Mr. Moderate

The most powerful instrument in Judeo-Christian theology is the obligation to tithe (the very word “tithe” is derived from the old-English word for “tenth,” so “tithing” is to give one-tenth of your income or estate either as a tax or for religious works, depending on usage). The concept is extremely ancient, tracing back to at least Babylonian times, roughly 4,000 years ago, and probably arises further back in time than that. Religious groups which adhere to a strict concept of tithing tend to survive and grow strong while those which do not will tend to perish over time for lack of funds to keep things going.
Continue reading ‘The Power Of Tithing’ »

Who would these fardels bear,
To grunt and sweat under a weary life,
But that the dread of something after death,
The undiscover’d country from whose bourn
No traveller returns, puzzles the will
And makes us rather bear those ills we have
Than fly to others that we know not of?
Hamlet, Act 3, Scene 1

There are many barriers that mankind cannot cross and return. Hamlet (above) referred to the barrier between life and death. Billions of years ago, the first living things on Earth arose. Since that time, none have died and returned to life so far as science is concerned; at least none for which a sufficiently-loose definition of the word “died” is applied. True death must mean more than mere sleep or hibernation. Some species plant their seeds and disappear for many years, only to reappear on cue when their time comes around once again. Such life-forms are not truly “dead” in the sense implied by the above verses.
Continue reading ‘The Undiscoverable Country’ »

A story is told of a family moving to a very small town in the Midwest and then looking to see what church was available for them to join. They were quite surprised to find two very large and expensive-looking churches situated right across the street from each other. A bit confused, they asked a local resident how such a small town could possibly afford to maintain two such churches, and wouldn’t it be better if they merged together? The local replied that merger was not an option as the two churches had deep religious differences that were irreconcilable. And “what are those differences?” they asked? “Well,” the local replied, “that church over there believes there ain’t no Hell, and the other one asserts ‘the Hell there ain’t!’”

Up until the time of the Enlightenment, virtually all Christians believed in demonic possession. But Enlightenment viewpoints and scientific understandings have undermined that uniformity of Christian beliefs, and these days “liberal” Christian churches have cast aside beliefs in demonic possession, preferring to view the Bible stories of such events as alegorical for political events or other meanings altogether. But the New Testament is so riddled with stories of demonic possession that it becomes very difficult indeed to reconcile modern views about the subject with the idea that the Bible is in any way an accurate narrative of the life of Jesus.
Continue reading ‘Swimming With The Gadarene Swine’ »

It was announced recently that the first quarter of 2007 experienced a further decline in year-over-year housing prices. This was blamed on an unexpectedly-large decline in the month of March. Well now, why could that be? Could it be the housing bubble bursting?

Of course, the announcement was inflated by much optimism in that the quarterly number was less than the reduction in the previous quarter, so the announcement argues that the decline is bottoming-out and recovery (higher prices) should occur in the second half of 2007. Buried deep in the details of the underlying article was the statement that the effects of the collapse of the sub-prime mortgage market were yet to be fully factored into the market, and if that kept buyers away, then further declines might occur. Oh, really? Well, then, I predict further declines!
Continue reading ‘Housing: Whistling Through The Graveyard’ »

In his recent book and Salon excerpt It Could Happen Here, Salon columnist Joe Conason argues that George Bush represents a dangerous next step towards an authoritarian fascist dictatorship that would gain power here in the United States much as Adolph Hitler gained power in Germany through winning a popular election. While there might be some reason to fear a fascist takeover of America, given the close links between the Republican Party and big business, I believe that the greater fear would be a popular dictatorship of the type predicted by Oswald Spengler in his book The Decline of the West. The distinction is subtle, so I will begin by defining a few terms.
Continue reading ‘Beyond Fascism’ »

We should not, as a nation, expect people to do things that injure their own interests. When we establish economic incentives and disincentives, we should expect them to operate on the actions of those who become aware of them in the way that a rational person would act. Again, we should not expect the actions taken by thinking people to go against their own self-interests.

