Comments (94)

• Pat

  Suffice to say, regarding in which of the two camps, I would fall in the former. I am not surprised the SEC couldn't see anything.

  But I will go on a limb and express a thought: maybe the SEC simply looked the other way because Madoff had ties with them. Let's not forget that he was a ex-chairman of the Nasdaq. I wouldn't be surprised if we found out later that he had ties with some members of the SEC. Not that would cancel the incompetence of the SEC in general. But I thought it would worth airing the thought.

  Published: December 18, 2008 8:22 AM

• Artisan

  So this comforts many to believe "we need a strong man", someone who doesn't pretend to "reduce" the government when he IS the government...
  A strong patriotic (nationalist doesn't sound that good) socialist would be the best.
  I can see it coming.
  

  Published: December 18, 2008 8:38 AM

• greg

  Who is going to police the due diligence firms? Half our problems today is the failure of rating agencies that dropped the ball.

  The other half of our problems is hedge funds which is not highly regulated by the SEC. Most of these funds use brokers to place their "bets" in the market which makes it hard for regulators to track problems.

  The answer to the problem is that people that invest need to understand accounting and be able to read a financial statement and a balance sheet. You could have seen he was reporting gains on option trades where the number of trades exceeded the volume of trades available.

  People need to understand that if the deal sounds to good to be true, it probably is. He charged no fees, collected commissions and showed huge returns. Investors should have never put their entire savings in his account or even the large numbers some of them invested. In the words of Jim Crammer, "pigs get slaughtered". And what the hell is a retiree do investing in a hedge fund anyway!

  The only free market solution I see to to have companies offer an insurance policy where investors can insure their investment for a set amount. But just like paying a due diligence firm, the cost would reduce your net returns to a level that makes a 2.5% T-bill attractive. And that is where the retiree should be invested in!

  Published: December 18, 2008 8:45 AM

• Enjoy Every Sandwich

  Pat, IMHO your thought makes sense. I've long thought that it's naive to believe that ruthless amoral businessmen could be policed by ruthless amoral politicians. They are all too frequently involved in the same dirty deals. Heck, how can we tell the two apart?

  Published: December 18, 2008 8:46 AM

• Alain

  As bad as it is, at least the participants did so voluntarily. In the meantime, there's another Ponzi scheme involving all working US citizens who are forced to pay into it - that one is about $11 trillion. Move along, nothing to see here....

  Published: December 18, 2008 9:15 AM

• greg

  Alain,

  Just heard on CNBC that the TARP investments has made made money for the government! Which proves a blind rabbit can find a carrot at least once in its lifetime.

  Published: December 18, 2008 9:55 AM

• Briggs Armstrong

  At his live press conference today, Obama was asked about the SEC failure. He told the reporter that the SEC and Congress were asleep at the switch and that they had been operating under the assumption that deregulation was always good. He then went on to "explain" how he plans to use the government to clean up Wall Street. Not surprisingly, it seems that Obama does believe that government has all the answers. His philosophy, from what I can gather, seems to be that if only government were more efficient and imposed better regulations everything would be fine. It is a common misconception that the reason government interventionism doesn't work as promised is because the people in charge are not doing their job right. In reality, no matter how wonderful an individual is placed in charge, they can never rival the efficiency of free markets.

  Published: December 18, 2008 10:17 AM

• Tim Kern

  Alain has it right: When will Social Security, a much-larger and forced-participation Ponzi scheme, be investigated; and when will its perpetrators be indicted?

  Published: December 18, 2008 10:22 AM

• Horst Muhlmann

  Greg,

  CNBC is owned by General Electric, who was on the No Short List. As such, they are not a credible source.

  It was VERY probable that CNBC was lying.

  Published: December 18, 2008 10:43 AM

• Liberty4All

  "a letter to the SEC dating from 2005 which claimed that Madoff was running a Ponzi scheme"

  There's the smoking gun! I wonder what would compel a government agency whose primary function is enforcement from ignoring evidence or accusations of fraud. Hmm...I wonder...

  Published: December 18, 2008 10:57 AM

• scott

  First-it probably doesn't matter, but Madoff was not set up as a hedge fund. Second-any knowledgeable investor had to know that Madoff's returns were too good to be true. They are no different from those who would send their money to the Nigerian scammers. They knew it was fishy but were too greedy to pass it up.

  Published: December 18, 2008 11:08 AM

• fundamentalist

  I fail to see how Madoff's hedge fund is any different from a regular bank doing fractional banking. Taking short term deposits and lending long term, they depend on new customers to pay off older ones who need their money. How is that different from a Ponzi scheme?

  Published: December 18, 2008 11:11 AM

• DanS

  Sadly, today’s “free market” advocates are as utopian as their socialist nemesis. Why? Because they fail to see or acknowledge the dependency of their philosophy upon the Judeo-Christian worldview--a view which was consciously or unconsciously taken for granted by Mises and Hayek, but has all but collapsed and become extinct. Without moral integrity and trust, all day-to-day activity breaks down. The modern claim that secularism or atheism can adequately provide such integrity or trust is simply BS. The world has changed...catch up!

  Published: December 18, 2008 11:12 AM

• Eric

  Greg says,

  "Who is going to police the due diligence firms? Half our problems today is the failure of rating agencies that dropped the ball."

  If you were looking for one of these firms today, who would you choose? Seems like a pretty simple choice to me, you'd likely look at this one firm that "outed" the ponzi scheme while the SEC and all the other bad firms would not get your dollars.

  Oh, sorry, the SEC will still get your dollars, even though they failed. You see, the SEC is too big to fail and will get bailed out by the taxpayer with more money.

  In a true free market (something hard to find today) the losers lose, while the winners stay in business. With government, it's the other way around.

  The SEC is unlike most government granted monopolies, it still has competition - remember who outed Enron.
  

  Published: December 18, 2008 11:19 AM

• DanS

  To: Liberty4All

  Answer: the "primary function" of "enforcement" morphed into one of "nurture" due to senior management being "conflict adverse." The so-called regulatory culture became effeminate over the past 15+ years.

  I observed this first hand...I was on the regulatory inside for 23 years.

  Published: December 18, 2008 11:22 AM

• Bruce Koerber

  You cannot clean a dung pile!

  You cannot have a Ponzi scheme without stupidity.

  You cannot have the SEC without interventionism.

  You cannot have an unConstitutional coup without a passive and careless Congress.

  You cannot have justice without the demise of the fascist/socialist/statist politicians who fill the ranks of the two-headed single party in the U.S.

  You cannot have liberty without a revolution.

  You cannot have the classical liberalism civilization that is destined for us without courage and knowledge.

  You cannot have the prosperity that is our birthright without understanding that the economy is divine, in other words, that all human intervention into the economy is a corruption.

  Published: December 18, 2008 11:24 AM

• Liberty4All

  Briggs -- nice article and good luck with your studies. We need more accounting and finance professionals who know that 2 + 2 = 4, can smell a swindle or fraud, and understand the virtues of free markets.

  Published: December 18, 2008 11:25 AM

• DanS

  To fundamentalist

  Answer: A "regular bank's" balance sheet is an arbitrage of interest-bearing assets funded by interest-bearing liabilities and capital.

  In a pure Ponsi scheme, there are no "assets" or "capital" on the balance sheet. New liabilities are simply taken in to pay off older liabilities.

  As Dr. House would say, "You're a moron!"

  Published: December 18, 2008 11:33 AM

• Tomb Like Bomb

  Of course an amount of resources spent by the particular investors themselves will yield better returns (in terms of protection from fraud) than that same amount spent by the class of mainly disinterested taxpayers. Then again the resources spent by Madoff in covering up his scheme, are of free market origin. And that goes for all private entities on the corrupt side of any scam.

