The economy

Oh, the state of the economy. Apparently we have been out of the recession for a while but are experiencing a sluggish growth rate. Most recoveries involve a boom, but apparently this one hasn't boomed yet.

As of May, 2011 unemployment is much higher then before the recession. Though it has come down some and is under the double digit mark, it has not dropped below 9%. Why is unemployment so high.
The most important factor for employers is certainty. The more uncertain the future is, the less willing firms will be to try to expand.

A major cause of uncertainty is the ironically named Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act. Many firms are requesting and being granted waivers because of how big a failure this act is. But there is uncertainty in how much compliance will cost because government bureaucrats get to determine how much coverage the firms have to pay for.


More uncertainty is being caused by our debt fiasco. The officials in power feel like making token spending cuts is sufficient to fixing the problem. Others have proposed serious spending cuts but few have proposed eliminating the deficit. Some even claim that we don't need to eliminate the deficit. But if you have a deficit year in and year out, eventually the interest payments on the debt will grow out of hand. Regardless of how small the deficit is, eventually it will catch up on us. Deficits might be useful for times of recession, but should be eliminated during good time. When you run constant deficits, when a recession hits, that is when things go to hell and some states and localities are facing that very situation.


Inflation is another cause for uncertainty. A producer cannot tell if the rising prices are due to increased consumer demand or just rising inflation and since QE1 and QE2 were such colossal failures, the Federal Reserve has decided that the third times the charm with QE3. What can we expect from more money circulating? Higher inflation. Since increasing the money supply has no actual effect on productivity, it cannot increase output.


It is easy to see with all the uncertainty that we have raining down from those on high that we are unlikely to get out of this slump any time soon.

Gay Marriage

Many Christians in the gay marriage debate like to talk about historical marriage. By this, of course, they mean that marriage is between a man and a woman and has never historically been between 2 men or 2 women.

This point must be conceded. However, are we bound by the traditional norms and mores?

Historically, marriages were not done out of a sense of love or romance but were arranged. They were legal unions between families and often the couple never met before the ceremony. So important was the union of marriage that in ancient Greece and Rome unmarried men were denied access to certain public positions. The Greek lawgiver Solon contemplated making marriage mandatory and the Roman emperor Augustus actually passed laws mandating marriage and punishing those who did not marry.

The purpose of marriage in these cultures was not about an equal union or a union of partners. In Greek and much of Roman history, the man was dominant over his wife and family. The union was about producing off spring. So separated from our modern concept of marriage as a union of fidelity were the Greeks that the Greek orator Demosthenes explained: ""We have prostitutes for our pleasure, concubines for our health, and wives to bear us lawful offspring."

 In ancient Israel, marriage too was radically different from our modern concept. Polygamy was permitted, Jacob married two sisters, Leah and Rachel. Again, arranged marriages were common. The father arranged the marriage for his son paying a "bride price" to the woman's father.

It is clear that we do not want the historical form of marriage. People should be free to choose their own partner. But historically, marriage was not just about the union of a man and a woman. It was about having children and raising a family. Clearly under that standard, gay marriage makes no sense.

Today, marriage has a very different meaning. People pair off voluntarily. Some put off marriage until later in life or do not marry at all. Couples may choose to have children together or may have no children. Marriage is a partnership. This modern concept of marriage is very much amicable to gay marriage. As our knowledge about human reproduction has increased, it is now even possible to allow for gay couples to raise children together without first having to conceive a child with the opposite sex. Perhaps future advances will allow the creation of offspring who's genetic parents are of the same gender.

In conclusion, marriage is not the same as it was historically. The original purpose of marriage, reproduction, is not the modern purpose. Gay marriage is the next step in our changing views of marriage. Even if you wish to impose the old tradition of having children and raising a family on marriage, science is allowing us to accomplish that end with same sex couples.

Oil speculators

Are speculators to blame for high oil prices?
This is a silly question but some economically illiterate people are spouting this claim.
What do oil speculators do? They puchase oil futures expecting the price will go up. As long as they expect the price to increase, the speculators will try to buy at the current price. However, if actual prices start to fall, the futures market will quickly clear. If the futures are priced higher then the market will bare, the speculators will lose money. The purpose of speculators is to buy oil when supply is high to sell when the demand is high. In this way they tend to smooth the price of oil. The smoothing is never perfect, but we have examples of markets where speculation has been banned and since the ban, prices tend to swing up and down more often.
Price swings are bad for producers. If a producer of any comodity over supplies, the market price may be too low and they may lose money. This is because of increasing marginal costs. If a producer supplies too little and the price is higher, the producer may lose out on potential profit.
Speculators prepurchase from the producers. In this way, the producers are guaranteed a set price and do not have to worry about the actual market price.
Speculation plays an important role in our economy. Stable prices ensure that producers make fewer output mistakes that might force them out of business, protecting jobs and ensuring a stable supply for consumers. Producer benefit, consumers benefit and speculators benefit.

