The theory of evolution is often treated as the most serious intellectual challenge to Christianity, at least the fundamentalist kind , but I think there are some major conundrums in its most basic tenets.
1) Satan
OK, so God is all-knowing, all-powerful, and wants people to believe in him, but chose to create a being he knew in advance would rebel against him and undermine his plans. I just can't get my head around that. It seems like people would still be able to disobey God (through free-will) even if Satan wasn't around trying to lead people astray.
2) Jesus dying for the sins of the world
God had to sacrifice himself to himself to change a rule that he made? Who came up with that plan? Rube Goldberg?
Perhaps someone can explain it to me?
Saturday, April 4, 2009
Wednesday, April 1, 2009
With Friends Like These...
One of the reasons given for the war in Iraq was to remove Saddam because he was an evil dictator. The details of the US's support of Saddam during the Cold War are old news, but what get less attention is the fact that the US has been and continues to be openly allied with several authoritarian governments.
1) Hosni Mubarak, Egypt
Interesting Facts:
-Has ruled by Emergency Law for 25 years
-Average US Foreign Aid per year: $2.2 billion
2) Islam Karimov, Uzbekistan
Interesting Facts:
- prefers to boil opponents alive
-torture is "institutionalized, systemtic, and rampant"
-Hosted US air base at Karshi-Khanabad until 2005
3) The government of Saudi Arabia
Interesting Facts:
-From Fredom House: "The Saudi Ministry of Education Islamic studies textbooks ... continue to promote an ideology of hatred that teaches bigotry and deplores tolerance. These texts continue to instruct students to hold a dualistic worldview in which there exist two incompatible realms – one consisting of true believers in Islam ... and the other the unbelievers – realms that can never coexist in peace. Students are being taught that Christians and Jews and other Muslims are "enemies" of the true believer... The textbooks condemn and denigrate Shiite and Sufi Muslims' beliefs and practices as heretical and call them "polytheists", command Muslims to hate Christians, Jews, polytheists and other "unbelievers", and teach that the Crusades never ended, and identify Western social service providers, media outlets, centers for academic studies, and campaigns for women's rights as part of the modern phase of the Crusades."
Full Report here
-Jews are forbidden to enter the country
-Supplies 15% of US oil
-Special roads for Non-Muslims
1) Hosni Mubarak, Egypt
Interesting Facts:
-Has ruled by Emergency Law for 25 years
-Average US Foreign Aid per year: $2.2 billion
2) Islam Karimov, Uzbekistan
Interesting Facts:
- prefers to boil opponents alive
-torture is "institutionalized, systemtic, and rampant"
-Hosted US air base at Karshi-Khanabad until 2005
3) The government of Saudi Arabia
Interesting Facts:
-From Fredom House: "The Saudi Ministry of Education Islamic studies textbooks ... continue to promote an ideology of hatred that teaches bigotry and deplores tolerance. These texts continue to instruct students to hold a dualistic worldview in which there exist two incompatible realms – one consisting of true believers in Islam ... and the other the unbelievers – realms that can never coexist in peace. Students are being taught that Christians and Jews and other Muslims are "enemies" of the true believer... The textbooks condemn and denigrate Shiite and Sufi Muslims' beliefs and practices as heretical and call them "polytheists", command Muslims to hate Christians, Jews, polytheists and other "unbelievers", and teach that the Crusades never ended, and identify Western social service providers, media outlets, centers for academic studies, and campaigns for women's rights as part of the modern phase of the Crusades."
Full Report here
-Jews are forbidden to enter the country
-Supplies 15% of US oil
-Special roads for Non-Muslims
The only difference between the government of Saudi Arabia and the Taliban (apart from oil) is that the Taliban are open and honest about their hostility to the US.
Saturday, February 21, 2009
The Gulf of Tonkin "Incident"
Generations of US high school students have been taught that the Gulf of Tonkin Incident was the main reason the US entered the Vietnam War. Supposedly, US warships had been attacked "unprovoked" twice by the North Vietnamese navy. In truth, those US warships were giving assistance to the South Vietnamese, so they were not exactly neutral. As for the second attack, well, turns out it never actually happened. This isn't from some goofball conspiracy theorist- Robert McNamara (Secretary of Defense at the time) and James Stockdale (who was flying over the place when the second attack allegedly occurred) have both denied it.
