The Hard-Wired God

Personally, I don't see how science can be viewed as a threat to God. God is creator, and science is one of the best ways to study and explore creation. If science can prove that some previous assumption held by religious people is incorrect, that is a people problem, not a God problem. I am not a member of the Flat Earth Society, and I think that Intelligent Design is mostly junk pseudo-science. Whatever science might uncover, there are questions that will remain outside its realm.

As Vox Day has stated in his blog and book The Irrational Atheist, atheists fetishize science as a method to refute the exisence of God. How the study of the natural world is supposed to refute the existence of the supernatural remains unclear to me. Liars use statistics, and Atheists use science.

All this to link to an interesting article in New Scientist Magazine, "Born Believers: How your brain creates God":

Bering considers a belief in some form of life apart from that experienced in the body to be the default setting of the human brain. Education and experience teach us to override it, but it never truly leaves us, he says. From there it is only a short step to conceptualising spirits, dead ancestors and, of course, gods, says Pascal Boyer, a psychologist at Washington University in St Louis, Missouri. Boyer points out that people expect their gods' minds to work very much like human minds, suggesting they spring from the same brain system that enables us to think about absent or non-existent people.

The second sentence about education and experience teaching us to override our belief in God struck me the wrong way, but besides that line, the writing seemed interesting and fairly objective. The article continues:

Even so, religion is an inescapable artefact of the wiring in our brain, says Bloom. "All humans possess the brain circuitry and that never goes away." Petrovich adds that even adults who describe themselves as atheists and agnostics are prone to supernatural thinking. Bering has seen this too. When one of his students carried out interviews with atheists, it became clear that they often tacitly attribute purpose to significant or traumatic moments in their lives, as if some agency were intervening to make it happen. "They don't completely exorcise the ghost of god - they just muzzle it," Bering says.

and

So if religion is a natural consequence of how our brains work, where does that leave god? All the researchers involved stress that none of this says anything about the existence or otherwise of gods: as Barratt points out, whether or not a belief is true is independent of why people believe it.

The Virtue of Godlessness

OK, so I have gotten behind yet again on my blog.

As a stop-gap, an article entitled The Virtues of Godlessness by Phil Zuckerman has been making the rounds on both atheist and religious websites.

I found it on a blog call Fortune Cookies, and I posted my response to the article in the comments section there.

As the old saying goes, "statistics don't lie, but liars use statistics." Well, in this case, I think Zuckerman's numbers would not even qualify as statistics, and his expert analysis seems to be a rather half-hearted attempt to patch together a framework of quasi-facts and figures around predetermined theory. Considering the contents of his faculty profile page includes a list of favorite songs for atheists, I think my theory of a biased data set is in good shape. At least he likes Nick Drake and Elliott Smith.

If and When...

...these kind of decisions are made in the Hommes household, I hope to add this to the registry:



I somehow doubt Dr. RosenRosen wants one, but I will take this time to congratulate both him and Jason on the safe arrival of healthy boys to their respective families. To further clarify the previous sentence - two different men, two different families, two different baby boys. Not that they will need the help, but I will enjoy reminding the Republican father that he has the Obama Inauguration to forever mark his son's birth, and the Democrat has the signing of the largest spending bill in our country's history.

Darwin and Atheist Bumper Stickers

Atheists love Darwin, and according to them, Darwin loves back.

Well, apparently there are parts of Darwin's theories that most don't want taught in schools. The full title of his most famous work is The Origin of Species by means of Natural Selection, or,The Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life. What you won't in there however, is extensive discussion about humans or their evolution. For full treatment of the subject of humans, readers must look to The Descent of Man, and Selection in Relation to Sex, published 12 years later as Darwin's clarification on what his earlier work could potentially mean about the human races.

Consider the following quotes from Chapter 5 of The Descent of Man:

Natural Selection as affecting Civilised Nations.- I have hitherto only considered the advancement of man from a semi-human condition to that of the modern savage. But some remarks on the action of natural selection on civilised nations may be worth adding. This subject has been ably discussed by Mr. W. R. Greg,* and previously by Mr. Wallace and Mr. Galton.*(2) Most of my remarks are taken from these three authors. With savages, the weak in body or mind are soon eliminated; and those that survive commonly exhibit a vigorous state of health. We civilised men, on the other hand, do our utmost to check the process of elimination; we build asylums for the imbecile, the maimed, and the sick; we institute poor-laws; and our medical men exert their utmost skill to save the life of every one to the last moment. There is reason to believe that vaccination has preserved thousands, who from a weak constitution would formerly have succumbed to small-pox. Thus the weak members of civilised societies propagate their kind. No one who has attended to the breeding of domestic animals will doubt that this must be highly injurious to the race of man. It is surprising how soon a want of care, or care wrongly directed, leads to the degeneration of a domestic race; but excepting in the case of man himself, hardly any one is so ignorant as to allow his worst animals to breed.

