Team Fact vs Team Opinion
Which Side Are You On?
This engineered debate keeps people distracted:
Does God exist?
We are told the options are belief, disbelief, or indecision. The debate then expands into endless speculation about who is right about God.
But the question itself contains a category mistake that changes the topic from the actual question.
The issue is not whether God is one more object inside the universe. The real question is much more fundamental:
Is reality objective or subjective?
If reality were subjective, then reality would depend upon everything’s participation, perception, or agreement in order to remain coherent. It would mean existence itself requires observers in order to hold together. We would not simply discover reality; we would be participating in sustaining it. Without our active involvement, gravity might fail. The sun might implode. Day and night might break. Our actions determine whether or not reality keeps working.
But that is not the reality we experience.
I don’t know about you, but I’ve never laid awake at night worrying that the laws of physics might fail due to my negligence and making an emergency plan based on it.
Reality is objective because reality is not sustained by existence. Existence is sustained by reality.
Reality does not depend on our agreement, recognition, or presence. We enter it, experience it, discover it, and eventually leave it. Reality remains.
We do not make gravity work. We do not hold the laws of physics together through belief. We do not create mathematical truths by discovering them. None of those things hold reality together. They too participate just like us.
The fact that we can discover truths that existed before us demonstrates this. We can know civilizations that existed before we were born. We can discover mathematical relationships that were true before anyone wrote them down. We can uncover physical laws that operated before humanity ever observed them.
We are not creating reality. We are discovering the structure that was already there. Reality is coherent because reality has objective structure.
Any coherent system requires an independent point of reference. The very structure of coherence always presupposes a single, independent prior point of reference. Without one, every claim eventually reduces to preference, consensus, or power. The standard of evaluation becomes dependent upon the very thing being evaluated upstream.
This is why God is not merely another being within reality. God is the necessary objective ground that makes reality intelligible. God is the necessary constant that allows existence itself to be coherently evaluated.
This is not theology added onto logic.
It is the recognition of what logic itself requires.
The confusion begins when people ask whether God “exists” as though God were simply another object inside the universe. The deeper question is whether reality itself has an objective foundation.
If reality is coherent anywhere, then reality is objective.
If truth is possible anywhere, then reality is objective.
That distinction changes everything. It reveals the distraction. The real divide in society is not religious versus secular. It is not Christianity versus Islam versus Judaism versus atheism versus any other label. The deeper divide is whether reality is sustaining us or we are sustaining reality. If the latter is the case, then it needs to be proven how any circular claim can be justified without relying on an independent point of reference. This is simply a matter of pure logic.
This is where the significance of the Abrahamic tradition becomes clear. We have all heard of the Ten Commandments. But almost no one asks the deeper question:
Are they facts, or are they opinions?
Are the Ten Commandments ultimately no different than saying vanilla tastes better than chocolate?
Most people live as if the answer is obvious. They treat certain moral claims as more than preferences. They treat them as truths.
The majority of people assume that “murder, stealing and rape are wrong” is an objective fact.
Yet much of the modern moral philosophy upon which Western civilization is built surprisingly asserts that there is no such thing as objective moral facts. Morality is treated as preference, social contract, evolutionary convenience, or cultural consensus. Within this framework, rights become negotiated rather than discovered.
That leaves modern civilization with a fundamental contradiction.
We speak the language of objective justice while denying or failing to notice the possibility of objective morality. We openly proclaim freedom, equality, justice, life, and liberty as though they are objective principles while denying or failing to notice the foundation that makes them objectively binding.
Whereas the Abrahamic tradition begins somewhere entirely different.
Contrary to popular belief, the Ten Commandments are not a list of religious rules. They represent a framework that begins with the objective foundation of reality itself and moves toward the principles necessary for logically coherent human coexistence. The Ten Commandments are surprisingly more objective than secularism itself. They begin with the objective foundation that secularism often assumes but refuses to define, grounding moral reasoning in the same commitment to objective reality that makes coherent inquiry possible.
