Crying Out To God In Exploitation

Economic exploitation has a particularly far-reaching impact in that a person can more easily withstand or retreat from many kinds of oppression if only they have the wealth to do so.  More than once, the Bible invites those mistreated in adjacent ways to cry out to God in their suffering.  Other forms of oppression are absolutely not excluded, though the Torah does specifically use this phrasing when speaking of sins against someone's ability to survive comfortably in a material and economic sense, as well as about exploiting vulnerable people like widows.  If you have ever wanted to scream or weep due to someone oppressing you, there is always the option of turning to God as described here:

Exodus 22:22-24—"'Do not take advantage of the widow or the fatherless.  If you do and they cry out to me, I will certainly hear their cry.  My anger will be aroused, and I will kill you with the sword; your wives will become widows and your children fatherless.'"

Exodus 22:26-27—"'If you take your neighbor's cloak as a pledge, return it by sunset, because that cloak is the only covering your neighbor has.  What else can they sleep in?  When they cry out to me, I will hear, for I am compassionate.'"

Deuteronomy 24:14-15—"Do not take advantage of a hired worker who is poor and needy, whether that worker is a fellow Israelite or a foreigner residing in one of your towns.  Pay them their wages each day before sunset, because they are poor and are counting on it.  Otherwise they may cry to the Lord against you, and you will be guilty of sin."

It is not even wicked to cry out to God asking for, say, abusive employers to die for their oppression, though they might not have committed a capital sin like rape or murder (obviously, the murder would have had to be of someone else if you are still around to pray!)--given that they are not killed by murder, unjust torture, and so on.  Contrary to what many who call themselves Christians pretend, it logically cannot be the case that longing for people to receive exactly what they deserve is morally vile.  As for Biblical doctrine as opposed to strictly logical truth, Exodus 22:22-24 already teaches this on its own.  The real issue is what is deserved.  Since the unrepentantly irrational and immoral deserve to be extinguished from reality, it cannot be evil to celebrate their demise, either in biological death in this life or their eschatological second death, where they are purged from existence.  Death is what sin ultimately deserves and what awaits people in hell, as this selection from a multitude of relevant verses shows:

Deuteronomy 30:15-18—"'See, I set before you today life and prosperity, death and destruction.  For I command you today to love the Lord your God, to walk in obedience to him, and to keep his commands, decrees, and laws; then you will live and increase, and the Lord your God will bless you in the land you are entering to possess.  But if your heart turns away and you are not obedient, and if you are drawn away to bow down to other gods and worship them, I declare that you will certainly be destroyed.  You will not live long in the land you are crossing the Jordan to enter and possess.'"

Romans 6:23—"For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord."

Revelation 20:13-15—"The sea gave up the dead that were in it, and death and Hades gave up the dead that were in them, and each person was judged according to what they had done.  Then death and Hades were thrown into the lake of fire.  The lake of fire is the second death.  Anyone whose name was not found written in the book of life was thrown into the lake of fire."

Hence, if the killing of the unrepentant soul in the lake of fire is deserved, it would be illogical and unjust to be hostile to this fact.  Of course, eternal torture could never be justice due to the inherent disproportionality, so while relishing the thought of a sinner suffering forever is intrinsically irrational and extremely sinful (if morality exists!), actively hoping for their death and celebrating it when it arrives could not possibly be erroneous in itself.  Crying out to God against other persons is not only not condemned by Yahweh and thus not sinful on Judeo-Christianity, but it is expressly authorized in Exodus 22:22-24, 26-27, and Deuteronomy 24:14-15.  As shown, true, ultimate justice is the annihilation of the wicked, and thus crying out to God in eager anticipation of a fool's genuine end cannot be legitimately opposed.

Praying to God for the deaths of the general wicked and of particular individuals, including oppressive employers, is far from an evil thing on the Biblical worldview.  Exodus 22:22-24 goes as far as to say that God might very well kill offending individuals for trampling on widows and the fatherless, and if the divine reaction is justice, then, well, it is logically impossible for it to be Biblically unjust to clamor for the death of exploitative evildoers.  As explained, it is also logically true independent of the Bible's veracity that it cannot be evil to hope that whatever is truly just is inflicted upon those who deserve it.  The Bible is very specific about what sins deserve as human punishment in this life (in the Torah) and as divine punishment after the resurrection (in hell, Gehenna): the former includes capital punishment and the latter culminates in the supreme form of capital punishment (Matthew 10:28, 2 Peter 2:6), whereby someone is "exiled" from reality to phenomenological oblivion.  It is not evil to crave for this to be meted out.

Authentic Intimacy

Like affection and devotion, interpersonal intimacy does not have to be outwardly fierce or "loud" to be present.  It involves deep familiarity or closeness, which is not the same as the perhaps illusory impression that it is present.  Calmness between two people does not logically entail lack of intimacy, and kind behaviors do not guarantee it has been found.  In spite of the specific relevance of what I have said and will say to romantic partnerships of one kind or another, these truths pertain to all relationships in which one party seeks closeness with another.  They are relevant to relationships between friends, siblings, children and their parents, and so on.  There is no single context in which someone might deeply crave intimacy, and the truth about intimacy remains the same by logical necessity.

Among the truths about the subject is that intimacy has to be mutually arrived at and maintained in order to be as genuine, full, and lasting as possible.  Relational connection is shallow without familiarity, attachment, or openness, yes.  Pushing for intimacy against the wishes or comfort of another person is counterproductive all the same.  What one person wants is always a matter of their objective worldview, whether it is correct or incorrect, and their subjective personality.  Unfortunately, this allows for situations where one person is ready for intimacy or existentially longs for it and the recipient of their interest does not share the same readiness.

You can encourage it in your words and deeds or go as far as to desperately plead for it, yet attempting to force intimacy is in truth one of the best ways to thwart it.  Regardless of the difference between intimacy and the perception that it is there (remember the impossibility of a non-omniscient/telepathic being actually knowing the thoughts of other minds), the most holistic and willing kind of closeness cannot be forced or rushed.  Otherwise, it is not authentic or as complete as humanly possible; perhaps someone feels like selectively caving in to demands for closeness for the sake of surface-level stability, while keeping some parts of themselves private in an effort to find individualistic respite.

A welcome, voluntary intimacy that spans the various aspects of a person's life is the only sort both holistic and genuine, yes.  Pressuring someone for intimacy in an unrelenting sense is the process of artificially and/or forcefully trying to heighten a connection with a reluctant person, which can delay deep closeness or set in motion relational factors that entirely prevent it from ever coming about.  If one person is withholding a part of themself from another, to the extent that they do so, there is indeed a lack of potential intimacy, but trying to obtain a resolution by imposing one's wishes cannot make the other party reciprocate.  In fact, this by default makes it more difficult for them to do so since a lack of either investment or openness was already the problem; now the problem has added complexities.

When the push is one-sided and constant, the receiving party would subjectively feel or objectively be smothered in a way that constrains, annoys, or frightens them.  The other party is after all pursuing intimacy in a somewhat unwanted, aggressive, or coercive manner.  At some point, the former might start to pull away, the exact opposite of the impact intended by the latter.  It is rather paradoxical that the desire for intimacy can be so strong that it spurs someone on to overwhelm the very person they want to meet them with mutual interest.  Trying to force intimacy can never in itself establish a closer connection between two people, as much as this might pain those who have their hearts set on what can only truly happen without coercion.

The Distinction Between Reason And Reasoning

Reason is not the same as reasoning.  Reason is logic, which is true because it could not be any other way.  Logical axioms have this characteristic of intrinsic veracity and other logical truths hinge on them.  An easy example of the former is that it cannot be true that nothing logically follows from anything else or that this necessity is not true, for then it is true by logical necessity in light of the alleged nature of reality that logic is false.  An example of the latter is that a man and woman being close friends does not mean either harbors sexual interest in the other, as this does not follow by necessity.  The latter is not self-evident although it too is true by necessity.  The former is self-evident because to even neglect, deny, or doubt it, one must inescapably rely on it.

In contrast, reasoning is the mental process by which a being relies on reason to obtain knowledge or contemplate some idea, even if they misuse reason and thus make assumptions (meaning they lack knowledge because they have believed on a basis other than proof) or ignore some logical truth.  All conscious beings performing any intentional mental activity reason in the sense of engaging in reasoning.  Only rationalists directly and intentionally comprehend logical necessities, identifying necessary truths without making any assumptions and thus enabling themselves to have true knowledge.  Intelligence is in reality nothing other than genuine rationality, not education, concentration, strong memory recall, or competence in something other than rationalistic philosophy.

