Category: Religion

Markets in everything, postal edition

by  Tyler Cowen in

Have cards sent to atheists after the Rapture.  "The Postal Service of the Saved," it works like this:

Just write your letter and it will be hand-delivered immediately
following the exodus of the pure from the Earth. But you must be
thinking to yourself, "How can the letters be delivered after the
Rapture?"  The answer is simple.  The creators of this site are Atheists.  That’s right, we don’t believe in God.  How else would we be able to deliver your correspondence after the Rapture? 

Why doesn’t God save everyone?

by  Tyler Cowen in

Even an agnotheist can care about this question.  It is simple:

The first prediction of the model is that God will not offer a salvation contract where everyone is saved.  If God sets θ=0 then all individuals receive s, but there would be no rearrangement of bundles and hence no utility benefits for God to balance the lump sum cost C.  This cannot be an equilibrium.  On the other hand setting θ=infinity would mean no individuals choose s, and no rearrangements, and this cannot be an equilibrium.  Thus θ will be set between these extremes, with the value depending on the forms of the divine and human utility functions and endowments.  Some, but not all individuals are predicted to choose salvation, and this is consistent with both the scriptures and observation.

Doesn’t this result fall apart if God can…um…perfectly "price discriminate" in his commands?  From Paul Oslington, here is more, namely a rational choice theory of God.  How about this bit:

Paradoxically, the more effective is the salvation mechanism the more it will turn the unsaved away from what God prefers.  Individuals choosing salvation will force up the prices of inputs into commodities God prefers be consumed, so that unsaved individuals will substitute away from commodities God values to those God frowns upon.

Who said pecuniary externalities do not matter? 

And here is John Derbyshire on God and religion, he is no longer a Christian.

If I were a Muslim, would I be a Shiite or a Sunni?

by  Tyler Cowen in

But now you all know my love of counterfactuals.  Vali Nasr writes:

…what separates Shiism from Sunnism is not so much the divergences in practice as the spirit in which Islam is interpreted.  First, whereas Sunnism took shape around belief in the writ of the majority and the legitimating power of communal consensus.  Shias do not put much stock in majority opinion in matters of religion.  Truth is vested not in the community of believers but in the virtuous leadership of the Prophet and the descendents.  Whereas Sunnis have always placed greatest emphasis on the Islamic message, Shias have also underscored the importance of the vehicle for that message.  Some have explained this difference by saying that Sunnis revere the Prophet because he relayed the Quran to Muslims, whereas Shias reverse the Quran because the Prophet relayed it [TC: to this non-specialist, this seems like an exaggeration of the difference on the Shiite side; here comes the qualifier though…].  Although most Shias stop short of holding such a view, there is no doubt that more extreme Shias have subscribed to it, and that Shiism places great emphasis on the prophetic function in tandem with the Islamic message.

That is from Vali Nasr’s The Shia Revival: How Conflicts within Islam Will Shape the Future.  This is the most informative non-fiction book I have read in at least a month; I learned something — or at least thought I did — from every page. 

Addendum: Here is a good article on Islam and capitalism in Turkey.

Unholy Water

by  Alex Tabarrok in

The EclecticEconomist alerts us to a story in the Onion CBC News:

The United Church of Canada may ask its members to stop buying bottled water.

The
request is part of a resolution against the privatization of water
supplies that has been put before delegates at the church’s general
council this week in Thunder Bay….

"We’re against the commodification, the privatization is another way to say it, of water anyway, anywhere," [said a church leader.]

If the United Church cares about children they should reconsider their opposition.  Privatized water saves lives.  From my post, Water of Life:

…In the 1990s Argentina embarked
on one of the largest privatization campaigns in the world, including
the privatization of local water
companies covering approximately 30 percent of the country’s
municipalities.
Using the variation in ownership of water provision across time and
space generated
by the privatization process, we find that child mortality fell 8
percent in
the areas that privatized their water services and that the effect was
largest (26 percent) in the poorest areas….

That is the abstract to a very important paper, Water for Life: The Impact of the Privatization of Water Services on Child Mortality, by Sebastian Galiani, Paul Gertler and Ernesto Schargrodsky in the February 2005 issue of the JPE.  (free working paper version).

Markets in Everything: Child Brides

by  Alex Tabarrok in

Another sad one (from the NYT Magazine):

In Afghanistan, a child bride is very often just that: a child, even a preteen,
her innocence betrothed to someone older, even much, much older.  Rather than a willing union between a man and woman, marriage is frequently a
transaction among families, and the younger the bride, the higher the price she
may fetch.

The Nutty Professor

by  Alex Tabarrok in

Here’s an amazing piece of the life of Timothy Leary from the NYTimes book review of Timothy Leary: A Biography.