Again, this is not theology. This is logic.
The First Commandment establishes that reality has one objective foundation.
“You shall have no other gods before Me.”
There cannot be multiple independent sources of ultimate truth. If there were, objectivity itself would collapse into competing authorities. Coherence, logic, truth, and even empirical science wouldn’t have the independent foundation they need for any of them to function. Existence would be responsible for keeping reality afloat. That is preposterous. Reality is undeniably objective.
The Second Commandment protects that foundation.
“You shall not make idols”
Do not reduce the objective ground of reality into something contained within reality itself.
Do not reduce God into merely another object among objects.
In other words, do not make God exist. Existence is contingent. God’s omnipotence contradicts contingency. Water doesn’t swim, fish do.
The foundation cannot be dependent upon the system it grounds. If the objective standard becomes just another thing within the system, then the standard by which truth, justice, morality, and empirical science are measured is lost.
This is not a theological claim.
It is the structure required for objective reasoning itself, including empirical reasoning, to be possible for beings living within reality. It is the foundation upon which existence can be coherently evaluated and moral reasoning can be treated as a rational discipline rather than mere preference. To make God exist is to distract from the recognition of what makes logic and reasoning possible. It is to gloss over the very basis of what makes ontology coherent while utilizing it extensively.
The Third Commandment protects the equality that emerges from objective recognition.
“You shall not take the name of the LORD your God in vain.”
This is far more than a prohibition against careless speech. It is a prohibition against claiming ownership of objective reality.
No religious tribe claims ownership of God.
The “name” of God represents the objective authority by which everything is evaluated. To take that name “in vain” is to invoke objective reality in service of subjective interests; to claim that God uniquely belongs to you, your tribe, your nation, your ideology, or your institution.
Nothing that exists authors its own existence. That is precisely why every human being stands equal before objective reality. Each of us enter reality, are sustained by reality for a certain amount of time, and leave reality to make room for the next participants. Reality remains stable and unaffected and thru that stability we gain coherence.
No one is born with greater claim to truth. No one possesses greater intrinsic worth. No one owns the standard by which the universal set within reality is judged.
The moment someone claims superiority, special chosenness, or exclusive ownership of God, they have emptied the concept of its objective meaning. They have transformed the independent standard into a tool of self-interest.
That is taking the name of God in vain.
Objective reality cannot belong to anyone because it is the very thing before which everyone is equally accountable.
The fourth commandment requires actionable responsibility.
“Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy.”
Worship is calibration.
Objective reasoning is not merely something you think about. It is something you practice.
It requires steady cadence.
Just as regular physical exercise trains the body, regular and disciplined worship trains the mind and character to orient toward objective reality rather than ego, impulse, fear, power, or social pressure.
Patience, humility, courage, justice, and self-restraint are not arbitrary virtues. They are dispositions that allow a person to reason coherently rather than merely react to circumstances. They allow a person to separate truth from noise and accumulate knowledge from a world filled with competing influences.
A person who never exercises becomes physically weak. Likewise, a person who never orients themselves toward objective reality becomes intellectually and morally vulnerable.
Only after these foundations are established do the remaining commandments make sense:
Do not murder.
Do not steal.
Do not bear false witness.
Honor your parents.
Do not commit adultery.
Do not covet.
These are not presented as preferences. They are presented as objective moral constraints that apply equally to everyone.
Now ask the question modern society does not openly advertise:
Is “rape is wrong” a fact? Or is it an opinion?
Is “murder is wrong” objectively true? Or is it simply a cultural preference?
If morality is only preference, consensus, or power, then these statements have no greater objective status than anyone’s favorite color.
But if reality itself is objective, then moral truths can also be objective.
Modern civilization often speaks as though human rights, equality, dignity, and justice are objective realities. Yet much of modern philosophy asserts that there are no objective moral facts.
