This odd UPI story provides a nice metaphor for the financial and economic plight Americans find themselves facing this week. Here’s the story:
COVE, England, Sept. 30 (UPI) — Firefighters in Cove, England, said they were called to rescue an iguana trapped 45 feet up in a tree only to find the alleged lizard was a green branch.
An animal rescue officer and an aerial ladder platform team from the fire department were called to the scene by Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals officers, who received calls from residents about a stranded lizard, The Sun reported.
Colin Horwood, the animal rescue officer, said the rescuers made it about 25 feet up on the ladder before they realized the reported distressed lizard was nothing more than a green branch.
“The branch bore a striking resemblance to an iguana from the ground,” Horwood said.
So Americans look up into the economy and see an imperiled creature. (Don’t go the wrong direction for the analogy. The iguana-like branch is notRead the rest of this entry »
The same issue about economics and the free market arose about oil prices, and is discussed in this previous post. The ideas are simple. But apparently, not very many people have thought of them lately. So here’s a very brief reminder of a very basic concept for as very many people as will read it.
Money is not real. It simply stands for something else. It is not edible, for instance; and even if it were, it would not be edible as money, but instead as whatever composes or materially represents the money. It does not buy or warm houses, invent new products, cure diseases, or entertain anyone. (Neither is it a spirit, for dualists otherwise unsatisfied by my sample list.)
But even when people acknowledge that obvious fact, they tend to think that it stands for the wrong thing. That is, they think the amount Read the rest of this entry »
Several have inquired about my friend Soubhagya Nayak, who serves (and leads) with many pastors in Orissa, India. Over the past couple of months radical Hindus have been attacking Christians there, burning and looting their churches, destroying their personal property, and even killing many. I had not heard from my friend in a while when I requested prayer for him on the air. Fortunately, he is safe, as I learned not long ago. Today, he sent me another update with a few pictures of the destruction going on there:
Dear brother,
I am sending some photos of our churches which are burnt by
Addressing the current financial sector crisis in America, President Bush made this remark:
I’m a strong believer in free enterprise, so my natural instinct is to oppose government intervention. I believe companies that make bad decisions should be allowed to go out of business.
Under normal circumstances, I would have followed this course. But these are not normal circumstances. The market is not functioning properly. There has been a widespread loss of confidence, and major sectors of America’s financial system are at risk of shutting down. [emphasis added]
The Market is not the problem.
The problem is that we don’t like some of the things the market does. We don’t like that the market makes the stuff we love very expensive and the stuff we don’t care about as cheap as dirt. We don’t like the fact that the market makes us put as much Read the rest of this entry »
This post continues the series begun here, the to-date-compilation of which is available here. 2.1.2.1.2 That God repents is evidence that God makes things the best, not that He must simply act within some externally defined best. Even accepting the mistaken idea that there are a finite number of possibilities (too great a limit on God) there is still no reason to believe that there cannot be a plurality of morally equivalent possibilities. The scriptural use of “repentance” in reference to God makes the point. Reducing repentance to relenting neither addresses the problem nor deals fairly with the vocabulary—no one has a problem using the same word to mean repentance when it concerns humans. Is it not the case that every time God has mercy it is because He has repented? His pronouncement of judgment is not false. His mercy is real because the condemnation of the guilty is real and that guilty soul’s future without God is as really condemned as any future can be real. His act of mercy then overturns His pronouncement of judgment—which is why it is mercy. It is not necessity. If it were necessity, then His mercy Read the rest of this entry »
What seems like a contradiction in terms is actually a handy tool for analyzing almost everything people do, whether in isolation, in relationships, in society in general, or as a political body. The mechanism which produces the “problem with solutions” can be described behaviorally and seen in action everywhere. A quick look at ethics will produce the realization that there is a problem with such behavioral solutions. And finally, it needs to be made clear that Christian teachings oppose such behavior. The mechanism which produces the problem:
Behaviorism is hardly a Christian enterprise. The doctrine Read the rest of this entry »
Here are a couple of things Christians ought to keep in mind about homosexuality.