"In 1995, retired Vietnamese Defense Minister Vo Nguyen Giap, meeting with former Secretary of Defense McNamara, categorically denied that Vietnamese gunboats had attacked American destroyers on 4 August, while admitting to the attack on 2 August. A taped conversation of a meeting several weeks after passage of the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution was released in 2001, revealing that McNamara expressed doubts to President Johnson that the attack had even occurred."
"Squadron commander James Stockdale was one of the U.S. pilots flying overhead during the second alleged attack. Stockdale wrote in his 1984 book Love and War: "[I] had the best seat in the house to watch that event, and our destroyers were just shooting at phantom targets—there were no PT boats there… There was nothing there but black water and American fire power." Stockdale said his superiors ordered him to keep quiet about this. After he was captured, this knowledge became a heavy burden. He later said he was concerned that his captors would eventually force him to reveal what he knew about the second incident."
source
So, what we have is a war based on a flimsy pretext. Now when has that ever happened?
"In 1995, retired Vietnamese Defense Minister Vo Nguyen Giap, meeting with former Secretary of Defense McNamara, categorically denied that Vietnamese gunboats had attacked American destroyers on 4 August, while admitting to the attack on 2 August. A taped conversation of a meeting several weeks after passage of the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution was released in 2001, revealing that McNamara expressed doubts to President Johnson that the attack had even occurred."
"Squadron commander James Stockdale was one of the U.S. pilots flying overhead during the second alleged attack. Stockdale wrote in his 1984 book Love and War: "[I] had the best seat in the house to watch that event, and our destroyers were just shooting at phantom targets—there were no PT boats there… There was nothing there but black water and American fire power." Stockdale said his superiors ordered him to keep quiet about this. After he was captured, this knowledge became a heavy burden. He later said he was concerned that his captors would eventually force him to reveal what he knew about the second incident."
source
So, what we have is a war based on a flimsy pretext. Now when has that ever happened?
Saturday, February 14, 2009
How Big Does the Federal Government Need to Be?
I couldn't sleep the other night, so I decided to make a list of all the government's activities that seemed unnecessary or wasteful. Pretty soon, I had quite long list going. Then it struck me
to phrase the question in reverse: what, at the absolute minimum, should the government be doing? I came up with three main tasks: defense, printing money, and sale of bonds to fund itself.
to phrase the question in reverse: what, at the absolute minimum, should the government be doing? I came up with three main tasks: defense, printing money, and sale of bonds to fund itself.
Defense is one of the major categories of government spending, but it's mostly overkill. The main threats I see to the safety of the US (aside from terrorism which I will address separately) are ballistic missiles (from land or submarines), bombers, and conventional attacks from surface ships or submarines along the coastlines. The possibility of a land invasion strikes me as remote in the extreme, and anyway individual states could easily provide adequate land defense with their National Guard units.
As for terrorism, given the abundance of small arms in the world and the relative ease with which they can be acquired, I don't really see what the government can do to stop it. It makes more sense to put resources where they will be most effective. Shooting down a bomber or detecting a missile launch is a lot easier than trying to catch two or three guys before they set off a truck bomb or looking for a guy hiding in a cave somewhere.
To counter the threat of ballistic missiles, nuclear deterrence seems like the best choice, and it's been working for over 50 years. 300 missiles armed with one or two warheads plus another 20 or so tactical seems like enough firepower to deter any potential foe. I estimate the total cost for the missiles, warheads, warning/detection installations (including satellites), and personnel to be about $20 billion. Here are some estimates from the experts:
"In 1957, Admiral Arleigh Burke, then the chief of naval operations, estimated that 720 warheads aboard 45 Polaris submarines were sufficient to achieve deterrence. This figure took into account the fact that some weapons would not work and that some would be destroyed in a Soviet attack (Burke felt that just 232 warheads were required to destroy the Soviet Union).
