Joseph Stalin's Relevance to Modern Selective Moral Outrage

"One single death is a tragedy. One million deaths is a statistic."

~ Joseph Stalin, leader of the USSR and responsible for 50-100 million deaths as a result of his tyrannical political regime.

This very line was actually quoted in an article I read in 2009 on the humor site Cracked.com entitled "What is the Monkeysphere?" The presentation makes reference to evolutionary assumptions, but there is a psychological truth underpinning the practical conclusions. That is known as Dunbar's Number, which is variously hypothesized to be between 50 and 300, and it represents the total number of people that any individual can maintain thriving relationships with at any one time. Thriving, so that any impact on one of those people will be emotionally significant to the person who is friends with them. It is only within this theoretical limit that a person has the mental capacity to feel a connection to others, so that they are vicariously affected by positive as well as negative impacts on that second person. Such as promotion, award recognition, the birth of a child....or losing one's job, illness, or death.

Cracked's "Monkeysphere" thesis is that outside of the people we know personally (or know enough about to feel a connection with, as in celebrities or famous people), if something good or bad happens to another person, we simply aren't affected. We don't care, because we don't know. They are too distant for it to matter to us on an intimate level. We can think about it, but we are severely limited in our ability to feel about it.

People do have the capacity to train themselves to be concerned for others that they do not know. We have a great capacity for developing selfless compassion and to practice treating distantly related people with an equity approaching that we give to more intimate friends and family, through the exercise of empathy. We act toward strangers as if it were deeply affecting us or someone close to us, knowing that for that person in question, the pain or joy really is close to home.

But it is not the natural thing for people to do. And even when they do, they often compartmentalize it. The irony is that it's sometimes easier to help strangers than to help people you dislike, simply because you don't know them enough to find something about them disagreeable.

See, it's because the 'Monkeysphere'  finds application both in harmonious relationships, and in acrimonious relationships. Just how you would be more devastated if your spouse, parent or sibling were knifed to death in front of you, but feel a hollow sorrow, or simply hollowness, when you hear of knife attacks on the other side of the globe, you also find it much easier to hate the influential national pundit who is promoting things you think are terrible, than to hate the nameless, faceless foreign terrorist who may or may not be responsible for anything in particular. We find it hard to get worked up about generalities, but when we connect it to something specific, then we become emotionally invested.

Lately, we are being exposed to numerous examples of the tragedy/statistic dichotomy that Joseph Stalin opined about.

Many lions die every year, from natural causes, from hunting, or from poaching, but when a lion with a name, who is described as a "national treasure," dies, the social media sphere whips up outrage.

Upwards of 30 million people are currently using the website Ashley Madison to hook up with other people hoping to cheat on their spouses without being caught, and there is no outrage at all. In fact, the company was planning to go public, meaning that people would buy and sell stocks, betting on the success of a company designed for the explicit purpose of facilitating and encouraging the destruction of marriages. And not only that, but when news broke recently that credit card information from users on this site had  been compromised, there was outrage. Not at the adultery, which is legal, but at the hacking, which is illegal. We now live in a country where violating the trust of your closest confidant is so passe' it's expected, but if someone dares to expose the adulterer, how dare they violate such a sacred thing as another person's privacy?

This is an abomination. Not the adultery itself. The fact that the whole country doesn't bat an eye. The fact that the country not only sees it, not only tolerates it, but defends it and gets offended by those who attack the assumption that your adultery should be kept secret out of respect for you, as if the adulterer's feelings need to be protected! As if THEY are a victim, and not the one they cheated on!

Though they know God’s righteous decree that those who practice such things deserve to die, they not only do them but give approval to those who practice them. ~ Romans 1:32

30 million adulteries is a statistic.

But one single adultery is a media frenzy.

It turns out that Josh Duggar (and side note: 15,000 US government officials, at last report earlier this morning) was one of those 30 million.

The unknown millions don't cause much offense because of Dunbar's Number -- people watching simply don't know that many people, so it's too overwhelming to make sense to care about. But if someone they know of is involved, then they become more invested.

It's weird.

If what Josh did was considered wrong by the culture, there would be numerous headlines like the following:
"30 Million Shameless Adulterers in the USA."
"Expose of the Shocking Infidelity of 15,000 US Government Officials."
"Hooray! Ashley Madison Hackers Give Cheaters What They Deserve!"

but I have seen none. Have you? What I have seen are headlines indicating shock over the hack, not shock over the adultery. I've seen the morning news indicating that the Pentagon is afraid of employees being turned by blackmail -- but they apparently couldn't care enough to intervene to stop them from putting themselves in positions of indiscretion that could lead to blackmail in the first place. And I've seen the cliche'd criticism of Josh Duggar -- but not for his adultery.

Josh isn't being attacked because he's an adulterer. There's nothing wrong with adultery in the eyes of the nation. So it's not moral outrage. Josh is being attacked because he's promoted, and lobbied for, the advancement of morality that considers adultery to be wrong. He's being attacked because of inconsistency, of living a double life, being two-faced, being a hypocrite. And for once, the social-media complex is right on that fact.

But this begs a very poignant question.

Is this how we treat people who act inconsistently with their stated beliefs?

What a merciless society.

No, the truth is that there is a spiritual dimension to this. The enemies of God (meaning demons) are delighted with the opportunity to attempt to discourage others from considering Christianity, by finding themselves a Christian caught in public sin which they can slander and shame and smear to stain the conscience of every unbeliever who hears the news. Christianity must be worthless, after all, if it doesn't even restrain people from being child molesters, porn addicts and adulterers. So goes the attack.

And also in the spiritual dimension, people KNOW that adultery is wrong. You can't find anybody who would heap so much vitriol (here I'm making reference to social media postings by private individuals, which anyone can find to read with little difficulty) on somebody who is caught breaking their own rules. This sort of hatred is not inspired by conniving contestants on "Bachelor in Paradise," or of partisan politicians who promise to fight corruption, and take massive campaign donations from special interests, or even high profile celebrities who are caught in affairs or divorce.

The animosity derives from a crooked conscience that knows no mercy, which nevertheless has the imprint of the Law of God which inspires revulsion at sin. They hate Josh's infidelity because infidelity is wrong, even if they don't consciously admit it or even know it. They "show that the work of the Law is written in their hearts, their conscience bearing witness, and their conflicting thoughts accusing or even excusing them." (Romans 2:15)

The outrage against Josh Duggar is not just a sad commentary on our own nation's hypocrisy and double standards when it comes to morality. It is PROOF that even despite our "liberated" consciousnesses, everyone is equipped with a God-given sense of right and wrong, so that they are without excuse (Romans 1:20) when denying the Bible's prescriptions for ethical conduct. There is no foundation for morality outside of the Biblical Worldview, so conversely, when someone senses outrage in their heart over the actions of Josh Duggar, their "conscience is bearing witness" to God's existence and the universality and absoluteness of His law. Which means that they are accountable to Him for what they do, and will be judged by His standard.

