"Mercy Triumphs Over Judgment"

Judgment without mercy will be shown to those who are not merciful, James 2:12-13 says, and mercy triumphs over judgment.  What do these statements mean and not mean?  Often, this passage could go unnoticed/forgotten or would be misunderstood to mean that mercy is morally superior to judgment, even rationalistic, morally valid judgment.  Also relevant but both unbiblical and independently logically false is the idea that judgment itself is evil.  Not only is this logically impossible—truth is what mercy would hinge on, so mercy could not be more important than core philosophical truths, including the obligations of justice, and that which is evil should be judged—but the Bible itself teaches otherwise.  Judgment is not ever problematic in itself (John 7:24).  It is impossible to not judge people unless one has no worldview, which is itself impossible.  Only hypocritical or otherwise irrationalistic judgment could be erroneous (Matthew 7:1-5).

Divine mercy that is accepted through repentance and commitment does triumph over divine judgment in that to receive mercy, one must have slipped into an avoidable error that is not being punished as it deserves.  To be "saved" at all, one must be granted what one does not deserve.  In this sense, yes, mercy triumphs over judgment when it is given, and this is a core part of Christian philosophy.  Nevertheless, mercy cannot be obligatory, and the Bible does not actually teach that it is, for humans or for God (if it did, all parts of the Bible saying such a thing would by logical necessity be false because justice is mandatory and mercy is the suspension of justice).  God could have thus never shown mercy to anyone and still been inherently perfect.  Justice, if it exists, is obligatory, and legitimate mercy is the optional suspension of justice not out of emotionalism, but out of love or the hope that someone will repent.

It is also true that mercy is not God's default standing towards someone because his very nature grounds justice.  Most people will still voluntarily walk in irrationalism, self-imposed blindness, and philosophical apathy down the path that leads to destruction (Matthew 7:13-14), and to forcibly show them mercy—not just giving them another chance for repentance in this life or the next, but choosing to exempt them from just punishment of the second death no matter their desires—is unjust.  Yahweh's justice very clearly is what awaits most people according to the Bible, so mercy cannot triumph over judgment in a universalist or anti-moralistic way.

Again, it is not in the sense of all willing recipients of God's mercy being spared from the torment and annihilation that they deserve.  Mercy should not be the sole default for people in that they should always be ready to enact justice even if they do not want to, down to the execution of anyone who commits the capital sins Yahweh specifies in the Torah.  It is just that mercy, by nature, can only be shown when punitive justice is withheld, and this is what happens when people seek reason, God, and morality in repentance for whatever errors they have chosen.  By repentance and commitment to Yahweh/Christ, commitment (which is not epistemological faith as many irrationally believe) requiring the former to at least some degree in order to be genuine at all, people pass from death to life (John 5:24).

Theirs is not the second death, the fate of being purged from existence as beings unwilling to abandon their philosophical/moral flaws deserve (Romans 6:23).  Theirs is eternal life that can only be found, according to the actual statements of the Bible, by receiving it from the only being that in itself lives forever, that being Yahweh (1 Timothy 6:15-16).  The true Biblical doctrine about mercy is like the rationalistic truths about mercy that are there independent of whether Christianity is true: this doctrine is nuanced and important but in some ways so very simple.  It is logically impossible for mercy to be obligatory.  Mercy can still be morally good.  God is merciful, and he is just; the latter aspect of his character is obviously the more significant and foundational one.  There is still mercy that triumphs over judgment for all who are willing.

A Terribly Illogical And Unbiblical Stance On Divorce (Part Three)

Here, I continue pointing out flaws of William Luck's theological position on divorce in the article linked at the bottom of the post [1].

Beyond failing to realize the logical and Biblical mutuality of any obligations spouses have towards each other, Luck stupidly concludes that only very specific things are obligatory towards a person's marriage partner anyway.  He ignores that all sorts of moral duties pertain to marriage although they are not primarily related to it!  Because the page linked at the bottom of this post is supposed to focus on Exodus 20 and 21 as they overtly or more subtly relate to marriage, I will use an example from Exodus 20.  The Bible never specifically says that a husband and wife should not steal from each other, but this is already encompassed within what it does say.

Exodus 20:15—"'You shall not steal.'"

As a sinful act, theft should not be committed against one's husband or wife.  But this is not because theft is strictly relevant to marriage, as with the sin condemned in the very verse before Exodus 20:15.  All stealing is wicked.  Thus, stealing from one's marital partner is one possible expression of a universally immoral behavior.  There are ramifications of verses like Exodus 20:15 and the obligations described therein for marriage, though they are not limited to marriage.  Indeed, this is exactly the case with Exodus 21:26-27 and Deuteronomy 23:15-16 as already addressed.

These verses about the evil of abusing slaves/servants and a slave's human right to flee if not released are not about marriage, but it logically follows from the doctrine of a slave's freedom for mistreatment that wives and husbands are also permitted to go free for abuse regardless of any other factors (children, personal promises to always stay with each other, and so on).  There are far more obligations that both husbands and wives have towards each other than the ones Luck brings up as if they were exhaustive; even then, he treats some of the obligations he lists as gender-specific when they have nothing to do with anatomy.  

The Bible does not say they are gender-specific, with other verses sometimes outright teaching the opposite.  This sexism would make his philosophy of marriage ethics inconsistent with reason itself, which in turn makes it automatically false.  Then, the issue is whether the Bible contradicts objective logical truths (not scientific contingencies, probabilities, or hearsay) about morality and gender egalitarianism.  The Bible, in fact, does directly highlight that an obligation brought up using the particular example of a man or woman still goes both ways, unless a person's anatomy and physiology exclude this.  For instance, a man could not be obligated to ceremonially cleanse himself from childbirth (Leviticus 12) because he does not give birth.  Love for one's spouse is an important example of an obligation mentioned in one place as directed towards spouses of a particular gender and elsewhere articulated as being a mutual obligation, having no connection to anatomy.  Paul does say husbands should love their wives in Ephesians 5 (and in Colossians 3:19), but he also holds that wives should love their husbands as expressed in Titus 2:

Ephesians 5:25, 28—"Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her . . . In this same way, husbands ought to love their wives as their own bodies.  He who loves his wife loves himself."

Titus 2:3-5—"Likewise, teach the older women to be reverent in the way they live, not to be slanderers or addicted to much wine, but to teach what is good.  Then they can urge the younger women to love their husbands and children, to be self-controlled and pure, to be busy at home, to be kind, and to be subject to their husbands, so that no one will malign the word of God."

Obviously, Paul does not actually think only husbands should love only wives.  The fact that he separately instructs both to love each other already reflects egalitarian mutuality.  He alludes to Genesis 2:24 in Ephesians 5:28, moreover, before outright citing it in verse 31 to point out that a husband and wife are to become one flesh.  This is the egalitarian basis of husbands loving their wives as themselves—it does not only go in one direction!  Genesis 2:24 is very direct with its anti-complementarian philosophy, something paralleled in Song of Songs 6:3.  To revisit an idea of Luck's I refuted logically and Biblically from certain angles in part one of this series, a husband is not unilaterally like a master to his wife, and his wife is not unilaterally like a slave to him.  Husbands and wives mutually belong to each other as equal partners:

Genesis 2:24—"That is why a man leaves his father and mother and is united to his wife, and they become one flesh."

Song of Songs 6:3—"I am my beloved's and my beloved is mine . . ."

Both of the verses above are from the Old Testament!  They alone clarify that Exodus 20:17 does not regard men as the literal, uni-directional owners of their wives, aside from the other errors of such a concept being supposedly Biblical.  In true egalitarian fashion, Paul accordingly does also claim that husbands should submit to wives as contained within the scope of Ephesians 5:21 and expressly addressed in 1 Corinthians 7:2-5 (which deals with a submission that is clearly said to go in both directions), in addition to wives submitting to their husbands, which is singled out elsewhere (Ephesians 5:22-24, Colossians 3:18).  

Short of an actual statement on submission not being mutual, mentioning submission of wives to husbands in one place does not exclude egalitarian submission, which Paul obviously assents to.  And as pertains to divorce, since failing to love or submit to one's spouse in the ways genuinely required by morality is mistreatment of one's spouse, this wrong would surely release someone from the obligation to remain married if they no longer wish to be.  Love and submission are marital duties (including submission of husbands to wives as taught in Deuteronomy 24:5), so falling short of rightly holding to and practicing them is a violation of the marriage covenant.  Various examples of neglect (Exodus 21:10-11) and general displeasure over wrongdoing (Deuteronomy 24:1-4) are already specified as allowed reasons for divorce anyway!  Luck would completely deny the total equivalence of the obligations to love and submit within marriage, with, of course, no one being obligated to submit to an abusive partner (Exodus 21:10-11, 26-27, and Deuteronomy 23:15-16 independently proclaim or necessitate this).  The latter, he agrees with, but he does not think the same things always constitute abuse for husbands and wives.

Also, both 1) the mutuality of marital rights and obligations between husbands and wives—aka, gender equality—and 2) the right to divorce for forms of abuse besides abandonment are addressed by Paul in 1 Corinthians 7:15.  In the context of a chapter where he frequently emphasizes mutual obligation within marriage, he expressly acknowledges that abandoning one's partner is only one of multiple "such circumstances" that entitle the offended husband or wife to pursue divorce.  Whether or not it is a non-Christian guilty of the abandonment as in the direct example makes no logical difference as to the core nature of the sin.  Certain translations besides the NIV (featured below) say that the abandoned or otherwise abused spouse is no longer enslaved or under bondage, perhaps an intentional allusion to tangentially but crucially relevant verses like Exodus 21:26-27 and Deuteronomy 23:15-16.  