At the time Burke made this estimate, the U.S. arsenal already held six times as many warheads.
Several years later, in 1960, General Maxwell Taylor, former Army chief of staff and future chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, wrote that “a few hundred” missiles (armed with a few hundred warheads) was adequate to deter the Soviet Union. Yet by this time the United States
had some 7,000 strategic nuclear warheads.
In 1964, Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara and his “whiz kids” calculated that 400 “equivalent megatons” (megatons weighted to take into account the varying blast effects from warheads of different yields) would be enough to achieve Mutual Assured Destruction and destroy the Soviet Union as a functioning society. At that time, the U.S. arsenal
Several years later, in 1960, General Maxwell Taylor, former Army chief of staff and future chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, wrote that “a few hundred” missiles (armed with a few hundred warheads) was adequate to deter the Soviet Union. Yet by this time the United States
had some 7,000 strategic nuclear warheads.
In 1964, Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara and his “whiz kids” calculated that 400 “equivalent megatons” (megatons weighted to take into account the varying blast effects from warheads of different yields) would be enough to achieve Mutual Assured Destruction and destroy the Soviet Union as a functioning society. At that time, the U.S. arsenal
contained 17,000 equivalent megatons, or 17 billion tons of TNT equivalent."
source
For the possibility of bombers, civillain radar would detect them easily enough, so all that would be left would be to scramble enough interceptors to bring them down as well as having a few surface-air-missiles to catch any stragglers. 500 interceptors seems like more than enough to me. The total cost for these interceptors and the associated infrastructure and personnel I estimate at $25 billion.
For the last threat, sonar nets would catch the submarines so they could be destroyed by aircraft. The interceptors could easily be armed with anti-ship missiles or depth charges, so they could serve both purposes. Total cost for that I estimate at $5 billion.
So, for $50 billion, the US could be adequately protected from the most destructive threats facing it.
Having a uniform system of currency is really convenient, so I think everyone can agree the government can continue with that. The total budget for the Mint in 2007 was about half a million dollars. You see, if you look long enough, you can find a cost-effective government program.
And lastly, the government needs money to pay for itself. In 2006, about 9% or $200 billion of the government's revenue came from the sale of treasury bonds and the like. That's more than enough to pay for the activities listed.
Everything else can be done at the state and local level: police, courts, jails, schools, welfare, etc.
source
For the possibility of bombers, civillain radar would detect them easily enough, so all that would be left would be to scramble enough interceptors to bring them down as well as having a few surface-air-missiles to catch any stragglers. 500 interceptors seems like more than enough to me. The total cost for these interceptors and the associated infrastructure and personnel I estimate at $25 billion.
For the last threat, sonar nets would catch the submarines so they could be destroyed by aircraft. The interceptors could easily be armed with anti-ship missiles or depth charges, so they could serve both purposes. Total cost for that I estimate at $5 billion.
So, for $50 billion, the US could be adequately protected from the most destructive threats facing it.
Having a uniform system of currency is really convenient, so I think everyone can agree the government can continue with that. The total budget for the Mint in 2007 was about half a million dollars. You see, if you look long enough, you can find a cost-effective government program.
And lastly, the government needs money to pay for itself. In 2006, about 9% or $200 billion of the government's revenue came from the sale of treasury bonds and the like. That's more than enough to pay for the activities listed.
Everything else can be done at the state and local level: police, courts, jails, schools, welfare, etc.
Friday, January 30, 2009
A Lesson from China
China's One-Child policy is often cited as an example of an effective, wide-ranging government policy based on hard-nosed pragmatism. Its origin however, is an interesting tale in its own right.
When the People's Republic of China was founded in 1949, Mao (who would later take several wives) encouraged large families to replace those lost by decades of war. The program was successful in increasing China's population, which rose from 583 million in 1953 to over 1.3 billion today. However, the population became too large, and so the One-Child policy was phased in during the 1970s. If the original policy had never been enacted, the second policy would not have been necessary.
