This post is a response to the December 11th episode of Raborn Johnson and Steve Sensenig’s wonderful podcast Beyond the Box. The podcast is basically the two’s take on Christianity free from the interpretational filter of organized religion. Even as a non-believer, I find the podcast intelligent, thought provoking, and entertaining. I highly recommend listening to them. I especially recommend listening to this episode in order to fully understand my response.

Hello Steve and Raborn,

Thanks for tackling this topic and answering some of my questions. It’s challenging but very interesting. You guys approach your beliefs with an astounding mixture of enthusiasm and intelligence. As I listen, I’m amazed at how well you anticipate my next question and then proceed to answer it. It enabled you to cut straight to the heart of the issue. You can color me impressed… again.

First, allow me to express my thoughts on historical accounts and why I have my doubts about the resurrection of Jesus so that you can get an idea of where I’m coming from. There are at least a couple of ways to verify that a historical event actually occurred. The best way is via multiple, first-hand accounts, as you two note. First-hand is best because it has only one layer of interpretation, bias, and embellishment. Multiple sources enable us to reduce said interpretations, biases, and embellishments via comparative analysis. A second way to verify is forensic/physical evidence. For the examples of Lincoln’s and Kennedy’s assassinations that you cite in your episode, we have bodies with bullet wounds to the skull, for instance. With respect to the resurrection, we have only second-hand accounts at best and no physical evidence.

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Scott tagged me with this post. It’s taken from those emails that have a list of questions with the sender’s answers, which you’re supposed to answer yourself and send on to others. They can be fun, so I decided to participate this time.

1. Wrapping paper or gift bags?
I always used wrapping paper until Bunnies4Buddha introduced me to gift bags.

2. Real tree or Artificial?
I prefer real.

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The band Bell Hollow has made a few appearances on RCRDLBL_. Each time I listen to their songs they move up my ‘to buy’ list. While all but one free download on RCRDLBL_ are remixes, you can just tell the the underlying original is a good song. In once case, the Halo33 Remix of Eyes Like Planets, the remix introduces a layer of eerie atmospheric sound to already spooky guitars and somber singer that adds to the beauty of the piece.

The one song that isn’t a remix, Jamais Vu (last track on the embedded player below) proves my suspicion that their raw material in brilliant. The sounds are reminiscent of what used to be called ‘adult alternative’ in the ’90s. I would describe the song as a melding of the best of The Ocean Blue, New Order, and Morrissey. The layered guitars play sad melodies and chords with bright, wet sounds, the drummer matches the rhythm of those guitars, the singer sings simple, catchy melodies, and a subtle synth plays single, drawn out notes.

You can currently hear more of their original material on their MySpace page.

In Ayn Rand’s imagination, there is a perfect correlation between self-interest and moral goodness. This sentiment was expressed in her famous book Atlas Shrugged – required college reading for every budding libertarian. I read it and very much enjoyed it. I even flirted with libertarian political thought for a while. Then I actually thought critically about it and realized economic libertarianism results in the destruction of the middle class and all the political and social instability that comes with an economically polarized society. Rand was guilty of cherry-picking plots and characters so that in her fictional world, selfishness is virtuous.

In one sense Rand is correct; economic self-interest turns out to be the best system we’ve ever created to spread general wealth and well being (we call that system capitalism). She simply took that idea to the extreme and claimed that un-checked, excessive self-interest (aka ‘greed’) must be the greatest good. To demonstrate the folly of this, Jeremiah Tucker has written a humorous update to Atlas Shrugged based on the current economic crisis. I admit that if you haven’t read the original, the update will probably not be all that funny, but if you have, you’re in for a treat (assuming you’re not a Randroid).

Here are a couple of excerpts:

With your advanced alloy and my high-tech railroad, we’ll revitalize our country’s failing infrastructure and make big, virtuous profits.”

“Oh, no, I got out of that suckers’ game. I now run my own hedge-fund firm, Rearden Capital Management.”

“We who live by the mind could’ve been engineers, scientists, doctors, extreme-sports enthusiasts, but there is no purer pursuit than the pursuit of money. A is A. Money begets more money, and …”

Galt went on like this for what seemed to Dagny like hours, until, finally, something he said piqued her interest.

I’m hoping the recent economic collapse will fatally injure the libertarian movement that’s been gaining steam in the last few decades. There’s been a repeated pattern in recent economic history – deregulation within a sector reaches critical mass resulting in exploitative greed then economic collapse. It happened with savings and loans crisis in the late ’80s, the California energy crisis at the turn of the millennium, and last year with the mortgage and derivatives market. Throughout that whole time, the middle class has been shrinking and economic disparity has increased.

Economic libertarianism may sound good in theory and even better in a great work of fiction, but has repeatedly failed in practice.