Logical axioms are among the necessary truths of reason.  Indeed, they are the uttermost foundational truths because them being false would still require that they are true; they are inherently true in themselves, having no dependance on anything else.  Not even other logical necessities have this nature because they are themselves rooted in axioms.  All of them are still not made true by someone's perception, by agreement between individuals, because God decreed it so, or because of how the physical world "behaves."  They are true because logical axioms cannot be false without still being true.  The mental act of reasoning, which might or might not be in alignment with the objective necessary truths of reason, is of course different.  Without a conscious being's active thinking, there is no reasoning--no grasp of reason even if it is distorted and unrecognized by them--but logic itself is unaffected.

However, a person might use their misaligned reasoning to persuade themself that logical axioms are some sort of illusion or incapable of being known to be true or false.  The very fact that this is possible even though logic cannot be untrue is knowable simply from pure reason, for it does not follow from something being demonstrably, inherently true that a person will grasp it.  I have had a great multitude of encounters firsthand with the sheer, asinine unwillingness of many people to acknowledge the intrinsic veracity of the only thing in reality that is true in itself because it could not be any other way.

Such deluded fools, fools in the ultimate sense, are still dependent on both the objective laws of reason and on their mental reasoning even as they deny the former's real nature.  While reasoning can be erroneous, reason (logic) is not, but not because it is rooted in some greater or more foundational existent that holds this status of maximal metaphysical necessity instead.  Such a thing is impossible because logical axioms are supremely foundational because they are inherently true, so that anything else must be consistent with them to even be possible.  Neither the cosmos nor the uncaused cause is an exception to this.  Unlike reasoning, reason (the laws of logic) depends on nothing other than itself while the metaphysical possibility and epistemological verifiability of literally everything else is wholly dependent on it.

When Slaves Go Free

A man or woman, according to Deuteronomy 15:12, who sells themself for servile labor must be released under ordinary conditions after six years.  Exodus 21:2-6 contains a parallel description of this process with a handful of differing but logically consistent details provided in each chapter.  While Exodus emphasizes that the spouse of slave who becomes married while a slave does not go free just because their partner's time has come, Deuteronomy 15:13-14 adds the vital prescription for a master or mistress, upon releasing their slave in the seventh year, to supply them "liberally" with various resources.  The slave regaining financial and material self-sufficiency or obtaining this autonomy for the first time is the thrust of the passage.

Animals, grain, and wine, all supplies useful or necessary for survival or economic stability, depending on the societal arrangement, are explicitly included in the articulated scope of this obligation.  While there is no law prohibiting a former slave later returning to their master or mistress or choosing to serve a new person for six years if they wish, the material provision even in their departure is clearly poised to help them never need to do so again, not out of financial desperation.  The most dire effects of poverty, which the preceding verses (15:1-11) are clearly about thwarting, are softened by the option of Biblical slavery, and upon being released, a slave is to be treated with extreme generosity, in accordance with the wealth of their master, which puts them in a better position to accumulate and keep their own wealth.

Now, an abused slave is released (Exodus 21:26-27) before the end of their six-year term (Exodus 21:2, Deuteronomy 15:12; Leviticus 19:33-34) or even after making a pledge of permanent servitude (Exodus 21:5-6, Deuteronomy 15:16-17), and going free, as addressed, means receiving extensive material supplies.  Exodus 21:26-27 does not need to say that the slave emancipated prematurely for being mistreated is to be given abundant resources because Deuteronomy 15:12-14 emphasizes this, and Deuteronomy 15 does not need to specify that slaves who go free for abuse as described in Exodus 21 would receive such supplies because all slaves who go free should receive them.  This adds another layer to the penalty for such injustices.

Other men and women who might have harbored interest in working for that abusive master or mistress might also very well refuse to approach them as potential employers.  Abusing a servant once does not mean it will happen again or worsen, but there could be additional pragmatic consequences for the abusive master or mistress.  However, no matter the reaction from their community, they lose the service of their slave and a significant amount of resources that would have been owed to the slave upon eventual release anyway.  The slave who goes free for one reason or another, short of simply leaving for another area as is their right (Deuteronomy 23:15-16), is not liberated only to face destitution and starvation.

When slaves go free, they are to to be equipped to support themselves and perhaps eventually be in the same position to offer employment of sorts to any willing or needy man or woman; he or she has the means of a new financial beginning, and contrary to what some might expect, the gift of resources to enable self-sufficiency (or for providing for family members if applicable) is not restricted to men alone.  An abused former slave is not jettisoned from a wicked misuse of slavery only to need to become a slave all over again to survive—without resorting to sins like theft.  Alone and in conjunction with Exodus 21:26-27, Deuteronomy 15:12-14 affirms numerous things: gender equality, the ability and moral right of someone to work and be treated with respect rather than live in poverty, and the right to abundant resources upon release.

A Thousand Years Are Like A Day

It is a very plain Biblical tenet that a day is like a thousand years to God even as a thousand years are like a day.  This is not something stated only in the New Testament, where it is brought up in the context of God's patience with sinners so that they might come to repentance over long periods of time.  As undeserved as mercy is under any circumstances, without some amount of time, however small or great, a wicked person could never turn from their errors.  As much as God despises the wicked—yes, despises (Leviticus 20:23, Deuteronomy 25:16-17, Psalm 11:5, Proverbs 6:16-19)—he is said in 2 Peter 3:8-9 to be so patient with sinners that he waits a prolonged amount of time for some of them to repent.  It is already specified that most people will/would not in Matthew 7:13-14.  Longing for everyone to repent, God nonetheless waits for the sake of some.

Psalm 90:4, a prayer of Moses, touches on parts of this long before the New Testament when it says a thousand years are like a day to God.  Verses 1-3 before it, as well as verses 5-6, establish the contextual focus on the scope of God's longevity.  From "everlasting to everlasting," God metaphysically endures, while mortals die, however long the breath of life remains in them up until that point.  They enter the sleep of death at his whim (90:5, which is literal soul sleep according to Ecclesiastes 9:5-10, Job 3:11-19, Daniel 12:2, Psalm 6:5, and so on) as God continues to live, the only being in Biblical ontology that lives forever on its own (1 Timothy 6:15-16).  The immediately preceding verse says that God can turn people back into dust, as the disintegration of the body after death is a reversal of how Adam is said to have been formed from dust into a living being.  In Psalms, that a thousand years is like a day to God is mentioned to emphasize God's vastly different type of existence rather than his merciful patience.

Humans are compared to grass that springs up in the morning and dries and withers by the evening (Psalm 90:5-6).  This is not the only time various people are rightfully, when contrasted with an eternal timeframe, stated to be rather temporal.  Other Psalms say the wicked are like plants that perish (1:4, 37:1-2, 20).  Referencing someone who calls upon Yahweh rather than the wicked, Psalm 39:5 sees Jeduthun writes "'You have made my days a mere handbreadth; the span of my years is as nothing before you.'"  In his suffering, Job laments how people are "of few days" (Job 14:1), coming up like a flower before withering (14:2).  As the uncaused cause, God lacks the past-finite nature of mere humans and other mortal creatures, and the deity of the Bible is said to live forever by default.  Humans must have never erred or be reconciled to God to partake in this eternal life (John 3:16).

As one generation fades and the next produces still another generation, Yahweh is no closer to dying.  Indeed, it is people who will die once (Hebrews 9:27) and then die a second time after their resurrection (2 Peter 2:6, Revelation 20:15) if they are unrepentant sinners.  From the creation of the cosmos to the resurrection of the wicked and righteous (and only the righteous will exist forever as living, conscious humans) and beyond, a thousand years are like a day that has just gone by to Yahweh in the words of Psalm 90.  To participate in this everlasting existence is a reward for repentant humans that is not contrasted with eternal torture for the wicked.  The latter are to perish like weeds in a fire (Matthew 10:28, 13:24-30) and are shut out from eternal life (Romans 6:23) upon their destruction (2 Thessalonians 1:9, Isaiah 66:22-24).  God would still endure, from one millennium to another, even if no conscious entity besides loyal/pardoned angels was to exist with him and all humans were to cease to be, and each millennium would be like a day to him.

The Folly Of Credentialism

Overqualification on the level of expected credentials--not that credentials are automatically connected to objective fitness for a job or epistemologically prove someone's job readiness--means that jobs might gratuitously require incredible and expensive amounts of formal educational credentials before even an employer will even consider someone for an interview.  What they really want is to look at a mere piece of paper or an image asserting that someone has passed a given course, certification, or college program, which is not even the same as either having genuine knowledge or relevant experience.  Documents can be falsified, and people can forget information or have cheated their way through their education (not that this is immoral in itself [1]).  Certifications and degrees do not make someone competent or willing to adapt in training or the course of work afterward.