Moreover, it is vital that Paul, who champions the strict universality and rigidness of the Law (Romans 3:10-31, 7:7, 12, 1 Timothy 1:8-11) does not insist that men (or women) must remain trapped in abusive marriages even in the circumstances of Deuteronomy 22:17-19 and 28-29.  His stance on divorce is perfectly consistent with Yahweh's Torah laws while still being so simple he can summarize it in one single verse: abandonment and other forms of mistreatment always validate divorce, and this is true of both husbands and wives, who are mutually obligated to each other in all the same ways.  Remarriage is permitted for both parties, who are not bound to each other if one of them pursues divorce for legitimate reasons:

1 Corinthians 7:15—"But if the unbeliever leaves, let it be so.  The brother or the sister is not bound in such circumstances; God has called us to live in peace."

First, sheer gender equality is affirmed yet again.  Second, while a particular example of mistreatment is held up as warranting divorce, Paul's literal wording allows for divorce for additional reasons, as indicated by the phrase "such cases".  This is consistent with what Exodus and Deuteronomy respectively teach by permitting divorce for specific offenses and by adding that, except for in very particular scenarios, a spouse can divorce their partner over any wrong they commit, even if it is directed outside the marriage.  Note that even if Deuteronomy 24:1-4 was absent from the Bible, the baseline criteria for divorce would then be if someone simply wishes to no longer be married to their partner (Deuteronomy 21:10-14).  As long as there was no malicious reason for the divorce, such as financially harming one's former partner without cause, subjective willingness to abolish the marriage would justify it as permissible.  And if Deuteronomy 21:10-14 was also absent, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy would still never condemn divorce in any case of a spouse's actual moral failure, with Exodus still providing key examples of sins warranting divorce and with remarriage afterward never being declared evil.

There is neither an all-encompassing set of reasons or a very limited number of morally valid reasons for divorce.  The entire category of ideological/moral error by one's spouse is the baseline standard for permissible divorce.  Non-moral actions, those with no actual error (such as reading a certain book series or wearing green clothing), never legitimize divorce.  Ordinarily, any moral failure of your husband or wife entitles you to end the marriage if their actions displease you so much that you lose interest in remaining married to them; in the situations addressed in Deuteronomy 22, only direct abuse within the marriage entitles a spouse to leave, for although Deuteronomy 22 does say an offender may never divorce a spouse in these two situations, Exodus 21:26-27 and Deuteronomy 23:15-16 are incredibly clear on how no social status, relational standing, or vow of commitment obligates a man or woman to stay in an abusive situation, not even if they are a slave.

The relevance of Exodus to many particular points focused on in this post and the truth of those points goes unrecognized by William Luck.  His philosophy of marriage and divorce is thoroughly inconsistent with both logic's objective truths and genuine Biblical doctrines.  He ignores some instrumental passages connected to marriage, distorts the conveyed meaning of many verses he does acknowledge, and, most grievously of all, disregards logical necessities left and right, such as the sheer equivalence of an act when done by or to a man or woman.  Ostensibly, the series of posts which the linked page is but one out of is meant to exegetically illuminate what the Bible really teaches about marriage, obligations within marriage, and the criteria for divorce.  Luck fails miserably in fulfilling such a goal at almost every turn.  As right as it is to point out that wives can abuse husbands, including physically, and that this is sinful by Biblical standards (and not in a lesser sense than the other way around), even the reasons he thinks this is correct are woefully erroneous.

Men and women are equals, something that cuts both ways.  And there is no egalitarian uplifting or protection of women without that of men and vice versa.  Additionally, the number of obligations husbands and wives Biblically have towards each other far exceeds the measly number that Luck proposes, with none of them being gender-specific.  His is a terribly illogical and unbiblical stance on divorce!  

[1].  https://bible.org/seriespage/2-covenant-companionship-exodus-20-and-21

Cost Of Living Raises

The march of inflation, the rising of prices, entails that the same numeric amount of money would over time have a diminishing ability to purchase the same goods or services.  Thus, an employer who never alters compensation in response to inflation is in effect paying employees less and less for the same work.  This could be due to anything from negligence on their part to utter premeditated malice, as they might hope this practice goes unchallenged so that they can continue paying less in a sense each year.  The numbers paid might stay the same, but the worker sufferers or is exploited even if they do not feel the impact of lacking cost of living adjustments (sometimes called COLA), and the company will likely increase its own prices to safeguard a stable profit one way or another.  It just might not allow employee wages/salaries to increase in proportion to this.

On one hand, this kind of employer would not have to part with a higher amount of their revenue in paying employees livable wages, or at least compensation that does not decrease in purchasing power as the cost of living increases along with inflation.  On the other hand, desperation on the part of workers, including that of seeing their buying power crumble, can absolutely work out in a cruel or selfish employer's favor.  The workers might be driven to the point of exhaustion by frantically trying to hold onto whatever miserable job they have, in the process losing the energy and resolve to search for new employment.  Workers with the flexibility to search for new jobs or who have multiple jobs are in a stronger position when it comes to resisting the dictates of an asinine employer: they do not rely or need to rely on the one job so heavily.

The more an employer denies or neglects cost of living raises, the more the purchasing power of their workers erodes, and the more in need of money they become, save for particularly well-off individuals.  Even then, they are being taken advantage of by those above them, those who have the power to ensure an employee's labor is rewarded at a consistent level of purchasing power and fail to do so.  Companies that withhold cost of living raises on purpose to inspire dread or passion around performance-based appraisal for raises are exploitative and founded on stupidity.  Of course, there is no such thing as infinite room for improvement, not as far as a person's individual capacity is concerned, yet this is often held up as the supreme metric for raises.

It is logically impossible for someone to always improve their output with the same amount of time and the same technological means of accomplishing this.  Then there is the fact that any raises actually awarded might still inadequately reflect the real level of effort on the worker's part or their level of seniority or centrality in the company.  Labor is seldom rewarded in accordance with the real relevant factors: whatever is livable in that place and time (at a full-time level at minimum), personal skills and seniority, and the fact that someone is giving up part of their life for a mere job.  Avoiding cost of living raises is utterly incompatible with the nature of the first factor and is very disrespectful towards the other two as well.

This is one of the many potential ramifications of pretending like workers are only a burdensome expense on a business, a necessary "evil" in that they deprive owners of even greater profits.  An employer who misunderstands employees to be parasites that contribute little to nothing while always demanding more does not understand logical necessity as applicable to business--workers are utterly vital to expanding and sustaining the scope of a company!  To adjust compensation to match a shifting cost of living is to protect the livability of a job and make it appealing to current and prospective workers.  It is also to treat people as what they are, which is more than a means to the end of enriching an employer, to be appeased with whatever scraps will barely mollify them.

XCOM 2's Psionics: Science Fiction And The Supernatural

The video game XCOM 2 portrays an Earth occupied by alien forces for two decades, many of them harnessing what is termed Psionic energy (depicted as a purple energy in the game).  On behalf of a mysterious, distant group of extraterrestrials called the Elders with their own extreme Psionic capabilities, the more frontline troops of the invaders, representing a variety of species, utilize a number of powers triggered by mental effort that can dramatically shift the direction of a skirmish.  The game simultaneously leans heavily into scientific concepts and epistemology by emphasizing research and autopsies of enemy bodies (which yield enhancements for the protagonists), with Dr. Tygan of the game's titular resistance group describing miscellaneous information about alien technology and biology at length.  No one in the game seriously questions if Psionic energy logically conflicts with the laws of nature.

And some of these uses of the energy are very blatantly beyond the scope of the laws of nature.  Using thoughts, codexes can summon Psionic vortexes that force every player unit inside the circular area to have to reload their weapons before firing again and that detonate in the following turn, inflicting damage to every soldier who does not move away.  Sectoids can reanimate corpses, called Psi Zombies, which once again "die" (i.e., the bodies are no longer manipulated by an external mind) if the Sectoid controlling them is killed.  Gatekeepers, tentacled beings inside a mechanized, spherical shell, also have the ability to animate the dead.  The Warlock, one of the Chosen proficient in the use of Psionics, can summon spectral soldiers as distractions.  Until you break them, Psionically charged sarcophagi restore each of the Chosen in their strongholds and keep them from permanent death upon defeat.

Thankfully, XCOM 2 does allow the player to eventually harness Psionic power against the aliens, such as by conjuring up a barrier for cover, granting an extra move to another soldier's turn, and mind controlling an enemy.  In the War of the Chosen expansion, the Templar faction leans heavily into such powers and celebrates the Psionic potential of humans, which it eagerly wields against the extraterrestrial invaders.  But in both War of the Chosen and the base game, Psi Operatives can be trained through the Psi Lab after a point in the main story.  Given enough time in the lab's training, a rookie soldier attain each ability from every pair of options for Psi Operatives.

These powers are necessarily supernatural as mental abilities (and mind is immaterial, so it is not part of the physical world anyway despite having a very close relationship with one's body), which can have incredible impact on the natural world—as with the vortex—or on other minds—as with the mind control.  Presented in such a starkly science fiction context, the Psionic powers might strike some as being some in-franchise expression of laws of physics that humans have not yet discovered or utilized for combat purposes.  But though they can have an impact on the physical plane, they are mental in nature.