  Clearly, we don't need a fire department, as you can plainly see by the relative speed with which an individual who happens to own a fully-staffed, fully-loaded fire station, responds to his burning house.

  Published: December 18, 2008 11:38 AM

• prettyskin

  Obama does not believe in what he said, "...use the government to clean up Wall Street". Like his predecessors, they have secured their slices of the cake in which I've helped to bake. Unfortunately, I get no slice, no matter how hard I do days of honest work.

  Would a 'true' free market get rid of political rhetoric, corporate welfare and national criminals? After jail or fail, you prefect your game.

  Published: December 18, 2008 12:19 PM

• fundamentalist

  DanS: "In a pure Ponsi scheme, there are no "assets" or "capital" on the balance sheet. New liabilities are simply taken in to pay off older liabilities."

  Madoff's Ponzi scheme had assets. Maybe it's technically incorrect to call it a Ponzi scheme, but he made the statement as did a lot of others.

  Published: December 18, 2008 12:25 PM

• Mike Tabony

  You expect anything of this SEC and you're set for disappointment.

  This is the SEC that got rid of the up-tick rule for shorting. This is the SEC that has looked the other way for the last year while company after company has had their stocks decimated by "naked shorters". This is the SEC that allows these shorters to short any percentage of a company's stock without registration but if you're long over 5% you must register. This is the SEC that would have allowed Osama Bin Laden to be a major shorter and destroyer of the US economy because it had no knowledge of who was doing it.

  When President Obama appoints a new SEC leader I sure hope he does a better job than George did. It will be hard to do worse.

  Published: December 18, 2008 12:50 PM

• Mark Knutson

  I will write an essay on this some day, but I consider the Ponzi scheme to represent a very fundamental sort of accounting fraud.
  
  In my researches on Ponzi, I found no evidence as to whether he initially pursued his postal coupon arbitrage scheme and gave up when it didn't work very well, or whether he started on day one with the intent to run a scam.
  
  Now its easy to imagine madoff made his best effort to generate income through legitimate market activity, and turned to fraud when the legitimate efforts were disappointing--at which point, I would call it a Ponzi.
  
  In any case, the Ponzi Scheme in its general sense is simply return of capital fraudulently characterized as investment income. The only reason such a distinction is significant is investors use it as in indication of the sustainability of the scheme.
  
  I will note that the continued operation of a Ponzi requires exponentially greater new investments to cover the promised returns for old ones.
  
  This is an extremely general concept in economics today, as most people feel that social security is sort of an enforced investment program with a trust fund that they paid into and get their money back from at retirement. The trust fund is illusory, and social security has the same characteristic of paying retired 'investors' from the forced 'investments' of current workers. In the same respect, its sustained operation requires an ever-increasing pool of workers, where our demographics are just the opposite. Less workers and more retirees.
  
  Rothbard or Mises referrs to this sort of thing as 'eating the seed corn', though few young people today are familiar enough with farming for this to resonate.
  
  I will add my own favorite explanation of the economics of a Ponzi scheme as given by a Judge considering one of his many appearances in appellate court: "Ponzi's business was that of borrowing money at urorious rates of interest..." ;)

  Published: December 18, 2008 1:00 PM

• Mark Knutson

  Oops, that is 'Ponzi's business was that of borrowing money at usorious rates of interest'.
  
  As far as the SEC goes, I am not at the point where I see such an agency as not useful. I believe that policing the accounting activity of organizations makes investment attractive--rather than forcing investors to endure some sort of trial and error or simply a completely aleatory scheme where one has no basis at all for evaluating prospective investments.
  
  Now we have public accounting firms who could be considered a private sector replacement for the SEC, but experience has shown that they are no better than the SEC or private sector credit rating agencies at identifying financially unsound firms before they fail. So, that solution leaves me unimpressed as well.
  
  Now my views on this may change as I learn more about austrian economics, but at this point, I am much more in favor of good policing of accounting practices than I am of the fed's market intervention.

  Published: December 18, 2008 1:11 PM

• Justin

  DanS,

  Free-market economics assumes that people will act in their own self-interests. That certainly does not require (and is in fact opposed to) Judeo-Christian ethics. This is a clear case of the failure of a government regulator despite warnings from the private sector. How this is utopian is beyond me.

  Please... the "world has changed"... "under normal circumstances"... "but these are not normal times"... blah blah blah. Nothing has changed, including the economic truths at work today.

  Published: December 18, 2008 1:23 PM

• DanS

  To fundamentalist

  You say, "Madoff's Ponzi scheme had assets."

  Oh? What's your source?

  "He [Madoff] was also so secretive about his asset base -- that was another red flag." James Hedges IV of LJH Global Investments. Hedges spoke in person with Madoff for two hours.

  http://money.cnn.com/2008/12/16/news/madoff.hedges.fortune/index.htm?postversion=2008121710

  Published: December 18, 2008 1:43 PM

• Matt Wing

  DanS

  "Without moral integrity and trust, all day-to-day activity breaks down."

  What makes you think that without a Judeo-Christian presence in the world there is no moral integrity? Are you suggesting that Atheism leads to evil? That is like saying Anarchy leads to chaos. That is simple minded thinking.

  Read Adam Smith's "The Theory of Moral Sentiments"
  

  Published: December 18, 2008 2:03 PM

• JKS

  Seems to me that the mere existence of the SEC gives people a false sense of security when investing. No private investigative firms exist because nobody feels the need to pay for a service the government already provides.

  Published: December 18, 2008 2:36 PM

• doc dre

  1. the bush admin doesn't believe in the SEC and this is what we get.

  2. someone at the SEC could have some reason to look past this fraud, whether they are a friend of Madoff or for some other reason,

  3. if the free market works why did so many, including fund of funds, have billions in this ponzi scheme? aren't the fund of funds supposed to be the smart money that's should catch this?

  4. some thought he was breaking the rules and that is why they had money with him.

  this just shows what happens when you elect someone who doesn't believe in regulation. remember Harvey Pitt was a kinder and gentler SEC until Enron.

  http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m0DTI/is_/ai_96737031
  

  Published: December 18, 2008 3:18 PM

• Eric

  Matt,

  I was going to let that remark of Dans go, but I would like to add that our morality certainly can't be entirely (or even mostly) attributed to the "Judeo-Christian worldview" as we can see from the various crusades - and I include Bush the lesser's murderous transgressions.

  To attribute human morality uniquely to the J/C worldview is to assume that the majority of the world is immoral. But then that is what all religions do - they assume they are right and everyone else is wrong.

  For a non-religious explanation of where we get our morals, we merely need to look at the family. In all societies, and all religions, the family and close kin invoke a tit for tat reciprocity that is inborn within us. We all know when a favor is not reciprocated. This is simply our inborn understanding of the golden rule - at least with those we expect to interact with again in the future. This behavior evolved from our ancestors living in a small tribe. If this was a universal morality taught by religion, then it should apply as well to larger groups. And if so, we'd not see so many wars.

  As Bush II once said, "You're either with us or against us". That's the true morality of the large religions despite the Christian teachings of love thine enemy and turning the cheek. And if you go back to the earlier writings, such as Joshua, you find a morality that teaches you can take anyone's land by force, because you alone have the right beliefs.

  
  

  Published: December 18, 2008 3:45 PM

• Matt Wing

  I agree Eric.

  I'm constantly disappointed every time I hear the common claim that "without religion society will become immoral" or "without government society will become chaotic". You may not believe atheism or anarchism is best fitted for society, but to believe humans cannot co-operate in a peaceful manner without the presence of religion or government is wrong. It disappoints me that most people cannot envision a peaceful/productive society without religion or government.
  

  Published: December 18, 2008 4:31 PM

• Matt Wing

  I agree Eric.

