The World Bank's 2008 estimate of life expectancy in Israel was 81 years from birth. The estimate for life expectancy in the Palestinian Territories was 73.5 years.
This really surprised me when I read it. The life expectancy of Egypt was 70.1 years, and the life expectancy of Jordan was 72.7 years. I'm not saying that Egypt and Jordan are especially free and prosperous countries - current events show that these societies have their discontents. But a people buckling under the weight of apartheid are expected to live longer than their neighbors?
It very well may be that these figures are like this because the World Bank got them before Israel's galavant into Gaza. I say new estimates are past due.
It would be really neat to learn the differences between the life expectancy of residents of the West Bank and those of Gaza. My guess is that Gazans' life expectancy would be noticeably lower than that of their compatirots in the West Bank. Anyone with more recent estimates is welcome to give me a link.
Saturday, January 29, 2011
Saturday, January 15, 2011
Gun Control
I'm very concerned by ongoing calls to ban or strictly regulate the individual ownership of firearms, mostly because it betrays a pathological naivity on the part of most people making these calls (not to say that there aren't any naifs on the gun rights side).
Last night a lady stood before a reform Jewish congregation in Santa Monica and encouraged congregants and visitors to sign her petition to remove the gun show loop hole. She then said it was non-violent. I wonder if she thinks the officers enforcing that law will be armed. If they will be, well, there's a propensity for violence. Defensive violence, maybe, but it's still violence. And if we're going to allow for some defensive violence, why allow only one particular class to use it?
I always wonder if people who want to ban individual ownership of firearms want to also ban police and military ownership of firearms. That might be nice, if it were ever to happen. But it probably won't. Even in the UK, where the police don't cary firearms, there still are SWAT teams and other special units who do cary and use firearms, and there is a military, whose members - yes - cary firearms. To be fair, there are far fewer gun related deaths in the UK than there are in the US - something which I admit here.
There is one consequentialist consideration which I didn't mention in my earlier post, and that is disparities of power. The state has a much greater capacity to inflict lethal violence than its subjects do. Banning individual ownership of firearms exacerbates that power disparity. This doesn't always result in totalitarianism. Or rather I should say not every case has resulted in totalitarianism yet. What we can say is that the classic cases of totalitarianism (Nazi Germany, Soviet Russia) involved weapons control - or, what Anthony Gregory calls victim disarmament.
People who think the U.S. would be significantly different should take a hint from Oscar Grant, Waco, internment camps, and any other incident from that long list of abuses by the U.S. government. A government that abuses an armed populace can't be trusted to rule a disarmed populace. Of course, the biggest problem is that the government is too powerful to begin with. But until the government's destructive capacities are rolled back, and they never will be, I would say that individual residents of this country should be allowed to keep armor-piercing weapons (though, no, we hardly ever are allowed such a privilege).
Last night a lady stood before a reform Jewish congregation in Santa Monica and encouraged congregants and visitors to sign her petition to remove the gun show loop hole. She then said it was non-violent. I wonder if she thinks the officers enforcing that law will be armed. If they will be, well, there's a propensity for violence. Defensive violence, maybe, but it's still violence. And if we're going to allow for some defensive violence, why allow only one particular class to use it?
I always wonder if people who want to ban individual ownership of firearms want to also ban police and military ownership of firearms. That might be nice, if it were ever to happen. But it probably won't. Even in the UK, where the police don't cary firearms, there still are SWAT teams and other special units who do cary and use firearms, and there is a military, whose members - yes - cary firearms. To be fair, there are far fewer gun related deaths in the UK than there are in the US - something which I admit here.
There is one consequentialist consideration which I didn't mention in my earlier post, and that is disparities of power. The state has a much greater capacity to inflict lethal violence than its subjects do. Banning individual ownership of firearms exacerbates that power disparity. This doesn't always result in totalitarianism. Or rather I should say not every case has resulted in totalitarianism yet. What we can say is that the classic cases of totalitarianism (Nazi Germany, Soviet Russia) involved weapons control - or, what Anthony Gregory calls victim disarmament.
People who think the U.S. would be significantly different should take a hint from Oscar Grant, Waco, internment camps, and any other incident from that long list of abuses by the U.S. government. A government that abuses an armed populace can't be trusted to rule a disarmed populace. Of course, the biggest problem is that the government is too powerful to begin with. But until the government's destructive capacities are rolled back, and they never will be, I would say that individual residents of this country should be allowed to keep armor-piercing weapons (though, no, we hardly ever are allowed such a privilege).
