switch)

"Attention, Earth Creatures: this planet is now part of the Furon Empire.  Your benevolent masters welcome you."

--Crypto-137, Destroy All Humans!

Frivolous by design but incredibly effective with its relentless satire of American Cold War patriotism and the misrepresentations of communism that persist to the present day, Destroy All Humans! tells of the Furon invasion of Earth.  The Switch game is a remake of the 2005 original that debuted on Nintendo's hybrid console in 2021, a year after the remake came to the PS4 and Xbox One.  A mixture of old and new, this remake handles some elements very well, like its scathing mockery of certain philosophies connected with American conservatism, and at the same time frolics within a very limited gameplay scope.  Switch players can rightfully expect lesser graphical quality than on the other systems the remake was released for, but otherwise receive the same core updates.

Because Crypto and other Furons are said to lack genitalia and only persist as a species though cloning, I refer to Crypto-137 as it, rather than he.

Production Values

The imperialistic, fallaciously minded yet pragmatically competent alien Crypto-137 gets a lot of time onscreen with its black eyes and pointed teeth, and thankfully its animation is strong enough to not too severely under-represent the Switch's capabilities.  This game boasts no first-party visuals, but the Switch tends to have middling graphics in cross-platform releases than its aesthetically strongest games showcase.  A host of skins provides variety in Crypto's appearance at least.  Among the game's skins is one called Dollarsmart, a clown-based appearance seemingly named after Pennywise, the eldritch extraterrestrial entity from Stephen King's It.  Yet another is inspired by the protagonist Death from the game Darksiders II [1], also from THQ Nordic.  These skins drastically change Crypto's appearance, which is seen up close in many cutscenes.  The unfortunate thing is that Crypto looks so much more visually developed than almost anything else in the game, save perhaps its Furon commander and flying saucer in all of its destructive glory.  Human character models are often very blandly presented when it comes to facial animation.  The environments neither look spectacular nor like the worst seen on the platform.  Aside from Crypto and a handful of other in-game models, it is the appropriately over-the-top voice acting and excellently-realized tone and themes of the game that truly rise to greatness among the production values.

Gameplay

The mechanics start out very limited, and upon replaying missions, Crypto's abilities will be upgraded to whatever point the player has reached, but he will not have access to any item first obtained in the level until he initially received it.  The alien invader still quickly expands its navigational and combat options from level to level.  Upon completing a mission or fulfilling secondary objectives, DNA, the currency of the game, is awarded along with any related ability or upgrade unlocks.  Mind reading and brain stem retrieval--which can be carried out telekenetically on living humans until their heads come off--are early examples of actions Crypto can perform.  Its starting electricity-based weapon is later joined with a handful of others, like one that burns people into skeletons that cannot have their brain stems harvested.  Yes, people shocked to death can still have their DNA extracted!  Killing humans and traversing the world become easier, though.

Eventually, for instance, Crypto can become powerful enough to dash and subsequently hover right over the surface of the ground indefinitely using a propulsion system other than its jetpack, or it can stay holographically cloaked for longer.  Some of these abilities are best suited to mandatory usage in the campaign levels, such as impersonating the appearance of scientists and soldiers; others are almost totally unnecessary or even out of place in free roam mode.  There is just not much of a need to holographically imitate a random civilian when the main benefit of playing outside the story missions is the freedom to wreak utter devastation at whim, stealth be damned, throughout each broad region of the game.

As for this somewhat open world element, you cannot immediately access each challenge within a region's free roam mode, but when they unlock, you have the opportunity to engage in what is basically repeatable, timed minigames.  With one challenge type, you abduct as many cows or people as possible within a time limit by throwing them into the saucer's tractor beam.  In another called Armageddon, you try to destroy as many structures and vehicles as you can to cross various economic loss thresholds for human communities, all from the heightened safety of the saucer.  Alternatively, the player can simply walk around, hover with the jetpack, or pilot the saucer and kill people at will outside of all challenges.

Story

Mild spoilers are below.

An alien's flying saucer crash lands in front of a US military test, and a clone from is sent to retrieve Furon DNA from within the human genome tracing back to long ago.  A series of government cover-ups and associated public hysteria break out as Crypto-137 visits different locations in America, infiltrates its army, and learns of a "White House".