We are no better off than Josh, then, by the time we come face to face with this fact:



And the challenge I leave to the Duggar Family critics, who don't have the same outrage for the 30 million other Ashley Madison users,

Joseph Stalin mocks you from the grave.

~ Rak Chazak

Treatise: What's the Deal With the "Friend Zone?"

Talks about boy-girl stuff.

The first time I remember hearing this phrase, it was in a Ryan Reynolds comedy I saw in high school, where the main character was romantically interested in a woman who didn't reciprocate, but considered him a friend. Apparently the vernacular idiom originates from the tv series "Friends," but at any rate, I didn't see the end to the movie. I don't think I missed out very much.

The "accepted wisdom" of the day among adolescent males is that you want to avoid the dreaded "friend zone" because once a girl considers you her friend, you've lost the chance to become her boyfriend. This is based on the unquestioned assumption that men and women cannot be friends prior to becoming romantically involved. It implies that a girl/woman would rather date a stranger than someone she knows. Further, it cheapens friendships by casually disregarding them as anything worth having. The doctrine of "the friend zone" declares that boys should be primarily interested in "getting laid," or at least getting a girlfriend, which these days are essentially the same thing. If a girl is pretty, there is no redeeming value in having her as a friend. And if she won't be your girlfriend, 1) you've failed as a man, and 2) don't waste your time on her.

The fear of being frozen into "friendship" so horrifies modern chauvinists that they'll go to great pains to avoid being the kind of guy that a girl can be friends with, so as to leave her only 2 options: have nothing to do with him, or fall in love with him (not manipulative at all, of course!). The consequence is part of the reason why certain attractive women have difficulty relating to men. Nobody interacts with her normally, so she has no concept of normality. Everyone has ulterior motives, so she's either a cynic, inclined to dislike men, or vulnerable, easily taken advantage of and hurt by disingenuous sleazeballs.

Misogynists have perpetrated a culture of dysfunction. Idiot boys with no respect for women as equals use the words "friend zone" to shame others who are being too courteous to ladies without 'making a move,' and discourage them from being content without intimacy. And many boys/men who find themselves in a friendly but non-intimate relationship with a single woman tend to be restless, frustrated or resentful of the fact that they haven't been rewarded for the time they've put in.

What a shame that many relationships suffer, because young men don't want to be friends with women. What a shame that their insecurity and single-minded pursuit of sexual conquest robs women of healthy relationships with respectful gentlemen who are more concerned with her honor than with their gratification.

Isn't there another way? Oh sure there is. We can stop exposing young women to the dichotomy of "every guy who talks to you wants to sleep with you" and "you're completely alone and no one likes you." But what will that take? Logically, the young men need to figure out that girls are not there for you, let alone for 'the one thing.' That there's redeeming value in having non-sexual relationships. That they can like someone, and not have to act on that by trying to force a "boyfriend-girlfriend" relationship.

But for them to move in that direction, they have to have motive and incentive. Positive incentive, through seeing abstinence as desirable. Disincentivization, through not letting them be rewarded for promoting misogyny, chauvinism, sexism, etc. Girls must stop expecting sex to be a normal part of a casual relationship. Logically, if there's a concern that a guy's just after sex, what's the best way to rule that out as a possibility? Obviously, don't give it to him -- don't let him have sex with you! If he doesn't get what he wants, and he's a shallow fool, he'll leave right quick (in most cases). If sex is not the only thing he's living for, then he'll have integrity and stick around.

This can be expanded beyond sex to include physical affection, kissing, or announcing yourselves as a couple. Some desperate boys can/will hang on as long as they're getting something. The best way to get rid of the ones with selfish intentions is to refrain from any kind of physical romantic intimacy prior to the all-in commitment of the marriage ceremony.

Isn't it ironic how everything always comes around to the Biblical side of things, after a time?

Summary

The "friend zone" is a nonsense derogatory term used in reference to a man being friends with a woman without pursuing sexual intimacy, which is intended to shame 'deviants' and justify the chauvinist's view of women as sex objects for his pleasure. It makes men into noncommittal idiots, and women into victims, who either distrust men - to the detriment of their relationships - or trust men far too much, and go in vain from one to the next, searching for the one who won't break her heart.

There is a two-pronged approach to killing this insanity: women must stop rewarding sexists, and men must decide that women are worthy of respect, not to be treated as objectives in a game. Men must get their priorities straight, and realize that integrity of character and permanence of love are more desirable than racking up shallow sexual encounters.

Simply telling them they're wrong won't do the whole job. Evangelizing with Scripture presents a united front, where the claims of "you must treat women ____" are not the disorganized arbitrary cries of feminists, but levied against them with the full weight of the authority of Almighty God.

It is the renewal of the mind by the washing of the Word that supernaturally empowers a man to treat a woman with the dignity and honor she deserves in God's eyes.

If you leave God out of it, have fun doing the same things and expecting different results (something Einstein called insanity).


~ Rak Chazak

People Who Accuse Others of Victim-Blaming Are Demeaning Women

Victim Blaming: Accusing someone on the receiving end of some calamity to be responsible for its occurrence. 

ex: "Telling women not to put themselves in situations where they might be sexually assaulted is blaming the victim. The only thing that causes rape is rapists."

Often heard from: feminists, "social justice warriors," change advocates of various kinds that are commenting on violence or gender related issues.

Please see my treatise on why this argument is only half true, and ultimately hurtful despite its being (maybe) well-intentioned: Treatise: Third-Wave Feminism's Irresponsibility Double-Standard

*  *        *  *        *  *

So how does accusing someone of "victim-blaming" demean women?, I'm sure you're dying to know.

I'll answer. But first let me clarify that it's certainly possible to be legitimately at fault for blaming victims, which is wrong.

Scenario A: "She should have known better. By getting wasted drunk around a bunch of frat guys, she brought this on herself."
Verdict: Victim Blaming. Disgusting assertion that she's responsible for someone else's sins against her.

Scenario B: "Rapists bear the full responsibility for their own actions. Even so, it's wise to be aware of risks and take action to mitigate your exposure to them. Please consider the way you dress, the people you socialize with, whether you walk alone, whether you carry mace/air horns/a gun, and whether you overtly sexually entice men around you, as ways to help protect yourself."
Verdict: Not Victim-Blaming. You can take action to protect yourself without implying that you're responsible for what others do to you otherwise.