…he finally went to jail, and was likely to be kept there for years
before he would be considered for parole. Characteristically, he
compared himself to "Christ . . . harassed by Pilate and Herod." In a
twist that could have occurred only in 1970, a consortium of drug
dealers paid the Weather Underground to spring Leary from the
California Men’s Colony at San Luis Obispo – he pulled himself along a
telephone cable over the fence, then was picked up by a car – and
transport him to Algeria. He duly issued a press statement written in
the voice of the Weathermen, the money line of which was: "To shoot a
genocidal robot policeman in the defense of life is a sacred act."

But
when he and his wife, Rosemary, arrived in Algiers, they found
themselves wards of the exiled Black Panther leader Eldridge Cleaver,
who was probably smarter than Leary, possibly crazier, and had little
use for him. As Leary acknowledged, rather shrewdly: "It was a new
experience for me to be dependent on a strong, variable, sexually
restless, charismatic leader who was insanely erratic. I usually played
that role myself."

Against Transcendence

by  Alex Tabarrok in

Deirdre McCloskey gave the inaugural James M. Buchanan Lecture last week, The Hobbes Problem: From Machiavelli to Buchanan.  It was a good start to the series, eloquent, learned, and heartfelt.  McCloskey argued that the Hobbesian programme of building the polis on prudence alone, a program to which the moderns, Rawls, Buchanan, Gauthier and others have contributed is barren.  A good polis must be built upon all 7 virtues, both the pagan and transcendent, these being courage, justice, temperance, and prudence but also faith, hope and love (agape).

In the lecture, McCloskey elided the difficult problems of the transcendent virtues especially as they apply to politics (I expect a more complete analysis in the forthcoming book).  Faith, hope, and love sound pleasant in theory but in practice there is little agreement on how these virtues are instantiated.  It was love for their eternal souls that motivated the inquisitors to torture their victims.   President Bush wants to save Iran…with nuclear bombs.  Faith in the absurd is absurd.  Thanks but no thanks.

Since we can’t agree on the transcendent virtues injecting them into politics means intolerance and division.  Personally, I’d be happy to see the transcendent virtues fade away but I know that’s
unrealistic.  The next best thing, therefore, is to insist that the transcendent virtues be reserved for civil society and at all costs be kept out of politics.  The pagan virtues alone provide room for agreement in a cosmpolitan society, a society of the hetereogeneous. 

Of course, in all this I follow Voltaire:

Take a view of the Royal Exchange in London, a place more venerable
than many courts of justice, where the representatives of all nations
meet for the benefit of mankind. There the Jew, the Mahometan, and the
Christian transact together, as though they all professed the same
religion, and give the name of infidel to none but bankrupts. There
the Presbyterian confides in the Anabaptist, and the Churchman depends
on the Quaker’s word. At the breaking up of this pacific and free
assembly, some withdraw to the synagogue, and others to take a glass.
This man goes and is baptized in a great tub, in the name of the
Father, Son, and Holy Ghost: that man has his son’s foreskin cut off,
whilst a set of Hebrew words (quite unintelligible to him) are mumbled
over his child. Others retire to their churches, and there wait for the
inspiration of heaven with their hats on, and all are satisfied.

If one religion only were allowed in England, the Government would
very possibly become arbitrary; if there were but two, the people would
cut one another’s throats; but as there are such a multitude, they all
live happy and in peace.

Markets in everything, Pascal inversion edition

by  Tyler Cowen in

A 22-year-old atheist writes:

…here’s my proposal.  Everytime I come home, I pass this old Irish church.  I promise to go into that church every day— for a certain number of days– for at least an hour each visit.  For every $10 you bid, I will go to the Church for 1 day.  For $50, you would have me going to mass every day for a week.

My promise: I will go willingly and with an open mind.  I will not say/do anything inappropriate.  I will respectfully participate in service, speak to priests, volunteer with the church if possible, do my best to learn about the religious beliefs of the church-goers, and make conversation with anyone who is willing to talk.  (Though I do reserve the rights to ask the person questions about the faith.)

Here is the ebay link, there has been plenty of bidding, and thanks to Josh Glassman for the pointer.

I want to be a Saint!

by  Alex Tabarrok in

I know, I know, first I dream of becoming a dictator, now a saint.  Make of it what you will.  It turns out, however, that becoming a saint is a lot easier than I thought.  Reuters reports that:

The Vatican may have found the "miracle" they need to put the late Pope John
Paul one step closer to sainthood — the medically inexplicable healing of a
French nun with the same Parkinson’s disease that afflicted him.

Monsignor Slawomir Oder, the Catholic Church official in charge of promoting
the cause… said the "relatively young" nun, whom he said he could not identify for
now, was inexplicably cured of Parkinson’s after praying to John Paul after his
death last April 2…."  (italics added).