Intellectual Content

Early on, Destroy All Humans! toys with the idea that the Furons are more intelligent than humans because they are more technologically advanced, despite this idea being fallacious and false by logical necessity.  A similar idea is handled more seriously but still invalidly by characters in other science fiction media like Prometheus.  Intelligence is nothing but rationality, and rationality is nothing but an individual being's grasp of the necessary truths of logic.  There is nothing intelligent about an alien whatsoever for by happenstance being born into a more scientifically advanced species.  Indeed, scientists of any hypothetical species might ignore or never think about logical axioms and other necessary truths in any capacity and instead assume the existence and centrality of the external world, for instance, while still legitimately progressing the technological state of society.  They would have at best passively or actively enslaved themselves to assumptions and wholly neglected that which cannot be false.  Thus, they could only be stupid.  Crypto does not acknowledge any of this and assumes things like that the cows he first lands by must be the dominant life on Earth.  What a non sequitur!  As my wife commented on, he also seems to just assume that the cows must have multiple stomachs due to their bovoid appearance, extrapolating from what might be other life forms from his own home planet.

This notion of intelligence becomes more of a background theme as the game progressively becomes overtly satirical with handling scares over communism alongside American patriotism, something commonly held to out of sheer emotionalistic nationalism.  Whether in the story cutscenes or in chance exclamations (including internal ones) during gameplay, characters blame communism for practically any destructive event tied to Crypto or even call Crypto a "midget commie" to his face.  One scientist testing a mind control technology (which at most could only indirectly control the mind by manipulating correlated neural events in the brain) celebrates that the test subjects became rabidly opposed to anything "different" from them and overwhelmingly became registered Republicans!  Today's Republicans do sound practically the same in a sense, confusing socialism for communism and sometimes confusing any economic, moral, or broader philosophy that is not entirely consistent with the American status quo for communism as well.

Communism is not even Stalinist despite Soviet Russian ideology and practice being the basis for hatred of communism.  Soviet communism is like politically conservative Christianity, i.e., a contradiction that misrepresents a separate concept.  Having a forceful ruling elite at the top of a rigid hierarchy is antithetical to actual communism, which entails a classless society with communal property ownership and distribution according to genuine need.  This is in fact neither condemned by the Bible so many anti-communists treat as inherently opposed to communism and was practiced to an extent by the early church in the book of Acts, as mentioned in chapters 2 and 4.  Really, many who assume the falsity of communism do so because they have already assumed the truth of American capitalism.  The final boss of the game is less stupid than this (though she is misandrist), asking Crypto if it thinks America is the only country in the world.  He retorts that the people whose minds he scanned seemed to think so.

Conclusion

Slaughtering irrational people as an also delusional extraterrestrial, listening to them blame communism for your rampages before they flee or die, and upgrading an expanding arsenal makes for a wonderful parody of science fiction and American norms from the 1900s onward.  If only there was more diversity within the actual mechanics of the game, Destroy All Humans! could have reached other levels of greatness.  As it stands, the remake is a resurrection of older, comparatively restrictive gaming conventions with a more modern visual presentation--you just won't fully benefit from this on the Switch, though you cannot have portability with the other consoles.

Content:

 1.  Violence:  More than the scorching of humans on the ground with a flying saucer laser and other such things, the explosion of green blood when Crypto harvests the DNA from people's heads is the most violent part of the game.

 2.  Profanity:  "Bastard" is sometimes heard.

 3.  Sexuality:  Male and female characters, if you read their minds, occasionally make sexual comments about which member of the opposite gender they are most attracted to.

[1].  https://thechristianrationalist.blogspot.com/2021/12/game-review-darksiders-ii-deathinitive.html

Stoning For Murder (And Other Sins)

As long as the execution method is not any more severe than Biblical stoning and burning, so that the man or woman is intentionally made to suffer through something like unjust corporal punishment or flaying or starvation on a cross or some other such pagan injustice (Deuteronomy 25:1-3; Exodus 21:20 is also relevant to how corporal punishment should never be used to as the means of killing someone), it is not as important that the method is stoning as it is that the capital sinner is executed.  All the same, the Bible does mention specific methods of execution, despite many of its capital punishment commands saying nothing beyond that the offender simply must be put to death (as in Exodus 21:12-17 and Leviticus 20:9-13).  One might hear people casually say that the Israelites kill murderers by stoning, but does the Bible teach this?