And yet, this is often attacked as "blaming the victim" by feminists in online fora. I submit that this could be because the feminists a) really have no clue how to solve the problem and don't want to believe that they can fix it because that makes them feel uncomfortable and morally conflicted, and b) really resent men and want all the attention and responsibility to be theirs (men's).

1. Teaching someone how to drive is not blaming the victim if they are involved in a car crash.
2. Police officers wearing bulletproof vests are not blaming the victims of homicides for their gunshot wounds.
3. Teaching wilderness survival, gardening, hunting etc doesn't "blame the victims" of famine, starvation, or those who die of thirst or exposure to the elements.

Giving someone tips for how to protect themselves from getting hurt is not asserting that they are responsible for undesirable outcomes, when something happens that hurts them, which are out of their control.

Now that that has been emphasized, there are some direct consequences of this.

When someone discusses rape prevention in the vein of scenario B above, and someone responds to accuse them of "blaming the victim," then that person is actually demeaning women and promoting sexist attitudes that contribute to rape.

Say whaaat? Let me guide your thinking:

Paradigm shift 1
Taking away someone's responsibility takes away their ability. Taking away their ability takes away their power to effect change. Taking away their power takes away their freedom of choice, and makes them helpless victims of circumstance, at the mercy of their abusers.

This is what denying women their right to prevent rape (by denying that they have the ability or responsibility to protect themselves) accomplishes.

Paradigm shift 2
By asserting that rapists are the sole factor in rape**, advocates are denying the woman's responsibility over herself. By denying her responsibility, they assert that women are incapable of doing anything to protect themselves that might actually decrease the chances of getting raped. This makes women out to be defenseless. This view is sexist because it portrays women as weak and ineffective compared to men, who always get what they want because they alone have the power and are the sole determinant of what they will be able to do.

Paradigm shift synthesis
Taken together, the logical conclusions of accusing "scenario B men" of "blaming the victim" is the promotion of the belief that women are incapable, and men are capable. That women are irresponsible, and men are responsible*. That men can rape, but women cannot stop rape. That women don't have the freedom of choice, to choose their own destinies, in the context of whether they will be raped or not. That women are victims, and that men, by contrast, must be victors. That women are helpless and defenseless and at the mercy of the decisions that men make. That men get what they want, when they want it, from whom they want it. The buildup of all these contrasts encourages the subconscious prejudice in both men and women to see women as weak and inferior and men as strong and superior. It is the very epitome of sexism.

Therefore, though promulgated in the name of feminism and the defense of women, any attacks against the character or motive of a man, or the impact of his statements, if he encourages women to seek to protect themselves from the sort of men who would take advantage of them, nevertheless has the effect of PROMOTING SEXISM.

Feminism = sexism. Against women, no less. I could not be clearer.

Women, think twice about attacking any man that disagrees with you about some issue that touches on gender relations.

Men, take courage, and be careful to make sure you speak wisely on this issue. Sexism rules on "both sides," and it is your responsibility, as someone who seeks to honor woman, to fight against the things that hurt her even when it's what she believes with all her heart to be in her best interest.

~ Rak Chazak

* note the equivocation in these terms. It's nevertheless the impact of using these words without clarification and therefore the conclusion is sound.

** Rapists are solely responsible for their choice TO rape. But rapists don't exist in a void and strike at random. This is evidenced by the fact that most rape is "acquaintance rape." Rapists must CHOOSE their targets, and to do that they need motive and opportunity. You have the ability to deny them the opportunity, and to some extent their motives. If you have this ability, should you act on it? Then that is the same as saying that you're responsible for your own actions that can mitigate or exacerbate the risk of being raped. Please read this treatise to see that there are two senses of the word 'responsibility': culpability and personal governance. To say that you're accountable for yourself is not to say that you are to blame for what someone else does to you. The consequences of denying personal responsibility over your choices leads to absurdity.

The Extrapolation Principle

 The Extrapolation Principle is the application of the idea that God is aware of everything, including human thoughts.

Consider: if you thought of something, then if it was the case that your idea is totally novel, such that God would not have thought of it, then your thoughts could catch God by surprise. He would be, in some sense, ignorant. We know this can't be true, because He is all-knowing.

This also means that, if you can think of a possible reason for why God might have done something, then, provided your thought process is logically sound and not in contradiction to some known Biblical truth, it is reasonable to believe that that thought would have entered into God's decision-making process, as a supporting reason for making the choices that He did.

That's basically it, for this post. I can't make it clearer with more words. But I figure I'll share an example of what I mean, that happens to be what I was thinking about when I formulated this thought.

~ ~ ~

I was contemplating marriage when I went to bed last night. I decided to explore it from a different aspect than is typical. The common ways of looking at human sexuality and relationship are from a procreative and theologically symbolic standpoint:

Procreative: God made male and female separate, as well as sexual reproduction and sexual desire, in order to establish a balance in the created order and to perpetuate humanity.

Theologically symbolic: God made male and female separate, that they may, when they come together in marriage, be a representation of the relationship that Christ has with His Church -- distinct centers of consciousness, but united in purpose (and as near to unity of essence as is possible), both serving the other.

But I figured, why not look at it from a contingency standpoint.

Premise: God is so great that when we recognize that we cannot have a perfect relationship with Him in this world, we will desire to leave it to be with Him. This means we won't care if we die. We'll be prone to recklessness or at least apathy with regard to protecting our earthly lives, since life with Him is far more to be desired than a lesser life on earth.

So God has the conundrum, of how to motivate the humans not to totally throw away their lives so they can pass through death into eternity. He's got to make some aspect of earthly living have enough of a fixation on the heart of men that they won't be tempted to give it up so easily. He needs to do something to make them individually invested in promoting His kingdom on earth, and not just focused on joining His kingdom in heaven.

What's a God to do?

The delights of heaven far surpass the delights on earth. So God might have thought, "I'll create something so delightful that men will hardly choose to die than miss the experience of it." And He created sexual pleasure.

The intimacy of the loving relationship between Father and Son, and Savior and Saint, far surpasses human relationships on earth. So God might have thought, "I'll create something so intimate, than which nothing else will come closer to resembling My relationship with those whom I love." And He made possible the marital union between man and wife.

And then, to ensure that mankind would not be so singlemindedly devoted to pursuit of this passion (recognizing, after all, that not all would be holy in their motivations) at the expense of all others, He connected human sexual intimacy to the generation of life itself, so that as long as people would desire that intimacy (which He made nearly inevitable), new people would be born and His desire that mankind would fill the earth would never be thwarted. Further, the presence of helpless children would serve as a modulating effect, on sinners and saints alike, making them more responsible and convicting them with a sense of duty, and thus providing a way that mankind would perpetuate itself even if it operated on the basest of human urges.