  I'm constantly disappointed every time I hear the common claim that "without religion society will become immoral" or "without government society will become chaotic". You may not believe atheism or anarchism is best fitted for society, but to believe humans cannot co-operate in a peaceful manner without the presence of religion or government is wrong. It disappoints me that most people cannot envision a peaceful/productive society without religion or government.
  

  Published: December 18, 2008 4:32 PM

• fundamentalist

  Matt: "I'm constantly disappointed every time I hear the common claim that "without religion society will become immoral"

  I think Christians sometimes forget that God gave people a conscience and many non-Christians choose to follow it. That's how atheists and Muslims can be moral people. On the flip side, a lot of people calling themselves Christians don't follow their conscience or anything else and become very immoral people.

  Published: December 18, 2008 4:50 PM

• Michael

  No one should be arguing that morality doesn't exist, the problem is how to account for morality. Where does it come from and what is the standard? To merely assert that it is "inborn" isn't good enough without any argument to support it. Any example of morality from a society is merely "borrowed capital" from Christianity.

  Published: December 18, 2008 5:34 PM

• Milena

  The free market has nothing to do with any religion's worldview. It is the only system by which the results from one's actions are wholly one's own. For example, in a very general sense, the harder you work, the more you potentially gain. The less, etc. Of course people will say, "But what about fraud?" Fraud should be punished and protections of private property strictly enforced.

  The free market does not assume NO government and NO regulation - it is not anarchy. It assumes a limited government, and very specific regulation, called the Rule of Law. In the US, we have our Constitution.

  In reality, the free market cannot exist without a firm Rule of Law, distinct from ad hoc regulation which we currently get from the government, which may or may not be consonant with Rule of Law.

  In brief, the element of Rule of Law is what makes the free market function, because anyone who is found guilty of violation of another person's property (their body, land, money, etc.) is to be punished.

  Published: December 18, 2008 5:54 PM

• Inquisitor

  2 views irritate me more than any other, both with a similar theistic undercurrent:

  1) there can be no morality without God. Well, prove it.

  2) there cannot be order without the State. Again, prove it.

  Published: December 18, 2008 6:22 PM

• newson

  to doc dre:
  don't forget that the federal reserve, by pushing interest rates down to extraordinary low levels in the early part of the decade, starved yields for many of those who had traditionally lived on treasury bond income. the "answer" to low returns on treasuries was to seek out higher earning vehicles (and overlook the consequent capital risk).

  to greg:
  the ratings industry was cartelized by the government in 1975. it became a comfortable insiders' club.

  Published: December 18, 2008 6:44 PM

• Phil

  Inquisitor,
  Conclusion #1 does not yield conclusion #2. Arguing that you see this with many people does not make it a logical statement.

  I believe your first conclusion. That is, without God, there is no morality. This religious statement should not be understood or even questioned in a political context. The state should never intervene in my freedom to believe this.

  Now, the fact that Christians do believe that the state has a right to enforce morality through the state is regrettably true. I will state even further that using the state to enforce morality causes the social problems that exist now.

  For example, since marriage is a religious function historically, the state has no right to monitor, legislate, or even condone marriage. However, our government wants to give benefits to marriages in the form of tax breaks, as an example, it gives homosexual partners just cause about government intervention. If the state would have never meddled in a religious function, which historically existed prior to the 20th century, then homosexual marriage is a non-issue.

  Published: December 18, 2008 7:00 PM

• Bruce Koerber

  December 18, 2008
  Bernard Madoff Nominated As Social Security Czar!

  Wall Street insider Bernard Madoff would be a great one for President-elect Obama to appoint as the Social Security Czar! He knows how the system works.

  It goes like this: money extracted today is used to pay the benefits of all those who paid in before, as if there is some fund that holds earlier 'mandatory contributions.'

  Where is the money that was extracted earlier? Raided and spent by the politicians!

  When will this Ponzi scheme completely unravel? When the Funds extracted today can no longer fund the benefits paid out on that day.

  Wasn't that projected to be sometime in the future like 2021 or 2040 or some such distant date? Guess what numbers were used to make that prediction? The empiricists made estimates based on their completely blind view that the U.S. economy was going to grow continually, according to their ego-driven interventionist models.

  Ooops! The Keynesian long-run has now arrived! Screech! The complete melt down is at hand and so now we find out that the predictions of the empiricists (like usual) were ill-informed and politically motivated.

  All of the sudden the bankrupcy of the Ponzi scheme that we call Social Security is on the doorstep. This is where the expertise of Bernard Madoff comes in. He is familiar with the next step. Confess that it was just a Ponzi scheme!

  Published: December 18, 2008 7:11 PM

• Tomb Like Bomb

  If anyone in the market is given a "false sense of security" by the SEC, then the SEC is surely serving a social darwinistic function. It is eliminating the investors who are stupid enough to trust in it, leaving only those who--if they have the money--make the wise choice of investing in due diligence firms. False faith in due diligence firms--those that, like the SEC, might be less than what they present themselves as--we as Austrians are not permitted to explore.

  Published: December 18, 2008 7:25 PM

• Nick

  @Phil

  I believe your first conclusion. That is, without God, there is no morality.

  An interesting theory indeed. And in the tradition of theories, it can't be proven - It can only be disproven. All it would take to do so is one atheist or agnostic who lives morally sans a belief in the Judeo-Christian god. Somehow, I don't think you'd have to look very far to find one.

  Or are you saying that a belief in a god is a requirement no matter how moral the rest of your life may be?

  Published: December 18, 2008 10:50 PM

• Matt Wing

  Milena

  "The free market has nothing to do with any religion's worldview. It is the only system by which the results from one's actions are wholly one's own. For example, in a very general sense, the harder you work, the more you potentially gain. The less, etc. Of course people will say, "But what about fraud?" Fraud should be punished and protections of private property strictly enforced."

  Strictly agree with you.

  "The free market does not assume NO government and NO regulation - it is not anarchy.”

  Who claimed the free market assumes no government and regulation... or for the matter anarchy? The argument is that the free market does not assume religious ideals to function.

  It assumes a limited government, and very specific regulation, called the Rule of Law. In the US, we have our Constitution."

  Why does the free market assume limited government?
  Like Inquisitor said: "there cannot be order without the State. Again, prove it."

  Government is enabled by human cooperation; human cooperation is not enabled by government.

  
  

  Published: December 18, 2008 11:04 PM

• DJC

  Ostensibly the SEC was created to protect the individual investor and preserve the integrity of the financial markets. By simple observation we can see that the SEC has failed spectacularly in its mission. In fact to continue to claim otherwise would be, by the SEC’s own rules governing securities, fraudulent.

  There is little doubt in my mind that if the SEC were not a government agency it would be sued by the very same investors and taxpayers it supposedly protects for services promised but not rendered.

  In my view what the SEC does quite well is to protect politically favored institutions from competition.

  Now in order to protect yourself from investment fraud you would be well-advised to understand and implement the following rules:

  1. Understand that if you are going to make an investment you could lose all or part of your money to risks that are both known and unknown no matter what anyone may tell you. Once you understand that you won’t have to wade through 100 pages of legal gibberish that goes by the name of a “prospectus.” A prospectus doesn’t protect you…it attempts to protect the issuer of the security while providing work for attorneys.

  2. Never allow an individual Investment Advisor/Money Manger/Financial Planner to also be the custodian of your funds or be able to control the custodian of your funds. If you follow this rule you will virtually eliminate the possibility of your funds winding up in the pocket of your Investment Advisor/Money Manger/Financial Planner. Almost every victim of investment fraud fails to heed this rule.

  3. Make sure that any claims regarding past performance have been thoroughly audited and verified by a reputable and completely independent auditing firm. Even if the past performance claims are true don’t forget rule #1.

  You don’t need ANY regulatory agency to understand and implement these 3 rules.
  