The brain and mind are not the same.  Respectively, neurological structures and processes are specific arrangements of matter and the function of those structures.  A human brain might contain billions of neurons that transmit signals across an even larger number of synapses, but a mind is the inherently nonphysical consciousness that contains active thoughts and passive perceptions in all their forms, the totality of a being's experiences.  A brain without a mind is not animated.  A brain cannot think, as only a mind can.  Among other things which require the distinction of the brain and mind, you cannot see or touch a mind or its thoughts, not through the sense of sight and touch, at least.  Other than simply seeing one's own thoughts through direct introspective experience, this would require some form of telepathic (hence nonphysical) connection/engagement between minds.

The seeming correlation between neurological events and mental states does not mean they are both physical.  In fact, two things cannot correlate unless they are different!  I say seeming because I, like any individual person, cannot actually see my own brain with its neurons and synapses, so I cannot even have access to direct sensory evidence for their existence or correlation with my mental activities; I can only access the reports by others that humans have a nervous system, which then seems very likely about myself (or I could view another person's brain).  In contrast, I rationalistically know the existence of my mind through the logical impossibility of perception without a mind and my direct experience of consciousness.  Also, I could only believe I do not exist or contemplate if I do not exist if I already exist as a mind.

Without mentioning any such logical facts about the subject of mind-body dualism, Dr. Tygan does admit to a difference between a mind and a body when discussing how he can create an Elder body for a high-stakes mission but cannot create an Elder mind, with their consciousness being necessary for the mission objectives.  Along with Tygan's brief admission, the strikingly powerful Psionic offensive and defensive measures available to certain characters are why XCOM exemplifies how science fiction is not incompatible with overt supernaturalism.

All minds, unembodied or not, and therefore all mental phenomena are immaterial.  As I have said before, this logically makes the mind a supernatural existent of a different sort than a true god or an angel.  A true god or an angel would have a mind, but not a mind is not automatically divine or angelic.  But as I have also said before, it does not follow logically that human consciousness will exist in any sort of afterlife after the death of the body, either with a resurrected body or without a corporeal shell.  There is no evidential indication of an afterlife in XCOM 2, though there might be one.  This sort of nature is not a prerequisite for the mind to be supernatural, which it is.

An afterlife or its absence, though, is beside the immediate point: Psionic powers are explicitly supernatural and are consistent on all levels, including that of the game's tone and primary themes, with the scientific grounding of the game.  Our minds certain appear to not have the same capacity to remotely impose mental states like panic on others with a thought (with no intimidating words or physical actions involved), but they are immaterial, and the more outwardly obvious supernatural powers of mind in XCOM 2 showcase this without conflicting with its emphasis on scientific phenomena.

Alleged Bible Contradictions: 2 Kings 23:15-16, 23, And Amos 2:1-3

Something evil would logically have to be wicked for all people at all times, unless God's nature was to change, which is fully rejected by the Bible's theology (Malachi 3:6, James 1:17).  Consistency is a requirement for a concept to be true, consistency with reason first and foremost due to its inherent truth and by extension consistency with itself, a somewhat less direct form of consistency with the laws of logic.  Why, then, does the Bible praise King Josiah in 2 Kings 23 for burning human bones on an altar, at least with the very strong implication being that this is among the distinctly positive things that mark his rule, and condemn the king of Edom in Amos 2 for burning the bones of another nation's ruler?  The context of each chapter makes it clear that there is a universal sin related to burning human bones, one present depending upon the motivations of the person conducting or ordering the burning, and that King Josiah fulfills a different objective.

2 Kings 23:15-16, 25—"Even the altar at Bethel, the high place made by Jeroboam son of Nebt, who had caused Israel to sin—even that altar and high place he demolished.  He burned the high place and ground it to powder, and burned the Asherah pole also.  Then Josiah looked around, and when he saw the tombs that were there on the hillside, he had the bones removed from them and burned on the altar to defile it, in accordance with the word of the Lord proclaimed by the man of God who foretold these things . . . Neither before nor after Josiah was there a king like him who turned to the Lord as he did—with all his heart and with all his soul and with all his strength, in accordance with all the Law of Moses."

Amos 2:1-3—"This is what the Lord says: 'For three sins of Moab, even for four, I will not relent.  Because he burned to ashes the bones of Edom's king, I will send fire on Moab that will consume the fortresses of Kerioth.  Moab will go down in great tumult amid war cries and the blast of the trumpet.  I will destroy her ruler and kill all her officials with him,' says the Lord."

Clearly, Amos 2 condemns a Gentile king for burning the bones of another Gentile ruler in an act meant to dehumanize his enemy, though the latter is already dead.  This is yet another thing that refutes Rabbinic Judaism's race-based, morally relativistic, unbiblical (and illogical in light of each of these errors!) distortion of the fewer-than-alleged Noahide Laws, which Genesis never says constitute all human obligations anyway; desecrating a corpse is not among the supposed seven laws for all humanity.  Indeed, Amos makes it clear that it is inherently wicked to desecrate the body of an enemy; even the body of a capital sinner who has been put to death should not be left exposed for a full 24 hours (Deuteronomy 21:22-23), for the sinner was still a human carrying the divine image.  In Amos, a particular ramification of the universal obligation to not desecrate a human corpse, as well as the land it is displayed on, is addressed in the issue of burning someone's bones as if to disgrace the person, who is no longer living.

King Josiah, also with great clarity, is presented as a monarch who acts righteously and also burns the bones of pagan worshipers to defile the altar.  Instead of intending to desecrate a person's body or the living human they once were, he is acting to desecrate altars used for illicit worship, the worship of other gods and the natural world.  The motivations of the king of Edom and King Josiah are different, and the situational contexts are different.  Josiah behaves not out of malice or to degrade another person (as nuanced as it is, one could still express degrading treatment towards a corpse), but out of reverence for Yahweh and to deter pagan practitioners from conducting further worship in the area.

That Josiah's actions were predicted by a prophet of Yahweh does not automatically render them upright.  First, it does not follow from something being prophesied that it is a morally valid state of affairs.  Second, events are prophesied in the Bible quite regularly that involve people violating all sorts of moral requirements by the Bible's own standard.  For instance, in Ezekiel 21:18-23, the king of Babylon is predicted by God to turn to omens to decide which of two paths to take, one of the exact practices Deuteronomy 18:9-12 says were sins of the Gentile Canaanites for which God hated them and would drive them out of the land.  Another example is how followers of Yahweh and Christ are said ahead of time to be persecuted by the beast (Revelation 13:5-8, 20:4), or how many people will refuse to repent of sins like murder and theft after the eschatological trumpet judgments (Revelation 9:20-21).

Obviously, as Revelation 9 itself says, these behaviors are wicked, or else they would not need to be repented of as it says general humanity will refuse to do.  There are many examples across the Old and New Testaments of prophesied events which involve someone practicing immorality of one kind or another.  So, both logically and Biblically, that Josiah's burning of human bones on the altar was predicted by God through a prophet does not mean what he did is righteous.  In his case, it was, but, as clarified, this is not because burning someone's bones as if to defile the dead person is ever permissible, whoever the bones belonged to.  It is strictly because of Josiah's motivation.

When The Wealthiest Oppressors Do Not Relent

Completely aside from issues of logical veracity and moral legitimacy in pursuing wealth by basically any means possible no matter the consequences, the wealthy "elite" literally shoot themselves in their own feet when they bring about widespread poverty and do not even attempt to seriously hide how predatory their employment, manufacturing, and sales practices are.  For one thing, a lower class with high probability of climbing into the middle class due to genuine hard work and a middle class that is not at risk of dissolving into the lower class will probably not be enraged that certain people have much more than they do, because they have all they need to survive and live comfortably in some degree of luxury—or they have a fair chance at reaching this point.

If people were not struggling despite working hard or for many hours (including past the full-time threshold), it is unlikely that anywhere near as many who are not already infected by greed of their own would be so dissatisfied with the amount they currently possess.  When masses of people slave away with less to show for it than a literal Biblical servant at the end or their seven-year maximum term (Deuteronomy 15:12-14), left with little to no free time and savings even after responsible spending on food, power, transportation, healthcare, and so on, they might naturally begin scrutinizing the economic and labor system they live under, even if not rationalistically.  They might have nothing left over after paying for necessary expenses, and that is if they are not pushed into debt simply to survive in a modern society.

People who do not have surplus money to spend cannot contribute to the continued profits of the non-necessity businesses and those behind them—or, if they do, they are handling their resources very irrationally under the circumstances.  Alternatively, they might validly lash out against the kinds of founders, executives, investors, and politicians that are making their lives so desperate through the likes of low wages and planned obsolescence.  These same figures could have actually kept getting away with living for their incredibly erroneous and hollow priorities.  But that would require that they not make the oppression so overt that almost everyone who does not rely on something like massive inheritances, nepotism, or theft struggles simply to get by from one day to another, drawing more attention to themselves and their asinine excesses.