The fact that I thought this means that God knows that I would think it.
Since God is eternal, that means that He was aware of this thought 'before' He created mankind, before He made them male and female and created sex and sexual reproduction.
The Extrapolation Principle then means that, provided there's nothing ludicrously antiBiblical about this speculation, that it's quite possible that these notions constituted some of the multitudinous considerations that God would have processed in His divine mind when deciding how He was going to create the universe. It doesn't mean it was the primary reason (certainly not, by far), but it implies that He would have been aware of it, and the fact that He did what He did in the way that He did takes all possibilities into consideration.

So my conclusion, then, is that one of the supporting reasons for why God made marriage is so that His children would have something to root them in this world and keep them temporarily content with persisting in a shadow of eternity, until the future consummation. A sea-anchor, if you will.

It can't replace God for us. But it's the closest we have to being face-to-face with Him, our true love, between now and the day we're glorified and perfected in Him. And it's such an example of His kindness to us, that He would allow us to have this 'small slice of heaven', the better to know Him by, by intimately loving and being loved by another person.

Tell me that's not romantic.

~ Rak Chazak

The Purity Principle: A Biologist's Perspective on the Timing of God's Wrath and Salvation

This'll be a long post with lots of pictures, yay! Make sure to click "Read More" so you don't miss out! 

The Purity Principle

Thesis abstract: my observation and speculation that the reason the Fall happened before Adam and Eve had children, and that the Flood destroyed all of mankind except Noah’s family, is that God chose those times to avoid the far more complicated consequences of what would happen if only a part of mankind fell at once, or how to keep the Messianic Line undiluted from Adam to Christ. They appear to be decisions made mainly on the basis of demographics, with respect to their relation to sinfulness and its effects on the righteous who are living, keeping in mind God’s respect for the deterministic autonomy of man.

How can I say that with simple words? = Specific points in history have seen God’s intervention, I speculate, because of an implied, but (to my knowledge) inexplicit, goal of maintaining the spiritual purity of believers: first the patriarchs, then Israel, and then the Church.

Here’s my big idea: have you noticed, for instance, that every single person in Jesus’ lineage as given in Matthew and Luke (as far as can be told from Biblical background information on them) were saved? What are the chances of that? Now, there must certainly be unbelievers in His ancestry somewhere, BUT nevertheless the fact that there is at least one lineage containing an unbroken chain of belief in God, from father to son, from Adam to Christ, is a very conspicuous observation. And it begs analysis of why this might be the case.

I should clarify how I am using the word purity. You may have gotten the idea from the last paragraph, but let me dispel any possible misunderstanding. My notion of purity in this article concerns itself with spiritual genealogy. The physical lineage doesn’t matter; this isn’t promoting nationalism or ethnic divisions between people. In the context of Israel and the Church, Biblically, purity means you have believers inside and unbelievers outside. Let unrepentant ones in, and the passage “a little leaven leavens the whole lump” comes true. The idea is that unbelief is, from a demographic viewpoint, infectious. Leave it alone without a purge of some sort (does not need to be violent), and over time it has the tendency to totally corrupt everything. We see this in the example of Noah, whose culture had become so far removed from God (from the impurity of the God-believing Sethites intermarrying with pagan Cainites, which tainted the succeeding generations with the Cainite godlessness) that he was the ONLY man alive on earth who walked with God!—out of the millions or possibly billions of people alive at that point. As a student trained in biology, this makes me think of serial dilutions. 

Right-click on any of the following images to see them in a full size view.

Faithlessness, if tolerated by the faithful, and absent God’s intervention, has the effect of diluting faithfulness over time so that there is less and less faith on earth, by proportion of the total population, by every succeeding generation.

This is obviously a bad thing, and if God does not desire (as I believe the Bible gives us strong support to believe) for faithfulness to ever disappear completely from the earth, at any one time, then He would have to do something to protect the diminishing remaining faithful from the corrupting godlessness around them.

And this is, I believe, a supporting reason for God’s decisions in history to a) send the Flood, b) call Abraham out of Ur, c) the Israelite Exodus, d) the Zionistic theocratic laws for Israel that forbade intermarriage with foreigners, and ultimately why Jesus came at just the time that He did.

Naturally, the main reasons from a theological point of view, and a historical point of view, are different, more obvious, and more important. But every good thing done has more than one good reason for doing it, and I’m going to use the space after the jump to describe how God’s desire for the spiritual purity of the various people God has dealt with has, I believe, been a supporting reason for His decision making and His perfect timing.

Christian Encouragement: How I Compliment Pretty Girls Who Have Good Theology

The following contains 1,700 words of fairly easily-readable monologue that I sent as an expanded version of a compliment to a girl on her theological soundness and zeal. I'll place a page break early on, to avoid cluttering the front page, and encourage you to click on "read more" to look at the whole thing for your consideration, edification, what-have-you.

Hiyah,

I came across your facebook profile on a [..............] post where you had commented. So the fact that you seemed to affirm pre-trib eschatology was what first stood out, not to mention the fact that you're following a page representing Reformed doctrine, which is encouraging. The next thing that I saw was that you're cute, which is only natural considering that I'm a typical male in that I'm visually oriented, and that my personality preference (which I find the Myers-Briggs profile to be a fairly effective measure of) is to thoroughly evaluate everything I perceive. It's a little unclear from facebook and your blog, but erring on the safe side, I'll treat you as if you're married and avoid anything that might be flirtatious. However, I have many compliments to give you.

It's rare for most young people to be very theologically astute -- I speak as one myself, who feels sometimes as if the peer landscape is very sparsely populated with Christian brethren -- and considering that roughly half of any age group is female, and only a subset thereof is of notable physical attractiveness, it's only logical to conclude that it's a very rare thing for a beautiful young woman to be so zealous for good doctrine as it is apparent to me that you are.

And mark, that is primarily what makes you beautiful:

3Your adornment must not be merely external-- braiding the hair, and wearing gold jewelry, or putting on dresses; 4but let it be the hidden person of the heart, with the imperishable quality of a gentle and quiet spirit, which is precious in the sight of God. 1 Peter 3:3-4

Always Happy to Reconcile with the Repentant

Work has presented a number of interesting opportunities to consider the relationship I have with other people, and to contemplate from this the relationship God has with us. People in a fast food establishment are typically not your smartest, most responsible, kindest, most mature, most easygoing or for that matter the most Christian people you're going to meet in life. And yet, because you can't run away, you can't scream in agony while on shift, you can't quit and you can't fire them, you're forced, as a co-worker, to just take it, whatever they dish out, whether good or bad.