First, Christians ought to think a little less of homosexuality. In many discussions where sins get a ranking, homosexuality ends up number one on the list. That conclusion is misguided. There is a strong word used specifically in the Old Testament to emphasize the gravity of some sins, and homosexuality is one of them. “Thou shalt not lie with mankind, as with womankind: it is abomination” (Leviticus 18:22). But the same word is also used to describe fraud: “Divers weights are an abomination unto the LORD; and a false balance is not good” (Proverbs 20:23); and to identify the idols which so easily distracted Israel (Deuteronomy 7:25-26). So the search for homosexuality’s uniqueness as a sin turns to Read the rest of this entry »
JoAnn Fitzpatrick has an insightful Op-Ed on Massachusetts’ failing “universal” health care plan in the Boston Herald this week. (click here for the editorial.) The problem with Massachusetts’ “ideal” solution is the same problem any nationalized health care plan will face, and it is as simple as economics. But explaining to most people that no effort to pretend otherwise can overcome the laws of supply and demand which govern human behavior is futile. People are certainly intelligent enough to realize, for instance, that government cost caps only reduce the amount or level of care or slow the economy overall so that everyone suffers; but they are not interested enough to learn about all the channels through which economic pressures will inevitably seek level.
So here is one very simple, inevitable, fundamental way to explain why universal health care will have exactly the same problem faced by the current health care system in America. Right now, almost no one can pay for major medical care outright. So they depend either on government guarantees of basic care (like emergency rooms and county hospitals) or on insurance. Either way, the amount of care provided is limited by the paying or covering agency. A person with Read the rest of this entry »
While much of the reaction to Sarah Palin’s Christianity since her place on the Republican ticket was announced has been negative, it is important to remember that neither presidential candidate has been bashful about announcing bluntly his own commitment to Christ. Whether those professions are feigned or sincere, there is something more complicated about whether people want a Christian in office or not than simply the difference between red and blue states. Here is one small portion of what is at issue.
For good or bad, what people want in a leader is unfaltering direction. Stupid people who act without hesitation have no problem gathering a following. People who send signals either that they lack confidence or that there is uncertainty about where they will go do not have the same appeal. If someone is going to lead them, followers want to know where they are going to be led.
If a person claims to be a Christian, it is reasonable to assume that he believes in Read the rest of this entry »
This odd UPI story provides a nice metaphor for the financial and economic plight Americans find themselves facing this week. Here’s the story:
The ideas are simple. But apparently, not very many people have thought of them lately. So here’s a very brief reminder of a very basic concept for as very many people as will read it.
Addressing the current financial sector crisis in America, President Bush made this remark:
Even accepting the mistaken idea that there are a finite number of possibilities (too great a limit on God) there is still no reason to believe that there cannot be a plurality of morally equivalent possibilities. The scriptural use of “repentance” in reference to God makes the point. Reducing repentance to relenting neither addresses the problem nor deals fairly with the vocabulary—no one has a problem using the same word to mean repentance when it concerns humans. Is it not the case that every time God has mercy it is because He has repented? His pronouncement of judgment is not false. His mercy is real because the condemnation of the guilty is real and that guilty soul’s future without God is as really condemned as any future can be real. His act of mercy then overturns His pronouncement of judgment—which is why it is mercy. It is not necessity. If it were necessity, then His mercy 
What seems like a contradiction in terms is actually a handy tool for analyzing almost everything people do, whether in isolation, in relationships, in society in general, or as a political body. The mechanism which produces the “problem with solutions” can be described behaviorally and seen in action everywhere. A quick look at ethics will produce the realization that there is a problem with such behavioral solutions. And finally, it needs to be made clear that Christian teachings oppose such behavior.
While much of the reaction to Sarah Palin’s Christianity since her place on the Republican ticket was announced has been negative, it is important to remember that neither presidential candidate has been bashful about announcing bluntly his own commitment to Christ. Whether those professions are feigned or sincere, there is something more complicated about whether people want a Christian in office or not than simply the difference between red and blue states. Here is one small portion of what is at issue.