Beyond this, the insurmountable epistemological limitations concerning other minds and most sensory experiences already disqualifies credentials from being actual proof of anything except the presence of the documentation itself on the level of one's sensory perceptions, but that is too abstract for most employers and employees alike, since almost no one is actually a rationalist although almost everyone acts like they are rational!  This pertains to the most egregious error of credentialism, which is holding credentials to be intelligence (rationality) or proof of it.  Only rationalists are intelligent, for everyone else by nature only believes in and operates on assumptions.  No amount of education makes someone rational, and no absence of education makes someone irrational.  This is determined by each person's individual and voluntary alignment with the objective truths of reason, as they must recognize logical axioms as inherently true and thus self-evident and make no assumptions about worldview matters or practical life, which is still a subset of abstract philosophy.  To the extent that someone does this, they are rational.

Non-rationalists simply might want to be regarded as intelligent or to feel like they are despite the impossibility of such a thing, and they might have invested so much effort into the pursuit of red herring credentials (which they fallaciously believed made them intelligent) that they are personally desperate to be validated.  It is not because employers are rational that the needless trend of having credentials like a college degree as a relatively uniform job requirement has become more popular.  It is because they are irrational: credentialism is asinine because it treats what is often arbitrary and irrelevant as a necessity for someone if they are going to perform a much more basic job than the listed requirements alone might suggest.  This is in addition to the other philosophical errors already mentioned, like conflating education with intelligence or competence (which are themselves not identical).

In spite of the dramatically inflated credentials imposed on a broadened range of jobs, it is not credentials like a college degree that are most likely to secure someone a job.  It is work experience, something that in turn is not a marker of rationality or competence, that is exalted more highly by plenty of employers.  However, how can someone gain the experience needed to obtain many jobs if they can never enter a company/industry because they lack experience?  Why is experience prioritized over rationality (which is illusory unless someone is a genuine rationalist as described), teachability, and/or demonstrated skill independent of a random number of years it was supposedly exercised in beforehand?

This, too, does not mean that someone is actually fit for a given job, although certain companies are becoming increasingly obsessed with making this an ultimate variable in their hiring decisions.  Graduating college with a bachelor's degree does not have the same probabilistic weight for finding a job that it did in past decades.  When companies inflate their credential requirements so that someone has to spend more and more time and money, perhaps going into lifelong debt in the process, to be considered, but especially when they couple this with a haphazard amount of required work experience, they deprive themselves of the chance to attract candidates that might be excellent--and more importantly, rational--workers in favor of irrationally selective criteria.

[1].  https://thechristianrationalist.blogspot.com/2020/07/why-academic-cheating-is-not-immoral-by.html

Living For Social Constructs

Besides being governed by logical axioms as all things could only be, what do credit scores, academic institutions, corporations, grammar, fashion styles, currencies, legal marriages, and other such things have in common?  They are all social constructs, like normalized mealtimes and arbitrary holidays.  A social construct must be invented or practiced by people to exist.  One way or another, it cannot exist on its own, since it requires a community of conscious beings in order to be brought about.  A lone person, were they the only one alive, could certainly decide at random to create a calendar system or a language; some things, however, like economies and legal marriages, logically necessitate that at least two people do something in order for them to exist.

Other social constructs of a different type would include gender and racial stereotypes, though these are false philosophical beliefs about people because of the appearance (or with gender, the corresponding physiology) of their physical body.  A stereotype, though it is false by logical necessity, is not the same kind of social construct as tangible money, which is created from materials in the natural world or literally is something taken from nature that is used as a currency unprocessed (i.e., cattle).  It is also different from something like a human language, which is not false and does not exist out in the world to be harnessed for societal use.  Language can be written on physical things, but it is not physical.

As briefly addressed, some social constructs can only be false.  Gender stereotypes are assumed ideas about a mental trait or moral obligation being somehow connected to the physical genitalia, though one does not follow from the other and two people of the same gender do not necessarily have the same personality; their gender is irrelevant.  Other social constructs such as currency can be real in one sense, though they are artificially contrived by default.  One category is that of erroneous ideas and the other is that of things that, while they can be real on a certain level, have to be created.  Thus, either kind of social construct cannot be supremely foundational.

It can only be true that a social construct, by virtue of being something that must be created by already existing beings and (in certain cases) something that is necessarily erroneous, cannot be among the most foundational aspects of reality.  Take the example of a holiday like Independence Day.  An annual nationwide celebration during daylight hours relies on the more fundamental day-night cycle tied to the natural world's celestial bodies, but even the very possibility of the natural world and its patterns existing depends wholly on being consistent with the necessary truths of logical axioms and what follows from them.  

It is not that the physical world is the real heart of reality just because the materials for the constructs of buildings and tangible currencies and so on are derived from it, or because it is what calendars and holidays are tied to.  A social construct like legal marriage is not even a physical thing at all since it is a relational status shared by minds, but the legal aspects of a human society are still mere social constructs all the same.  However, since logical axioms and other necessary truths cannot be false, as their falsity would still require their veracity, only reason alone could be the core of all reality and true in itself; everything else must be consistent with it to even be possible.

Instead of living accordingly, non-rationalists, if they do not live for subjectivist fallacies in an individualistic way and thus in dismissal of society, live for something like career or legal marriage or reputation, being entirely oblivious or apathetic to the fact that the likes of money, academic traditions, and contrived ceremony are invented and have no authority on their own.  Driven by arbitrary contentment with social norms set up contrary to these truths (such as pressuring people to have high-paying jobs just to convince onlookers to respect you as a human), or even by a direct desire to please other people, they are stupid and, as a consequence, also superficial and weak.  They live for things that do not matter or that have no inherent truth and they are slaves to whatever predominant beliefs and practices of their day strike them as persuasive and emotionally satisfying.

The Idolater's Delusion

One of the most philosophically potent denunciations of idolatry is found in the book of Isaiah in an extended passage about the sheer folly of attributing divine characteristics to a material found in nature, used in the construction of an idol.  Even if some form of animism or panpsychism (indeed, panpsychism is a type of animism, or vice versa, depending on what is meant!) is true, one cannot know, because there is no sensory evidence of such a thing, and sensory evidence is not logical proof anyway and hence does not ground genuine knowledge as reason does.  Regardless of whether plants or inorganic substances like metal really are tied to their own immaterial consciousnesses, it is folly to believe that they are because of unverifiability, and to conflate such a status with divinity would add to the errors.  If all matter is conscious, or has a spirit of sorts, this would not make either the physical world or any particular animist spirits divine.

The idolater of Isaiah 44 does not grasp any of this; they allow themself to descend into such madness that they divide the same piece of wood to use a portion for cooking and warmth and the other as an idol to worship.  Mere wood from a dead tree is split apart for these contrasting purposes.  This idolater does not pause to validly contemplate how there is no basis to think that the very tree used to prepare his food can become a god if only it is chiseled or carved enough.  Instead, he himself loses energy if he does not eat or drink, even as he thinks he somehow has the power to imbue a dead tree with divine nature, which is even more irrational because a true deity (an uncaused cause) is not part of the natural world at all.  More aggressively and elaborately than is usually the case, Isaiah 44:12-20 presents idolatry as a sin of stupidity and not only one of false religion or cosmic treason:

Isaiah 44:12-20—"'The blacksmith takes a tool and works with it in the coals; he shapes an idol with hammers, he forges it with the might of his arm.  He gets hungry and loses his strength; he drinks no water and grows faint.  The carpenter measures with a line and makes an outline with a marker; he roughs it out with chisels and marks it with compasses.  He shapes it in human form, human form in all its glory, that it may dwell in a shrine.  He cut down cedars, or perhaps took a cypress or oak.  He let it grow among the trees of the forest, or planted a pine, and the rain made it grow.  It is used as fuel for burning; some of it he takes and warms himself, he kindles a fire and bakes bread.  But he also fashions a god and worships it; he makes an idol and bows down to it.  Half of the wood he burns in the fire; over it he prepares his meal, he roasts his meat and eats his fill.  He also warms himself and says, "Ah!  I am warm; I see the fire."  From the rest he makes a god, his idol; he bows down to it and worships.  He prays to it and says, "Save me!  You are my god!"  They know nothing, they understand nothing; their eyes are plastered over so they cannot see, and their mind closed so they cannot understand.  No one stops to think, no one has the knowledge or understanding to say, "Half of it I used for fuel; I even baked bread over its coals, I roasted meat and I ate.  Shall I make a detestable thing from what is left?  Shall I bow down to a block of wood?"  Such a person feeds on ashes; a deluded heart misleads him; he cannot save himself, or say, "Is not this thing in my right hand a lie?"'"