And it is good and bad. Because no matter how well behaved they might be compared to others, they are still evil. And they are all made in the image of God, and able to do good, and are therefore likable, but even despite this, they may not know God and therefore they don't have His sustaining joy inside and sooner or later show you just how bafflingly unpleasant they can be. Because you don't have the opportunity to end it all, either by walking off, or by forcing them to behave, or by eliminating them from employment, your day-to-day life becomes a prolonged exercise in implementing forgiveness. You can't hold grudges, because you are forced to interact, and are therefore unable to cut them off completely and ignore them, much as you may like. And that also means that no matter how cruelly they may have treated you, no matter how disrespectfully, or ignorantly, or hatefully, in a few days' time they might laugh and be jocular in your presence, and you might tire of your hurt feelings and even chuckle, yourself. 

It's a strange thing. But it doesn't mean they were less wrong. It doesn't mean they are good people because you have to treat them as if they are. It doesn't mean anything like that. It's just easier to let things go than to hold on to them, because the sheer amount of insanity you experience at a workplace like that is too much to remember, frankly. It only hurts you to recall it all. Letting it go--forgiving it--is better for your heart.

Movie Reviews: Guardians of the Galaxy, Catching Fire, 47 Ronin, and More…

Redbox has become a middle road between the convenience of Netflix and the tangibility of what once was Blockbuster. Do you remember Blockbuster? It was a movie library, where you could go and peruse the classics on the shelves as well as pick up the new releases advertised around the wall. This was how I saw Terminator as late as 2008. But the internet era killed Blockbuster. The prices for rentals and the 7-day return was a relic of a pre-internet era. I mean, most of the movies were in VHS format! After this, my family finally joined the 21^st century and got ourselves a DVD player. Now a new contender has popped up, taking advantage of the ease of storage of DVDs and securing a reliable business model with one-day rental, allowing the prices to be low, ensuring customer loyalty. Redbox has become an overnight hit and I see them everywhere. There are at least five that I’m aware of in my town, at gas stations and supermarkets, but there are probably several more, and we’ve definitely taken up the habit of bringing home a movie in the evening some days and returning it the next morning after watching it. The calculus is too appealing to forgo: I can go to the movies and pay $8 for a ticket, $13 for 3D, and double that price if I’m paying for another person because I’m treating them. Compare this to the $1.20 price (increased once, so far, after starting at a flat rate of $1) of any DVD at Redbox. I can watch every single blockbuster of a single year for the price of taking me and one other person to the movies. This leaves plenty of room for snacks, not to mention that I can choose when to watch it, which is a convenience not afforded by small theaters, and it offers the opportunity to watch a broader range of movies than I might otherwise bother to go to theaters for. I would suspect that Redbox has therefore been a boon to independent films, and films that don’t get wide releases or make it to the aforementioned small theaters. In summary: all but one of the following I have watched on a Redbox rental, the sole exception being Guardians of the Galaxy, which we had to stay up til 9:30 for the latest showing, getting out around midnight, all just to avoid giving 3D a chance to ruin it for us. I don’t need 3D gimmicks to tell me that Object X is in front of Object Y. My eyes’ depth perception works just fine with a flat image, and the 3D glasses make the picture less sharp, which is my biggest irritation with it. A useless gimmick is one thing, but for it to reduce the picture quality? Why am I paying more for this, again?!

On to the reviews!

I determined that I could group some of the observations I made from these into different categories. Seeing everything through a lens of Christian theology is making me pick up on intriguing themes, whether intentional or unintentional as far as the director/producers are concerned. Some of the movies have little applicable themes, like Lone Survivor, which since it was made to be an accurate retelling doesn’t try to go outside of its realm, artistically speaking. The Last Days on Mars is another example of one without any sort of Christian parallels, seeing as it was (to my surprise) a good old-fashioned space zombies horror thriller. I’m honest with this and if I don’t pick up on something that I consider poignant, I won’t try to pigeonhole a movie to mean something it doesn’t. Yet, several of the movies were fascinating in this regard. Others were just good because they didn’t have “unnecessary gratuitous boobies” or suchlike.

There will be some spoilers.
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Treatise Hub

These range from "a decent length" to "ridiculously long," meaning about 3,000 words for the most ambitious articles. Often, they're taken from my private Journal or transcribed from my cell phone, after texting a lot with a friend, and these tend to be somewhat shorter and are called "Texting Treatises."


Because they take place in a referential vacuum, the content is off-the-top-of-my-head, and not footnoted with Bible verses or links, and they tend to be very philosophical in nature. If that lies in your interest, you'll find these types of articles an enjoyable read.


Note, once again, that this won't be an exhaustive list of all lengthy philosophical articles I've posted on here, but the ones which are most characteristic of what I described above.


Long-Form Treatises:


Private Letter: Falling In and Out of Love and the Transformative Power of the Holy Spirit
Journal Entry: A Theology of Evangelizing Discussion Forums
The Atheist Fallacy of Imputing Motives on Actors Motivated by Religious Ideology
Silly Obligations
Journal Treatise: When Was I Saved?
Journal Treatise: Why I'm Not Baptized
Journal Treatise: Maturation
Journal Treatise: Oort Cloud
Does Sanctification Come Through Experiences?
Treatise: What Made the Red Planet Red? A Theory of Planetary Colonization and What Could Have Been
When Open-Air Preaching 'Clicked' For Me
Treatise: Married Women, Turn-offs, Turn-ons, and Plato's Forms
A Comparison of Single People to Young Children
General Disinterest in Valentine's Day
Proof of God: The Argument from Possibility
Impassioned Prayers
Intimacy in Heaven
Irrationality in Regeneration: A Source of Relief
Treatise: Confessions of A Smart Guy
Treatise: A Monument to All Your Sins


In a theme by themselves, my 3 Treatises on modern feminism from a Biblically Christian perspective:


Journal Entry: On Feminism, "Male Privilege," and "Rape Culture"
Treatise: Third-Wave Feminism's Irresponsibility Double-Standard
On the Word "Slut" and "Sexually Liberated" Third-Wave Feminism


Texting Treatises:


Text Epiphany: Recent Thought on Prayer
Choosing to Break Up or Break In A Relationship: Risk-Reward Calculus
Texting Treatise: Flirting
Phreniology: Theory of the Mind-Brain Interaction
Text Treatise: Suicide's Real Victims
Texting Treatise: Pride, Lies and Murder
Text Treatise: What God Taught Me About the Innate Sinfulness of Man Through My Experience of Being Cyber-Bullied At College



And there we go. I'll place a link in the sidebar and this hub page will be modified to include future additions to my collection of Treatises which I post on this blog.

Subsequent Additions

Treatises:
Always Happy to Reconcile with the Repentant

Texting Treatises:
Meta-Talking: Talking About Talking
Texting Treatise: Pure Fantasy?

