Health Insurance and the Magic of the Market

From The Los Angeles Times: Health insurers refuse to limit rescission of coverage.

This is what "market-based" solutions to the health care crisis looks like: insurance companies rewarding employees for cancelling people's insurance when they get sick.

Why I Consider Myself an Agnostic

Human beings seem to have a propensity for religious experience.

I do not believe this propensity is sufficient reason to infer the existence of God. The rationalist in me says that it is probably some adaptation hardwired into the human psyche by evolution hundreds of thousands of years ago in order to cope with the overwhelming profundity of consciousness.

The problem for me is that what science knows about the workings of the human mind pales in comparison to what it doesn’t know. Science can’t tell us exactly how this spiritual propensity in man developed. More importantly, science can’t presently tell us that religion still does not fill some important psychological need. So while I am fully sympathetic with the more militant atheists like Sam Harris, Richard Dawkins, and Christopher Hitchens when it comes to all the evils that have been perpetrated in the name of one religion or another, I don’t think that they have come close to establishing that all mankind would be better off without any religion.

I do not believe that belief in God is inherently irrational, but I do think that rationality suffers when religions, sects, and denominations insist upon objectifying what are subjective spiritual experiences. The inability or unwillingness to distinguish between understanding founded on empirical observation and understanding based on religious faith is what I find troubling.

I realize that none of this may actually be relevant to whether I am an atheist or an agnostic. It does, however, leave me in doubt about whether there is anything to be gained by affirming that God is non-existent rather that merely acknowledging that God is unknowable. Since resolving those doubts is not a particularly high priority in my life right now, I think I think I will remain more comfortable under the label “agnostic.”

N.T. Wright's Personal Incredulity

I guess I am not amazed at how often Christian apologists resort to arguments based on personal incredulity, i.e., "I just can't believe that Christianity could have caught on so quickly unless everything in the Bible really truly happened." After all, what else have they got? On the other hand, I am amazed (or saddened) by how often otherwise seemingly rational people fall for such crap.

Recently, a Christian pointed me to N.T. Wright's "refutation" of the hypothesis that that the first appearances of the risen Jesus were visionary or hallucinatory experiences:

My response to this proposal is (a) that it requires enormous credulity to suppose that, even allowing Peter and Paul to have had such fantasies or hallucinations they would have generated more than a passing comment of sympathy among their colleagues or contemporaries; (b) that psychological theories of this sort—about people two thousand years ago in a different culture—are at best unprovable and at worst wildly fantastic. But, and most important, (c) the proposal simply does not make sense within the world or first-century Judaism.

Let's just think about this:

(1) It is an established historical fact that large numbers of nineteenth century Americans abandoned their homes in upstate New York for an arduous trek to Navoo, Illinois, followed by an even more arduous trek to Salt Lake City based on Joseph Smith's claim that he had looked into a hat and used magic seer stones to translate golden plates whose location had been revealed to him by a native american angel. Nevertheless, it somehow strains Wright's credulity to think that first century Jews and pagans might have been taken in by claims that a man had risen from the dead.

(2) Wright believes in the literal truth of every supernatural story in the Bible up to and including the zombie saints of Matthew Matt 28:53. Still, he insists that the possibility that Paul and Peter had a hallucination borders on the "wildly fantastic."

(3) Wright sneers at the notion of proposing psychological theories about people living two thousand year ago in a different culture. Nevertheless, he claims to understand first century Jewish thinking so well that he can confidently dismiss the possibility that they might be as gullible and uncritical as the nineteenth century followers of Joseph Smith, the sixteenth century followers of Sabbati Zevi, and the twelfth century followers of Francis of Assisi who all believed that God had acted miraculously through their leaders.

Is there anything in there that withstands thirty seconds reflection?

Morning Joe and Starbucks a la Jon Stewart

Memo to Joe Scarborough:

When The Daily Show does a piece that humorously exposes your foibles, SHUT THE FUCK UP!!

Last week, Jon Stewart poked fun at the new deal under which Starbucks is sponsoring MSNBC's Morning Joe program. I didn't think the piece was terribly scathing, but Scarborough and co-host Mika Brzezinski decided to react with huffy indignation and attack Stewart's sense of humor. How'd that work out for ya Joe?

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart	Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c
Morning Joe's Sarcastic Starbucks Sponsorship
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Explaining Contradictions

As much as I enjoyed Bart Ehrman’s Jesus Interrupted: Revealing the Hidden Contradictions in the Bible (And Why We Don't Know About Them), I get an even bigger kick from some of the attempts by Christian apologists to explain away the contradictions in the New Testament.

Here’s a classic from radio’s Bible Answer Man, Hank Hanegraaff:

I would like to deal with another supposed problem with the Bible that Bart Ehrman addresses in his book Jesus Interrupted. Ehrman states, “In John’s gospel, Jesus performs his first miracle in chapter 2, when he turns water into wine…and we’re told that ‘this was the first sign that Jesus did’ (John 2:11). Later in that chapter we’re told that Jesus did ‘many signs’ in Jerusalem (John 2:23). And then, in chapter 4, he heals the son of a centurion and the author says ‘This was the second sign that Jesus did.’ Huh? One sign, many signs and then the second sign?”

So what’s Hank’s answer to this contradiction? He figures that John kept two different running totals of signs, one for signs performed in Cana and one for signs performed in Jerusalem.