They probably are just repeating hearsay they assumed to be true, and if they were to read the Bible without making assumptions, they would find that it never actually says to stone people for, say, murder.  Very often it leaves the means of death completely unaddressed.  However, it does teach this, albeit not by its explicit wording.  Mosaic Law does clarify enough at times to establish things from which it follows logically that the just punishment for murder, like for many other capital sins, is stoning in particular.  Here are two passages that, while not addressing general murder, respectively deal with something very much adjacent to it or with a narrow type of what is murder (immoral killing) on Biblical philosophy:

Exodus 21:28-29--"'If a bull gores a man or woman to death, the bull is to be stoned to death, and its meat must not be eaten.  But the owner of the bull will not be held responsible.  If, however, the bull has had the habit of goring and the owner has been warned but has not kept it penned up and it kills a man or woman, the bull is to be stoned to death, and its owner also is to be put to death.'"

Leviticus 20:1-2--"The Lord said to Moses, 'Say to the Israelites: "Any Israelite or any foreigner residing in Israel who sacrifices any of his children to Molek is to be put to death.  The members of the community are to stone him."'"

If the bull that kills a human (Exodus 21:28-32) is to be stoned to death, and if the owner had warning from others or had personally observed it attacking someone non-lethally yet did not confine it, the animal's owner should also be put to death.  The fact that stoning is prescribed for the bull that kills a person and the negligent owner is to share in its fate would require that stoning, unless otherwise specified, is what the person also deserves.  The Bible says nothing to illuminate an alternate means of execution, and so stoning would be the default for those who negligently allow a man or woman to die, with malicious, direct murder being the same broad category of sin, but worse.

Leviticus 20:1-5, though, does pertain to intentionally killing someone, and it makes it as clear as language can that stoning is justice here.  No sons or daughters were to be killed as part of religious worship (Deuteronomy 12:29-31, 18:9-13).  In fact, no person is permitted to kill a human (Exodus 20:13) outside of criminal justice as dictated by God (Exodus 22:18-20, for instance) or in a way that follows by logical necessity from what is prescribed (such as how if the negligent owner of a bovine that kills someone must die, this must be true of other animal owners), or in self-defense (Exodus 22:2-3), or certain cases of warfare, such as battles conducted for the sake of justice or the defense of a community from an unjust power.  The murderous sacrifice of children in the name of Molech/Molek or some other deity deserves stoning and thus by extension so would broader murder.

It is plain, also, that stoning is the commonly specified execution method, when it is indeed specified.  A sample of the verses that call for stoning in other cases is below:

Leviticus 20:27--"'"A man or woman who is a medium or spiritist among you must be put to death.  You are to stone them; their blood will be on their own heads."'"

Deuteronomy 17:2-5--"If a man or woman living among you in one of the town the Lord gives you is found doing evil in the eyes of the Lord your God in violation of his covenant, and contrary to my command has worshipped other gods, bowing down to them or to the sun or the moon or the stars in the sky, and this has been brought to your attention, then you must investigate it thoroughly.  If it is true and it has been proved that this detestable thing has been done in Israel, take the man or woman who has done this evil deed to your city gate and stone that person to death."

Deuteronomy 21:18-21--"If someone has a stubborn and rebellious son who does not obey his father and mother and will not listen to them when they discipline him, his father and mother shall take hold of him and bring him to the elders at the gate of his town.  They shall say to the elders, 'This son of ours is stubborn and rebellious.  He will not obey us.  He is a glutton and a drunkard.'  Then all the men of his town are to stone him to death.  You must purge the evil from among you . . ."