A surprisingly frank report in Catholic World News hits the nail on the head:

Last
November, in commenting on the progress of the cause for Pope John
Paul’s beatifiction, his former secretary, Archbishop Stanislas
Dziwisz, said that there would be no problem finding a miracle to
advance the cause– or rather, that the problem would be to select one
miracle from among the many reported.

Indeed.  I would be more impressed, however, if the cure rate of those who prayed to John Paul exceed that of those who prayed to Elvis.  Will the Vatican be performing a t-test?  I suspect not.

In anycase, to get my candidacy for sainthood going would you please ask in my name for something good to happen to you today.  Go on, what have you go to lose?  "In the name of Alex Tabarrok I pray that my article will be accepted by the AER."  Try it out!  If something good does happen please note the miracle in the comments section.  Do not comment if nothing happens. Thanks!

On the evolution of religion

by  Alex Tabarrok in

Consider the following sayings from two prophets of different religions:

It is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God.

An honest merchant has a guaranteed place in paradise.

Now if you had to predict, which religion would you suspect would be more compatible with markets and modernity?

The first quote, of course, is from Jesus the second is a saying attributed to Muhammad.

My point is not to argue that Christianity or Islam are either more or less compatible with capitalism or liberal democracy.  In my view all religions of reasonable age and numbers contain traditions and teachings compatible with modernity and all religions of reasonable age and numbers contain traditions and teachings incompatible with modernity.  Call it the completeness theorem.

It’s how religions adapt and evolve to modernity that is important.  Religions are constantly changing, emphasizing certain features, downplaying others, creating new interpretations.  Given enough time, I believe that any religion will evolve towards compatability with modernity because it’s the memes that combine modernity and religion which will survive and prosper. 

The problem is that Christianity has had hundreds of years to adapt itself to modernity while Islam has had modernity thrust upon it.

Fish don’t walk overnight and neither do religions.  Nevertheless there are Islamic leaders who, under the pressure of current events, see the direction in which Islam must move and who are actively encouraging evolution in that direction.  Dan Drezner, for example, points to this article on developments in Morocco:

Morocco’s
42-year-old King Mohammed VI has discovered religion as a means of
modernizing his society — and progress through piety seems to be the
order of the day. By granting new rights to women and strengthening
civil liberties, the ruler of this country of 30 million on Africa’s
northern edge, which is 99 percent Muslim, plans to democratize Morocco
through a tolerant interpretation of the Koran.

Morocco’s
350-year-old dynasty, the world’s oldest next to the Japanese imperial
dynasty, claims to be directly descended from the prophet Mohammed. And
as "Amir al-Muminin," or leader of the faithful, the country’s ruler
enjoys absolute authority.

The Conseil Supérieur des Oulémas, or
council of religious scholars, which the king installed a year and a
half ago, has been issuing fatwas on the most pressing questions of the
21st century — and, surprisingly, they’ve been well-received by both
young people and hardened Islamists. If the king’s reform plan
succeeds, Morocco could become a model of democratic Islam.

Addendum: For more on Islam, markets and democracy see the Minaret of Freedom Institute.

Comments are open.

Lester Brown vs. Broken Watch

by  Alex Tabarrok in

It’s no contest.  A broken watch is correct twice a day.

Hundreds of millions of Chinese have been lifted out of abject poverty in the last several decades but trust Lester Brown to see the downside (Brown, of course, is sadly joined by Paul Krugman and neo-cons itching for another cold-war).  In his latest book, Brown argues that the Chinese will soon be eating little children.  Well, not exactly, but he does think that Chinese eating will cause little children to die.  Writing in the Washington Post, Bill McKibben summarizes the Brown argument (which he endorses):

The Chinese, in particular, are constantly converting farmland to
factory sites (even as they learn to eat more meat), and they have
plenty of American cash stored up to pay for any shortfall. But if they
do so, the first casualties will be the world’s really poor nations,
already reeling from increases in the price of fuel.

Of course this is an old story for Lester Brown who in 1973 said:

The soaring demand for food, spurred by continued population
growth and rising affluence, has begun to outrun the productive
capacity of the world’s farmers and fishermen.  The result has been
declining food reserves, skyrocketing food prices, food rationing in
three of the world’s most populous countries, intense international
competition for exportable food supplies, and export controls on major
foodstuffs by the world’s principal food supplier.

Isn’t it amazing how rising affluence leads directly to mass starvation?  Some people just can’t be happy. 

To be clear, I do think that issues of food production and demography are important  (although what is most important is regional poverty – I have few worries about global food production per se), it’s just Lester Brown who should not be taken seriously.

Daily Ablution has some good links on these issues.  Comments are open.