The irony is that even extremely delusional, miserly, classist parasites clamoring for every additional dime they can siphon away from workers and consumers could actually, in all likelihood, avoid such widespread outrage—which can damage their ongoing profits—simply by not siphoning away as much.  No rational person cares that others have more than they do in itself, or if they are bothered, they do not let it shape their beliefs and behaviors.  All the wealthiest oppressors would have to do is pay workers enough to be comfortable in the current economic conditions (as in, truly livable compensation), save for extreme personal circumstances not reflective of the economy's inherent nature, and not place unnecessarily high or non-mutual prices on consumers; they could hold onto all other resources with their inflexible claws.  By non-mutual prices, I mean a price that might be inflated to more than the bare minimum necessary to make a sustainable profit, with no additional quality being reflected for in the form of product longevity, useful or desired features, etc.  The buyer merely pays more for heightened profits for the misers at the top of the hierarchy.

On a pragmatic level, someone could hoard money needlessly, reflecting their false philosophy centered on a social construct, without as much opposition if they just do not cross these specific lines.  Now, no rationalistic person would ever live for monetary wealth, the societal power so often stemming from it, or the hedonistic worldview wealth can allow someone to more lavishly express.  They would live for reason, the necessary truths that cannot have been any other way, not for a social construct or emotionalistic high.  Perhaps literally no one who does not inherit extraordinarily high sums like billions of dollars with no active effort ever makes billions of dollars in a system like the American capitalist economy without engaging in some sort of theft, especially wage theft.  Thus, they are by nature not living for reason and morality, but for things which are inherently lesser or meaningless altogether.

Social opposition or the lack thereof is not what legitimizes a business investor's/owner's worldview, priorities, or practices.  Something is not illogical or immoral because any amount of people object to it, suffer because of it (and then literally anyone psychologically suffering because of a true idea would make it false, an outright logical impossibility), or feel it is false or wicked.  Yet, the idiots who run many of the most powerful corporate entities could mitigate public outcry and all difficulties posed by it by not being quite so unrelenting, gratuitous, and inconspicuous about their dismissal of workers, consumers, and the poor.  Such figures cannot eliminate the dissatisfied masses without having no one to exploit for the perpetuation of their extraordinary profits or lord their wealth over—again, aside from any logical and moral errors in their worldviews and actions, they make maintaining their objectives much more difficult for themselves by not toning down their own stupidity.

Finishing The Race

Seemingly about to die as is strongly implied in 2 Timothy 4:6, the apostle Paul writes in 2 Timothy 4:7 that he has successfully kept his faithfulness to God and finished the race.  Besides his comment in 2 Timothy 2:10-12 about how Jesus will disown those who disown him, which echoes what Jesus says about how he will disown those who disown him in Matthew 10:32-32 (even if they were saved up until that point!), he is fairly direct in 2 Timothy 4 in affirming that salvation can be lost.  The way Paul speaks of himself uses language that clearly points to the capacity for failing to stay committed to God and righteousness.  One cannot finish a race one is not actively participating in, and the need for active effort to accomplish something always logically requires that there is the potential to not achieve this accomplishment by inaction or improper action.

2 Timothy 4:6-7—"For I am already being poured out like a drink offering, and the time of my departure is near.  I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith."

Not only does this passage clearly establish as do other verses that salvation can be lost (which does not necessitate that it cannot or will not be restored to the repentant!), but it also contradicts Calvinism.  Calvinism holds that Christians are eternally secure, that God has chosen them in some involuntary way (which has its own grave logical and Biblical errors I have previously addressed) that cannot be avoided or nullified by the actions of the Christian.  But the New Testament regularly touches on how salvation can be walked away from.  Whether the exact means of the loss is that God actively removes it or the person simply forfeits it by their sin, salvation is not eternally bestowed until after the resurrection, when a righteous person receives their eternal life (Daniel 12:2).

Finishing the race is essential.  For if someone drops out of this race and Christianity is true, their fate is destruction.  It is far less severe than the egregiously heretical atrocity of eternal torture that many Calvinists think the Bible promises the wicked, but being excluded from a perfected life by being killed in the second death is far from a minor punishment.  And any Christian could lose their salvation by sinning without even caring if they were in the wrong.  

It does not follow from a Christian sinning without the correct regard for truth, morality, and repentance that they will lose their salvation, but it is possible.  Just because someone has been "saved" or is saved does not mean they always will be.  This, too, does not logically follow.  These logical facts and the Bible's genuine doctrine of the loss of salvation are ignored by those who have already assumed that salvation cannot be forfeited, perhaps because of their church's traditions or the potentially strong personal appeal of not having to worry about personally maintaining a salvific standing before God.

According to a Calvinist, whose illogical and Biblically heretical ideology treats God as the exclusive soteriological choice-maker, the race does not actually need to be run at all.  Or, God "runs" the race for them so that it is never really up to a human either way.  Likely passively assuming they are among the elect when they could not truly know (on their own worldview, they are unable to choose this and can only hope that God has arbitrarily chosen them), a consistently devoted Calvinist would not bother with trying to act righteously in order to keep salvation, for they would think neither outward behavior nor inner assent has any relevance to securing the ultimately fixed status of their salvation.  Indeed, a being whose will is puppeteered by another entity is not responsible for whatever they believe or do anyway.  The former would not be capable of genuinely running, which Paul insists we can do.  And with the responsibility to run the race comes the possibility of not completing it.

Even if someone ignored every other pertinent verse in the Old and New Testaments, Paul obviously writes in 2 Timothy that the Christian needs to run the race in order to achieve victory.  It is not a victory over and against other Christians competing for a small number of divine pardons, as if only some who run can remain saved at the expense of the others' salvation.  That all people are invited to be saved by God is in fact one of the pivotal reasons why Calvinism cannot possibly be Biblical (1 Timothy 2:3-6, 2 Peter 3:8-9, 1 John 2:2).  No, it is a race to the same ending point for all participants, and everyone who runs can reach the end.  Paul writes as someone would if they were promoting the concept that salvation is not automatically more secure than someone's willingness to avoid sin or to repent.

An enormous number of things are assumed to be wicked which objectively are not on Judeo-Christianity; I have written about various examples many times over.  The parameters allow for much greater freedom than many who unfortunately have immense cultural sway claim.  But genuine sin must be rejected, and if one has sinned, there is no benefit in not seeking God's forgiveness other than perhaps the preservation of a misguided expression of autonomy.  Continuing the race to the end requires effort, and though in a very particular sense there is no human act other than mentally requesting forgiveness that initiates salvation (Ephesians 2:8-9), the righteous person who assumes that God will excuse their present or recent sin due to their past righteousness might very well inherit permanent death rather than eternal life (Ezekiel 33:12-13, 18, Galatians 6:8-9).

The Relative Worthlessness Of Idolaters

According to the summary in 2 Kings 17:7-23, God allowed the Assyrian conquer and deportation of the Israelites due to their many sins.  They worshipped other gods (Exodus 22:20, Deuteronomy 13:1-10, 17:2-7), built high places (Deuteronomy 12:2-4), installed Asherah poles and sacred stones (Deuteronomy 16:21-22), worshipped idols (Exodus 20:4-5, 22-23, Deuteronomy 4:15-19), sacrificed their sons and daughters in fire (Leviticus 20:2-5, Deuteronomy 18:10), and engaged in sorcery (Exodus 22:18, Deuteronomy 18:10-12).  2 Kings 17:16 says they forsook all the commands of Yahweh, though not every individual would necessarily have committed all possible sins themself.

Thus, though 2 Kings 17 does not list moral wrongs like murder outside of pagan human sacrifice (Numbers 35:31), rape (a Deuteronomy 22:25-27), slave trading (Exodus 21:16), deceptive trade (Deuteronomy 25:13-16), physical abuse (Exodus 21:18-19, 22-27), the mistreatment of foreigners (Exodus 22:21, Leviticus 24:22), and so on, it does describe Israel as being permeated by evil.  However, though it is not the worst of sins, this summary of Israel's moral descent singles out idolatry in a crucial way.  2 Kings 17:15 says that the Israelites followed worthless idols and themselves became worthless.

This statement is also found in Jeremiah 2:5.  Here, God introduces a series of comments that idols and thus by logical extension idolatry is worthless (2:8, 11).  In other passages of the Bible, idols, idol worship and the associated philosophies, and idolaters are called "worthless" or "nothing" (Isaiah 44:9-10, Jeremiah 8:19, 10:3-8, 15:22).  What might strike many moderners who identify as Christians as odd is that these statements are sometimes made of the people who believe in or practice idolatry as well as the objects they erroneously treat as divine.  Since people are partly defined by what they do, this should not be particularly shocking or even surprising, except for those who have just left the shadow of assumptions and had been told that the Bible says otherwise, failing to rationalistically investigate.

Without being fully worthless as human image-bearers of God (Genesis 1:26-27, 5:1-2, 9:6), with all forms of mistreatment as specified in Mosaic Law still being immoral when done to them (such as the unjust torture of Deuteronomy 25:3), such people are nonetheless, to a relative extent, worthless.  If morality exists, people are no better than their worldviews and moral character; it would be impossible for someone who intentionally, rationally pursues reason, truth, and righteousness to not be superior to someone who does not.  On any moralistic worldview that does not contradict logical axioms and other necessary truths (for moral superiority is by necessity metaphysical superiority), it could only be the case that someone who disregards or opposes truth and morality is to varying degrees inferior to someone who does not do such things.