The wording of "detestable thing" in verse 19 is similar to a a recurring phrase in Deuteronomy emphasizing the intrinsic evil of a particular behavior, often in conjunction with an explicit declaration that the sin is of course equally immoral for Gentiles (Deuteronomy 12:29-31, 18:9-13, 20:16-18), for morality is universal (Deuteronomy 4:5-8, 8:19-20, 9:4-6; see also Leviticus 18:1-30, 20:1-24, Genesis 15:13-16, Ezekiel 5:5-7, Ecclesiastes 12:14).  Evangelical Christians and adherents of Rabbinic Judaism hold to the same logical and Biblical errors concerning the Law of Moses.  Separate from their deviation from the Bible they claim to align with, they are insane for their moral relativism, for even moral nihilism is possible, but not relativism, much less race-based relativism!  Returning to the topic of idolatry in particular, Deuteronomy does use idolatry as an example of a detestable thing which is by necessity, if it is truly evil, wrong whoever the practicing individual is.  Moses warns ahead of time that taking the valuable metals on Canaanite idols would separate a person, like the idols themselves, for destruction.

Deuteronomy 7:24-26—"He will give their kings into your hand, and you will wipe out their names from under heaven.  The images of their gods you are to burn in the fire.  Do not covet the silver and gold on them, and do not take it for yourselves, or you will be ensnared by it, for it is detestable to the Lord your God.  Do not bring a detestable thing into your house or you, like it, will be set apart for destruction.  Regard it as vile and utterly detest it, for it is set apart for destruction."

Similarly, taking materials from a city of Canaan is a sin that warrants the execution of Achan after the victory over Jericho (Joshua 6:18-19, 7:1, 10-12, 19-26).  Though he did not actually practice idolatry, worship other gods, entice anyone to worship something besides Yahweh (capital sins according to Exodus 22:20, Deuteronomy 13:1-10, and 17:2-7), he stole what was devoted to God and thus became devoted to destruction himself.  While his sin is not that of the literal idolater who creates or reveres a physical image or representation, the wickedness of disobeying God, the only moral authority, is something both have in common.  The idolater's evil goes beyond this, however.  He or she has regarded something physical and seemingly inanimate as if it has a mind to think, hear, and see or the power to intervene in the material plane.

The apostle Paul later summarizes how such people are fools, neglecting what can be genuinely known about God from pure logic in light of the contingent nature of the external world (Romans 1:18-21) in favor of making idols based directly or indirectly on various aspects of nature, contrary to what Yahweh commands through Moses in passages like Deuteronomy 4:15-20.  It is not sin to craft an image representing a man, a woman, or any non-human animal, as some misunderstand Exodus 20:3-6 and Deuteronomy 5:7-10 to mean, but it is delusion to assume that an image created from the likes of wood or metal or stone is in any way divine or to worship it as if it portrays a true god or goddess (all assumptions are irrational, including this one!).  Moreover, an incorporeal uncaused cause cannot be legitimately depicted in any physical form precisely because it is incorporeal:

Romans 1:22-23—"Although they claimed to be wise, they became fools and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images made to look like a mortal human being and birds and animals and reptiles."

There is nothing rational or sophisticated about idolatry, wholly apart from the Biblical depravity of this class of actions.  Yet a certain kind of pseudo-Christian I have encountered in my life looks upon the idolatry and other sinful practices of Greco-Roman philosophy and culture as if they express an almost enlightened philosophy that overlaps with Judeo-Christianity any more than at the most minute, barest of levels.  Idolatry is heavily irrationalistic for the already described reasons, whatever the culture or motivation, whether ideological or personal.  Neither any individual prohibition nor the sheer multitude of prescriptions against idols deterred these pseudo-Christians.  And of all these direct condemnations of idol construction or worship, Isaiah 44's serves as among the absolute most fierce, calling the idolater deluded as Paul later does.  Judeo-Christianity does not even have to be correct for idolatry to be entirely invalid for the reasons addressed therein.

Skepticism Of Scientific Particulars

What many people really mean by "scientific confirmation" amounts to reading an online article or literary work claiming scientists have discovered something, often something that could not possibly be proven logically—because it does not follow from strictly necessary truths, more fundamental to reality than matter and how it behaves could possibly be—or proven scientifically—because science cannot prove anything.  Logic is a set of necessary truths that cannot be false without still being true and thus are inherently true, and epistemological science is a method of subjective observation that might not correspond to real environments and events; the material world our senses allegedly perceive through the likes of sight, smell, and so on can only be known to exist through a very particular proof, which is by nature a matter of logic [1].  

Even then, it is not as if the majority of sense experience has any inherent connection to what the real laws of physics objectively are like, though we can know they must be logically possible and hence consistent with logical axioms; also, the nature of the external world is first and foremost a matter of broader metaphysics more than it is one of science specifically.  I have seen an increasing tendency over the years in many around me to rely on the epistemological fallacies or outright errors of scientific hearsay and sensory empiricism instead of rationalism.  Yet more than simply not being able to prove the existence of quantum phenomena or that the laws of physics are the same on another planet as they appear to be on Earth, no one can prove to me or to themself, unless they are omniscient or closer to it than myself, that as much as a table they see really exists because this is not logically necessary in itself or in light of anything that must be true and therefore can be known.

And if one cannot know that one's sensory experiences are accurate in that they match with a material world outside of one's mind, then to engage in scientific examination with the intent of deriving knowledge of anything beyond subjective perceptions is intrinsically delusional.  Of course, this is what many non-rationalists who sincerely turn to science do, including scientists themselves.  It only compounds the errors when hearsay from a journal or respected authority figure is accepted in the place of the direct experience of their own senses.  Entire worldviews and careers are built on this illogical belief that science is in any way primary or knowable, except for logical truths about science and mere perceptions of the cosmos.  To their adherents, true rationalism would seem bizarre or false, or perhaps as if logical necessity is somehow unverifiable instead of the scientific laws that actually have this status.

Having never properly turned to reason, they are adrift in stupidity and assumptions.  They see environments and objects; they hear noises that correlate to these visual stimuli.  Scents, tastes, and sensations are before their senses, and so they, lacking either absolute certainty or valid caution, assume that these experiences must reflect reality rather than some sort of mental construct or illusion.  They could know in the case of sensations that physical substance exists as addressed here [1], but many seem to just assume.  Some go further to believe what is false either way by assuming that these sensory stimuli are all there is to reality, though even aside from neglecting the real nature of the laws of logic, they fail to distinguish between matter and the mind that perceives it.  A sight or sensation, like a memory, can only exist within a mind, which is necessarily separate from the actual physical stimuli (if the two even correspond to each other!) in the world.

Logic could not be false without some sort of logically necessary reason why, rendering it true in itself.  Because it cannot be false, even the fools who ignore or deny it rely on it, and consequently it is self-evident.  Science has no such nature.  Indeed, it depends on reason.  Something contrary to logic cannot be true of the natural world, and no knowledge can be had of the natural world that does not stem from knowledge of reason.  It is just that beyond objective possibilities and what does and does not follow from a scientific idea, only subjective, fallible perceptions of scientific events and correlations can be known.  Only the perceptions themselves are knowable, never if physics operates as they would suggest or if objects really exist as seen or even exist whatsoever.  As difficult as it truly is to discover this fact, there is an external world, as I have written about.  The particulars of how this world really functions, whichever logical possibilities are the case, are locked away from verification for any mind with human limitations.

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

Disowning Christ

Denying allegiance to Jesus in the face of torture or death at the hands of violent anti-Christians might be how some envision disowning Christ to look like.  But there are other, less forceful ways to disown him.  A portion of 2 Timothy 2 makes it clear that disowning Jesus means the sinner will be disowned by him.  Of great relevance to the subject of losing salvation, this excerpt from the Pauline epistles is in perfect alignment with the teachings of Jesus in Matthew, as will be highlighted.  The extended context, though, could be misinterpreted by the adherents of "eternal security" to mean the opposite.  Elsewhere in the Bible, it is quite apparent that there is no absolute promise of infallible salvation status no matter what a person does.  This is also clear from 2 Timothy 2 itself, particularly verse 12 about disowning Jesus.

2 Timothy 2:10-13—"Therefore I endure everything for the sake of the elect, that they too may obtain the salvation that is in Christ Jesus, with eternal glory.  Here is a trustworthy saying: If we died with him, we will also live with him; if we will endure, we will also reign with him.  If we disown him, he will also disown us; if we are faithless, he remains faithful, for he cannot disown himself."