Sounds like eugenics to me. Note the mention of Mr. Galton, Darwin's cousin and the father of eugenics. Surely we shouldn't teach this in school, should we? Darwin continues:

The aid which we feel impelled to give to the helpless is mainly an incidental result of the instinct of sympathy, which was originally acquired as part of the social instincts, but subsequently rendered, in the manner previously indicated, more tender and more widely diffused. Nor could we check our sympathy, even at the urging of hard reason, without deterioration in the noblest part of our nature. The surgeon may harden himself whilst performing an operation, for he knows that he is acting for the good of his patient; but if we were intentionally to neglect the weak and helpless, it could only be for a contingent benefit, with an overwhelming present evil.

Well good, Darwin doesn't actually prescribe eugenics. As much as it would benefit the human races, those pesky instincts of sympathy and nobility get in the way. But he continues:

We must therefore bear the undoubtedly bad effects of the weak surviving and propagating their kind; but there appears to be at least one check in steady action, namely that the weaker and inferior members of society do not marry so freely as the sound; and this check might be indefinitely increased by the weak in body or mind refraining from marriage, though this is more to be hoped for than expected.

Hmmm, I'll let that speak for itself, but given the birth rate trends between industrialized and 3rd world countries, I am thinking Darwin's hopes are in the process of being dashed. Still, maybe that bumper sticker should say "Darwin has sympathy for you" or "Darwin Loves Superman."

For more on the implications of Darwin's quotes above, see a more in depth look at Stand to Reason Blog.

Big Picture: Bigger Picture

There is an article in The American Spectator that is right up my alley as it discusses the big picture consequences of a society and economy without virtues, but I wiith a comment left on the article by a Dwight Thorne:

...truth is not a two dimensional simple one page explanation.

I wrote before that the current situation is a combination of so many partial factors that make up the whole. Artificially low interest rates by the Federal Reserve, easy credit, government sponsored privilege and loose oversight of Fannie and Freddie, huge deficit spending at the behest of the executive and legislative branches during the Bush years, it goes on and on. Yes, we need to analyze each of these issues separately, but the writer of the article makes an important distinction:

It is characteristic of the age in which we live to see the "moral dimension" as a matter of following yet more rules or dictated regulations. The ancients, however, seldom referred to rules or even principles. For them a moral life was not a matter of what you do but of what you are.

Better people make better decisions, and better decisions makes for better capitalism, regardless of rules and regulations.

Adam Smith reminded us in his first book, The Theory of Moral Sentiments, written long before his better-known work, The Wealth of Nations, all about what he called "the moral sentiments." He himself distinguished between self-interest, which he promoted, and greed. Self-interest is both good and essential. Greed is always wrong and bad. The key difference is the former uses self-restraint, which obviously requires a moral code and a moral compass. There are moral preconditions in a market economy: the sentiments of sympathy, benevolence and compassion, of approval; disapproval and indignation, which underpin the social order and make it possible to engage in business in the first place. Human beings are not just profit-maximizers. They have moral scruples, personal commitments and the desire for happiness. These set limits to their plans for personal profit, and also stimulate them to pursue profit in ways that honor their higher values and generosity.

Absent virtues, we kid ourselves if we think more government or more regulations will solve all problems. After all, Madoff and Stewart Parnell both knew the law, and it was not a sufficient deterrent to keep them from selling fraudulent investments or salmonella infected peanut butter.

I am a realist, and as long as companies get government granted privileges (LLCs, tax exemptions, subsidies, etc.), they should be subject to regulations that seek to counterbalance those privileges. The reality is we don't live in a virtuous world, and the legal system and markets simply don't catch every immoral or illegal act, so some level of proof of regulatory compliance is sensible. But go too far and everyone suffers while the bad guys continue to disregard the rules.

So yes, there are big picture decisions regarding our economy and government's role that must be analyzed and answered, but there remains a bigger crisis, a moral crisis, that requires stronger families, stronger educations, stronger communities, more personal respnsibility, and embracing both the rewards and risks of freedom.

That moral crisis cannot be dictated by governmental power or throwing money at "problems." One of the paradoxes of the "progressive movement" is that it has spawned public policies that have had as their collective consequence an end totally opposite to the one intended. Instead of offering temporary help to a needy few, we have expanded the ranks of those perpetually in need. Where communism failed to create "new socialist man" behind the former Iron Curtain we are succeeding in America. Instead of creating a society of free and responsible individuals, we have created the entitlement generation(s). Ever since we proclaimed that we should be free from fear, we have been afraid to be free.

The Competing Forces of Economics and Politics

Cafe Hayek is on of my regular blog visits, and GME Economist Russell Roberts posted a beauty yesterday:

Good politics requires action, constant proof that the politician is working tirelessly.

Good economics requires quiet consistency so people can plan for the future.

The times we live in are the greatest example in my lifetime of the tension between these two goals.

Even better is the comment from "Mezzanine":

From "Yes, Minister" - the political syllogism:

Something must be done.
This is something.
Therefore, this must be done.