  Published: December 18, 2008 11:06 PM

• George

  That sounds good to me DJC. Also I'd like to point out that the #1 reason anyone "innocent" is in the stock market is because the currency is so bad, ie: it shrinks.

  If the currency held it's value then there would be the option of just holding cash. With more risk one could hold long term bonds (with sufficient security).

  That's it -- there is no reason "normal" people need to be in the stock market except that the currency doesn't work...

  Taxes, risk, inflation -- it's easy to avoid two of the three...

  Published: December 19, 2008 12:02 AM

• Rasoul Namazi

  I have an idea! What about bailing out Madoff with TARP money? After all its only 50 billion! Not more than what Automakers are asking for! I think if we dont do this, "there will be a disaster for our economy". So lets call the senators.

  Published: December 19, 2008 2:12 AM

• Inquisitor

  "Inquisitor,
  Conclusion #1 does not yield conclusion #2. Arguing that you see this with many people does not make it a logical statement."

  I never said that one implies the other, otherwise I'd have called them premises and a conclusion. I said they have a similar undercurrent, i.e. rationale.

  "I believe your first conclusion. That is, without God, there is no morality. This religious statement should not be understood or even questioned in a political context. The state should never intervene in my freedom to believe this."

  When this is proven, I'll begin to take it seriously. Even if one could show there is no objective morality, they'd still not be able to deal with forms such as contractarianism, argumentation ethics etc.

  Tomb like a bomb, "we"? Welcome to the club if you mean it...

  Published: December 19, 2008 2:53 AM

• Artisan

  So this comforts many to believe "we need a strong man", someone who doesn't pretend to "reduce" the government when he IS the government...
  A strong patriotic (nationalist doesn't sound that good) socialist would be the best.
  I can see it coming.
  

  Published: December 19, 2008 2:59 AM

• fundamentalist

  Inquisitor: “Even if one could show there is no objective morality, they'd still not be able to deal with forms such as contractarianism, argumentation ethics etc.”

  The great philopshers of the 19th and 20th centuries, most of whom were atheists, have contended that without God there are no morals, but they meant objective morality, as you state. They don’t deny that contractarianism, argumentation ethics or other attempts at man-made ethics are possible. Unfortunately many Christians take that to mean that if you’re not a Christian you will automatically act immorally, but that contradicts the Biblical principle that every person has a God-given conscience, Christian or not.
  

  Published: December 19, 2008 8:20 AM

• Joe Stoutenburg

  I have worked on a mental framework for a case against government regulation that begins with a rationale used by its advocates. Use of this framework has actually helped bring me into agreement with a friend who had been strongly in favor of such regulation.

  The rationale offered by some government regulation advocates is that there exists an assymetry of information. A person intent upon fraud has a great deal of incentive to inform himself of his fraud and how he will profit from it. On the other hand, consumers have less incentive to devote any significant resources in protecting themselves from fraud. While we speak of due diligence, the fact is that we don't have time to perform "due diligence" on every product that we use or consume - not just investment products. We never know whether food or other products could prove harmful - whether by error or intentional fraud.

  Surely, we need someone to protect us from fraud or injury resulting from this assymetry. The problem is that fraud may just as well be committed by the people tasked to regulate against fraud. As the source of regulation becomes more concentrated, the incentive to influence it becomes stronger and stronger.

  When the power to regulate is highly concentrated, a person formerly content to sell snake oil now might decide instead to gain a position from which he may sell favors to others who want to sell snake oil. The result is that people are highly regulated who are unable or choose to not gain influence of the regulator while people with inside connections to the regulator are essentially unregulated.

  The implications of my framework are that no institution will fully eradicate fraud. As long as people act in personal self-interest, some will choose dishonest paths to do so. But relying upon monopoly institutions to police against fraud is horribly naive because it compounds the information assymetry problem. Government regulation is made even worse since it is funded by theft. As long as taxation is broadly accepted, dismantling government monopolies will be insurmountable challenges.

  Published: December 19, 2008 8:47 AM

• Mark Knutson

  Morality and the nature and will of god are kid of vague and problemmatic when it comes to determining the best financial policy. I have a theory that morality in many respects can be considered to serve two purposes:

  1) To get people to sacrifice in the short term to receive greater rewards in the long term, and

  2) To get people to perform individual sacrifice for the greater good of the community.
  
  In these respects, we can consider our government to be failing us on both prongs.
  
  Personally, I think its not much of stretch to attribute moral transgression to leaders who fail us on both prongs above--if one believes in a divine entty, and I am expecting our leaders, with the eager support of the majority of voters, to impoverish this once-great country as our culture no longer supports either of these essential behaviors essential to continued success of a country.

  Published: December 19, 2008 8:49 AM

• Mark Knutson

  Maybe I left too much for implication on my two prongs of moral behavior. As applied to govt financial policy, the borrowing--among other things--is short term behavior which diminishes our wealth in the long run, and the special favors for special interest groups is the failure to do what benefits all.
  
  Much of the time when there is corporate fiscal trouble, folks talk about greedy executives, where I believe the more useful concept is that executives made short-term or imprudent decisions. We sort of expect that executives are greedy, or specifically seek to maximize corporate earnings, but the invisible hand shows how such pursuit of self-interest benefits all.

  Published: December 19, 2008 10:43 AM

• fundamentalist

  Joe Stoutenburg : “But relying upon monopoly institutions to police against fraud is horribly naive because it compounds the information assymetry problem.”

  Excellent argument against regulation. People assume, against all reason and evidence, that state employees have pure motives. I had a class in regulation at a state school in which the general conclusion of the text and the prof was that the largest businesses in the industry being regulated take over the regulatory agency and use it to promote their own interests. Particularly, they use regulation to keep out small competitors and reduce competition against their larger rivals.

  Mark Knutson: “Morality and the nature and will of god are kid of vague and problemmatic when it comes to determining the best financial policy.”

  The most basic level of morality where the state is concerned is to protect life, liberty and property. The state does a very poor job at all three. As for financial policy, the state can’t prevent fraud any more than policemen can prevent crime. Both are impossible. All the state can do is punish fraudulent behavior after the fact. However, the state contributes to fraudulent behavior in a couple of ways. By keeping interest rates artificially low, it creates an atmosphere of irrational exuberance in which con men flourish. Then the state deludes people into think its regulatory agencies will protect them from con men when it never has a never will.
  

  Published: December 19, 2008 11:01 AM

• Phil

  Fundamentalist nailed it. Morality is not something that is restricted to a group of believers. It is an innate property of God and thus his creation mankind.
  Now, it is not my intention to belittle my brothers in belief, but we certainly do have an amazing lack of logical consistency sometimes. However, if you do read the Bible, you will see logical coherency about the properties of God and man throughout.

  Published: December 19, 2008 11:03 AM

• Inquisitor

  If the "great" philosophers of the 20th century meant nonsense like the categorical imperative, then sure. But that has nothing to do with objective forms of morality. It is but one amongst many.

  Published: December 19, 2008 11:10 AM

• Inquisitor

  Joe, great post.

  Published: December 19, 2008 11:17 AM

• Tomb Like Bomb

  "All the state can do is punish fraudulent behavior after the fact."

  ...which, if Austrian assumptions are correct, would itself "prevent crime". And even for the hopelessly irrational sociopaths who are so attracted to the world of high finance, there is a measure: stoppage of crime-in-progress.

  "People assume, against all reason and evidence, that state employees have pure motives." Evidently though, people don't; for we only have to read on to immediately notice this: "I had a class in regulation at a state school in which the general conclusion of the text and the prof was that the largest businesses in the industry being regulated take over the regulatory agency and use it to promote their own interests." And one need not go to university to find such skepticism. Opinion polls show that a great majority think the state is hopelessly corrupt. The media, whose more direct overseers are the business class, doesn't typically ask such questions regarding the latter. But we can assume, given the amount of money spent on public relations, that the private sector finds it necessary and profitable to convince people of similarly benevolent motives. If not for taxes' resultant lack of resources, we could expect even greater use of such propaganda.