Hoshea is listed as the final king of the monarchy in Israel (2 Kings 17:1-6), at this point separate from the kingdom of Judah--2 Kings 18 details how Hezekiah takes the throne of Judah during the reign of Hoshea, which lasts only nine years, yet Hezekiah is still reigning 14 years later.  Unlike how God pulls away his protection from Israel, he enables Hezekiah to rebel against the Assyrians (2 Kings 18:5-7).  Idolatry is among the numerous wrongs of Israel that leads them to this state of vulnerability before a pagan ruler, for they had become worthless in a sense like the idols they worshipped.  Repeated in the book of Jeremiah, this is a vital part of the Biblical doctrine of what idolatry renders people and acknowledgement of the fact that the existence of morality would necessitate that people of differing moral character could not possibly be equal.

Pagan Stories

The Bible does not forbid storytelling that involves characters holding to other religions or depictions of mythological beings such as the Greek Olympians.  If this was the case, God could have easily commanded the avoidance or destruction of all entertainment featuring or focusing on pagan entities, the wording addressing all media formats even if some had not yet been invented.  Something like "Do not create or promote a story with other gods" would have conveyed all of this fully.  All kinds of pagan practices, from fashioning images to represent God (Deuteronomy 4:15-20) to sacrificing children in fire (Deuteronomy 18:9-10), are condemned, but not merely telling or engaging with stories about some form of paganism.  While the extent of pagan influence on entertainment or what is considered "church" doctrine is sometimes exaggerated, there is a lot out in the open.

It is easy to encounter entertainment, for instance, that is inspired by paganism today even if it is not being promoted as a valid worldview.  Video games like those in the Hellblade franchise deal with a version of Greek or Norse mythology, with classical texts like The Iliad and Beowulf also exploring or alluding to the same general metaphysics.  Films and their source material such as Percy Jackson tell stories that are not from their respective pagan mythology, but are permeated by elements of them.  Other fiction, like the the Legend of Zelda video game series, feature spiritualistic metaphysics or religious philosophies that are pagan in the sense of reflecting non-Christian spirituality despite not being direct presentations of something like Islam or Greek mythology.

As if the days of the week are not already supposed to be named after pagan beings—for example, Thursday is "Thor's day" and Friday hints at the name of Frigga, the wife of Odin—plenty of other literature, video games, films, and television shows include aspects of overt paganism.  The nature religions in the game Horizon: Zero Dawn, like that of a tribe regarding the sun as if it is a deity that has (according to some of the Carja) demanded human sacrifice much like in the Aztec religion, are not named after specific pagan religions and yet are pagan all the same.  Parts of Lovecraft's cosmic horror stories, like the word Dagon from the short story of the same name (a Philistine deity mentioned in the Bible itself, including in 1 Samuel 5:1-3), are very blatantly references to pagan beings as well.

In addition to the likes of the laughably false idea that rock music is demonic, however, the idea that it is inherently wicked to interact with pagan media, or more specifically, even media that is explicitly or loosely based on pagan philosophy is incorrect.  This is not condemned itself, as with murder (Genesis 9:6, Exodus 20:13, 21:12-14, etc.), or by logical extension, as with voluntary nonmedical intoxication with drugs being condemned by categorical equivalence to becoming drunk (Deuteronomy 21:20).  Analyzing paganism as a rationalist and a Judeo-Christian and writing about it for nonfiction or fiction purposes is not evil on its own by Biblical standards, and the same would by necessity be true of using/viewing depictions in visual media like paintings, movies, or video games.

Moreover, the Torah only says to never reflect on or investigate paganism in order to accept its philosophies or carry out its practices rather than oppose them (Deuteronomy 12:29-31).  The "snare" mentioned in Deuteronomy 12 of inquiring about other gods and religions is only present if someone actually seeks to ideologically adhere to paganism or imitate behaviors tied to worship of other gods.  It follows that, as long as one's motive is not to glorify pagan philosophy, portraying the metaphysics thereof in works of fiction is not sinful whatsoever.  There is also the unnecessary but helpful command to not add to God's instructions in Deuteronomy 4:2 and 12:32—unnecessary in that it does or does not logically follow from what is already detailed in the wording of the Torah that a given thing is sinful, but helpful in that these verses plainly acknowledge the stupidity and sin of thinking more is immoral than what is really contrary to God's nature.

The False Prophetesses Of Ezekiel 13

The prophet figures of the Bible most familiar to mainstream church culture tend to be those whose names also serve as the titles of Biblical books, like Isaiah, Jeremiah, or Jonah.  Of these prophets, all are men.  Some might be surprised that there are any female prophets mentioned by name or otherwise, but the Old and New Testaments repeatedly acknowledge prophetesses and affirm their validity.  Even a portion of Ezekiel 13 that condemns certain prophetesses at length only highlights that there is nothing immoral on Biblical ethics about a woman prophesying, only a woman, like a man, speaking falsely in matters of doctrine or prediction.

Ezekiel 13:17-23—"'Now, son of man, set your face against the daughters of your people who prophesy out of their own imagination.  Prophesy against them and say, "This is what the Sovereign Lord says: Woe to the women who sew magic charms on all their wrists and make veils of various lengths for their heads in order to ensnare people.  Will you ensnare the lives of my people but preserve your own?  You have profaned me among my people for a few handfuls of barley and scraps of bread.  By lying to my people, who listen to lies, you have killed those who should not have died and spared those who should not live.  

Therefore this is what the Sovereign Lord says: I am against your magic charms with which you ensnare my people like birds and I will tear them from your arms; I will set free the people that you ensnare like birds.  I will tear off your veils and save my people from your hands, and they will no longer fall prey to your power.  Then you will know that I am the Lord.  Because you disheartened the righteous with your lies, when I had brought them no grief, and because you encouraged the wicked to not turn from their evil ways and so save their lives, therefore you will no longer see false visions or practice divination.  I will save my people from your hands.  And then you will know that I am the Lord."'"

This set of prophetesses does not constitute the only example of female prophets in the Bible, although all the Bible must do to permit female prophets is not condemn them.  Indeed, there is no prohibition of either prophecy in itself or prophecy when shared by a woman rather than a man.  Some individual prophetesses are unnamed, like Isaiah's partner (Isaiah 8:3), probably his wife, while the names of others are provided, like those of Miriam the genuine prophetess (Exodus 15:20) and Noadiah the false prophetess (Nehemiah 6:14).

Ezekiel 13 simply addresses a particular group of women who lie in the name of God, which leads to those deserving of death being allowed to live and those who do not deserve to be killed being put to death.  No one receives divine opposition for being a woman, as the words from God make quite clear.  These women are instead in error because they prophesy "out of their own imagination", discourage the righteous with their lies, and fail to warn the wicked to repent, in addition to likely practicing or pretending to practice some kind of sorcery with their "magic charms" (for instance, see Exodus 22:18, Leviticus 20:27, and Deuteronomy 18:9-13).

The standard is the same for men and women in matters of prophecy, as it is in other moral categories.  Whereas lying needlessly is sinful (Leviticus 19:11) despite lying to protect people from injustice being morally valid (as established in verses like Exodus 1:15-20), lying about receiving a message from God is universally wicked, a capital sin.  It does not matter if the motivation is financial gain, social power, or anything else; any man or woman who falsely acts as if they have spoken for God, such as by contriving a promise of blessing or judgment, deserves to be killed:

Deuteronomy 18:17-20—"The Lord said to me: 'What they say is not good.  I will raise up for them a prophet like you from among their fellow Israelites, and I will put my words in his mouth.  He will tell them everything I command him.  I myself will call to account anyone who does not listen to my words that the prophet speaks in my name.  But a prophet who presumes to speak in my name anything I have not commanded, or a prophet who speaks in the name of other gods, is to be put to death.'"

In contrast to the unnamed female prophets condemned in Ezekiel 13, for positive examples of unnamed female prophets along with male prophets, who speak rightly on God's behalf, turn to the book of Joel.  God promises to empower men and women to truthfully prophesy in later times.  Twice is explicit gender equality emphasized in Joel 2:28-29.  Neither men nor women are said to be incapable of speaking in God's name or to have a stereotypical tendency to either distort or tell the truth.  Moreover, Peter quotes this very passage from Joel in Acts 2:14-18, insisting that the prediction is fulfilled in the presence of a crowd from different regions.  The Old Testament verses cited by Peter are not subtle whatsoever in their strict gender egalitarianism:

Joel 2:28-29—"'And afterward, I will pour out my Spirit on all people.  Your sons and daughters will prophesy, your old men will dream dreams, your young men will see visions.  Even on my servants, both men and women, I will pour out my Spirit in those days.'"

Far more passages than just Ezekiel 13 address the logical possibility and moral legitimacy of female prophets on the Biblical worldview, but Ezekiel 13:17-23 elaborates at length on prophetesses specifically.  In accordance with the obvious gender egalitarianism of many other verses and doctrines, the book of Ezekiel does not see God denounce women who prophesy for being women or for daring to perform an action that is irrelevant to having a given sort of genitalia.  The prophetesses are confronted for their falsehoods, injustices, and probable sorcery, all of which are sins for anyone, whether a man or woman or a Jew or Gentile.  Being a woman or a woman who prophesies is not wicked!

Stay-At-Home Parents And Partners

Stay-at-home parents, or partners for those who have no children, are neither inherently leeches nor heroes.  A host of variables impact whether it is pragmatically beneficial to have only one person work professionally, especially outside the home, and one person tend to needs inside the home like cooking and cleaning: individual personality and mental or physical health are enormous factors.  While this is absolutely not for the reasons conservatives might think, it is logically true that a stay-at-home parent does not necessarily detract from or hinder the economic prosperity of the family.