Mo Money, Mo Protectionism, Mo Problems

Of course, I am referring to the stimulus bill. In addition to the "Buy America" clauses that have angered our trade partners, Thomas Friedman points out that the spending bill contains new restrictions:

...the U.S. Senate unfortunately voted on Feb. 6 to restrict banks and other financial institutions that receive taxpayer bailout money from hiring high-skilled immigrants on temporary work permits known as H-1B visas.

There is simply no reason for this. LEGAL, PRUDENT immigration is a vital aspect to attracting people who can create wealth and opportunities for themselves, others, and America as a whole. After all, someone has to pay taxes. To support this point, the article continues:

According to research by Vivek Wadhwa, a senior research associate at the Labor and Worklife Program at Harvard Law School, more than half of Silicon Valley start-ups were founded by immigrants over the last decade. These immigrant-founded tech companies employed 450,000 workers and had sales of $52 billion in 2005, said Wadhwa in an essay published this week on BusinessWeek.com.

He also cited a recent study by William R. Kerr of Harvard Business School and William F. Lincoln of the University of Michigan that “found that in periods when H-1B visa numbers went down, so did patent applications filed by immigrants [in the U.S.]. And when H-1B visa numbers went up, patent applications followed suit.”

Why are Americas unions, lobbyists, and so many Democrats afraid of competition?

As a tangent (after all this blog is for me to explore my opinions), I do want to stress the conditions of LEGAL and PRUDENT in immigration policy. I believe we should dramatically ramp up immigration under those two conditions. I don't think LEGAL needs much explanation, but I stress its importance as without legal immigration, the only immigrants we get are those who have already shown their willingness to break the law. That is not how I would like someone to begin their life in this country. Unfortunately, politicians ignored the labor laws of supply and demand, and illegals naturally filled that void.

The PRUDENT condition is a little trickier to define, because to some it may make me look like a monster. Still, as I have stated previously, I see no proof of natural equality in humans. I have to be prudent in hiring decisions to weed out the bad apples, and so should the US with immigration. Again, I want more immigration, but consideration should be given to how the immigrant's abilities, education, culture, and religion will impact America's future and safety. Criminals, Islamic extremists, and those that would likely be further burden to our welfare system should be kept out.

Back to the article, I liked this from Thomas:

In an age when attracting the first-round intellectual draft choices from around the world is the most important competitive advantage a knowledge economy can have, why would we add barriers against such brainpower — anywhere? That’s called “Old Europe.” That’s spelled: S-T-U-P-I-D.

Hat tip to Matty J. for e-mailing me the article.

Quotes of the Day

Human beings are going to make mistakes, whether in the market or in the government. The difference is that survival in the market requires recognizing mistakes and changing course before you go bankrupt. But survival in politics requires denying mistakes and sticking with the policies you advocated, while blaming others for the bad results.

&

Our economic problems worry me much less than our political solutions, which have a far worse track record.

~Thomas Sowell

Jesus as Life Coach

Using the New Testament, and specifically the teachings of Jesus, as a self help book is not without its controversies. Many "fundamentalist" Christians resist any effort of others that may be seen as reducing Jesus to simply a moral teacher. This is understandable since many non-Christians use Jesus the moral teacher as both a rationalization and objection. If you hear something along the lines "Jesus was a great teacher, so I can see why people admire him," it is often followed by the like of "if others need Jesus, that's cool - whatever works for them."

The problem, to many, is that when Jesus is seen primarily as teacher, then you can take what you like, leave what you don't, and continue living pretty much how you want.

I don't see it that way. While some people do come to the Christian faith by a radical Pauline conversion experience, many do so by slow acculturation or deliberate learning. The social teachings of Jesus, then, can be a great invitation for many to explore the Gospel. On the other end of the spectrum, many people who call themselves Christians could use a reminder that faith without works is dead, and that Jesus came not only to save souls, but to enrich and give purpose to our lives. We should avoid the temptation to reduce the New Testament Gospel as simply a collection social teachings, but if a person's faith is genuine then it should manifest itself, and the ideal is to be more Christ-like, more Christian.

So to unbelievers, new believers, and old believers alike, Jesus' teachings are a great thing. To believers he will remain infinitely more than simply a teacher, and to unbelievers, there is always the humble hope that he can become more than simply a teacher in their lives.

All that to mention a new book I just learned about, How to Argue Like Jesus. I don't know anything about the book, but the description is interesting and the reviews are positive. I thought others would be interested also.

Tax Idea: A Compromise

Since there seem to be so many rich people who want to pay more taxes, I have a solution that I think everyone can live with - Just add a line to the bottom of the tax form for voluntary additional tax contributions. That way, big-tax proponents can give as much extra money as they want, and Reed Hastings, CEO of Netflix, has the opportunity to put that additional 15% of his salary into the government coffers. Why should everyone be forced to give more if the Hollywood stars and big tax elites are so eager to do so?

If such an option existed, then anytime a politician wants to raise taxes, the public could be given access to their tax record to see if they are practicing what they preach. After all, the recent revelations of Democrats not paying their taxes have come as a complete shock to me.

I would be interested to know if Mr. Hastings employs the use of a tax attorney to minimize his taxes owed, or if he claims any tax deductions.