  Published: December 19, 2008 11:50 AM

• fundamentalist

  Inquisitor: "If the "great" philosophers of the 20th century meant nonsense like the categorical imperative, then sure. But that has nothing to do with objective forms of morality. It is but one amongst many."

  Actually, the issue boils down to authority. No man-made system has authority over other men because no man has moral authority over other men. Any contractual agreement that people want to make is fine and they can call it morality if they want, but it's nothing more than a housing covenant, and they have no right to try to impose it on others.

  For example, murder may be considered wrong by many people, but unless God says it's wrong, then we have no authority to imprison or execute murderers. We only have the right to kick them out of our community because they have violated one of our covenants.
  

  Published: December 19, 2008 11:50 AM

• greg

  Here is my final post to this subject. Never and I repeat never let you faith influence your investment decision. Looking at the list of investors, it is clear they did not take this warning!

  Published: December 19, 2008 2:27 PM

• fundamentalist

  greg: "Never and I repeat never let you faith influence your investment decision."

  Excellent point! Con men prey on religious people, knowing they are suckers for the appeal to a common faith. If anyone tries to sell you anything on the basis of his religion, run like crazy and hang on to your wallet! If they deal is a good one for you, the salesman won't have to mention his faith, just as an honest man doesn't need to advertise his honesty.

  Published: December 19, 2008 5:11 PM

• Bruce Koerber

  Here are the fifteen axioms of the ethics of the divine economy (a positive ethical theory) that I have identified.

  1. Humans carry their thoughts into the realm of action.
  2. Being a seeker after truth is part of the human operating system.
  3. The definition of praxeology used in the divine economy theory is ‘purposeful action by spiritual beings’ and it is interwoven with ethics.
  4. Every human being decides what is best for himself (herself) and this decision is referred to as ‘subjective’ rather than as ‘selfish’ (a term which has too many biases associated with it).
  5. What catches the attention of human beings is the appearance of the names and attributes of God.
  6. The content of our actions is the conveyance of the names and attributes of God.
  7. Humans are interested in the science and the art of existence.
  8. Our human limit is the point where a higher kingdom is reached, one that is incomprehensible to the lower kingdom.
  9. The Word of God extends our knowledge of spiritual concepts.
  10. The first and foremost ethic for the divine economy is trust in God.
  11. The ethics between the macro and the micro level is seamless.
  12. Acquisition of virtues constitutes private property.
  13. Human rights are property rights and property rights are human rights.
  14. Production is a human creation, emulating God, the Creator.
  15. Pure entrepreneurship is the discovery of something from nothing.
  

  Published: December 20, 2008 11:32 AM

• Brian Macker

  Bruce,

  What does your "Divine Economy" have to do with the article? Most of your items have nothing to do with economics, and everything to do with your idiosyncratic view of religion.

  Published: December 20, 2008 1:17 PM

• Bruce Koerber

  Dear Brian,

  Granted, my commentary has veered from the original article but sometimes people participating and commenting are in dialogue, of sorts. I assume you know this.

  There was quite a bit of discussion about ethics in the comments and so I thought I would contribute to that discussion. That answers your question: "What does your "Divine Economy" have to do with the article?"

  With regards your assessment: If you understood the divine economy theory you would see that your statements ("Most of your items have nothing to do with economics" and "idiosyncratic view of religion") are incorrect.

  The science of economics and the science of ethics are advancing and are able to be tested. You can test them or simply scorn them.

  Published: December 20, 2008 1:55 PM

• Brian Macker

  Yeah, I see the thread degraded long before you got involved. This is classic:
  "I think Christians sometimes forget that God gave people a conscience and many non-Christians choose to follow it. That's how atheists and Muslims can be moral people."

  Talk about living in your own little bigoted bubble.

  Published: December 20, 2008 3:46 PM

• Bruce Koerber

  As the entrepreneurial spirit is encouraged and developed prejudices will wane.

  Since humans are entrepreneurial in potential and since the study of human action is an essential approach to understanding entrepreneurship it follows that economics and ethics have roles to play in that transformation.

  Published: December 20, 2008 4:02 PM

• Francisco Torres

  An interesting theory indeed. And in the tradition of theories, it can't be proven - It can only be disproven. All it would take to do so is one atheist or agnostic who lives morally sans a belief in the Judeo-Christian god. Somehow, I don't think you'd have to look very far to find one.

  Nick, you're right - I, for one, am an agnostic that believes in morality and ethical principles based on natural law.

  Published: December 20, 2008 5:03 PM

• Gil

  "No man-made system has authority over other men because no man has moral authority over other men."

  So a crime can't be defined? Or people can't sent to prison because others don't have the right to judge others or use force to imprison someone else?

  "murder may be considered wrong by many people . . ."

  I think you meant to write "some forms of killing may be considered acceptable by many people" - execution, self-defence, euthanasia, abortion, sacrifices, sports, etc. 'Murder' is a subset of killing that is alway considered wrong.

  Published: December 20, 2008 9:48 PM

• Inquisitor

  Fundamentalist, what "authority" is it that religion grants exactly? None. It is merely another appeal to some being in the sky. All morality has hypothetical (or perhaps assertoric, i.e. since... then) authority. The point is to find the most general hypothetical imperatives from which to construct moral systems. One does not need god, nor does one "need" any compelling authority to do so. One merely needs to find the right grounding principles to guide societial behaviour.

  Published: December 21, 2008 3:55 AM

• Tomb Like Bomb

  Clearly one needs a god, then, Inquisitor, whether he be the god of the Bible or the god Mises. These "imperatives" must come from somewhere.

  Published: December 21, 2008 5:14 AM

• Brian Macker

  "So a crime can't be defined? Or people can't sent to prison because others don't have the right to judge others or use force to imprison someone else?"

  That's what it sounds like, doesn't it.

  Published: December 21, 2008 12:44 PM

• Brian Macker

  "As the entrepreneurial spirit is encouraged and developed prejudices will wane."

  Is this addressed to me? Look, I have my own religious beliefs and frankly I don't think you'd accept them. I wouldn't however accuse you of prejudice just because you happen to disagree. Prejudice is too strong a word to apply to someone rejecting another's personal religious beliefs.

  If you want then I can criticize your beliefs on rational grounds. Prejudice will have nothing to do with it.

  Much of your list is platitudes. That is, trite, meaningless, biased or prosaic statements that are presented as if it were significant and original.

  "The science of economics and the science of ethics are advancing and are able to be tested. You can test them or simply scorn them."

  Believe me, you don't want to be tested. Especially when your ethics is not based on scientific principles. If you were really thinking scientifically then at your age you still wouldn't have this ancient notion that ethics is grounded in a deity. You would have wised up by now.

  
  

  Published: December 21, 2008 1:02 PM

• Bruce Koerber

  Dear Brian,

  If you think back you will see that these are your words:

  "I think Christians sometimes forget that God gave people a conscience and many non-Christians choose to follow it. That's how atheists and Muslims can be moral people."

  "Talk about living in your own little bigoted bubble."

  I was simply referring to your concern with the bigoted bubble opinion that you noticed and in my reply I used the word 'prejudice' instead of bigoted.

  So to answer your question: "Is this addressed to me?" the answer is no.

  But I sense that you were just waiting for an opportunity to attack. That is your perogative but in the context of your misunderstanding ("Is this addressed to me?" the answer is no.)
  it seems misdirected and unjust.

  Misdirected because the answer to your question is no. Unjust because, after all, we seem to be discussing ethics and clearly justice is ethical and injustice is unethical. Are you still convinced that you understand ethics enough to criticize others?