They do (or could) handle domestic affairs that legitimately free up more time for the other partner to professionally work or that can minimize the latter's stress while away.  Thus, stay-at-home parents or partners less directly contribute to the financial stability of a household if this is executed correctly.  However, remote work allows for stay-at-home people, parents or not, to have some sort of job that can be done from home.  It is not impossible to remain at home and still engage in professional work.  This is also not the more conventional arrangement for stay-at-home partners.

Unfortunately, worsening economic conditions for those at the lower end of the wealth spectrum makes this arrangement increasingly difficult and outright unlivable.  Independent of the obvious sexism against both genders often associated with this practice (that men should slave away because they are men and women should give up financial independence or be borderline locked in the home because they are women), the idea that one parent or spouse should stay at home without professional work, whether or not it is the mom or wife, is intrinsically classist.  Many families not born into wealth or unwilling to expand their resources by doing what logically and Biblically is exploitative of others, whether the ones committing the exploitation think so or not, will be at an inherent disadvantage economically.  

Simply put, not everyone will be fortunate enough one way or another to be able to literally afford to have one spouse/partner at home, with or without children to take care of.  It is separately irrational to base who works or remains home--not that this has to exclude working automatically--on the objectively irrelevant factor of gender because stereotypes are false one and all for the same reasons [1], and thus there is no metaphysical basis for gender-based family/workplace roles or moral obligations.  A stay-at-home father/husband/boyfriend is not any different than a stay-at-home mother/wife/girlfriend other than with regard to the literal anatomical and physiological differences entailed by being male or female.

A parent who stays at home does not have to give up professional work for the aforementioned reason, but it is certainly not as if they are incapable of contributing financially-adjacent value to the relationship or household.  There is just no relevance to gender.  And it can nonetheless severely hinder the economic advancement of a family if one parent or partner does entirely forgo professional work.  However, this would depend on the exact situation.  In some situations, having someone stay at home might be objectively best for handling children or managing mental or physical health, but not everyone can afford this dynamic even then.  The matter is more nuanced than some insist!

[1].  While the falsity of gender (and racial/national stereotypes) is necessitated by strictly logical truths, and is thus knowable independent of social experience with particular men and women or my prompting, one can always read other posts where I prove such things, like this one:

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

Does More Hours Always Entail Greater Productivity?

Elon Musk has insisted, according to internet articles like this one [1], that working 100 hours in a week will get twice as much done as working 50 hours.  If this truly represents what Musk believes and is not merely espoused for a reason like media attention, he is wrong because it does not logically follow that double the hours results in double the output.  This is independent of concrete examples of relevant personal and empirical factors because it simply does not follow.  But it is entirely possible and likely that some people, many even, would become quite tired to the point that, whatever the line is for them as an individual and for that week (it could differ), they would eventually become distracted, exhausted, and unable to focus as totally.  Their work output would in such cases either plateau or yield very diminishing returns.

Hell, even doubling the amount of people at work within the same timeframe does not mean twice the work will be done because of variables like willingness, energy, competency, and able-bodiedness or disability that might differ between individuals.  And if Musk only says that working 100 instead of 50 hours each week, or any week, will double your productivity in order to galvanize workers into accepting exploitative directives from employers like him, he is still a fool.  He would then be insincerely promoting falsities to exert control over people who are themselves irrational, a compound error intended to lead others astray so he can benefit from their labor—labor that could destroy their wellbeing.

This practice would in many instances exclude a weekly Sabbath anyway, so any Biblically righteous person would have to be very careful to not work on each of the seven days in a week.  Either way, working so many hours across each day in a week (especially on a regular basis) or in a mere six days each week could easily damage someone's sleep, mental and physical health, relationships, and ability to handle miscellaneous trivialities or matters of non-professional practicality that are unfortunately necessary for a stable life.  There is almost no way that the typical person would not be so exhausted by working 100 hours in consecutive weeks, regardless of whether they have a day of true rest for every six days of work, that they would be able to accomplish twice as much as they could in 50 hours, yes.  There is also almost no way they could accomplish this without severe risk to their health.

But none of these logical facts are likely to bring Musk to reorient his worldview towards reality or to encourage workers to not sacrifice their minds and bodies for people like him.  He is not concerned with ultimate truth or in any way a philosophical genius, despite how some of his supporters might desperately believe otherwise.  If only Musk was as productive when it comes to seeking and holding to the truths of rationalism as he says he is or has been when it comes to professional work!  Then, he would be in a position to be among the most productive people in the way that is most foundational and which could then spur him on to rightly understand secondary, lesser aspects of reality like the corporate world.  May he one day do precisely that.

[1].  https://finance.yahoo.com/news/elon-musk-said-works-every-020113579.html

The Right Hand Of God

The New Testament makes very precise statements all putting forth the same idea about where Jesus is after his Ascension.  That is, he is at the right hand of God.  Within the narrative of Acts, Paul's epistles, and Hebrews (allegedly written by Paul, some say, though the author never identifies himself/herself), there is consistent acknowledgement that Jesus is supposed to be at God's side.  Such a thing is incapable of being true if Jesus is God, as has been irrationally and eisegetically suggested by what might seem to some in my country by the majority of people who call themselves Christians.  The strictly logical impossibility of the conventional Trinity aside, it is not what the Bible teaches whatsoever.  To focus merely on the issue of Jesus being at Yahweh's right hand, the Biblical statements do not pretend as if Jesus, the Son, is the same being as God, the Father.  And if one is at the right hand of the other, they cannot be one and the same.

Acts 2:32-33—"God has raised this Jesus to life, and we are all witnesses of it.  Exalted to the right hand of God, he has received from the Father the promised Holy Spirit and has poured out what you now see and hear."

Acts 7:55-56—"But Stephen, full of the Holy Spirit, looked up to heaven and saw the glory of God, and Jesus standing at the right hand of God.  'Look,' he said, 'I see heaven open and the Son of Man standing at the right hand of God.'"

Romans 8:34—"Who then is the one who condemns?  No one.  Christ Jesus who died—more than that, who was raised to life—is at the right hand of God and is also interceding for us."

Colossians 3:1—"Since, then, you have been raised with Christ, set your hearts on things above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God."

Hebrews 1:3—"The Son is the radiance of God's glory and the exact representation of his being, sustaining all things by his powerful word.  After he had provided purification for sins, he sat down at the right hand of the Majesty in heaven."

In the words of the New Testament, revisited more than once, Jesus indeed is at the right hand of God.  This excludes him being God.  Might someone think that Hebrews 1:3 is actually equating Jesus with God by calling him the former the exact representation of the latter?  If they make assumptions, yes, they might believe this, but this verse does not contradict Jesus and God (and the Holy Spirit as well, if it is not simply a special extension of the Father's own power and hence not metaphysically separate) being distinct entities.  People can believe anything, but they are in error unless they do so on the basis of logical proof.  This is about necessary truths rather than words, traditions, persuasion, and so on.

It is easy to demonstrate using reason that Hebrews 1 does not quite identify Jesus with Yahweh.  First, Hebrews still says Jesus sat down at God's right hand, a stark differentiation between the two.  It is simply impossible to sit down literally or figuratively at one's own right hand.  Second, a representation of something is not the same as the thing it represents.  Words are linguistic constructs used to "represent" concepts in verbal and written communication, but they are not the concepts; they are assigned to the fixed ideas that are already governed by logical necessities.  A sculpture of a person is not the same as a person, though it represents a generic or particular individual.  A copy of a document is not the exact same document, despite the identical content, as the original.  It is a copy, a representation.

Each of the other verses shown above is even more straightforward about how Jesus is a separate being honored by God by presiding at his right hand.  There is in truth no ambiguity textually present other than that inherent in all language, for words have no inherent meaning and a non-omniscient/telepathic being could never know the intended meaning of another being's words.  Romans 8:34 goes slightly further by hinting at how Jesus was not responsible for his own resurrection, something affirmed throughout the New Testament, which Acts 2:32 states openly.  God resurrected Jesus [1], not Jesus himself (see also Acts 3:13-15, 4:10, Romans 10:9)!

In fact, the far more foundational issues broached by Hebrews 1:3 center on what things do not or could not possibly metaphysically depend on Jesus for their existence.  Literally all things would include logical facts, empty space, and God himself.  Logical axioms are true in themselves and thus dependent on nothing but their own self-necessity, which grounds other logical facts.  The Bible could only be false wherever it genuinely contradicts logic, if it was to.  Empty space, as dictated by logic, exists in the absence of matter and its divine creator [2].  There would always be a spatial dimension, itself matterless by nature, that could hold physical substance, though this is not the same as logic's self-necessary existence, as it is a matter of logic.  As for God, who might have in fact created Jesus according to the Bible (for instance, John 3:16 is incredibly obvious about suggesting this), he is not subordinate to Christ or metaphysically lesser than him.  It is the other way around (John 10:29, 14:28).  