Deuteronomy 21:18-21 prescribes stoning for a very particular kind of disobedience to one's parents--where the child is actively stupid or sinful, the parents have corrected them, and they still persist in their delusional egoism.  This is not about children unwilling to submit to a parent's arbitrary, non-obligatory whims (Deuteronomy 4:2, 12:32), which could not possibly deserve to be submitted to.  It follows from this, the just punishment being stoning for this exact offense against one's parents on the Christian worldview (not the evangelical/antinomian heresy which contains numerous logical contradictions and Biblical errors), that physically attacking (Exodus 21:15) and verbally cursing (Exodus 21:17, Leviticus 20:9) one's father or mother also deserve stoning, despite how Exodus and Leviticus only say to put such a person to death.

Only marrying someone and their parent at once (Leviticus 20:14) and prostitution (Leviticus 21:9) are prescribed death by burning; to clarify, Leviticus 21:9 might specifically speak of a Levitical priest's daughter deserving burning for prostitution, but men and women are equal (Genesis 1:26-27, 5:1-2), and offenses against them (Exodus 21:15, 17, 20-21, 26-32, and so on) or by them (Leviticus 20:15-16, Numbers 5:5-8, Deuteronomy 13:6-10, and so on) are thus equally severe.  Both genders have the same rights and obligations as humans (Exodus 20:12, Leviticus 13:29-39, Numbers 6:1-21, Deuteronomy 512-15, 15:12-17, and so on, including many aforementioned verses).  Deuteronomy 23:17-18 explicitly emphasizes how a male and female prostitute are equally guilty, in accordance with what logic necessitates if prostitution is immoral, and logic is true independent of all other things, Christianity included.  Leviticus does not say that a priest's son or anyone who is not a priest's child should not receive the same punishment for the same act, and, indeed, Deuteronomy 23 and other parts of the Bible would contradict this, and more importantly the necessary truths of logic themselves.

However, going back to Biblical execution methods as a whole and not their obvious (in light of reason and literal Biblical statements) gender egalitarian application, stoning is certainly the norm.  Not only is stoning the general defaut method of execution, but two particular capital sins, of of which is a subcategory of murder, are assigned stoning.  Likewise, the inverse is true: although the Torah never directly says that the execution method for all murder must be stoning and instead prescribes it for a subcategory of murder and a sin adjacent to unlawful killing, it also plainly mentions stoning as the regular punishment.  A great many sins do not deserve execution (Exodus 21:18-19, 22, 26-27, 22:1, 4, Leviticus 6:1-5, and so on), yes.  The sins that do deserve death do not deserve anything more prolonged than stoning, which could easily render someone unconscious and thus unable to experience the remaining blows.  This is nowhere near as torturous as even an extended or life sentence in prison, and that is without the physical and sexual abuse that can occur or even be encouraged by emotionalists and hypocrites in this context.

As harsh as it might seem, it would be apparent to any rationalistic person that the typical modern style of punishment (in America, at least) is in no way less severe, not that lesser severity would automatically make it justice, than the system of restitution, flogging, and capital punishment articulated in Mosaic Law--a system that is universally just and therefore required if Christianity is true (Matthew 5:17-19, 1 Timothy 1:8-11, Hebrews 2:2, and more).  Stoning is the Biblical default form of execution, which is for men and women and for foreigners and the native-born (Leviticus 24:10-16, 22, and so on), to be initiated by those who witnessed the capital sin (Deuteronomy 13:6-8, 17:6-7).  It is not to be paired with corporal punishment like flogging, nor is it to be conjoined with any forms of secondary punishment or humiliation, which in exceeding what is prescribed as justice would by necessity be unjust, and would also contradict the obligation to not degrade people even when punishing them in accordance with God's commands (Deuteronomy 25:3).  Stoning is ultimately the almost-exclusive form of Biblical capital punishment, which only very specific sins deserve and which could not become unjust or optional simply because of the death of Christ.