  Published: December 21, 2008 6:32 PM

• Brian Macker

  "But I sense that you were just waiting for an opportunity to attack."

  ... and I sense that you're selling something.

  "Unjust because, after all, we seem to be discussing ethics and clearly justice is ethical and injustice is unethical. "

  Another platitude? Do you always speak in platitudes?

  Of course economics has to do with ethics. That's a no-brainer. What's dubious is whether ethics has anything to do with god.

  "Are you still convinced that you understand ethics enough to criticize others?"

  Says the guy who's trying to sell, literally sell, masters degrees in "divine economy". It seems to me you were looking for an opportunity to advertise here, and jumped at the chance.

  You do understand that you cannot ground ethics in God right? First off, how do you know what god says? Second, if god told you to do something evil (and he often does in the bible) then does that make it good? Third, why should anyone take advice on ethics from a being who is so disproportionate in his punishments that he runs an eternal torture chamber?
  

  Published: December 21, 2008 11:54 PM

• Bruce Koerber

  Dear Brian,

  The Masters degree in divine economy theory is free!

  If you know that the market is a place where information flows why would you want to fall back into an anti-capitalist mode and try to smear the function of advertising? If you don't know that information flows in the market process then what are you learning form your exposure to Austrian economics?

  I know that in your opinion ("You do understand that you cannot ground ethics in God right?") the world fits neatly into your imagined boundaries.

  I also know that I understand things differently.
  

  Published: December 22, 2008 12:44 PM

• fundamentalist

  Gil: “So a crime can't be defined? Or people can't sent to prison because others don't have the right to judge others or use force to imprison someone else?”

  Without God, morality that has authority over all men cannot be defined. Of course, people can make up any morality they want, but it has no authority over others. In other words, you have no right to impose it on others.

  Inquisitor : “Fundamentalist, what "authority" is it that religion grants exactly? None.”

  Exactly. And I never wrote that it does. Only God has the authority over mankind to determine what is right and wrong for all mankind. Religion is the search for what God has determined is right and wrong.

  Inquisitor: “All morality has hypothetical (or perhaps assertoric, i.e. since... then) authority.”

  Which, in plain English means no authority.

  Inquisitor: “The point is to find the most general hypothetical imperatives from which to construct moral systems. One does not need god, nor does one "need" any compelling authority to do so.”

  That’s what man without God does, and I have no problem with it. But as I wrote, you have no authority to impose your ethics on anyone who disagrees. Only those who voluntarily agree to your ethics are subject to them. If another group comes up with a different set of ethics, for example that all left-handed people should be killed, then you have no logical reason to say they are wrong. You can only say that you disagree.

  Inquisitor: “One merely needs to find the right grounding principles to guide societial behaviour.”

  Of course, the ethics you arrive at will depend upon your starting assumptions. If I start with a different set of assumptions, then I’ll arrive at a different set of ethics. For example, Hoppe starts with self-ownership and proceeds to property rights. Natural law theorists started with the right to life and came up with a different set of ethics. Nazis and Communists start with very different assumptions to arrive at their “ethics.”

  Brian: “First off, how do you know what god says?”

  That’s what theology is all about, determining what God says. It’s no more difficult than economics.

  Brian: “Second, if god told you to do something evil (and he often does in the bible) then does that make it good?”

  By definition, God can’t order people to do something evil. His morality issues from his nature and He won’t act against His own nature. Maybe you refer to instances in the Bible when God ordered the killing of large numbers of people. It’s clear from these stories that God communicated his morality to the people in question and they had refused to obey. As God, he has the authority to judge and punish such criminal behavior. Besides, on what authority do you sit in judgement of God?

  Brian: “Third, why should anyone take advice on ethics from a being who is so disproportionate in his punishments that he runs an eternal torture chamber?”

  How do you know the punishment is disproportionate and why is proportianality an ethical principle? All you’re saying is that you don’t like the God of Bible and His decisions. So should we all base our morality on what pleases and displeases you?
  

  Published: December 22, 2008 1:56 PM

• Brian Macker

  Dear Bruce,

  The Masters degree in divine economy theory is free!

  But the book you need to get it isn't.

  "If you know that the market is a place where information flows why would you want to fall back into an anti-capitalist mode and try to smear the function of advertising?"

  I honestly don't believe you actually think I was smearing advertising. This is just a little to transparently ridiculous.

  As was your other implication that I was scorning scientific science or ethics. What you are doing is neither. I can understand Austrian economics and scientific progress in ethics, read evolutionary psychology, etc. without buying into your religion.

  I know that in your opinion the world fits neatly into your imagined boundaries."

  A platitude. Plus you have little conception of what I believe.

  "I also know that I understand things differently."

  Another platitude. So did the guys who flew the planes into the World Trade Center.

  Let me explain further because it is quite apparent that you do not understand that you are speaking in platitudes. Everybody already understands that when people disagree that "they understand things differently." So pointing it out is pointless. Furthermore the position is symmetrical. I can make the same statement. I understand things differently.

  Similarly many of your other statements are, stand alone, platitudes. Like "Humans carry their thoughts into the realm of action." No kidding? People think before they act. Who would've guessed?

  Others are false platitudes like "Being a seeker after truth is part of the human operating system." This in fact is not the truth. Plenty of people don't care about the truth and like to live in their isolated little mental bubbles. Heck they sign hymns in homage to avoiding the truth, like "Gimme that Old Time Religion" which includes the refrain "If it's good enough for mom and dad. It's good enough for me."

  Likewise lessons like not biting from the fruit of the tree of knowledge, and the story of Doubting Thomas. All about not questioning, and not seeking the truth.

  Others like "Human rights are property rights and property rights are human rights." are redundant platitudes and actually wrong. Human rights are actually a misconception, and not equivalent to natural rights. Hell, natural rights aren't equivalent to natural rights in some cases since some conceive of natural rights as being based on God given rights while others ground those rights in man's naturalistic nature.

  Some just make no sense what-so-ever, like "Acquisition of virtues constitutes private property." What the hell could that possibly me. So if I decide that I'm not going to swear I then own something? Makes no sense.

  Why is number ten "The first and foremost ethic for the divine economy is trust in God." You'd think it would be number one. The next question would be "Who's God and which god".

  Numbers 5) and 6) are profound sounding nonsense. Exactly the definition of a platitude.

  What's beyond me is why anyone would think this particular eclectic set of platitudes are a set of axioms that would be needed for building a system of ethics. Where the hell is the golden rule?

  This was not an exhaustive criticism of the list either.

  
  

  Published: December 22, 2008 11:27 PM

• Brian Macker

  Without God, morality that has authority over all men cannot be defined.

  I’m sorry to tell you this but all avenues to deriving morality from God were closed long ago. One can always question the validity of any of the many steps used to supposedly derive morality from God. In the end it is always a human mind that has to make the decision at each step. This by itself makes such claims non-universal.

  Student: “Why is it moral to slay the infidel?”
  Imam: “Because Allah says to.”
  Student: “But how do I know that Allah says this?”
  Imam: “Because it is written in the Qur’an”
  Student: “But how do I know that the Qur’an is not corrupted.”
  Imam: “Because it was written by Allah at the beginning of time”
  Student: “How do I know that is true?”
  …
  Student: “But it is obvious such a rule is immoral. Surely if Allah claimed such a rule as true then he his immoral. Why should I listen to him.”
  …
  Student: “What evidence do you have that such an evil being even exists.”
  …

  In fact, morality “derived from God” does not have authority over all men. Islamic morality certainly counts as morality that is derived from God. I don’t accept the authority of Islamic morality at all. Do you?