Tuesday, January 4, 2011
Getting Saved
From a status update by a FB friend (and former heartbeat from when I was in 6th grade):
First, and most obviously, you are to belive in God. Not just any god, but a God who has very specific things in mind for each human. This God wishes eternal happiness for each human, but also has set up a scheme where each human will likely be damned to eternal misery (which born again Christians can try to define as mere separation from God, but prefer instead to describe as a bottomless firey pit).
This has funny implications about justice. For just living a less than perfect life which would typically last no longer than 90 years, an unsaved human spends an eternity in hell, which again is usually described as a place of actual torment, and not mere separation from God. Accepting the solution offered by the God who put together this arrangement means accepting that it is just to punish someone with an eternity of torments for sins they committed in a less than 90 year life. Even if the person lived long and wickedly, with constant and cruel sin, the the gravity of the sin divided by the gravity of the punishment evens out to a big fat zero.
You are to believe that this place of eternal torment is the only possible place God can send you, and that places like - oh, purgatory - are simply not options that the omnipotent God will make available.
Included in the beliefs I mentioned above is a non-reincarnation, or linear, view of the afterlife and the world. You don't come back. Once you die you immediately go to where you're destined to go, or you stay in the ground until the trumpet blows, but you don't come back.
You are to believe that your wickedness which condemns you to an eternity of torments can be suddenly washed away (or covered up) by Jesus' death.
You are to believe that since you are so wicked, it is only by the grace of God that you can get saved, and that nothing you do can get you saved - unless of course we're talking about your act of praying to accept Jesus' death as a payment for your sins, since the sufficient grace of Jesus' payment is insufficient to cover you unless you accept it.
You are to believe that a life in awareness of Christ's payment does not constitute faith, that salvation requires the act of accepting Christ's payment, and that this act is not some inefficacious religious ritual or human effort that Paul refers to as a "work".
You are to believe that once you're saved, you're set, and that anything you do, no matter how bad, is covered. If for some reason you thought you were saved but incorrectly believed that you can loose your salvation, you should pray the sinner's prayer again one last time just to "make assurance" of your salvation. Or if after getting saved you committed a sin that is so grave it puts you in doubt of the authenticity of your salvation, you can pray the sinner's prayer again just to make for sure for sure.
All of this and much much more is to be conveyed in the couple minutes it takes to read the Roman's Road.
"Getting saved" is a funny thing to write about. Not because it takes a lot of gall and balls to talk about it with strangers and with people you know don't want to hear about it, but because "getting saved" involves accepting or affirming a very very large package of numerous specific beliefs.I believe in Jesus Christ and have accepted Him as my personal Savior. One FB user has challenged all believers to put this on their wall...In the Bible it says, if you deny me in front of your peers, I will deny you in front of my Father. This is...simple... If you love God and you are not afraid to show it, re-post this as I have.. :)
First, and most obviously, you are to belive in God. Not just any god, but a God who has very specific things in mind for each human. This God wishes eternal happiness for each human, but also has set up a scheme where each human will likely be damned to eternal misery (which born again Christians can try to define as mere separation from God, but prefer instead to describe as a bottomless firey pit).
This has funny implications about justice. For just living a less than perfect life which would typically last no longer than 90 years, an unsaved human spends an eternity in hell, which again is usually described as a place of actual torment, and not mere separation from God. Accepting the solution offered by the God who put together this arrangement means accepting that it is just to punish someone with an eternity of torments for sins they committed in a less than 90 year life. Even if the person lived long and wickedly, with constant and cruel sin, the the gravity of the sin divided by the gravity of the punishment evens out to a big fat zero.
You are to believe that this place of eternal torment is the only possible place God can send you, and that places like - oh, purgatory - are simply not options that the omnipotent God will make available.
Included in the beliefs I mentioned above is a non-reincarnation, or linear, view of the afterlife and the world. You don't come back. Once you die you immediately go to where you're destined to go, or you stay in the ground until the trumpet blows, but you don't come back.
You are to believe that your wickedness which condemns you to an eternity of torments can be suddenly washed away (or covered up) by Jesus' death.
You are to believe that since you are so wicked, it is only by the grace of God that you can get saved, and that nothing you do can get you saved - unless of course we're talking about your act of praying to accept Jesus' death as a payment for your sins, since the sufficient grace of Jesus' payment is insufficient to cover you unless you accept it.