Moreover, not only do Genesis 1 and John 1 carefully avoid actually saying God, and Christ with him, created everything that exists (or that everything in existence needed to be created), but both overtly present God as necessarily existing prior to creation as the divine creator.  In 1 Corinthians 15:23-28, Paul addresses an example of how "everything" can refer to everything in a particular group or everything other than certain exceptions.  Hebrews 1 does not literally state that Jesus sustains the existence of himself or all things of all kinds other than himself.  This is the sort of topic that would likely not even be considered at any level by the typical reader of Hebrews 1, evangelical Trinitarian or not, though anyone who rationalistically focuses on the relevance of Hebrews 1:3 to non-Trinitarianism can see that the representation, in this case Christ, is not the thing represented, in this case God.

[1].  See here for a more direct exploration of this:

https://thechristianrationalist.blogspot.com/2024/04/god-resurrected-jesus-another.html

[2].  https://thechristianrationalist.blogspot.com/2023/07/god-and-empty-space.html

The Emancipation Proclamation

The same year that later contained the infamous Gettysburg conflict, 1863 saw Abraham Lincoln issue the Emancipation Proclamation on January 1st.  This document articulated that the slaves in the rebellious states of the Confederate South were forever freed and that the military of the United States would do nothing to hinder their efforts towards freedom (though it had some geographical exceptions like the border states loyal to the Union).  Opposing slavery but not racism on moral grounds, Lincoln utilized the Emancipation Proclamation as a war measure against the South.

Since the Southern states had seceded, albeit on the asinine grounds of racial supremacy [1], and then formed their own government, the Union, and by extension the Emancipation Proclamation, nonetheless no longer had legal authority over them.  Of course, legal authority is not the same as moral validity, so it is no authority at all on its own, and of course, the content of the Emancipation Proclamation would still be valid for all states if it aligned with morality.  After all, if something is evil, it should not be done no matter the cultural and legal status of a region, and, if obligatory, it should be done no matter the social landscape.

If the proclamation was in alignment with anything logically and morally true, it could only transcend nations and their laws, despite how it would not legally apply to a breakaway, then-independent yet asinine government.  A moral obligation is what one should do, which would make obeying only a morally valid human law obligatory, though Lincoln himself ironically denied the latter.  In their efforts to support anti-racism, some people overlook all of this in their irrationalistic objections to a racial ideology that by necessity is logically false.  They might indeed welcome appeals to human laws as long as living accordingly would bring about the society they have already assumed is good.

Not many people ever operate on anything more than whatever moral preference or emotion grips them in the moment, rather than on acknowledgement of reason, the logical possibility of any moral system consistent with axioms, and commitment to the only moral framework that actually has evidence pointing to it—that being Christian ethics since not only is Christianity consistent with logical necessities in ways some might not ever realize [2], but it also has a great deal of historical evidences in its favor, including non-Christian documents supporting the seeming historicity of Christ as presented by the Bible.  Conscience is purely subjective and has nothing to do with morality itself; social customs and legal decrees are just meaningless cultural constructs unless there are actual, objective obligations they are perfectly rooted in.  

Now, racism is logically erroneous either way since the color of someone's skin does not make them more or less human, having no connection to their worldview, personality, and talents.  What one person of a given race is like in these regards does not dictate which of the many possible ideological orientations or personalities someone else has (though only some ideologies are logically possible, it is possible for people to believe all sorts of true or false things no matter their skin color).  The moral nature of racism and that of slavery would still not be determined by personal or public sentiment or by a a proclamation from any government one way or another.

[1].  https://thechristianrationalist.blogspot.com/2022/09/the-cornerstone-address.html

[2].  https://thechristianrationalist.blogspot.com/2023/12/logical-necessities-and-fallible.html

A Terribly Illogical And Unbiblical Stance On Divorce (Part Two)

Now, I will turn to what William Luck says about the relationship between Exodus 21:15 and 21:26-27 concerning the physical abuse of husbands by wives.  See part one or the link to  Luck's article below [1] for the particulars of what he says about physical abuse within marriage based on gender—including that wives are like servants to their husbands and husbands are like masters to their wives.  Just because he does not dismiss female-male abuse altogether does not mean he is correct on other aspects of the subject, both logically and Biblically.

Assuming that a husband is somewhat analogous to the master of a slave/servant in a non-mutual sense, with his wife being somewhat analogous to a servant, he brings up the striking of a master by their slave and how it allegedly might deserve a more severe penalty than the other way around.  As with all other attacks, if it is not done for valid self-defense, legitimate corporal/capital punishment, or certain kinds of warfare, this assault would be wicked, though Exodus 21 does not specifically address this circumstance.  It is true that Exodus 21:15 prescribes execution for attacking one's father or mother, as Luck says.  This is an illicit way to treat someone who is in one sense an authority figure.  But he extrapolates from execution being the Biblical punishment for attacking one's parents to suggest something that does not follow logically: that striking other figures in authority over oneself, including a husband (by his wife), deserves death.  

Despite the independent illogicality of a complementarian hierarchy and the plain Biblical rejection of one-sided submission/service in marriage (such as in Genesis 2:24 and 1 Corinthians 7:2-5), Luck insists on a sort of complementarian subservience of wives to husbands.  And not only does he misinterpret how Exodus 21:26-27 highlights rigid equality of men and women as victims of abuse so that if one gender can go free for spousal abuse, so can the other without a differing reason why, but Exodus 21:15 itself only provides an additional confirmation that the Bible teaches gender is irrelevant to the moral severity of committing a wrong against another person.

Exodus 21:15—"'Anyone who attacks their father or mother must be put to death.'"

Rather than in any way state or imply that a husband is more severely wronged by a wife who assaults him than would be the case the other way around due to his nonexistent "leader" status, the verse about striking one's father or mother contrarily reinforces the Biblicality of total gender equality in committing a sin or being victimized by it.  Striking one's father and striking one's mother are equally severe and accordingly deserve the same penalty.  Other authorities are not dealt with in this verse.  Unless you were born to them, an employer or ruler did not literally bring you into the world.  Special reverence is owed to one's own parents, both mother and father alike (Exodus 20:12, 21:17, Leviticus 19:3, 20:9, etc.), that is not owed to other authority figures—even legitimate ones.  Then there is the fact that the Bible presents husbands and wives as equals, not as arbitrarily or unilaterally subservient to each other.

Either way, there is nothing logically or Biblically worse about a wife physically abusing her husband than a husband physically abusing his wife in the same way, or vice versa.  William severely misunderstands both logic and the prescriptions of Exodus 21.  Exodus 21:26-27 indirectly addresses one of multiple valid grounds for divorce with no inconsistency in application to husbands and wives, and with no variation in the reason why each is allowed to leave over physical abuse (just like with other forms of abuse as directly addressed or allowed for in verses like Exodus 21:10-11, Deuteronomy 23:15-16, 24:1-4, 1 Corinthians 5:9-11, and 7:15).  

It makes no difference on any level what genitalia someone has!  That a male or female slave must be released by their master or mistress if the latter physically abuses them has clear parallels to the marriage relationship: if a husband or wife physically or otherwise abuses their spouse, they must be prepared to let the victim exit the marriage as justice requires.  And for the abuser or anyone outside the marriage, to pressure or force the departing spouse to stay married contradicts the ramifications of the fleeing slave's right and the obligation of others towards them according to Deuteronomy 23:15-16.

[1].  https://bible.org/seriespage/2-covenant-companionship-exodus-20-and-21

The Basket Of Goods

Economic inflation is the rate at which prices increase, whatever the cause, whether supply and demand dynamics or corporate greed.  A low inflation rate, thus, does not mean that prices are decreasing or at a standstill: the rate of increase has slowed but not ceased.  This also means that whatever prices have become the new baseline remain in effect, so that minor inflation following significant inflation does not undo whatever devastating impact the previous price changes already imposed on the cost of living.  If someone complains about inflation, perhaps they are not referring to ongoing, potentially slow increase in prices, but to the sustained effects of the previous changes.

And there is no single cause, no matter what some corporate figures might love to pretend; inflation absolutely is not inevitably brought about by nothing more than supply and demand forces beyond the control of corporations.  If a company raises prices quietly or minimally to appease shareholders, inflation has occurred.  Prices increased, and, in this instance, it was a premeditated attempt to boost profits without expanding the consumer base, introducing a new product, and so on.  Certainly, a company could raise prices with this pathetic excuse of a goal in mind, while blaming its actions on the volatility and uncertainty of broader economic trends that really have nothing to do with them specifically.

Whatever the valid or invalid reason for inflation, there could be a multitude of inflation rates because no single product or service reflects an entire multifaceted economy.  The basket of goods, a miscellaneous sample of goods or services, can be examined to track price changes over a given timeframe.  A random person could monitor fluctuations themselves using in-store or online price listings.  No one has to be a professional economist to do this!  If the price of a singular thing increases, it has inflated.  This can be checked through personal effort.  It is always illogical to assume that whatever inflation rate is proposed by news media or anyone else is true.  This does not follow.

But different items could have their own respective inflation, complicating the matter.  Tracking the inflation rate of a particular item reveals nothing about that of a separate item, for the two are not identical products, and thus one having a specific cost does not logically necessitate anything about the other.  What one consumer buys might infrequently or never be purchased by another, so one "basket of goods" does not ultimately illuminate very much about the seeming state of the economy at large.  It is vital to not conflate the beliefs of an alleged authority figure/organization for an epistemological savior in light of this extremely limited illumination.