  ”Of course, people can make up any morality they want, but it has no authority over others.”
  All religions and moralities are “made up.” What was placed in the bible was decided by committee. It is the job of the Pope to make up new rules, and new interpretations. One day it’s bad to believe the Earth goes round the Sun and the next day it isn’t. All such rulings on the supposed authority of God.

  ”In other words, you have no right to impose it on others.”
  That’s where you are wrong. I can “make up” something that corresponds to reality.

  I can make up the rule, “I won’t murder you if you don’t murder me.” Then you can abide by the rule or not. If you try to violate the rule and I prevent it then who are you to complain? On what grounds can you object to me killing you if you feel that you can kill me on a whim?

  Reciprocity has a logical power that does not require any God to justify it.

  ”Exactly. And I never wrote that it [, religion,] does [have authority]. Only God has the authority over mankind to determine what is right and wrong for all mankind. Religion is the search for what God has determined is right and wrong.”

  That’s just a bald assertion of the incorrect assumptions you’ve already accepted. You assume God exists, and you assume that if he exists that the determined right from wrong. It’s perfectly plausible that he doesn’t exist, and that if he does that morality is external to him, and/or that he is amoral or immoral.

  ”That’s what man without God does, and I have no problem with it. But as I wrote, you have no authority to impose your ethics on anyone who disagrees.”

  That depends on what my ethics say. Some moralities have no logical power. Like your example of the moral rule “Kill all left handed people”.

  ”Only those who voluntarily agree to your ethics are subject to them.”
  Again, that depends on the ethical rule. Everyone is subject to the rule “do not murder others lest they murder you.” unless they wish to be murdered. Now they can certainly say, “I do not abide by this rule.” but perhaps we don’t believe them till they try something. At which point we are perfectly justified in killing them to enforce the rule, because without it there is no grounds upon which to complain.

  ” If another group comes up with a different set of ethics, for example that all left-handed people should be killed, then you have no logical reason to say they are wrong.

  Sure I do. It’s illogical to kill left handed people. That’s logical grounds. Furthermore, there is no reason for left handed people and friends of left handed people to assent to such a rule. There is no benefit what-so-ever to them, so it can’t be reciprocal.

  Lacking reciprocality is a perfectly good reason not to assent to a rule. Would you accept a game of chess with someone else where they are allowed to move onto whatever square they please but you are not?

  You can only say that you disagree.”

  I can do more than disagree. I can prevent those who wish to kill left handed people on the basis of their morality. On what ethical grounds are they going to stop me? They can’t claim the rule was to my benefit in the first place.

  ”That’s what theology is all about, determining what God says. It’s no more difficult than economics.”

  Says the guy who can’t figure out why killing left people is not perfectly logical. If theology is such a snap then why have theologist throughout history been so factionalized, often having literally bloody conflicts with their closest rival sects?

  ” By definition, God can’t order people to do something evil.”
  Yet, he (and his representatives) do order evil according to the various religions. Don’t tell me you are that ignorant of religious literature. The Deists were so repulsed by much of the bible that they claimed that it was a defamation of his nature. Yet others, fundamentalists, your namesake, take the bible literally.
  
  ” His morality issues from his nature and He won’t act against His own nature.”
  You are just making tautological claims. Yet, it is quite clear that God not only commands evil in the bible, such as slavery, but actively participates. This is the danger with such thinking. It gets to the point with some idiots that they try to work out the logic of this and decide that God really wants people stoned for being gay.

  ” Maybe you refer to instances in the Bible when God ordered the killing of large numbers of people.”
  Yes, he’s commanded many an atrocity. Essentially saying to invade a neighboring city and slaughter every living being inside.

  Worse, he supposedly had every man, woman, and child on the planet murdered except for the few on Noah’s ark.

  ” It’s clear from these stories that God communicated his morality to the people in question and they had refused to obey.”

  As a matter of fact that is not clear at all. The whole point of these kinds of stories is not that God wasn’t listened to but that his prophets weren’t. That is, those claiming to speak for god. Furthermore, it wasn’t like all the small children and babies that were drown in the Noahian flood actually were competent to make such judgements.

  Do you find drowning an acceptable preemptive punishment for non-believers. If so then why aren’t you advocating that we drown all the people in Hindu, and Buddhist societies? Why aren’t you advocating drowning them down to the last baby?

  Perhaps because it’s an unspeakably evil act?

  It’s worse yet for God since he could have spoken to each and every person individually with no need for a middleman. Easier than you lifting your pinky.

  No, these stories were designed to fool the gullible, to strike fear into them and make them obey the priests. Unfortunately, or fortunately they make God look like and evil bastard instead.

  ” As God, he has the authority to judge and punish such criminal behavior.”
  It is clear from the wanton nature of the punishments that the innocent as well as the guilt were rounded up punishment. Lest you are so evil as to think babies should be judged and punished.

  ” Besides, on what authority do you sit in judgement of God?”

  What a silly question. On what authority do you sit in judgment of Allah, of Zeus, of Santa? On what authority do you sit in judgment of anything?

  I sit in judgment of these fictional stories on the basis of rationality, that’s what. It’s irrational to execute babies for supposed disobedience to what are obviously poorly communicated rules. This is especially true if the baby hasn’t broken any of the rules.

  ” How do you know the punishment is disproportionate and why is proportianality an ethical principle?

  I know what is disproportionate because I have a brain. Slaughtering babies and sending them to hell to burn for eternity is the definition of disproportionate. Flooding the entire earth is the very definition of disproportion.

  Taking someone who has lived a good life and never harmed another and roasting them in fire for eternity merely for lacking a belief in your existence is the height of disproportion. Especially if you have the power to show your existence but instead hide to the point where people wonder “Is God Dead.” Especially if you wrap the supposed evidence for your existence with absurdities, like virgin births, following stars, worldwide floods, and walking on water.

  All you’re saying is that you don’t like the God of Bible and His decisions.”
  That’s just what you want to believe. I’m saying much more than that. I’m laughing because it is precisely this kind of reasoning that Mohammed took advantage of. After using this incredibly weak assertion it leaves me wondering what your response would be to a Muslim who said the same to you, after you objected to Allah’s decisions as written by Mohammed.

  Suppose you were arguing that the Qur’an is obviously not the work of a moral being on the basis of the quite obviously evil directives and actions therein. Now suppose in response they said, “All you’re saying is that you don’t like the Allah of the Qur’an and His decisions.” Would that have any weight in your mind as a valid response. Of course not.

  So should we all base our morality on what pleases and displeases you?
  I retort the same to you. Should we all base our morality on your credulous belief in the imaginary, merely on the basis that it pleases you? I don’t think so.

  So when your God (or gods) tells me to hate cripples, stone my children, or dress a certain way I’ll take a pass. I'll interpret them as your cultural preferences and not any objective morality.

  "... why is proportianality an ethical principle?"

  You don't know why proportionality is an ethical principle? Do you know what the purpose of punishment is? I bet you don't. Right about now I'm wondering if you know anything about ethics at all. Not surprising since you don't think ethics is about principles, but instead about what a deity says or doesn't. I guess, using that metric, morality could be just anything.

  Do you object to chopping off the hands of thieves? I object on the grounds of proportionality, among other reasons.

  One of the objections to an eternal hell as a punishment is that punishment is mean to correct behavior. We don't punish the insane precisely because to do so would not serve the purpose of changing their behavior. They are not in control of their behavior by definition. Punishing the insane and the mentally incompetent serves only to torture and nothing else.

  The same goes for punishing the damned for eternity. Someone who is being burnt for eternity has no future opportunity to act. He cannot change his behavior. Thus the punishment cannot serve the purpose of changing behavior. It thus becomes purely torture.

  That's a few of the grounds upon which I sit in judgment of YOUR conception of YOUR god.
  