You are to believe that a life in awareness of Christ's payment does not constitute faith, that salvation requires the act of accepting Christ's payment, and that this act is not some inefficacious religious ritual or human effort that Paul refers to as a "work".
You are to believe that once you're saved, you're set, and that anything you do, no matter how bad, is covered. If for some reason you thought you were saved but incorrectly believed that you can loose your salvation, you should pray the sinner's prayer again one last time just to "make assurance" of your salvation. Or if after getting saved you committed a sin that is so grave it puts you in doubt of the authenticity of your salvation, you can pray the sinner's prayer again just to make for sure for sure.
All of this and much much more is to be conveyed in the couple minutes it takes to read the Roman's Road.
Saturday, January 1, 2011
What Are the Scots?
Last night at a New Years party my gf asked me "What religion are the Scots? Anglican?" I said the largest group and the national church are (yes, groups are plural) the Church of Scotland, so the Scots "are" Presbyterian.
A summary of the religious identity of the Scottish people can be found here - again, at Wikipedia. At the 2001 census 65% of the Scottish population were some kind of Christian. The groups with the greatest number of people claiming some kind of allegiance to them were the Church of Scotland, with about 42% of the Scottish population, and the Roman Catholic Church, with about 16%. Since no denomination claims a majority of the Scottish people, I think it's unfair to say that "the Scots" as a single people "are" anything. (This seems even more true when we consider that the numbers we're talking about are nominal religious identities - what people merely claim to be - and not how they practice or whether or not their churches officially recognize them as practicing members of the church.)
Of course, by the same reasoning I can say that the English are not Anglican, since only 22.2% of the English people claim to be in the Church of England (the Church of England recognizes only 1.7 million as practicing members of the church).
A summary of the religious identity of the Scottish people can be found here - again, at Wikipedia. At the 2001 census 65% of the Scottish population were some kind of Christian. The groups with the greatest number of people claiming some kind of allegiance to them were the Church of Scotland, with about 42% of the Scottish population, and the Roman Catholic Church, with about 16%. Since no denomination claims a majority of the Scottish people, I think it's unfair to say that "the Scots" as a single people "are" anything. (This seems even more true when we consider that the numbers we're talking about are nominal religious identities - what people merely claim to be - and not how they practice or whether or not their churches officially recognize them as practicing members of the church.)
Of course, by the same reasoning I can say that the English are not Anglican, since only 22.2% of the English people claim to be in the Church of England (the Church of England recognizes only 1.7 million as practicing members of the church).
Monday, December 27, 2010
Never Look a Policeman In the Eye
When I was in Junior High I heard a preacher say, from the pulpit: "Never look a policeman in the eye." He was warmly Amened by other pastors and male church staff in the audience. I supposed back then that all these men were saying Amen out of a religious respect for authority. Now these days I wonder how many of those men said Amen out of pure fear of those in power. And maybe a couple of them said it out of both respect and fear.
Friday, December 24, 2010
Just Stop the Ag Subsidies
Yesterday on 97.3 (yes, I sometimes listen to Alice) the morning show people said a few words about farmers markets, and one of them said that organic fruit and vegetables would be a whole lot cheaper if fruit and vegetables got subsidies just like corn, meat, and dairy - as if it's the lack of subsidies for fresh fruit and vegetables that makes them so expensive.
Here's the thing: I don't have any numbers right now, but I would bet that removing subsidies for corn, meat, and dairy would make fresh fruit and vegetables less expensive. When animal farmers would have to pay the full price to raise their animals, they would of course transfer the cost to the consumers, who would then reduce the amount of meat and other animal products that they eat. When the demand for meat reduces, so will the production of it, which would free up some of the resources used to make meat and other animal products. A lot of the land and water that went to make meat and food for animals (which is A Lot) would instead go to the production of foods for human consumption - fruits and vegetables. This would increase the supply of fruits and vegetables, and lower their price.
Subsidies for fruit and vegetables would just raise taxes, and taxes hurt the poor. And subsidies for fruit and vegetables probably wouldn't address the distortions in agribusiness, unless they were higher than the subsidies for cattle feed and meat. Of course, getting subsidies for fruits and vegetables would probably be a lot easier than getting rid of the subsidies for corn, meat, and other animal products. Once you get someone rich off of government largess, they're going to kick and scream when you even think about reducing their benefits.