Texting Treatise: Pragmatism is Impossible in an Infinite Universe

Not 1 Corinthians 13
All About that Alto, No Soprano

~ Rak Chazak

Treatise: A Monument to All Your Sins

Transcribed from Journal Brown, late 2012.

The explanation for the Mayan Long Count:

20 days

18 times 20 days = 360 days, one Mayan Year.

20 times that,

and 20 more times that = 144,000 days, one b’aktun, if I recall.

A number of astronomical phenomena converge at a point in the past, roughly 3100 BC; the Milky Way and the plane of the ecliptic of the sun and bla de bla de bla. The significance and reverence the Mayans gave to astronomical things led them to peg the date as the date of creation. Close, but no cigar. Anyway, since the Mayans liked multiples of 20 (and may have used a ‘base-20’ numbering system, whereas ours is base-10), they invented a longer calendar for keeping accurate track of dates over long periods of time. This was called the Long Count. It lasted 144,000 days, as shown above. The 13^th round of that reckoning came to a close today (or started. I can’t recall). When you understand what the Long Count is, you realize it’s just a a calendar and not a prophecy of any sort. There’s no coincidence that the b’aktun came to a close on the Winter Solstice, either. The  solstice is directly tied to earth’s orbit and is one of the smaller, shorter cycles that made a circuit and converged today. The Mayans may have attributed religious beliefs to the conclusion of b’aktuns, because they, like many other cultures, had tied their religious beliefs to astronomical phenomena—attributed religious significance to conspicuous mathematical relationships in nature. In this way, they were very much like the Pythagoreans (Protagoreans?), who, though mathematically astute (supposedly), maintained many strange rules and basically worshiped the number 10 because 1+2+3+4 = 10 OMIGOSHITSMAGICK! Something like that.

So the astounding irony of all this is that the guys who made fairly noteworthy mathematical, astronomical, and engineering discoveries in earth’s past basically wasted their potential by directing all their energy into the babbling nonsense of false religion and foolish, vain spirituality. Much like how the Egyptian pyramids were built to serve as the tomb for one man! At least the Great Wall of China had a practical application. Stonehenge and Göbekli-Tepe were large stone structures for religious ritual/festival. If you think about it, the huge Roman temples are the same thing: huge concrete engineering feats, massive building expenditures, all to build houses for idols built by man’s hands. What. A. Waste. To be honest, huge Catholic Cathedrals and “evangelical” mega-churches also fall into this category. There seems to be something innate in Man, that he has a tendency to try to erect extravagant structures to impress weak-minded people into becoming followers, and really, to impress himself, also—and convince himself that his false deity must be right, because “look how cool this is!” It’s the age-old “dick-measuring” shtick. It’s the short man overcompensating with a big/expensive car. (Contemporarily, they even call it “short man syndrome.”) When you have nothing truly impressive or remarkable to be confident in, you try to hide that fact by outwardly making a show for others, lest they see you for who you really are, and you be ashamed.

Wikipedia image

Flickr image

 If this is true for individual men, why would this not be true for religions as well? After all, religions are made by men, and their following is made up of men. It’s the same insecurity, played out in equally sinful ways, on a much larger scale, compounding the effect….which is what makes it so atrocious. To borrow a phrase I heard in Halo 2, spoken by the Gravemind, “I am a monument to all your sins.” This is what all those construction marvels are. Chichen Itza. The Great Pyramid. The Temple of Jupiter. St. Peter’s Basilica. Notre Dame. Angkor Wat. Taj Mahal. Vertsailles. The Masjid Al-Haram, “Dome of the Rock.” Easter Island. Stonehenge. The Mahabodhi. The Kashi Vishwanath. The Church of the Nativity. The Forbidden Palace. The Sistine Chapel. The Hagia Sophia. The Vatican. The Mormon Temple. The Ka’aba. These variations on the Tower of Babel all have one thing in common: they were either built for ONE MAN (“idolatry of self-worship”) or they were built for the worship of a false deity (idolatry by other means). They are the rotten fruit of thousands and millions of individual sins, compiled and amplified, manifest in enormous man-made structures which echo Babel, both in its form, scope, and intent: Man-made beacons of idolatry for the glorification of man and idol. No wonder God is so furious with idols and idol worship throughout the Old Testament: “behold, you are nothing, and your works are less than nothing; an abomination is he who chooses you.” (Isaiah 41:24)  Good grief, I am angered, exasperated and frustrated by this myself! How much more so the Holy God of the universe, who has no tolerance for sin as I do?

Treatise: Confessions of a Smart Guy

Originally posted in late December 2012 in Journal Green. Names have been changed.

In Journal 8 earlier, I was writing about how I mistakenly overestimate people’s capacity to understand me (and in many cases in online arguments, the ability to think clearly and reason logically). I’m averse to thinking about this, because I realize I’ll have a tendency to be dismissive and “look down on” their intelligence. This is rather arrogant, since I’d be acting as if I’m so much smarter and wiser and more knowledgeable. But then, experience has repeatedly proven to me that I AM smarter than most people I encounter, and this makes things confusing for me. In theory, I realize acknowledging that you’re smarter or wiser than someone else/others isn’t inherently arrogant or presumptuous, if it happens to be true. So the danger then is in thinking highly of oneself for being smart. If I want to tell myself that I’m more intelligent than the vast majority of people out there, in order to make sense of reality (mind you), then I must do this in such a way that I do not think of myself as being better than others because of it. Pan out for a bit and consider that this is difficult or impossible to do if you don’t believe in God. If your universe is naturalistic and materialistic, what is your standard for determining if something is ‘good’ or ‘bad,’ or if one thing is ‘better’ or ‘worse’ than another? Your estimate of worth would likely be pragmatic or merit-based. Without God, if you are smarter than someone else, then clearly you are better than they are, at least in that one sense! This kind of reasoning is inevitable when you pay no heed to the Cross and what it means—in this context, what it means about human goodness and the question of what makes one thing ‘better’ than another.

Consider briefly some evidence to confirm my reasoning here. Men without the Spirit—or men denying the Spirit’s power—will inevitably reveal that they think they are better than you (if not you per se, then at least someone). Christlessness is arrogance, because the fruit of the Spirit is humility [note: I checked and this one is not directly mentioned by name in the Galatians 5 passage, but it certainly wouldn’t be inconsistent]. Atheist Libertarian Guy thinks he’s better than me because he has more money—was born into more privilege. Grumpy Old Man thinks he’s better than me because of his age and life experience (and strangeliest, his daughter’s accomplishments). Depraved Greek Orthodox Guy thinks he’s better than me because of his academic accomplishments and (supposed) intelligence (Grumpy also boasts of his two Master’s Degrees). These are the more obvious blokes of which I have recent memory. I posit that their desire to assert themselves as being better than me has its foundation in their lacking theological views. Both Grumpy and Depraved would claim to be christians, but assuredly believe in a works-based soteriology. Libertarian Jerk, not having the luxury of pretending to belong to the Church, naturally has only the works-based option open to him. But the Cross says that there are none who do good—none, then, who are good. We are all in the same bucket, believers and unbelievers alike. God the Father looks down from heaven and sees two kinds of people: bad people, and Jesus. That’s it! Being a Christian does not mean nor make (by definition) you a better person. It means you are better off.