Does verse 13 contradict verse 12 by stating that if we are faithless, he will remain faithful, despite how he will disown us if we disown him?  Or does it clarify that even if one is disowned by Christ or God, one can still remain saved apart from restoration to God?  Neither.  Only one verse prior, Paul says that if we disown Christ, he will disown us.  The individual Christian can forfeit their salvation by disowning Christ or God, yet the individual's faithlessness does not mean Christ will likewise disown those who have not joined in this sin, remaining faithful to them as they do to him.  In this regard, Paul's is absolutely consistent with the teachings of Jesus himself.  Affirmed by the very words of Christ is the doctrine of mutual disowning as described in Mathew 10.  Disowning Jesus receives an automatic dismissal from salvation:

Matthew 10:32-33—"'Whoever acknowledges me before others, I will also acknowledge before my Father in heaven.  But whoever disowns me before others, I will disown before my Father in heaven.'"

As a quick aside, note that Jesus once again distinguishes between himself and his Father; conventional Trinitarianism is logically impossible and Biblically heretical.  Now, if a committed Christian disowns Jesus, no matter what obligatory or positive things they have already done or abstained from, according to Matthew and 2 Timothy, that Christian will be disowned by Christ and by extension Yahweh.  And if God and Christ disown someone, that person would have to be excluded from eternal life and killed, more specifically in the second death of the lake of fire (Revelation 20:11-15), unless they repent (Isaiah 55:6-7, Ezekiel 18:21-29, Matthew 12:30-32, 2 Peter 3:9).  Yes, how could God and Jesus disown someone in the ultimate sense and then casually grant them immortality when they have not met the condition of righteousness, repentance, or commitment to God and Christ?

They have no salvation.  As with a select handful of topics, the Bible can seem to have verses teaching both that salvation can be lost by sin and that it is permanent and irrevocable, but it is apparent upon thoroughly, rationalistically examining isolated and collective passages without making assumptions that people can indeed be saved and then fall from this status and potentially regain it all over again.  In the book of Ezekiel, God emphasizes that past righteousness never exempts someone from current guilt if they sin (33:12-16; once again, 18:21-29).  The righteous person who sins has become wicked; the wicked person who repents and does what is just has become righteous.  One's current standing is by logical necessity one's current standing (a ramification of the intrinsically true, self-necessary law of identity), and while not all sins are guaranteed to disqualify a person from salvation they otherwise would have, there is no guarantee that one remains saved when one sins.

This is actually in accordance with pure logical necessity: someone who errs severely has erred, no matter how perfect they previously were.  It would be irrational and unjust to pardon them on the basis of past moral success, for by their own actions, they have shifted their status.  Yet many people identifying as Christians in my country want to feel or be secure in their salvation no matter how stupid, how hypocritical, how philosophically neglectful, and how intentionally sinful they choose to be.  God could only refuse to dismiss them from his presence by showing partiality, something that is contrary to his nature (Deuteronomy 10:17, Romans 2:6, 11) as described throughout the Bible and something that could only be unjust.

Sinning while still possessing salvation is possible without forfeiting it, though it Biblically incurs lesser reward after the resurrection (Matthew 5:17-19, 1 Corinthians 3:10-15).  Other sins might be extreme or repetitive enough for God to revoke someone's salvation, with the possibility of them regaining it by means of repentance.  Total ideological and unwavering moral perfection are not required to become or stay saved; repentance and commitment are required, lest one die after the resurrection in the second death and then, by virtue of not existing, lose all opportunity to repent:

Ezekiel 18:21-23—"'But if a wicked person turns away from all the sins they have committed and keeps all of my decrees and does what is just and right, that person will surely live; they will not die.  None of the offenses they have committed will be remembered against them.  Because of the righteous things they have done, they will live.  Do I take any pleasure in the death of the wicked? declares the Sovereign Lord.  Rather, am I not pleased when they turn from their ways and live?'"

Revelation 20:12-15—"And I saw the dead, great and small, standing before the throne, and books were opened.  Another book was opened, which is the book of life.  The dead were judged according to what they had done as recorded in the books.  The sea gave up the dead that were in it, and death and Hades gave up the dead that were in them, and each person was judged according to what they had done.  Then death and Hades were thrown into the lake of fire.  The lake of fire is the second death.  Anyone whose name was not found written in the book of life was thrown into the lake of fire."

Disowning Christ is simply an easy, distinctive way to be renounced before and consequently by God.  Disregarding God's Son to the point of casually or viciously denying affiliation or allegiance makes the sinner deserve to be disowned themself.  Based upon Matthew 10, there is no exception for someone who disowns Christ or by extension God, the greater being (John 14:28), after having served God and Christ.  Based upon the likes of Ezekiel 18 and 33, falling into callous, unrepentant sin of any sort can remove someone's salvation in genuine Christianity.  Whoever disowns Christ will be disowned unless they repent, and someone who leaps into evil will not necessarily be exempt from future judgment if they were righteous beforehand.  There is no inherent security in one's salvation.  From day to day, one must finish the race, as Paul says (2 Timothy 4:7).  The totality of an unrepentant sinner's past righteous deeds by itself will not spare them from losing their salvation any more than having never before committed a capital sin like kidnapping (Exodus 21:16) in the past means someone does should not be executed for what they have done now.

Positive And Negative Near-Death Experiences

If Christianity turns out to not be true, then if there is an afterlife, eventual or immediate (the Bible's is not immediate at all but would be still experienced as if it immediately came about [1]), many other logically possible dimensions or lives might be waiting instead of a hell that kills sinners (2 Peter 2:6) and a heaven of eternal bliss.  If the majority of reported near-death experiences actually are reflective of real afterlives in our futures, then it would seem very likely that whatever afterlife exists would be positive.  Many alleged near-death experiences, for all the sensationalist stories of torment, are overwhelmingly positive or at a minimum not hellacious.

Whether people claim to have felt a sense of unity with God and the cosmos, to have been welcomed by dead family members, or to have tasted love and relaxation greater than what they had previously experienced, much of what is described by people who assert they glimpsed an afterlife is rather joyous or liberating.  Even if these accounts are accurate, it remains possible that some people, perhaps even a quiet majority, hold back their own accounts, real or alleged, because their experiences were not those of existential peace, supposed reunion with loved ones, or interaction with benevolent spiritual entities.  Some of them are far worse than the real Biblical hell would be if it is real or exceed the torments of even fictional hells.

Maybe they recall--since the events memories attest to are not verifiable though the memories exist within one's mind, so they might be recalling false memories--being attacked or belittled by hostile beings or feeling terror and confusion over bizarre surroundings.  If they do remember seeing or feeling things closer to the hells of (what is hopefully) fiction or worse, then they might not be eager to dwell on such things or subject themselves to potential mockery by other people.  Just as various traumatic experiences in this life, like sexual assault, might go intentionally unreported in an effort to minimize psychological pain, not everyone who remembers undergoing a distressing NDE would want to contemplate or share what is in their mind, although very little could be more philosophically important than what kind of afterlife/afterlives there is/are if one indeed exists.

The sheer isolation such a person might grapple with in expecting assumptions, dismissal, or outright malice from other people just for stating what according to them seemed to have happened could be devastating.  Depending on what a person hypothetically sees between death and resuscitation, they might have very gruesome imagery embedded in their consciousness, and yet people could remain silent in life about something far less terrible, such as something that merely embarrassed them.  It does not logically follow by necessity that there is an afterlife though there is an uncaused cause and though it is possible for consciousness or both the mind and body to live again after death (none of this contradicts axioms).

It also does not logically follow from people having varying near-death experiences that they are all or almost all in error.  An afterlife would not have to be the same or particularly similar for everyone.  As long as they do not contradict logical axioms like the objective necessity of one concept following or not following from another, many different afterlives could exist.  Overlap and disparity between various accounts of NDEs does not prove that they are false, and the numerous positive anecdotes do not necessitate that the afterlife would have to be positive.  There could be a great many distinctively negative NDEs that were either mentally blocked from memory afterward or that people remain silent about out of penetrating fear.  Thankfully, even this would not make it logically necessary that there is an afterlife of terror, but it is possible.

The Curse Of Baldur

The first of the Aesir to be encountered in the 2018 God of War is Baldur, who visits the home of Kratos and seems to be aware of his legacy.  Eager for violence, he goads Kratos into a fight even though the latter has turned away from gratuitous fighting.  Baldur withstands every powerful blow from Kratos or exhibits regenerative powers when there is a major wound.  During this confrontation, he exclaims that he cannot feel any of the attacks.  A snapped neck only seems to kill him, for he appears later on to hunts Kratos and his son Atreus, and even then, his neck is only snapped after very destructive changes are inflicted upon the landscape.