What is the relevance of this to the US? Well, for decade the US government subsidized (and to this day continues to subsidize) the coal and oil industries and set-up utility monopolies in order to provide cheap energy. This program was successful in keeping prices low, but at a cost of greater pollution, inefficiency, and stifling of innovation. Now, the government is trying to go the other way: using tax breaks and subsidies to promote alternative energy. I wonder what would have happened if the government had not gotten involved in the first place. The price of energy would probably have beeen higher, but that would have encouraged conservation and innovation- the very things the environmentalists are pushing for now. All the technology has been around for a long time (electric cars have been around since the mid 1800s) but because of the subsidies and tax breaks, the market was distorted and these technologies never took off. And the government's largest alternative energy program, ethanol from corn, is pretty much universally acknowledged as a giant boondoggle by the experts.
I say get the government out of the energy business entirely.
When the People's Republic of China was founded in 1949, Mao (who would later take several wives) encouraged large families to replace those lost by decades of war. The program was successful in increasing China's population, which rose from 583 million in 1953 to over 1.3 billion today. However, the population became too large, and so the One-Child policy was phased in during the 1970s. If the original policy had never been enacted, the second policy would not have been necessary.
What is the relevance of this to the US? Well, for decade the US government subsidized (and to this day continues to subsidize) the coal and oil industries and set-up utility monopolies in order to provide cheap energy. This program was successful in keeping prices low, but at a cost of greater pollution, inefficiency, and stifling of innovation. Now, the government is trying to go the other way: using tax breaks and subsidies to promote alternative energy. I wonder what would have happened if the government had not gotten involved in the first place. The price of energy would probably have beeen higher, but that would have encouraged conservation and innovation- the very things the environmentalists are pushing for now. All the technology has been around for a long time (electric cars have been around since the mid 1800s) but because of the subsidies and tax breaks, the market was distorted and these technologies never took off. And the government's largest alternative energy program, ethanol from corn, is pretty much universally acknowledged as a giant boondoggle by the experts.
I say get the government out of the energy business entirely.
Saturday, January 24, 2009
Islam
"Islam is a religion of peace."
Actually, no, it's not.
Here's what the Quran says about non-Muslims: "Kill the unbelievers wherever you find them"
The Quran gives fairly explicit instructions about how Muslims should deal with non-Muslims:
First, you should try to convert them.
If that fails, enslave them.
If that fails, kill them.
If that fails, drive them from your lands.
If that fails, force them to pay protection money.
In many Islamic countries, conversion from Islam is punishable by death (as the Quran teaches). In 2006, Abdul Rahman was sentenced to death for converting from Islam, but sentence was commuted after international pressure mounted.
And who can forget poor Salman Rushdie? He's been in hiding ever since being sentenced to death for making fun of Islam (the Quran teaches that those who mock Islam should be killed).
Sam Harris sums it up well:
"As a matter of doctrine, the Muslim conception of tolerance is one in which non-Muslims have been politically and economically subdued, converted, or put to sword."
The small number of Muslims I have known seemed like nice folks, but I think this is because (fortunately) they do not follow the Quran very closely.
Addendum: This is so good, I just had to make room for it. It's a quote from Mahavira, the founder of Jainism.
"Do not injure, abuse, oppress, enslave, insult, torment, torture, or kill any creature or living being."
Beats the pants of the 10 Commandments or anything in the Quran.
Actually, no, it's not.
Here's what the Quran says about non-Muslims: "Kill the unbelievers wherever you find them"
The Quran gives fairly explicit instructions about how Muslims should deal with non-Muslims:
First, you should try to convert them.
If that fails, enslave them.
If that fails, kill them.
If that fails, drive them from your lands.
If that fails, force them to pay protection money.
In many Islamic countries, conversion from Islam is punishable by death (as the Quran teaches). In 2006, Abdul Rahman was sentenced to death for converting from Islam, but sentence was commuted after international pressure mounted.
And who can forget poor Salman Rushdie? He's been in hiding ever since being sentenced to death for making fun of Islam (the Quran teaches that those who mock Islam should be killed).
Sam Harris sums it up well:
"As a matter of doctrine, the Muslim conception of tolerance is one in which non-Muslims have been politically and economically subdued, converted, or put to sword."