Likewise, then, I can take this knowledge and apply it to my intellect. See, I only have this wonderful ability to think the way I do by the Grace of God. My intelligence is a gift from my Father. And salvation is also a gift from God. You can’t earn a gift, and receiving a gift is not because you’re better than those who did not receive it. A gift reflects on the character of the giver, not the recipient. And so, if all the things I have, salvation included, are free gifts from God, then in the same vein as of salvation, none of these gifts are an avenue for me to brag. They are not for me to think highly of myself, but of God. They are not occasion for me to boast, or to make my name great. What God has given, God can take away.

Treatise: Third Wave Feminism's Irresponsibility Double-Standard

What follows are some excerpts of comments I made regarding sexism on a university post – since the things I said on there are examples of core beliefs I have, you can learn some things about me by reading them.

Here's the main idea. Third Wave Feminism wants women to be free to make their own decisions (great!) -- which normally might mean that they would be responsible for their own actions, correct? No, not according to the third wave feminist, who simultaneously will demand that a woman be utterly blameless--not responsible on any level whatsoever--for the consequences of her actions, or even her choice to perform those actions, irrespective of consequence! Here is a long analysis from me on this contradiction, followed by a response to a post by an angry 3WFeminist afterwards. The immediate context is a discussion about rape and 'victim-blaming.'

This post tackles sensitive subjects and uses frank vocabulary.

*************

“It’s worth considering that there are a number of us who are not personally invested in the sense that we know people who are deeply affected by depraved sexual behavior, nor are we people who perpetrate such behavior. I am neither a woman at risk for sexual assault nor am I the sort of guy who would ever consider violating a woman in the ways that have been described here (and don't take that to mean that there are ways I would violate a woman--the English language isn't clear enough to avoid this vagueness). So as a conclusion, for me to consider this issue, it is certainly an academic exercise. It is entirely intellectual, seeing as for me to understand another person's perspective I cannot sympathize, but must empathize, trying to imagine what it's like to be in their position and doing all sorts of mental analysis to consider their statements, and my position, from multiple different angles to ensure that it all makes sense, both to me and to them. Don't take my lack of personal involvement to mean that I don't care. But take it to mean that I can't intimately emotionally understand your exact feelings as it relates to this topic.”

“[someone I’m commenting sarcastically in response to had made the claim quoted]: "The Vagina Monologues is about ending violence against women..".. By offering, as one of the monologues, a tale where a woman was sexually abused as a child, and then when 13 (later edits change it to 16, because that makes it okay I guess) had lesbian sexual relationships with an older woman, and used to promote the idea "if it was rape, it was good rape," until popular pressure caused that to be edited out as well? Because perversion like this is thrown in whenever an event is held to ostensibly help women, I can not, neither have I been, nor do I suspect I ever will be, able to in good conscience recommend attendance to any woman I happen to interact with. It's junk. And besides being junk, it's freaky weird abusive filth, like 50 Shades of Grey where the woman is beaten by a 'lover' who was abused as a child, and Twilight, where a teenage girl is stalked by a boyfriend who breaks her car to prevent her from meeting her friends.”

“I'm disturbed that several individuals on this thread have indicated that their primary, or singular, outrage is because the said twitter page includes posts that concern homosexuality (either as the motivation for posting, or the object which is posted about). The absence of a comparable outrage over the posts that are not derogatory re: homosexuals, or casting homosexuals in a bad light, implies that the posters(on this forum) do not see the other negative posts as being as bad as the ones they are showing outrage over. Or if they are not as bad, at least the omission indicates that the poster does not think it matters as much, for a different reason. This concerns me more than the crude comments in the first place. The crude comments reveal a lack of basic decency, but the selective outrage reveals a lack of concern for other people.”

“Is accusing someone of being gay for not seeking heterosexual sex necessarily anti-gay or is it actually anti-straight? More to the point, is it more insulting to gays or to straight people who choose abstinence? Being the latter, this is far more of an insult to straight people who hold to a moral standard of sexuality more strict than that of "most people," than it is an insult to someone who is homosexual. It implies that there is no legitimate reason to not want to have sex with someone except if you're gay. It objectifies men, declaring that so long as there's an attractive female in front of you, you're expected to want to have sex with her, and expected to actually follow through if given the opportunity. It's way more insensitive toward straight guys than gay guys.”

“It's been this way since middle school/high school. It never bothered me to be called "gay" or "faggot" because I either didn't fit the stereotypical sexual or physically aggressive behavior that some other guys expressed. What concerned me was the assumption that because you didn't highly prioritize 'getting laid' or because you didn't respond to jerks by threatening them physically, that this made you effeminate. It really doesn't. Not by necessity. What it can mean instead is simple: it means you're restrained. You're like a Vulcan. The Vulcans of Star Trek never show emotions--but it's not because they don't have emotions. Instead, they're a historically very emotionally impulsive and aggressive race, who learned over time to suppress displaying those emotions. It's like that with guys. I have the same basic desires, turn-ons, temptations etc as other guys. I've just learned to be restrained, and to rule my emotions, rather than letting my emotions rule over me. And I'll hazard a guess that this is the case for most other guys that have self-control, as well.”