Methodological Naturalism

How can we justify methodological naturalism. If gods are acting in the world, a methodological naturalistic bias would lead us to reject gods, demons, angels and other supernatural entities as explanations.

But how do we do science without assuming there is a natural order? How can we tell if something has a natural explanation or is of divine origin?
If miracles or other supernatural activity is allowed, the universe is no longer guided by predictable rules. If we conduct an experiment, we can never know if the results follow from the nature or caused by some supernatural being.
To allow for anything supernatural, we must reject science. We cannot have a world were the supernatural can act and where we can make accurate measurements and predictions about the natural since we are unable to rule out supernatural influence.
We can, however, assume that there is no supernatural influence. As long as our predictions and measurements are consistent, there is no reason to assume the supernatural in.
What about the soul? Don't humans and other intelligent creatures have a special aspect within, that is generally referred to as the soul? If such a thing exists, why would we assume that it is anything other then natural. If it is a part of us, then it is natural.

The end that did not happen

What should reasonable people make of the most recent wrong end of the world prophecy? Since gospel times, there have be predictions of the return of Jesus (Matthew 16: 27-28, 1 John 2:18).
Of course, since Jesus failed to fulfill the Messianic prophecies and usher in a new kingdom of Israel, his followers, in a state of cognitive dissonance, decided he would return and usher in a kingdom of heaven instead. He failed to fulfill the New Testament predictions of his soon return and continues to fail to show up.Why are people not intelligent enough to realize that the magical stories of the Bible are not true? Why do people not abandon the contradictions and false prophesies?
I predict that this is not the last false end of the world prophesy. Despite that Jesus himself supposedly predicted his return before all who were with him had perished, people continue to fall for this superstitious nonsense.

Exorcism

My brother recently liked a link on Facebook that his friend put up. To read the silliness see here.
Priests and other religious folk who perform exorcisms are doing the victim a disservice. There are no such things as demons but there are serious medical conditions that, if left untreated, could kill them. As the article states, the supposed tools to use against a demon are "Faith, prayer and fasting."
Faith is belief without or despite proof. It would be just as valid to believe that the supposed possessed is being tormented by God as by a demon since both demand faith. If we abandon faith in the unseen and use our abilities to reason, we can determine the true causes of a person's problems. There is a larger reason to reject faith that I hope to write about in the future. 
Prayer has been shown to have no effect. Studies have shown that intercessory prayer is not effective. See here. The only effects seem to be psychological as shown in the study where those who knew they were being prayed for actual fared worse then either those who were not prayed for or those who were prayed for but did not know.
Fasting is one of the worst crimes exorcists commit against the supposed possessed. Forcing a sick person to starve themselves can be dangerous. Anneliese Michel died during an exorcism and was found to be severely malnourished. 
Back to the silly article, the supposed exorcist made it seem like he was asking for help in a battle with demons. God was obviously too busy to prevent the demon from possessing one of his loyal followers and could not make an appearance in the battle himself. However, Pope John Paul II seems to be rather effective in fighting the good fight. Why the late Pope might be better then Jesus or Mary, who surely have been duking it out with demons for a longer period of time, is not made clear.

Origin of Morality

One of the criticisms atheists get for Christians is about morality. If there is no God (Yahweh, Allah, etc.), what is the basis for morality. Where does morality come from?
This is the wrong question.The more important question is, what is the purpose of morality. If the purpose of morality is to be subservient to an angry deity, to abandon one's loved ones as Jesus commanded (Matt. 19:29) or in some other way serves to undermine human dignity, then it matters not where it comes from. If instead the purpose of morality is to improve man, to make him a better person and maximize his well being, then the question become relevant.
If morality is a tool of man, to improve his life, then morality can be determined through reason. It is not perfect, but claiming a perfect origin for morality is to lose the ability to judge right and wrong. To that what God deems is right is, then when confronted with a moral dilemma, such as if to kill in God's name as commanded in the Bible, you may abandon your moral sense.
Recent history is littered with examples of Christian's killing each other, killing abortion doctors, Muslims killing non-believers, the list goes on and on. And rather then using the faculty for reason, they justice clearly immoral actions in God's name.
Whether or not you believe in any god, morality must be founded on something that all mankind can use, even if they choose not to.