The Abuse And Neglect Of Adultery: Exodus 21 And Divorce

Acts like withholding clothing and food, specific cases of neglect, make divorce a morally legitimate option according to the Bible (Exodus 21:9-11, Deuteronomy 24:1-4).  The reason why withholding clothing and food would be worthy of divorce (comfort and survival being predominant factors) would also apply to withholding water, for instance, and then there are other things like withholding sex that can be weaponized for further emotional abuse against a victimized wife or husband (Paul also specifically addresses how abstaining from sex in marriage can be a thing of mutual consent in non-neglectful circumstances in 1 Corinthians 7:2-5).  It is asinine to not only ignore how the Bible plainly allows divorce for neglect and abuse, including emotional abuse, which is clearly intertwined with many kinds of neglect, but also to think that adultery is an entirely separate category of sin that alone merits divorce (as misunderstandings of Matthew 19:9 entail).

Adultery can be a type of abuse and neglect.  I say can be because it is not abusive to anyone involved in itself, nor is it inherently neglectful in the way some might think.  Aside from moral and other explicitly philosophical reasons, there is absolutely no reason to oppose one's spouse having sex with other people, as the only other basis for this is emotion and emotion is irrelevant to reason and obligation.  Moreover, it is possible for someone to openly commit adultery and still have a thriving relationship with their husband or wife, as not everyone shares the same preferences or is a slave to emotionalism, and thus the only reason to care about adultery at all is far beyond petty personal feelings.  This does not make adultery morally permissible or mean it is not a capital sin (Deuteronomy 22:22), but it is logically blatant to any willing person that adultery is not inherently cruel or selfish in the way that trying to starve a spouse, sexually assault them, or isolate them from quality friendships is.

These things are cruel or oppressive even if morality does not exist.  Adultery, on the utter contrary, is not.  However, a spouse who deceptively disregards a pledge of monogamy (and Biblical morality does not require monogamy for either men or women, no matter how stupid most Christians are on this) and seeks out extramarital sex to hurt their spouse is distinctively neglecting their obligations to the relationship, engaging in emotional abuse, and pursuing irrationalistic self-centeredness.  Biblically, yes, adultery is evil and deserving of execution even if these malicious motives are not present, and short of capital punishment, divorce is a way for the betrayed spouse to be free according to Jesus in Matthew 19.  Even so, adultery can itself be an instance of abuse and neglect, so it is not even wholly separated from the other specific and implied reasons for divorce authorized by the Torah and Paul (1 Corinthians 7:15).

It is thus erroneous to believe that adultery could deserve divorce and that nothing else would ever justify it for similar or practically identical reasons.  The context and expression of abuse and neglect would differ from the exact examples of Exodus 21:9-11 to to a case of defiant, malicious adultery, yet at the heart of all of them is a refusal to love one's spouse by Biblical standards and treat them justly.  If it is not done out of sheer, knowing mercy or while trying to come up with a plan for financial independence, staying with an abusive or neglectful spouse just because they have not committed adultery is a very stupid thing to do.  It is not something demanded by the doctrines of Mosaic Law, the teachings of Jesus (which are in unison with Mosaic Law, as Matthew 5:17-19 directly states), or any other part of the Bible.  If anything, such a marriage will probably get worse rather than better, and if the offending spouse does not conform to reason and morality, they lose all right to a relationship with their husband or wife.

The Consistency Of Christ's Teachings And The Torah

The elaborations of Jesus in passages like Matthew 5 and Luke 6 are sometimes (very popularly in circles I'm familiar with) misunderstood as instances of him introducing a higher law and perhaps annulling God's revealed laws.  However, in Matthew 5:28, Christ is not condemning sexual attraction or any way of enjoying/expressing it not directly or by logical extension condemned by God (Deuteronomy 4:2), but he is condemning the intention to commit adultery and the sin of coveting someone else's spouse.  The former is immoral by logical necessity if the act of adultery is, because it could not be anything but sinful to hope or plan or be mentally willing to commit an evil.  The latter is condemned by the direct words of Mosaic Law (Exodus 20:17), so Jesus is in no way introducing anything "new" in this sense, though he is either way not teaching anything that does not already logically follow from the ideas of the Torah.