But I wonder if getting "effective" subsidies for fruits and vegetables would really be that much easier. If subsidies for fruits and vegetables are effective, then they would lead people to increase their fruit and vegetable intake and drastically reduce their meat intake. And that would hurt the meat and cattle feed farmers just as much as slashing Big Ag's corporate welfare would. I bet that meat and cattle feed farmers would kick scream, and shit their pants over effective fruit and vegetable subsidies almost or as much as they would over ending agricultural subsidies alltogether.
Here's the thing: I don't have any numbers right now, but I would bet that removing subsidies for corn, meat, and dairy would make fresh fruit and vegetables less expensive. When animal farmers would have to pay the full price to raise their animals, they would of course transfer the cost to the consumers, who would then reduce the amount of meat and other animal products that they eat. When the demand for meat reduces, so will the production of it, which would free up some of the resources used to make meat and other animal products. A lot of the land and water that went to make meat and food for animals (which is A Lot) would instead go to the production of foods for human consumption - fruits and vegetables. This would increase the supply of fruits and vegetables, and lower their price.
Subsidies for fruit and vegetables would just raise taxes, and taxes hurt the poor. And subsidies for fruit and vegetables probably wouldn't address the distortions in agribusiness, unless they were higher than the subsidies for cattle feed and meat. Of course, getting subsidies for fruits and vegetables would probably be a lot easier than getting rid of the subsidies for corn, meat, and other animal products. Once you get someone rich off of government largess, they're going to kick and scream when you even think about reducing their benefits.
But I wonder if getting "effective" subsidies for fruits and vegetables would really be that much easier. If subsidies for fruits and vegetables are effective, then they would lead people to increase their fruit and vegetable intake and drastically reduce their meat intake. And that would hurt the meat and cattle feed farmers just as much as slashing Big Ag's corporate welfare would. I bet that meat and cattle feed farmers would kick scream, and shit their pants over effective fruit and vegetable subsidies almost or as much as they would over ending agricultural subsidies alltogether.
Monday, December 20, 2010
Convert Talk
According to this report, two of the biggest reasons for conversion given by former Catholics who converted to Evangelical Protestantism are that these converts "stopped believing in Catholic teachings (62%) and specifically because they were unhappy with Catholic teachings about the Bible (55%)."
As a former fundamental Baptist who's seen my fair share of conversions from Catholicism to the Baptist religion, I personally doubt the accuracy of these reasons. I think conversions have almost nothing to do with belief and almost everything to do with personal connections. Converts to Evangelical Protestantism adopt Evangelical Protestant beliefs through a process of immersion in an evangelical church. The only uniquely protestant belief that a former Catholic and new convert takes to an evangelical church is their belief that they will go to heaven because they've been born again - and the only reason they have that belief is because another evangelical went through the work of getting to know them and leading them to Christ. The human interaction precedes the change in belief. The change in belief does not precede the human interaction, as the former Catholic converts to Evangelical Protestantism seem to think.
Really, it should be no surprise that the fault they claim to have found with the Catholic Church was its teachings on the Bible. They are looking back onto a past part of their life through a religious lense that they got since then. Now that they are Evangelical Protestants, they insert their present reason for not being Catholic as their original reason for leaving the Catholic Church. I'm sure someone else has noticed this, and has a phrase for it; but until I learn what that phrase is I'll call this phenomenon "convert talk".
As a former fundamental Baptist who's seen my fair share of conversions from Catholicism to the Baptist religion, I personally doubt the accuracy of these reasons. I think conversions have almost nothing to do with belief and almost everything to do with personal connections. Converts to Evangelical Protestantism adopt Evangelical Protestant beliefs through a process of immersion in an evangelical church. The only uniquely protestant belief that a former Catholic and new convert takes to an evangelical church is their belief that they will go to heaven because they've been born again - and the only reason they have that belief is because another evangelical went through the work of getting to know them and leading them to Christ. The human interaction precedes the change in belief. The change in belief does not precede the human interaction, as the former Catholic converts to Evangelical Protestantism seem to think.
Really, it should be no surprise that the fault they claim to have found with the Catholic Church was its teachings on the Bible. They are looking back onto a past part of their life through a religious lense that they got since then. Now that they are Evangelical Protestants, they insert their present reason for not being Catholic as their original reason for leaving the Catholic Church. I'm sure someone else has noticed this, and has a phrase for it; but until I learn what that phrase is I'll call this phenomenon "convert talk".
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About Me
- Isaiah
- I am a part-time philosopher and a former immigration paralegal with a BA in philosophy and a paralegal certificate from UC San Diego.