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“Second question for discussion: Yoga pants/leggings/underarmor/etc -- Tacky or acceptable attire? The person quoted in the video wants to excuse their ill behavior by saying "tight fitting clothing made me stare at butts," but the fact remains that since there are such people out there, dressing in a certain way does invite their negative reactions, no matter how unjustified. I think you can wear whatever you want, but you can't wear whatever you want and expect to be respected, if you're not respecting yourself by the clothes--rather, lack thereof--that you wear. Think about what the abovementioned fabrics do -- they fit tight to the skin, such that if you wear them without anything on top, you're essentially walking around in pantyhose. No one can see the color of your skin but that's the ONLY thing they can't see. Whoever dresses this way is essentially walking around naked.  I ask you -- is it appropriate to walk around naked in front of other people? Ignore the question of how other people react. That is a separate issue to whether you should be (un)dressed a certain way. Let's deal with the "it's comfortable" response. I retort, it's comfortable to go naked when it's warm outside. Is that what you'll be seeking to justify next? Just because something is comfortable does not make it acceptable to wear in front of other people. I'm a first-wave feminist. I believe women should be treated equally in the eyes of the law. What I don't agree with is second-wave feminism (that asserts that women should be treated unequally in the eyes of the law) and third-wave feminism (that asserts that women should be allowed to objectify themselves--and men--sexually, but that it's somehow wrong when men do it). I think that what is today called "feminism" is far from what the pro-women feminism of yesteryear was. What passes for feminism these days is a rush by women to degrade themselves so that there will be nothing left for men to degrade, as if this removes their "power over women." Naturally, irresponsible men love this and encourage it. "Sexual equality" is a ruse; it is not empowering to engage in sex without considering the consequences. It's not empowering to dress in ways that tempt males to contemplate your body sexually. It's what encourages the behavior that offends you so much. Can't you see that the whole movement of feminism is creating a culture where boys are taught that they have no responsibility to respect women's bodies, and they'll even be punished if they try to? What do you think happens as a result? Boys grow up taking what they can get from girls, knowing that they are free from responsibility, because feminism has, in its attempt to force a vision of equality, placed all responsibility on women, while simultaneously encouraging them to be utterly irresponsible. It's chaos. It's what results in the ludicrous scenario where girls try to dress as revealingly as possible but get upset when their attire provokes lustful thoughts and words from the boys around them. If you want to talk about a sexual double standard, this is it. You can't disrespect yourself and expect others to respect you. Note what I'm not saying: I'm not saying it's acceptable for people to disrespect you if you disrespect yourself. What I'm saying is that by not respecting yourself, you make it easier for disrespectful young men to be disrespectful of you as well. They can get away with it because you've undermined yourself and have no moral high ground on which to stand on to assert that their behavior is wrong. You are right that they are wrong--but people don't listen to hypocrites. 

Read carefully and you won't misunderstand what I'm saying here. Hopefully what I've written will make a few people inclined to respond with their thoughts.”

Someone responded, and I replied with this: “Briefly, my statements about the different waves of feminism are obviously my interpretations as they were relevant to the current topic of self-respect, and are by no means meant to be exhaustive definitions.  I tried to head off any misunderstanding of my words, but I think I'll have to try to explain myself again. Your quote in question is this one: 

"Telling a woman that it's her fault that men objectify her or harass her or whatever because of what she's wearing is a manifestation of victim blaming."

This is not what I was doing. Here's the relevant quote I made, and then I'll unpack it:  "You can't disrespect yourself and expect others to respect you. Note what I'm not saying: I'm not saying it's acceptable for people to disrespect you if you disrespect yourself. What I'm saying is that by not respecting yourself, you make it easier for disrespectful young men to be disrespectful of you as well. They can get away with it because you've undermined yourself and have no moral high ground on which to stand on to assert that their behavior is wrong. You are right that they are wrong--but people don't listen to hypocrites. " Here I specify that the woman is not responsible for the actions or thoughts of any man toward her.
Do I need to repeat that?

The woman is not responsible for the actions or thoughts of any man toward her.

It can therefore not be victim blaming. Because by definition, I am not blaming the woman for the behavior of the man.
What did I say, though? I said that the woman carries responsibility for herself (contrary to what 3WF promotes, as I mentioned earlier in that comment). She has responsibility for how she dresses and where she chooses to go. If you disagree, then you will find nothing wrong with a woman parading naked around a max-security all-male prison, and surely you will expect nothing to happen to her, and if it does, then she should not have been expected to know better, and none of it is a result of her actions. If, on the other hand, you find that this is clearly an unacceptable conclusion, then you must also acknowledge for the existence of caveats regarding your implied assertion that the woman is not responsible. And hence, I think you ought to agree that women have a responsibility to think about and make responsible decisions regarding what to wear and where to go.
You must interpret this in light of what I've already told you, i.e. that the woman is not responsible for the actions of the men around her. Otherwise you are not being charitable in entertaining my reasoning.

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So if men's actions toward her are not her fault, what do I mean by saying that the woman bears responsibility for herself? I simply mean that any intelligent woman knows that despite the fact that men should not behave a certain way, there are men who do behave that way, and to ignore this fact of reality is not doing anything to promote female equality. To ignore it would be stupid, and it puts women at risk and in danger. If you dive headfirst into a pool and break your neck, it is not your "fault" that the water was shallow. But you made the wrong decision in failing to recognize that it was shallow and alter your behavior to protect yourself. I'm not comparing men's decisions with laws of nature, as if men don't have a choice. The comparison is of the fact of the existence of men who will make these decisions to the fact of the existence of the shallow water in the pool. You can't deny that these men are out there. Wishful thinking about how they SHOULD behave does nothing to change the reality. Acting according to what you think SHOULD be the case rather than acting according to what you know to be true reality is moronic. I hope this is more clear. Women don't bear the responsibility for men's lustful thoughts. They do bear responsibility for knowingly tempting those thoughts. Tempting a man who is in control of himself will not result in an incident. Tempting a man who gives in to temptation because he lacks self control will. And every woman should be aware that the second type of man is 'out there,' and should be wise enough to not provoke them unnecessarily. Being attractive is not something you can help. Being a woman is not something you can help. Wearing clothes that reveal your figure, to an extent, is not something you can help. Wearing skin-tight articles of clothing that show everyone exactly what you look like naked is something that you are eminently in control over, and have a responsibility to consider carefully before deciding to do.

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‘I think focus needs to be shifted from women and what they're wearing to the men who think that women are inherently theirs to look at and objectify/deem "respectable" or not/etc.’

What I would like to propose is that the culture of 3WF has created these men. The solution to their existence, then, is not 3WF. It is the rejection of 3WF and a return to SENSIBLE agendas for the elevation of women's welfare that will produce the desired results. The sad problem is that 3WF's goals are inconsistent with the methods by which its followers seek to bring about those goals.  The focus should not be on the men who objectify women, nor the women who are objectified, but on the culture perpetuated by a movement that itself objectifies women and bizarrely believes that men ought somehow to remain unaffected by this.”

“For the sake of definitions, When I say the woman is not responsible for men's actions toward her, I use "responsible" to mean "at fault for." When I say the woman is responsible for how she dresses, I use "responsible" to mean "morally obligated to make correct choices in governing oneself." Hopefully this helps avoid any equivocation over the meaning of the word in this discussion.”

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Please also see a related blog post made earlier in 2013 about "Feminism, Male Privilege, and Rape Culture," in which I tie the solution (of the ills that 3WF rails against and perpetuates) into the Gospel.

~ Rak Chazak