To begin with, as clearly communicated in the Gospel of John, the first
miraculous sign that Jesus performed at Cana in Galilee was to change water into
wine (John 2:1-11). Once again class, the first miraculous sign, number one in
Cana in Galilee was changing water into wine. Furthermore, in the Gospel of
John, the second miraculous sign Jesus performed while at Cana in Galilee was
healing the son of a centurion (John 4:26-54). What was the second sign Jesus
performed at Cana while in Galilee? All together now class: healing the son of a
centurion while at Cana in Galilee.

As should be patently obvious to Ehrman, the fact that Jesus did many signs in
Jerusalem is not a problem with the Bible at all.

You have to love the condescension, but the real red flag here is that Hanegraaff doesn’t quote the relevant verses from John. Anytime you see an apologist explaining the meaning of a Bible verse without quoting it, there is a darn good chance that it doesn’t say what he claims it is saying. Let’s take a look at John 2:23 in a few widely accepted translations:

• This, the first of his miraculous signs, Jesus performed in Cana of Galilee. He thus revealed his glory, and his disciples put their faith in him. NIV
  
• This beginning of His signs Jesus did in Cana of Galilee, and manifested His glory, and His disciples believed in Him. NASB
  
• This beginning of miracles did Jesus in Cana of Galilee, and manifested forth his glory; and his disciples believed on him. KJV
  
• This beginning of signs Jesus did in Cana of Galilee, and manifested His glory; and His disciples believed in Him. NKJV

Note that not a single translation refers to “the signs that Jesus did in Cana of Galilee” as opposed to signs that Jesus did somewhere else. The only logical interpretation is that turning water into wine was the first of all the miracles that Jesus did rather than the first of the miracles that he did in a particular geographic location.

Here is another red flag: not only does Hank fail to quote the verse that refers to the second of Jesus’ miracles, he doesn’t even specifically identify John 4:54 as the verse where it occurs. He just refers to the entire passage John 4:26-54. The cynic might suspect that this verse is even worse for Hank’s argument and he would be right.

• This was the second miraculous sign that Jesus performed, having come from Judea to Galilee. NIV
  
• This is again a second sign that Jesus performed when He had come out of Judea into Galilee. NASB
  
• This is again the second miracle that Jesus did, when he was come out of Judaea into Galilee. KJV
  
• This again is the second sign Jesus did when He had come out of Judea into Galilee. NKJV

In this verse it's even clearer that John isn’t talking about the number of miracles that were performed in a particular place because the reference to Galilee is being used to establish the time period during which the miracle was performed. In order for Hank’s logic to apply, John would have to be referring to three running totals: the number of miracles Jesus performed when he began his ministry in Galilee, the number performed when he went to Jerusalem, and now, the number of miracles he performed after he returned from Jerusalem to Galilee.

Another entertaining harmonization I ran across was an attempt to reconcile the reaction of the women to finding the tomb empty in Matthew and in the original ending of Mark

Trembling and bewildered, the women went out and fled from the tomb. They said nothing to anyone, because they were afraid. Mark 16:8

So the women hurried away from the tomb, afraid yet filled with joy, and ran to tell his disciples. Matthew 28:8

Some people might be stumped by this apparent discrepancy, but not Randy from 52 Blogs to Christ:

There are a number of ways to reconcile these verses. It should be noted first
that Matthew speaks of their intention, while Mark speaks of their action.
Second, while the women ran in fear, it may be that Mark was attempting to
convey their intention to avoid speaking on the way to the disciples. Third,
perhaps they “told” without ever “speaking.” Certainly, there is nothing here to
lead to the conclusion that the two are contradictory.

Hmmm?

I don’t really get Randy’s first reconciliation. How does it help that Matthew is merely talking about their intention when what they intend to do is exactly what Mark says they didn’t do? Moreover, while Matthew does not actually describe the women telling the disciples about the empty tomb, the disciples end up going to Galilee to meet Jesus according to the instructions that Jesus gives the women so it seems pretty clear Matthew thinks that the women actually did the thing that Mark says they didn’t do.

I guess the second one isn’t the worst harmonization I’ve ever seen. It’s certainly better that the harmonization of Matthew 27:5 and Acts 1:18 in which Judas hangs himself from a tree, but the rope breaks and his body flips over in the air so that he lands head first with his stomach bursting open. Still, it is hard for me to buy that Mark intended the climactic point of his narrative to be that the women didn’t stop to tell any strangers about the empty tomb as they ran to tell the disciples.

The third one just strikes me as silly. Did the women mime the empty tomb for the rest of the disciples? Did they do an interpretive dance? Maybe they played charades.

What I love most though is Randy’s final assertion: “Certainly, there is nothing here to lead to the conclusion that the two are contradictory.” Oh really? It’s certain? There’s nothing at all? Not even a little bit? I guess that Randy and Hank figure that they make themselves appear erudite by being dismissive of anyone who has the gall to apply elementary logic to the Bible.

Gog, Magog, and Dubya

Just when I thought that there could not be anything more incomprehensible about the decision to invade Iraq, reports are surfacing that "[i]n 2003 while lobbying leaders to put together the Coalition of the Willing, President Bush spoke to France's President Jacques Chirac. Bush wove a story about how the Biblical creatures Gog and Magog were at work in the Middle East and how they must be defeated."

While I would like to see further confirmation of this story, the notion that we attacked Iraq because Shrub thought that Saddam was some scary monster that he read about in his magic book is profoundly disturbing.