In other cases, like with what he says about divorce in Matthew 5:31-32 (and later in Matthew 19:1-9), he obviously seems to be speaking hyperbolically or in a purposefully inaccurate way to provoke serious reflection.  He has already literally said in Matthew 5:17 before all of this that he is not abolishing anything in Mosaic Law, which is a codification of the obligations universally rooted in God's nature regardless.  Mosaic Law directly and indirectly allows for divorce for any sin (Deuteronomy 21:10-14, 24:1-4), especially sins against one's husband or wife like neglect or physical abuse (Exodus 21:10-11, 26-27); also, divorcing for any sin at all is not condemned, nor does its immorality follow logically from anything else separate from the full scope of Deuteronomy 24:1-4.  Jesus in no way really opposes any of this.

There are many verses, though, where Jesus is not even being hyperbolic or articulating something that the tenets of Mosaic Law do not already necessitate.  See what Jesus claims about love and lending in Luke 6:

Luke 6:32-35--"'If you love those who love you, what credit is that to you?  Even sinners love those who love them.  And if you do good to those who are good to you, what credit is that to you?  Even sinners do that.  And if you lend to those from whom you expect repayment, what credit is that to you?  Even sinners lend to sinners, expecting to be repaid in full.  But love your enemies, do good to them, and lend to them without expecting to get anything back."

This sort of statement is often blatantly misinterpreted as showing Jesus correct deficiencies in Mosaic Law or alter the requirements of righteousness despite the Law being clearly ascribed to God (Exodus 21:1, Numbers 15:1, 17, 35, 37 and so on), who is said to be unchanging (Malachi 3:6).  First of all, apart from what does and does not logically follow from the concepts behind these individual statements even as literally presented, there is the extremely plain declaration of Jesus in Matthew 5:17 that he did not come to abolish anything in Yahweh's Torah laws.  Jesus thus anticipates that his occasional hyperbole or sometimes rather straightforward claims would be misunderstood in this way.  Second, love for one's enemies--or the resolution to treat them as morality requires even if one psychologically struggles with this--and freely lending without expecting repayment are very literally taught in the words of Exodus and Deuteronomy as follows:

Exodus 23:4-5--"'If you come across your enemy's ox or donkey wandering off, be sure to return it.  If you see the donkey of someone who hates you fallen down under its load, do not leave it there; be sure you help them with it.'"

Deuteronomy 15:7-8--"If anyone is poor among your fellow Israelites in any of the towns of the land the Lord your God is giving you, do not be hardhearted or tightfisted toward them.  Rather, be openhanded and freely lend them whatever they need."

The extended context of Deuteronomy 15:7-8 only reinforces that lending to the poor should not be contingent on the probability of eventual repayment, for every seven years, all debts within a country should be cancelled (Deuteronomy 15:3), and the following verse (15:9) outright says to not wickedly plan on not lending because the cancellation of debts is at hand.  Since logically and Biblically, no one is exempt from a moral obligation to another person because the former opposes/hates the latter or vice versa (as Exodus 23:4-5 emphasizes), lending is not to be restricted to only one's friends in good standing.  Everything Jesus touches on in Luke 6:32-35 is directly or by logical extension taught explicitly in Mosaic Law.

He is not calling for people to go above their obligations in order to truly be righteous, which is contradictory and thus logically impossible.  If something should be done (meaning it is obligatory), then going above and beyond could only be unnecessary.  Wherever the boundary is if there is such a thing as good and evil, no one could possibly need to do more than what is required to be morally good!  Loving one's enemies and lending to the poor without fixating on repayment, however, are requirements of the Torah's ethical philosophy.  You cannot rationally or righteously neglect someone's human rights just because someone dislikes or hates you or vice versa, and lending to the genuinely needy without concern for repayment is morally obligatory according to Deuteronomy's prescriptions.

Logic, people.  It is very fucking helpful.

The Laziness Double Standard In The Workplace

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

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

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

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

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

Pearls Before Swine

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

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

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

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

Philosophy And The Metric System

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

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

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

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

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

Hatred And Mercy

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

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

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

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

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

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

Nudity Before Marriage

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

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

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

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

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

The Ark Of The Covenant Captured

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

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

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

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

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

A Roach's Nervous System

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

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

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

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

On The Loss Of Salvation

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

A Consequence Of Mercy

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

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

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

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

The Elusion Of Retirement

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

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

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

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

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