Well into the main story, these same aforementioned characters wind up in Helheim.  There, Kratos and Atreus stealthily observe as Baldur is tormented by memories of how his mother Freya put a spell on him so that he would be invulnerable to death or permanent injury from most sources--at the expanse of his ability to feel anything physical whatsoever.  It was not out of malice that she did this despite the debilitating personal effects.  Rather, her intention was to avert a prophecy about her son's death.  Food, sexual contact, and other pleasures of sensuality that involve physical sensations became devoid of all stimulation for him other than that of merely seeing them.

It does not follow from outwardly acting like a person feels emotions that they actually do, though Baldur does genuinely seem to feel determination, frustration, anger, and so on.  The curse of Baldur only explicitly affects his sense of touch and all related senses, like that of pain (the sense being nociception).  Emotional and broader psychological pain would not be removed just because the physical kind cannot be experienced.  In his case, he expresses regret over his condition and great rage towards his mother for what she removed from his life.  This actually is the reason why Kratos eventually ends his life at the end of the game.

Physical exposure to a mistletoe arrow in the game's finale breaks the curse and allows him to feel ordinary physical sensations again.  In Norse mythology, a sharp item fashioned from mistletoe by Loki is used to kill Baldur because his mother made all other applicable things swear to never harm him.  In God of War, this substance only reactivates his senses pertaining to physical experiences and makes him vulnerable again.  He celebrates the restoration; the loss of the sense of touch (and other adjacent senses like nociception) was devastating to him.  Even so, physical pain and pleasure would be much less impactful without any emotions to be stirred up by them.

No, Baldur does not at all appear to have had any kind of emotional numbness, which would not by necessity be entailed in the loss of the senses.  There are still two ways to feel pleasure (or pain): physical pleasure involves the body and the mind, without which nothing could be experienced anyway, and mental pleasure only involves mental states.  The loss of the latter would be much more foundational and penetrating, removing things that contribute to core of motivation despite how one could still have rationalistic knowledge and a desire to live in a given way in light of this.  In either case, physical pleasure and emotional pleasure can only be truly understood and fully savored as they are by rationalists.  Only they can in a holistic sense not take either kind of pleasure for granted.

Male And Female Prostitutes

When it comes to some moral subjects or groups of people, the Bible often goes out of its way to specifically mention men and women, as with male and female slaves/servants in the Torah's laws (Exodus 20:8-11, 21:20-21, 26-27, 32, Leviticus 25:1-7, Deuteronomy 5:12-15, 12:11-12, 17-18, 15:12-18, 16:9-11, 13-14).  With prostitution and prostitutes, there are sometimes references to just women (Leviticus 19:29, 21:9), and there is also a set of commands directly acknowledging male and female prostitutes and regarding them identically in Deuteronomy 23:17-18.  Not only is prostitution already by logical necessity still prostitution no matter the prostitute's gender, but men and women are declared to be equals even ahead of Mosaic Law (Genesis 1:26-27, 5:1-2).  The absence of Deuteronomy 23:17-18 would not change any of this.  Indeed, the passage still affirms the blatant gender equality of Christianity in its moral obligations and its acknowledgement of people and practices that deviate from popular stereotypes of men and women.  Some, nevertheless, assume that these verses are about prostitutes of either gender who tend to male clients.  Here is the text:

Deuteronomy 23:17-18--"No Israelite man or woman is to become a shrine prostitute.  You must not bring the earnings of a female prostitute or of a male prostitute into the house of the Lord your God to pay any vow, for the Lord your God detests them both."

Absolutely nothing in the passage itself indicates that it is speaking of prostitutes of either gender, uniting their profession with religious expression, working with clients of exclusively one gender.  More specific to the fallacious interpretation of some, fallacious in the sense that it holds to things either not presented in the text or that do not follow from its concepts, or fallacious in the sense that it literally relies on outside philosophical errors/assumptions, Deuteronomy 23 does not say that the male and female shrine prostitutes both serviced men.  Moreover, if the activities in question amounted to fertility rituals as some claim, then this would be idiotic even apart from the gender stereotypes that would lead some to assume the clients were all male.  Fertility prostitution would very likely not be homosexual for men or women, as there is nothing about same-gender sex that is tied to procreation.  The idea that this passage is about illicit fertility rituals already contradicts the sexist idea that male prostitutes would only find male clients who are interested in them.  However, the idea that women would never seek out male prostitutes for the same reasons men might seek out prostitutes conflicts with reason and the Bible.

Any sort of gender-specific expectations or norms for prostitution one way or another would by logical necessity be socially conditioned at best.  There is nothing about having a penis or vagina that compels one to seek out or not seek out prostitutes (or any kind of sexual interaction with the opposite gender); psychological traits are individualistic, for it does not logically follow from having specific genitalia that one has a certain personality trait or from one man or woman being of such a disposition that another will have the same, or they are shaped by social expectations or demands, however subtle, that a person gives into on an individual basis.  These characteristics are in reality irrelevant to gender, so gender is strictly a bodily status.  In either case, a person is by logical necessity of a certain personality only because it is their own natural state or because society shaped them in some way and they gave in.

It is logically false that gender stereotypes are true even in light of social experience in communities heavily dominated by gender "norms."  For instance, if men were all aggressive brutes because they were men (a logically impossible thing in light of the aforementioned necessary truths) instead of some men being brutes as individuals and some others being brutish only because they yielded to meaningless and misandrist cultural pressures, then there could be no exceptions one would encounter and all of their brutishness would be equal from male to male.  It would already be true due to reason that gender behaviors could only be because of individual personality or societal manipulation, but aside from this, it would also be impossible to find any variation at all in people of a given gender [1].

If the Bible or a scientific/psychological paradigm contradicts reason, it cannot be true, because logic is true by necessity independent of all else and is what all truth and all genuine knowledge stems from.  Not only does the Bible never deny that men are not sex-crazed beasts or that women are not asexual or demisexual beings, at least not because someone is a man or a woman, but it also gives many examples of women who absolutely are very sexually "visual" or teaches moral doctrines that utterly contradict gender stereotypes regarding sexuality.  In Genesis 37, for starters, Potiphar's wife does not stop at trying to entice Joseph to commit adultery with her because she is very attracted to him based upon his bodily appearance (the Bible mentions many physically beautiful men elsewhere): she sexually harasses him in her egoistic desperation, and then she grabs him in an attempt to rape him.  As an aside, this is not the only sexual assault of a man by a woman in Genesis.  Ezekiel 23:5-7 and 11-21 describe women standing in for the idolatrous Israel and Judah who are inflamed with sexual desire for large numbers of handsome men.  One of the women is full of sexual excitement upon seeing representations of men on a wall.  In 1 Timothy 5:11, Paul mentions some young widows who want to marry when they are overcome by sensual desire.

Obviously, the narratives, allegories, and general statements of the Bible, from these verses alone, already distinctly acknowledge that women are sexual beings and are not uninterested in the male form (except on an individualistic basis, having nothing to do with being women).  What about the moral prescriptions of Mosaic Law, the central moral revelation of the entire Bible?  Exodus 21:10-11, though some translations ambiguously mention the third item in the list as "marital rights" without specifying what exactly the plural rights consist of, allows a woman, and by logical extension a man (Genesis 1:26-27, 5:1-2), to divorce her husband for neglect.  Whether depriving her of fulfillment of marital rights explicitly entails sexual neglect, or even just in light of the fact that sexual neglect is still neglect and thus by necessity would also be grounds for divorce, Mosaic Law literally articulates the rights of a wife and by extension a husband to sex from their partner.  Paul says in 1 Corinthians 7:2-5 that husbands and wives, writing in a very overt gender egalitarian manner, are not to deprive each other of sex unless mutually agreed upon.  Never do its authors pretend like women cannot relate to deep attraction to male beauty (of the body, not personality) that might make a male prostitute appealing to them, or like all men are attracted to all women (if they are not asexual) so that they would even be tempted by a female prostitute in any situation to begin with.

It is not the case that the Bible by its explicit wording condemns female prostitution, with male prostitution only being condemned as sinful by its logical equivalence.  No, the Torah does not pretend like there are such gender-specific sins--and even if Deuteronomy 23 did not mention male and female prostitutes alike, it would not follow that it is not condemning male prostitution or in any way prescribing gender stereotypes about sexuality.  It would have to actually say or logically necessitate such things to teach them.  Women are more than their sexuality or sex appeal to others and men are not unattractive to women or animalistic slaves to alleged hypersexual passions.  Women do not have some special sexual power over men because of their physical beauty (and beauty and sensuality are utterly nonsexual on their own!) that is not inversely the case, and no one of either gender has truly uncontrollable sexual behaviors.  Biblical ethics does not tolerate any double standards for sexual expression or the gender stereotypes that feed into them, which liberates men and women alike from dismissal of any part of their nonsinful selves.

