In a comment to a previous post, G provided a link to an excellent flowchart that creates ground rules for debating Christians (though indeed it applies to all topics, not just Christianity or even religions in general) that should prevent fruitless discussions.
I have been on a crash course to try and understand the arcane details of what options are available if the current debt ceiling is reached with no action taken to raise it and the balance in the government’s account actually becomes zero. I thought I would share what I have learned so far.
We tend to think of the US government as having a checking account, just like many of us, and of the debt ceiling like a loan given to us by a bank. This is mostly true, except in one significant way that I will get to below. This informative article by John Carney says that the government does have something that looks like a checking account in which all the money it receives continuously (tax receipts, air transport security fees, the postal service, Medicare premiums, etc.) is deposited and from which all its payments (federal employee salaries, income tax refunds, NASA, interest on our debt, unemployment insurance benefits and paying defense contracts) goes out. To get an idea of the scale of transactions in that account, at the beginning of last Friday, the account had $83 billion and during the day it received $7 billion in deposits and paid out $13 billion in withdrawals, leaving it at the end of the day with $77 billion. When the debt ceiling is raised, the balance of money available for use in that account is effectively increased by that amount.
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It has become increasingly clear that cosmology has become the last refuge of those religious people eager to find some place where god can still have done something while remaining undetectable. But those arguments are clearly pretty desperate.
Jason Rosenhouse provides an excellent summary of the debate over cosmological arguments and concludes:
If the cosmological argument is the best theology has to offer then we atheists do not need to worry that we have overlooked a good argument for God’s existence.
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As for the cosmological argument itself, I make no apology for being dismissive. Depending on what version you are considering, you can expect to find concepts like causality or probability being used in domains where they do not clearly apply, or dubious arguments for why an actual infinity cannot exist, or highly questionable premises about the beginnings of the universe or about how everything that began to exist must have had a cause, or groundless invocations of the principle of sufficient reason. You inevitably come so perilously close to assuming what you are trying to prove that you may as well just assume God exists and be done with it.
That’s my reaction to proponents of the cosmological arguments as well. They work so hard at finding implausible reasoning to support their pre-ordained conclusion that they might as well just say that believe in god because they want to or need to, even if it is unsupported by evidence.
Hindu mystics have long been claiming that they can, by sheer will and/or the intervention of god, levitate off the ground. Here is one way it is done.
A good rule of thumb is that if something violates the laws of science, it is not a miracle, it is not by ‘harnessing the energy field’ or some such Deepak Chopraesque mumbo-jumbo, and it is not due to a god. It is merely a trick. The only question to be explored is how the trick is carried out.
(For other posts in this series, see here.)
In the previous post in this series, I argued that in the case of an existence claim, the burden of proof is upon the person making the assertion. In the absence of a preponderance of evidence in its favor, the claim can be dismissed. As has often been said, “What can be asserted without proof can be dismissed without proof”. The basis for this stance is the practical one that proving the non-existence of an entity (except in very limited circumstances) is impossible. Hence if we do NOT have a preponderance of evidence in favor of the existence of an entity, we conclude that it is not there.
In the case of a universal claim, however, the situation is reversed and the default position is that the claim is assumed to be true unless evidence is provided that refutes it. So in this case, the burden of proof is on the person disputing the assertion, again for eminently practical reasons.
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While many of us wonder what might be the long-term ramifications of a government default and shutdown if the debt ceiling is not raised by August 2, for many people this is not merely an academic exercise but a real and immediate danger.
Recall that about half of American households are ‘economically fragile’ in the sense that in an emergency they could not lay their hands on $2,000 within 30 days. They live from paycheck to paycheck. What will happen to such households if government employees get furloughed and don’t get paid or to similarly situated seniors if the social security checks don’t go out? How will they pay their rent and mortgages?
This should be a sobering reminder that politics is not a game. Ordinary people get hurt.
Rachel Maddow has compiled the great thoughts of the religious people invited to Texas governor Rick Perry’s day of prayer on August 6 to which he has invited all his fellow state governors. (Via Pharyngula.)
Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy
There is an outfit called ‘The International House of Prayer’? Who knew? Why isn’t IHOP suing for trademark infringement?
Oligarchies are most effective when they work in the background, out of the public eye, getting their way by having political leaders carry out their bidding. The oligarchy usually prefers to use establishment academics and the media and the bond rating agencies to speak on their behalf but they seem to have become worried that those subtle, behind-the-scenes ways seem to have failed when it comes to raising the debt ceiling, forcing them to come out more in the open.
Wall Street has pretty much openly told the Republican party leadership that the kabuki theater had gone on long enough and to raise the debt ceiling. In a highly unusual move, a broad segment of the oligarchy sent an open letter to Obama and every member of Congress (though I suspect that the real targets were the debt-ceiling holdouts) that the ceiling must be raised.
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The second weekend of the Sarah Palin fan biopic The Undefeated saw the film being expanded to 14 cities from the original 10 but reporting gross box office receipts of just $24,000, a decline of 63% from the first weekend.
To the calculators! With apologies to Tbogg, who has been mocking chronicling the film’s performance so far (see here and here and here), but the above results mean a weekend average of $1,714 per city or $571 per day or $143 per show (assuming four shows per day) or 18 people per showing (at $8 per ticket).
I think it is safe to say that if you want to see the film, you need not bother about buying tickets in advance, unless they are showing it in people’s living rooms.
This must really hurt, you betcha. After all, the distributors carefully chose cities that are supposed to be friendly to her, such as Grapevine, Texas.
Which raises the question: Where are all the real Merkins who see Palin as the nation’s savior? Surely she has more fans than this? Why aren’t they showing her some love in return for the joy she brings to their lives?
Even evangelical Christians agree with this assessment that the internet poses a real threat to religion’s survival. Listen to Josh McDowell of Cru, the organization formerly known as Campus Crusade for Christ.
Atheists and skeptics now have equal access to our children as we have, which is why the number of Christian youth who believe in the fundamentals of Christianity is decreasing and sexual immorality is growing, apologist Josh McDowell said.
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“The Internet has given atheists, agnostics, skeptics, the people who like to destroy everything that you and I believe, the almost equal access to your kids as your youth pastor and you have… whether you like it or not,” said McDowell, who is author of two books on Christian apologetics, More than a Carpenter and New Evidence that Demands Verdict.
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“Now here is the problem,” said McDowell, “going all the way back, when Al Gore invented the Internet [he said jokingly], I made the statement off and on for 10-11 years that the abundance of knowledge, the abundance of information, will not lead to certainty; it will lead to pervasive skepticism. And, folks, that’s exactly what has happened. It’s like this. How do you really know, there is so much out there… This abundance [of information] has led to skepticism. And then the Internet has leveled the playing field [giving equal access to skeptics].”McDowell, who lives in southern California with his wife Dottie and four children, said atheists, agnostics and skeptics didn’t have access to kids earlier. “If they wrote books, not many people read it. If they gave a talk, not many people went. They would normally get to kids maybe in the last couple of years of the university.” But that has changed now.
Jesus and Mo pick up on McDowell’s comments.
Daniel Dennett once said that arguing with religious people is like playing tennis with someone who raises the net when you make your shot and lowers it for theirs. The internet is like a more impartial person who has taken over umpiring duties.