The small number of Muslims I have known seemed like nice folks, but I think this is because (fortunately) they do not follow the Quran very closely.
Addendum: This is so good, I just had to make room for it. It's a quote from Mahavira, the founder of Jainism.
"Do not injure, abuse, oppress, enslave, insult, torment, torture, or kill any creature or living being."
Beats the pants of the 10 Commandments or anything in the Quran.
Tuesday, January 6, 2009
Government vs. Corporations
I have heard many times that without the government to protect us, we'd all be at the mercy of those evil corporations. I disagree. I think on the whole, governments are capable of inflicting much more harm than any corporation. I don't like everything Wal-Mart or Microsoft does, but at least I am not forced to support their activities the way I am forced to support the government's activities through taxes.
Besides, the US government is heavily influenced by corporations anyway. Do you really expect politicians to create laws that are unfavorable to the people that got them elected?
Most corporations pay no income taxes, but they do have access to public money to carry out their schemes because of the government. if you really wanted to throw a wrench in their plans, the best way to do that would be to take away their muscle.
Corporations can be cruel and greedy, but they are mostly interested in making money. A corporation wouldn't set off nuclear bombs to intimidate people in other countries. They'd probably set them off if they could make money from it (charge admission to watch- nuclear carnival?). They'll throw poison in a river if it's cheaper than paying the fine or disposing of it properly, but they wouldn't spray poison to kill other people's crops or dump thousands of tons of chemical weapons in the sea.
A government is force- prisons, police, soldiers. The government doesn't protect anyone's freedom. If anything, the single greatest threat to a person's freedom is whatever government holds sway where that person lives.
I agree that there will probably always be a government of some kind around and that there are a handful of legitimate functions of a government. The presence of police for example probably deters some crime (although it would be difficult to do a cost-benefit analysis to find the ideal amount). However, most of what the government does, in my opinion, is stupid and/or unethical.
If you want to help homeless people, pay for someone's education, contribute to scientific research, or whatever, you're better off using your own time and resources to accomplish that goal than handing money over to the government and hoping they do what you want.
I can't avoid hypocrisy in this. After all, here I am in the Peace Corps benefiting from a government program. I like Peace Corps a lot and I'm glad it's around, but if it wasn't, it would not stop me from pursuing my goals. I found an opportunity that seemed like a good fit for me so I took it, which as far as I can tell is what everyone else on Earth does.
Besides, the US government is heavily influenced by corporations anyway. Do you really expect politicians to create laws that are unfavorable to the people that got them elected?
Most corporations pay no income taxes, but they do have access to public money to carry out their schemes because of the government. if you really wanted to throw a wrench in their plans, the best way to do that would be to take away their muscle.
Corporations can be cruel and greedy, but they are mostly interested in making money. A corporation wouldn't set off nuclear bombs to intimidate people in other countries. They'd probably set them off if they could make money from it (charge admission to watch- nuclear carnival?). They'll throw poison in a river if it's cheaper than paying the fine or disposing of it properly, but they wouldn't spray poison to kill other people's crops or dump thousands of tons of chemical weapons in the sea.
A government is force- prisons, police, soldiers. The government doesn't protect anyone's freedom. If anything, the single greatest threat to a person's freedom is whatever government holds sway where that person lives.
I agree that there will probably always be a government of some kind around and that there are a handful of legitimate functions of a government. The presence of police for example probably deters some crime (although it would be difficult to do a cost-benefit analysis to find the ideal amount). However, most of what the government does, in my opinion, is stupid and/or unethical.
If you want to help homeless people, pay for someone's education, contribute to scientific research, or whatever, you're better off using your own time and resources to accomplish that goal than handing money over to the government and hoping they do what you want.
I can't avoid hypocrisy in this. After all, here I am in the Peace Corps benefiting from a government program. I like Peace Corps a lot and I'm glad it's around, but if it wasn't, it would not stop me from pursuing my goals. I found an opportunity that seemed like a good fit for me so I took it, which as far as I can tell is what everyone else on Earth does.
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