[1].  https://thechristianrationalist.blogspot.com/2020/06/refuting-gender-stereotypes-unnecessary.html

The Torah Against 1 Peter 2 Regarding Slaves

Logical necessity, possibility, and contradiction are not matters of subjective perception or divine will, and genuine contradiction renders at least one concept or aspect of a concept false.  An assumption that the Bible never contradicts itself is no more epistemologically valid than any other assumption, which is not at all.  Each supposed case is its own and must accordingly be examined on its own.  Here, I will examine how 1 Peter 2:18-19 absolutely does seem to contradict Mosaic Law on the righteous treatment of slaves, especially Exodus 21:26-27 and Deuteronomy 23:15-16.  I will also address what does and does not logically follow from this.  In any case that the New Testament truly contradicted Old Testament ethics, the New would have to be false, since it contradicts its own foundation.  Contradicting the inherent truths of logic renders something altogether false regardless of the Bible.

I will present 1 Peter 2:18-19 soon, but I will clarify some key relevant facts.  To an extent, without submission, there can be no servitude.  Peter telling slaves to submit to their masters under some circumstances is not automatically irrational or unjust.  Biblically permitted slavery is very different than some might imagine.  Paul also tells slaves to submit to their masters in everything (Colossians 3:22-25), yet he 1) tells masters to not be unjust towards their slaves (Colossians 4:1; Ephesians 6:5-9), which Colossians does not detail the particulars of unlike Mosaic Law, and he 2) separately acknowledges the Torah's laws as righteous and obligatory.  He himself attests to this in his own epistles (Romans 3:31, 7:7, 12, 13:8-10, 1 Corinthians 5:13, 9:7-12, 2 Corinthians 13:1, 1 Timothy 1:8-11, 5:17-21, etc.); Luke reports him as saying similar things (Acts 23:1-3, 24:14).  Paul, like Jesus, can speak in hyperbole about matters like the submission of slaves but still be entirely consistent in meaning with the exact moral philosophy of the Torah.

Jesus says in Matthew 19:9 that divorce and remarriage to a new partner for reasons other than sexual immorality are immoral, but he also says in Matthew 5:17-19 that he has not come to abolish the Law, which he elsewhere regularly approves of (Matthew 15:1-20, 18:15-17).  The Torah's laws attributed to an unchanging God (Exodus 20:22, 21:1, and so on with Malachi 3:6) very obviously allow for divorce for reasons besides sexual immorality (Exodus 21:10-11, Deuteronomy 21:10-14, 24:1-4), as well as indirectly but still by logically necessary extension (Exodus 21:26-27; see also Deuteronomy 15:16-17, related to the great parallels of a slave going free and a marriage ending due to abuse).  Matthew 19:9, like some of the other things the Jesus of the gospels says, would at best be an exaggeration to shock people into reflecting on the seriousness of casual or truly baseless divorce.  He is otherwise a staunch irrationalist who contradicts his own worldview.

Such is an example of a seeming contradiction between the New and Old Testament.  For another example of what might appear like an obvious contradiction between Paul's theology and the Torah's, see 1 Corinthians 7:19.  Paul says in this verse that circumcision and uncircumcision do not matter because one should keep the commands of God instead.  Of course, circumcision is commanded by God (Leviticus 12:1-3), who also says not to add or subtract from his commands (Deuteronomy 4:2, 12:32).  Examining the previous verse clarifies that Paul is speaking figuratively, since he says in 1 Corinthians 7:18 that a circumcised man should not become uncircumcised once he becomes a Christian and vice versa.  A circumcised man cannot just "become" uncircumcised again.  These examples from the words of Jesus and Paul are clarified by other statements from the same respective figure.  In these instances, the clarifications are even in the same book of the Bible.

Peter does not include such a directly illuminating statement affirming the boundaries of submission anywhere in 1 or 2 Peter.  Many things are similarly true of the conceptual relationship between the Torah and 1 Peter 2 concerning submission to political authorities rather than masters/mistresses and employers by more immediate extension.  I already wrote about this [1] before scheduling each respective article.  Again, this post will focus on slaves submitting to masters, which Peter does encourage even when the latter are outright evil.  Unless Peter strictly meant this in a supererogatory manner (something is supererogatory if it is morally good but not mandatory), he would be in error:

1 Peter 2:18-19--"Slaves, in reverent fear of God submit yourselves to your masters, not only to those who are good and considerate, but also to those who are harsh.  For it is commendable if someone bears up under the pain of unjust suffering because they are conscious of God."

First of all, although I am not assuming that morality exists or that any particular logically possible moral idea is true if morality exists, it cannot be obligatory to submit to evil people.  Evil is what should not be done, and to tolerate or submit to evildoers would thus by nature be, at the very least, to think supportively/lightly of immorality or go further by cooperating with them.  Besides all of this, the person mistreating someone else is the one in the moral wrong, not the victim for defending himself/herself, fleeing, or verbally challenging emotionalistic, egoistic, and otherwise irrationalistic "authority" figures of every sort.

Mercifully or lovingly submitting in the face of abuse could be morally good but optional, as it could not be required.  Contrast what Peter says with what the Torah teaches about just two of the human rights of slaves in particular.  It is not merely unstated but logically necessary in light of some other moral concept of Mosaic Law, but it is the explicit, absolute moral doctrine of the Old Testament that all slaves must go free for abuse (at a minimum for physical abuse) and that they all have the right to just walk away without being opposed.  The verses below convey such things:

Exodus 21:26-27--"'An owner who hits a male or female slave in the eye and destroys it must let the slave go free to compensate for the eye.  And an owner who knocks out the tooth of a male or female slave must let the slave go free to compensate for the tooth.'"

Deuteronomy 23:15-16--"If a slave has taken refuge with you, do not hand them over to their master.  Let them live among you wherever they like and in whatever town they choose.  Do not oppress them."

It is true that perhaps Peter means verbal abuse should be endured rather than physical mistreatment, but Deuteronomy 23 does not require in itself or by logical extension any limitations on the kind of immoral treatment that might lead a slave to run away.  His direct words certainly do not point to this on their own.  Even then, verbal as opposed to physical mistreatment does not nullify the fact that evil people cannot deserve loyalty and protection from true justice.  Exodus 21:26-27 in particular also has stark marital ramifications, since a slave goes free even if he or she freely promised lifelong service to a master (Deuteronomy 15:16-17); the parallels to marriage and divorce are very distinct and important even though they are not mentioned by the Bible.  The Biblical God does not want husbands, wives, slaves, or anyone else to suffer what he defines as injustice or to be pressured to for the sake of supererogatory righteousness.  Ironically, 1 Peter 2:18-19 has been treated as in favor of submitting to spousal abuse in conjunction with the very misunderstood 1 Peter 3:1-7.

Some additional things are relevant.  Peter's own comparisons to to the sufferings of Christ connects with far more than just the fact that Jesus is supposed to have been sinless and thus not deserving of any punishment whatsoever.  The type of suffering Jesus endured is unjust regardless--for one thing, Deuteronomy 25:3 absolutely condemns all degrading punishments, and Roman crucifixion was meant to be degrading--and no one should submit to injustice, but he also did not have to sacrifice himself to begin with.  No one does.  All such self-sacrifice is optional, and the book of John does teach that Jesus voluntarily gave up his life (John 10:18).  The comparison of a slave submitting to injustice to Jesus doing the same hints at Peter potentially recognizing all of this and thus indirectly teaching that such submission is optional.  It is likewise important that Peter is also reprimanded by Jesus for his predicted denial of Christ (Matthew 26:33-35), a voice from heaven for his discrimination against Gentiles (Acts 10-11), and Paul for refusing to associate with Gentiles (Galatians 2:11-13) on separate occasions.  The man is obviously presented as inconsistent philosophically and flawed in his moral character according to each of these speakers.

On two counts, Peter is by all appearances wrong about slaves and masters: 1) his philosophy of submission as directly presented is false by logical necessity, because submitting to evil people or giving them allegiance cannot be obligatory, and 2) the Torah laws from God that are a moral prerequisite to the entire remainder of the Bible's ethical teachings entail the opposite of what he claims is good.  The logically necessary possibility of Christianity being true and its evidentially probable truth, nevertheless, do not depend on whether every single book of the New Testament as chosen by historical figures is entirely true, including in its moral teachings.  There also are possible meanings Peter could have intended that do not defy reason or the Torah.  At best, it is still merely a handful of verses after 1 Peter 2:18-19 that hint at him really condoning the supererogatory resignation to suffer even when the type of treatment one receives is universally unjust (aka, crucifixion) or when it, though otherwise just, is directed at you without basis.