It wants the authority of moral truth while denying the logical foundation that makes moral truth possible, while using that same logical foundation to promote empirical science.
Great lengths have been taken to convince the fish that the water isn’t objective, even though the very act of swimming objectively depends upon it. We are so immersed in objective reality that we mistake it for ourselves, forgetting that every coherent thought, every scientific discovery, and every step we take relies upon a reality that does not depend on us, but upon which we entirely depend.
That contradiction cannot stand forever.
Do not fall into the theology trap. Do not reduce the conversation to religious tribes. Muslim versus Christian versus Jew versus atheist versus conservative versus progressive, etc, etc. Those divisions distract from the deeper question.
The foundational divide is much simpler:
Team Fact vs Team Opinion
If morality is opinion; if “murder is wrong”, “stealing is wrong”, and “rape is wrong” are ultimately no different than choosing a favorite color, then power decides. Whoever has the most influence determines what is acceptable.
But if morality is fact; if murder is objectively wrong, then everything is accountable to the same objective reality, including the powerful.
That is why this matters.
The Epstein class represents the extreme consequence of a world where power is separated from objective moral constraints. A world where justice becomes negotiable, morality becomes relative, and truth becomes whatever those with influence can quietly persuade others to accept.
Objective morality ends that game.
The Ten Commandments are not fundamentally about joining a tribe or adopting a theological label. They are a declaration that reality itself places objective constraints upon everything that exists; that the water is real, you are swimming in it right now but cannot see, hear, taste, touch or smell it no matter what tools you use. And if coherence is accessible anywhere, it is accessible everywhere.
They are a declaration that equal coexistence depends on leveraging objective reality to build reason, not subjective preference.
If empirical science is possible because reality has objective structure, then moral reasoning is not merely speculation. It too can be grounded in that same objective reality. That makes moral science a hard science equal to any of the natural sciences contemporarily gatekept by empiricism.
Everything else follows from that.
So choose your side.
Team Fact.
Or:
Team Opinion.
By now we all know what side the Epstein class is on. There is no middle ground on this foundational question.
Team Fact seeks to protect and uphold the equal right to exist for everyone—even for those on Team Opinion. Nothing authored its own existence, so rights are on the basis of presence and sustainability. Every fish may disappear, but the water remains unaffected by fish or no fish. It recognizes moral claims as objective facts and understands that applying those facts requires coherent judgment on a case-by-case basis. It may not always succeed in doing so perfectly, but its orientation is toward objective fairness. Children are born with the intrinsic inclination that murder and stealing are objectively wrong even though they lack the awareness of what objectivity logically entails. At its core, Team Fact has the right aim.
Team Opinion begins somewhere else. Great lengths have been taken to convince the fish not notice the water, while distracting the unsuspecting from recognizing the obvious: swimming itself is only possible because the water is there. In the same way, objective reality is treated as something to invoke when convenient and ignore when inconvenient, even though every coherent thought, scientific discovery, moral judgment and existence itself depends upon it. Water doesn’t swim. Likewise, God doesn’t exist because existence is contingent, but is the necessary constant that makes objective coherence possible and is therefore necessary and real, which is stronger than contingence. It offers one justification after another for selective reasoning: reducing science to empiricism alone, redefining categories to avoid the topic that reality is objective rather than subjective, promoting tribal identities and claims of ownership, or constructing increasingly elaborate narratives that justify unequal standards of existence.
The gaslighting methods may differ, but the result is the same: objective reality is displaced by personal preference, and equal coexistence gives way to hierarchy, power, and social stratification. Racism, classism, caste systems, the deterioration of a stable middle class, misogyny, toxic feminism and every other form of dehumanizing division arise from the same failure: the failure to evaluate humanity according to objective reality. When objective reality is replaced by preference, power, or tribal identity, equal human dignity gives way to hierarchy, and injustice inevitably follows.