Only an irrational person assumes the results of someone else's basket of goods analysis, whoever they are, is correct or extrapolates from one sample of items to another.  Moreover, there is still another inherent limitation to examining this figurative basket.  The basket of goods metric is incapable of revealing which of the logically possible reasons for inflation is responsible for the changes.  Did a company or industry genuinely need to increase prices to make their business sustainable?  Did an executive have prices raised so there is more money to hoard at the top of a company's hierarchy?  A price increase alone cannot prove what is really the root (and proof always lies in logical necessity, not hearsay or other conjoined sensory evidences), with there being even greater ambiguity in chaotic times.

Unfortunately, it is not just consumers who can be trampled upon through the asinine kind of inflation.  Some companies might rush to take advantage of consumers by raising prices, yes.  After increasing prices, some companies might also refuse to increase their own employees' compensation to match the new, higher cost of living.  If the same company does both, it can exploit its buyers and workers all at once, and any basket of goods containing their products or services could then be fallaciously treated as a basis for more unecessary inflation, since the exaggerated uncertainty makes their business vulnerable, which could then be treated as a basis to lay off workers or deny wage and salary raises.  It would be unusual indeed if many of the companies least in need of inflation to remain afloat did not increase consumer costs to maintain or maximize their profitability, though!

The Protection Of Widows

Echoed across the Bible, prescriptions to not oppress widows or to care for them in particular ways make it plain that Biblical morality is incompatible with tossing widows aside (and also necessitates that the straw man idea that Christian doctrine regards non-virgin women as worthless or lower-tier people is false).  It is not that widows have the moral right to receive care that is not really a human right or the right of all who are vulnerable (compare Deuteronomy 24:19-22, which already mentions people besides widows, with Leviticus 19:9-10, for instance).  Female privilege of widows over widowers is not the philosophy of the Bible either, as I will touch on periodically.  The real doctrine is that widows should not be neglected or taken advantage of in whatever grief or financial struggles they might face.  

They should not be forced to stay at home against their will since they are not obligated to keep away from public interaction (compare with David's mistreatment of his concubines in 2 Samuel 20:3), for all people have the right to do as they please without opposition or confinement as long as they do not sin (Deuteronomy 4:2, 12:32).  They should not be burned or conditioned to want to burn alive after their husbands' deaths as with the alleged historical practice of widow burning in Hindu communities.  Soon, we will shift to a focus on the particulars of Mosaic Law and the ramifications for widows, but I will include an excerpt from Deuteronomy in the following verses about Yahweh's attitude towards widows:

Deuteronomy 10:17-18--"For the Lord your God is God of gods and Lord of lords, the great God, mighty and awesome, who shows no partiality and accepts no bribes.  He defends the cause of the fatherless and the widow, and loves the foreigner among you, giving them food and clothing."

Psalm 68:5--"A father to the fatherless, a defender of widows, is God in his holy dwelling."

Malachi 3:5--"'So I will come to put you on trial.  I will be quick to testify against sorcerers, adulterers and perjurers, against those who defraud laborers of their wages, who oppress the widows and the fatherless, and deprive the foreigners among you of justice, but do not fear me,' says the Lord Almighty."

James 1:27--"Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world."

In accordance with what sin ultimately deserves (Romans 6:23, 2 Peter 2:6, Revelation 20:15), God promises eventual death to those who would oppress widows (Exodus 22:22-24), should they not repent of their sin (Ezekiel 18:21-23, 33:14-16, Isaiah 55:7).  This would have in the context of ancient Israel most likely been an allusion to killings in the period leading up to the Babylonian exile, as God says he would allow or bring about (depending on the event) a series of curses on the Israelites for disregarding morality, the latter of which Yahweh reveals to them in great depth across the Torah as the objective, universal obligations for all humankind--as if this is not logically entailed by something actually being objectively good and obligatory, passages like Leviticus 20:22-24, Deuteronomy 4:5-8, and 18:9-13 clearly teach moral universality.  Otherwise, the threat of killing oppressors is a foreshadowing of the eschatological destruction of the wicked in hell (Matthew 10:28), leaving only the righteous to live forever (John 3:16, Revelation 21:6-8).  Below is the passage in which God threatens to extinguish the lives of those who mistreat widows:

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.'"

Many might balk at the charge that they oppress widows, not that self-identifying Christians or religious Jews tend to be correct on the level of worldview or practice when it comes to either logical necessities about the concept of morality (such as that cultural or individualistic relativism is logically impossible, though moral nihilism could be true) or the details of Biblical moral doctrines.  Even so, plenty of the same pseudo-Christians might encourage the invalid, sexist stereotypes that make it so hard for widows to enter or reenter the work force when they were conditioned before and inside marriage to accept financially relying on their husbands simply because they are men.  They probably think it is an unfortunate but legitimate thing to make widows or single mothers (or single fathers), whose vulnerability can be similar to that of widows, work for poverty wages on top of caring for themselves and their children.

The Bible, the enormously misunderstood Torah included, never truly prescribes the sexist or economic oppression of/discrimination against anyone, man or woman.  Indeed, beyond specifically saying to leave agricultural yield at harvest time for widows to take and eat from (Deuteronomy 24:17-22; also Leviticus 19:9-10 and 23:22 by extension), there is the permissibility of anyone (rich or poor) casually eating from any neighbor's field, vineyard, or orchard (Deuteronomy 23:24-25).  An employed or unemployed widow is morally entitled to freely eat like anyone else from another person's land from day to day, given that they do not put a sickle to standing grain or carry away the likes of grapes in a basket instead of just eating right then and there.  

This is not theft by Biblical standards; it is the landowner who withholds resources from the public that steals from others such as widows in need!  It is likewise theft to deprive potentially vulnerable people like widows of the prescribed tithe meals no more than every three years apart (Deuteronomy 14:28-29), with additional generosity being generally required of those who are secure enough to give (Deuteronomy 15:1-11).  Widows are among those listed as the recipients of this mandatory tithe generosity.  Yes, it cannot be obligatory to give food tithes to the Levites when there is no active priesthood because it is logically impossible to be required to do something one cannot do, but the rest of this command is universally applicable on actual Judeo-Christianity:

Deuteronomy 14:28-29--"At the end of every three years, bring all the tithes of that year's produce and store it in your towns, so that the Levites (who have no allotment or inheritance of their own) and the foreigners, the fatherless and the widows who live in your towns may come and eat and be satisfied, and so that the Lord your God may bless you in all the work of your hands."

Yahweh's Mosaic Law also specifically codifies a way that a widow can support herself or find provision if needed.  There is always the option of becoming a Biblical servant/slave with all of its own significant protections like mandatory emancipation for abuse (Exodus 21:26-27), one day of rest a week (Exodus 20:8-11, 23:12, 5:12-15), a maximum of six full years of service with the exception of voluntary agreement (Exodus 21:2-6, Deuteronomy 15:12-18; Exodus 22:21, Leviticus 19:33-34), and freedom to flee from an abusive master or mistress without being returned (Deuteronomy 23:15-16).  Both widows and servants are included in Biblical holiday celebrations (Deuteronomy 16:9-15), so of course widows who are servants are included, in addition to being a main partaker of the tithe feasts every three years.  Upon going free if she chooses not to become a lifelong servant because the arrangement is so materially prosperous for her, the widow, like any other male or female slave, would still receive the resources to become materially independent, and she is to be joyfully included in the annual celebrations before Yahweh either way:

Deuteronomy 15:12-14--"If any of your people--Hebrew men or women--sell themselves to you and serve you six years, in the seventh year you must let them go free.  And when you release them, do not send them away empty-handed.  Supply them liberally from your flock, your threshing floor and your winepress.  Give to them as the Lord your God has blessed you."

Deuteronomy 16:9-12--"Count off seven weeks from the time you begin to put the sickle to the standing grain.  Then celebrate the Festival of Weeks to the Lord your God by giving a freewill offering in proportion to the blessings the Lord your God has given you.  And rejoice before the Lord your God at the place he will choose as the dwelling for his Name--you, your sons and daughters, your male and female servants, the Levites in your towns, and the foreigners, the fatherless and the widows living among you.  Remember that you were slaves in Egypt, and follow carefully these decrees."

There is nothing about this opportunity that restricts it to non-widowed women (or non-widowers), and note that it absolutely commands that female servants, upon reaching the end of their term or going free prematurely for abuse as prescribed in Exodus 21:26-27, receive abundant resources like animals and food.  The Bible certainly never condemns women owning their own property and in the case of Deuteronomy 15 explicitly demands it.  Again, widows are not an exception, though only certain passages mention the moral obligations towards or rights of widows.  It is not that they should be cared for simply because they are women, as if widowers or other vulnerable men are lesser or deserve to suffer their way to self-sufficiency moreso because they involuntarily inhabit a male body.  Neither is it that factors leading to the vulnerability of widows as women in various cultures, a vulnerability which logically can be diminished by personal/societal action like the kinds called for by Mosaic Law, are prescribed so that widows are kept in a state of dependence on men or on other people in general.

Yes, supporting widows and others who have suffered loss of a loved one (hopefully a loved one rather than a distant spouse!) might be regarded as positive by many who call themselves Christians, but few take the Biblical commands to not oppress them as seriously as their nature would call for or bother realizing what does and does not follow from them.  Oppressing widows is not limited to blatantly extreme examples like involuntary widow burning.  Making widows or anyone else in a precarious financial situation work without receiving the day's wages before sunset (Leviticus 19:13, Deuteronomy 24:14-15) is oppression; pressuring married women to forgo their own careers and financial independence on the basis of gender sets them up for potential disaster later on.