[1].  https://thechristianrationalist.blogspot.com/2025/06/the-torah-against-1-peter-2-regarding.html

Cloud Gaming: Ownership And Accessibility

The gaming industry has trended more towards cloud streaming services like Xbox Cloud Gaming and the PS5's PlayStation Plus Premium, which do away with the conventional need for downloading digital games before playing them.  However, you cannot actually own cloud gaming content in the strictest sense because, as a subset of digitally purchased/downloaded content, you can only license it [1].  Even if you do not buy the streaming game as was permitted with the Stadia (more on that soon), you still would pay for the subscription or the title.  No payment would erase the reliance on servers the player streams from because otherwise it would not be a cloud game to begin with!

The Google Stadia officially debuted in late 2019 and offered the ability to purchase individual streaming games like the 2016 Doom or to pay a monthly service fee that allowed access to a broader library.   Like various other cloud services, Stadia streaming could be accessed from smartphones paired with a wireless controller.  The Amazon Luna, launched in 2022, allows game streaming of select console titles through devices like Androids, iOS hardware, and (Amazon) Fire tablets.  The Nintendo Switch eShop offers a handful of cloud games at this time.  In this case, the Switch itself is the hardware used, whereas the other services could involve miscellaneous devices.  Of all of these cloud options listed, the Stadia, the controller of which is pictured below, had its playability come to an end in January of 2023 [2].

Lack of business "traction," as Google put it, had already led to the demise of the Stadia before it had even been out for four years.  This brought to pass a key danger for consumers inherent in relying on corporate servers for cloud gaming: there is little to no genuine security that the hardware and whatever software one has paid for will remain usable.  For legitimate business reasons or for arbitrary ones, a company could terminate a cloud service, and any money invested into it by the consumer is forfeited—though the company could issue refunds like Google did for some hardware and for any games bought for the system.

Not every company would likely be as accommodating to users, and either way, the software the consumer wanted is retracted from them.  Whenever the Switch eShop closes down, there would be no way to redownload non-cloud digital games once deleted.  However, any digitally downloaded games that have not been deleted would still be accessible as long as the hardware functions.  This is not so with a cloud game for the Switch platform: the moment the servers become inactive, there is nothing you can do to play them even with functioning hardware and an internet connection.  The player ultimately paid for ongoing access during the limited time the servers were running even if they never realized this.

Cloud gaming can be implemented or revoked in consumer-benefitting ways, at least as benefitting as a streaming service permits, and even the way Google handled the closing of the Stadia's cloud functionality is a fairly strong concrete example of this.  It is just that there is a far lesser degree of ownership and security.  You own the hardware and access to a software by direct purchase or by subscription; there is no pure ownership of the title itself.  Physical media can be destroyed, decay, or get lost, and digital games have a fixed period of buyability and downloadability before their respective online store would close, though they can be saved on external memory sources or redownloaded up until this point.  Cloud streaming is even more susceptible to loss.  For its relative convenience with bypassing download waits as well as the need for space to put physical units, it has inescapable boundaries that are not really in the favor of consumers.

[1].  https://thechristianrationalist.blogspot.com/2023/07/digital-ownership.html

[2].  https://stadia.google.com/gg/#:~:text=Thank%20you%20for%20playing%20with,information%20in%20our%20Help%20Center

A Bull With A Habit Of Goring

There are parts of Yahweh's laws that deal with the right treatment of animals by humans, including the command of Deuteronomy 25:4 to not muzzle an ox while it is treading grain.  Others are about how humans are to treat other people indirectly by means of their animals.  Exodus 21:28-32 falls in this category.  Explaining what to do in the case of a bull that gores someone to death both without precedent and when it has gored someone before (non-fatally), these verses are connected with the higher value of humans than animals (compare Exodus 21:28-32 with 35-36), the degrees of moral responsibility someone has for deaths brought about by their pets or farm animals, and the difference between negligence and murder.

In verse 28, the owner is not treated as responsible if the beast kills a man or woman spontaneously or unexpectedly.  They would have had no reason to anticipate the attack.  If, on the contrary, the animal has already attacked someone so that it has a habit of doing so (21:29), warnings have been given by others if the owner did not witness the event(s), and the owner does not pen the bull up in order to prevent a likely continuation of that behavior, it is not only the bull that is to be killed, which is about pragmatically keeping humans safe instead of punishing the animal for moral wrongdoing.  The human owner is to be executed for his or her severe negligence that led to the very gratuitous loss of human life.

The possession of bulls and other such animals is more limited in the likes of modern America to agricultural land or private ranches.  Many residents of my country will likely never own bovine animals that have the potential to suddenly or habitually gore someone to death (or kill them in some other way).  This law is not strictly about bulls, though, but about domesticated animals that kill people.  Someone with, say, a vicious dog that has attacked a child sins if they do not contain their pet, and if it kills a person, they would by necessity deserve to be put to death if Exodus 21:28-29's obligations exist.  It would follow by logical necessity that the same obligations apply with other animals.

In this situation, there is still a permitted escape for the negligent owner: they can pay an unspecified amount of money to not be executed (21:30).  This differentiates how murder and the mishandling of a dangerous animal are addressed by the Torah even more.  For murder, no payment of money is to be accepted in place of the murderer's life (Numbers 35:31).  He or she must be killed (Exodus 22:12-14).  The offense of Exodus 21:29 is negligence that led to another person's death.  It is not murder unless the owner intended for someone else to perish thanks to the beast.  As for the death of a servant, money is to be paid to the master/mistress of the deceased slave, but the animal is still to be killed (21:32), and, as mandated by verse 29, the owner of the animal must still be executed if their creature had a habit of goring.

Since Exodus 21, alongside addressing miscellaneous physical assaults and the varying punishments justice requires (and "eye for eye" is prescribed only for one of these, not for Exodus 21:15, 18-19, 22, or 26-27), deals with cases of murder and manslaughter (Exodus 21:12-14, 20-21), detailing the obligations around holding dangerous animals is rather relevant here.  The text does not have to talk of animals beyond bulls to establish far more than merely how to handle an bull with a habit of goring people.  As with many things in Mosaic Law, Exodus 21:28-29 affirms by the direct wording and by logical extension more than just the obligations to follow in one scenario only.  It touches on a great deal about how humans are to treat each other and how animals are to be confined or even killed for the sake of human safety.

Human Capital

The approach that many employers have to their workers is adversarial and exploitative from the start: the former are hoping to extract the maximum amount of profitability from the latter while giving them as little as they can get away with (concessions, compensation, benefits) without violating arbitrary human laws rooted in nothing but conscience or social norms, or without scaring away all prospective workers altogether.  Such employers might be slow to rectify dangerous working conditions or actively rely on them in order to save money, and therefore maximize the allegedly almighty bottom line, lie to workers about starting pay or raises, or promote micromanaging at almost every turn.

Moreover, in America, at least, where voluntary resignation (or resignation where the employee is pressured to initiate) can make collecting unemployment less feasible or useful than if a worker is fired, unnecessarily harsh or outright predatory treatment is used to "encourage" unwanted employees to leave so that the employer does not have to pay unemployment.  One might even see an employer treat their human capital severely in an irrationalistic manner and then complain when the workers depart, or drive them away and then fret over replacing them or when company consistency suffers during the transition.

Human capital, the skills of workers and by extension the employees themselves, is what drives business.  Pragmatically, it is stupid to treat one's human capital harshly, since this is objectively counterproductive to keeping many parts of business function smooth.  The human workers and thus human capital are literally an integral part of any company that is not a sole proprietorship unless the "employees" are all robots.  Workers do have one of the kinds of power in business [1], for without them, there would be an inherent and extreme restriction on the scope of a company.  It could never reach heights larger than what a single person could accomplish on their own, and yet it is not difficult to find one employer after another who allows greed or ego to dictate their relationship with workers.

What happens when a business runs out of willing workers?  What happens when vital employees leave or have the motivation to work exhausted out of them by stupidity from above?  Company leadership might firmly insist that it cares about its workers and will take genuine concerns into consideration; pathetic lip service is more likely all that is being articulated to little effect.  Completely separate from the issue of moral obligations towards one's workers, which would entail that one should treat them or not treat them in particular ways regardless of convenience or emotional appeal (and if you identify as Christian and would oppose the likes of Leviticus 19:13 and Deuteronomy 24:14-15, you are in serious error), trampling on human capital literally hinders a business.

Logic, people.  It is very fucking helpful.

[1].  https://thechristianrationalist.blogspot.com/2023/02/power-in-business-part-2-employees.html