When government programs are so structured as to lead to consequences that are literally insane, you have to ask whether or not the politicians creating the programs were themselves insane or whether they were just trying to create a program (and earn some “brownie points”) that would eventually fail, so that they could then axe the program (and earn more “brownie points”). It seems like some government programs were not well thought out as to their consequences. Perhaps we need to have an independent economist review any legislation with any economic impacts and write a report back to the lawmakers about the “Law of Unintended Consequences” as applied to the proposed legislation. Maybe we would not get programs structured like the one that is my topic for today.
Continue reading ‘Welfare Incentives Thrive’ »

Wikipedia has an excellent article on the housing bubble in the United States. I can’t recommend it highly enough. (At least, as the article stood as of the date of this post; it could be changed tomorrow for all I know.) As it sits, it aligns perfectly with my own thinking on this subject. If you want more on my own take on the housing bubble, please read my page on Greater Wealth & Fools.

The bottom line here is this: don’t buy a house anytime soon unless you are in a low-inflation market or can’t afford to wait (if, for instance, you’ve sold your old home and have to “roll over” the gain within a fixed amount of time). Plan on the possibility that housing prices may go lower for the next 5 to 10 years. If you can’t withstand that kind of a housing market, with low inflation leading to low wage increases for those who still have jobs, then rent and do not buy. Sub-prime borrowers should avoid buying altogether, as the sharks have circled for a final feast, and you had better believe that they know their bubble is bursting!

One of the clear lessons from the Holocaust of the 20th century is that certain types of scientific inquiry are clearly immoral (or unethical) to perform. The infamous Nazi human experiments on prisoners disgusted the entire world, and such activities have been all-but-universally condemned. It is even questionable whether the ethical scientist ought to use or cite to the results of such ethically despicable research. I agree with those who would permit it under extraordinary circumstances and with appropriate condemnation of the unethical basis of the research in question. But few would question that scientific inquiry into medical subjects must be subordinate to considerations of medical ethics, and frankly I would condemn the ethics any who would question such subordination.

As I have written, my ethical hierarchy is grounded in survival. But we are all aware that even animals will sacrifice themselves in some ways to preserve the survival of their species through their own young. So, it does not necessarily follow that ethical scientific inquiry must necessarily avoid death for the organisms under study. To put this in a readily-understandable human context, we are “at war” with certain diseases, and in any war, some soldiers will die even if we do our best to preserve their lives. Since animals are viewed as “property” the ethical concerns with animal experimentation are somewhat different than they are with human experimentation. However, even there, we recognize that owned animals have certain rights to treatment according to recognized ethical standards. Accordingly, most of us would agree that there are limits to what scientific researchers can be allowed to do to owned animals for the purpose of scientific research. However, most of us would disagree with the limits sought to be imposed by People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA). The benefit of having an organization which takes such an extreme view of animal rights is that at least we can attempt to have a conversation about the proper limits upon the treatment of animals.
Continue reading ‘Ethical Concerns Limit Scientific Inquiry’ »

Most English translations of the Christian Bible begin with words like these:

In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.

Well, this isn’t a blog post about the word “God” in the above quote, but rather about the word “beginning.” Some prominent Christian apologists (for instance, William Lane Craig) want to take the scientific theory of the Big Bang and assert that this event in the past history of our universe is a “beginning.” Well, I suppose that the nuclear explosion at the Trinity test site in New Mexico was in some sense a “beginning” (it was the first manmade nuclear explosion), but it did not mark “the beginning of time” in any real sense. And frankly, I see no real reason to view the Big Bang as “the beginning of time” in any sense more than the Trinity test explosion.
Continue reading ‘The “Big Bang” Is Not A Beginning’ »

By now most intelligent people understand that our genes uniquely describe at some level (high or otherwise) how to make one particular human being, namely ourselves. We may have an argument over how much of some particular feature of some particular person is caused by genes (nature) or environment (nurture), but the default answer needs to be “it is probably some of both.”

We don’t pass our genes from one person to another except when we manage to have children or participate in a transplant (where different genes between the donor and recipient can cause rejection syndromes of various types). But we are constantly passing memes between ourselves as this is part of the essence of human interaction.
Continue reading ‘Transmitting the DNA of Memes’ »