  Published: December 23, 2008 1:47 AM

• Bruce Koerber

  Dear Brian,

  Again I will point out to you that you have made things up in your own mind. There is no text requirement unless giving people an option is in your mind a requirement.

  Your invalid statements (I have made you aware of several of them.) should be a signal to you - a red flag - that you are rabid, for whatever reason.

  And of course when I point out anything that demonstrates your error you respond with your defensive fall back statement: 'platitude.'

  If you have points to make, and you do, they would be better made without mixing in your personal biases and your assumptions about things simply made up by you in your own mind.

  By the way, your criticisms of the axioms have the strong proof of your opinion analogous to the loud-shouting counter opinions given by the ones who the overlords select to debate Peter Schiff. In other words, if the point is said loud enough and with enough hysteria it has to be true!

  Despite your vehement statements I understand ethics differently than you and I have no problem with you understanding ethics the way you do.

  Published: December 23, 2008 10:23 AM

• fundamentalist

  Brian: “In fact, morality “derived from God” does not have authority over all men.”

  You’re confusing the application of God’s law with the logical basis for it. All philosophers have claimed is that without God there is no logical basis for a universal morality. As a result, their attitude was “why bother?” No one has ever claimed that everyone on the planet would submit to God’s will even if they knew exactly what it was. But that is different from having a logical defense of morality.

  Brian: “I can make up the rule, “I won’t murder you if you don’t murder me.” Then you can abide by the rule or not. If you try to violate the rule and I prevent it then who are you to complain? On what grounds can you object to me killing you if you feel that you can kill me on a whim?”

  Clearly, if we agree on something and I break the agreement, I am in the wrong. But you have no right to take any action beyond refusing to associate with me. Who authorized you to take another persons life?

  Brian: “Reciprocity has a logical power that does not require any God to justify it.”

  That doesn’t make it moral. It’s just your personal idea of right action, even if you used very sound reason to arrive at it. It doesn’t apply to anyone else. Besides, the morality of God, especially that developed by natural law, has far more logic to it, yet you would deny it the same power.

  Brian: “You assume God exists, and you assume that if he exists that the determined right from wrong.”

  No. I don’t assume God exists. I use reason and reality to determine the truth of God’s existence. The fact that mankind has a conscience and desperately seeks a universal morality is a small part of the evidence of God’s existence because natural selection could not have produced such a desire in mankind. Natural selection violates the principle of cause and effect by which the effect cannot be greater than the cause, the effect being the desire for morality.

  Brian: “It’s perfectly plausible that he doesn’t exist, and that if he does that morality is external to him, and/or that he is amoral or immoral.”

  If He doesn’t exist, then there is no such thing as universal morality. We are left with the preferences of each individual.

  Brian: “That depends on what my ethics say. Some moralities have no logical power. Like your example of the moral rule “Kill all left handed people”.

  Any moral principle can be rationalized if you start with the appropriate assumptions. Different assumptions will lead to different conclusion about morals even if the process in between is perfectly logical with no contradictions. Hoppe’s ethic demonstrates that very well.

  Brian: “Everyone is subject to the rule “do not murder others lest they murder you.” unless they wish to be murdered.”

  That’s not a rule. That’s a simple statement of fact. If you murder someone, it’s likely that someone close to the murdered person will try to murder you in response. That doesn’t mean that committing murder is immoral.

  Brian: “At which point we are perfectly justified in killing them to enforce the rule, because without it there is no grounds upon which to complain.”

  Justified on what grounds? If you can’t show that the first murder was immoral, then you can’t say that murdering the murderer is justified.

  Brian: “It’s illogical to kill left handed people.”

  Not if I assume that left handed people are evil and a danger to society. My example is easy to attack because it was purposely extreme. But take euthenasia as an example. Before WWII people thought that letting poor, dumb people to marry was an evil against humanity because it harmed the gene pool. They based their attitude on the “scientific” principle of evolution. Hitler took the next logical step to preserve the German race. Where is the flaw in Hitler’s logic?

  Brian: “Lacking reciprocality is a perfectly good reason not to assent to a rule.”

  What is this fetish you have for reciprocity? And who cares about assent? If left handed people don’t assent to my rule, which I think is logical, I can still kill them and not have committed an immoral act because my actions are moral within my logical system of morality.

  Brian: “I can prevent those who wish to kill left handed people on the basis of their morality. On what ethical grounds are they going to stop me?”

  On what ethical grounds are you going to stop them? You have your morals and they have theirs. Based on their ethical system, they have every ethical ground for stopping you.

  Brian: “If theology is such a snap then why have theologist throughout history been so factionalized, often having literally bloody conflicts with their closest rival sects?”

  I never said it was easy or that everyone would agree. Just as with your personal ethics; not everyone will agree with them.

  Brian: “Yet, he (and his representatives) do order evil according to the various religions.”

  That’t not logical. If God exists, then He has the authority to do anything He wishes and by definition it is not immoral or evil. Only God has that authority. In Christianity, morality comes from God’s nature, so He will not act against it. In Islam, morality is something Allah intended just for mankind and He is not bound by it. His representatives may deliberately disobey God’s morality and commit evil, but God can’t.

  Brian: “The Deists were so repulsed by much of the bible that they claimed that it was a defamation of his nature.”

  But that begs the question, how did the Deists know what God’s nature was like? If not revealed in the Bible, then they couldn’t possibly know what God was like. The Deists had created their own morality and used it to judge God, but clearly, without God no morality exists. The Deists were sadly confused people.

  Brian: “Yet, it is quite clear that God not only commands evil in the bible, such as slavery, but actively participates.”

  On what ground is slavery and the other “evils” that God commands in the Bible evil? Your personal opinion?

  Brian: “Yes, he’s commanded many an atrocity. Essentially saying to invade a neighboring city and slaughter every living being inside.”

  If God exists, does he not have the right to do what He wants with His creation? You think that murdering another person who committed murders is a good thing and moral, but you are neither the creator of that person you would murder, nor an authority over him. You place yourself in the role of God. But God does have authority over mankind and if he judges that an entire city of people are too evil to continue living, then what right do you have to judge Him? Are you God’s creator?

  Brian: “As a matter of fact that is not clear at all. The whole point of these kinds of stories is not that God wasn’t listened to but that his prophets weren’t. That is, those claiming to speak for god. Furthermore, it wasn’t like all the small children and babies that were drown in the Noahian flood actually were competent to make such judgements.”

  Yes, it is clear. You just refuse to accept the truth. As for the small children and babies that drowned in the flood, you think it would be more human to allow them to live without adults to care for them? They would quickly starve to death.

  Brian: “Do you find drowning an acceptable preemptive punishment for non-believers. If so then why aren’t you advocating that we drown all the people in Hindu, and Buddhist societies? Why aren’t you advocating drowning them down to the last baby?”

  Because I’m not God. Besides, if you actually read the Bible, you’ll find that God never punished people preemptively. In fact, he rarely punished people for unbelief. God’s judgments generally fell on people for murder and human sacrifice they were committing.

  Brian: “It’s worse yet for God since he could have spoken to each and every person individually with no need for a middleman. Easier than you lifting your pinky.”

  Again, if you knew the Bible, you would realize that God does that with every person who has ever lived on this planet, and still does it. He sends the human representative after everything else has failed as one last warning.

  Brian: “I sit in judgment of these fictional stories on the basis of rationality, that’s what.”

  And here we come full circle: without God there is no rational basis for universal morality.

  Brian: “I know what is disproportionate because I have a brain. Slaughtering babies and sending them to hell to burn for eternity is the definition of disproportionate.”

  You think very highly of your brain. But as Hayek wrote, intelligence is highly overrated. Wisdom is far more important and wisdom begins with humility. Besides, if you actually read the Bible you would find that no babies or children go to hell because they have not reached the age of accountability.

  Brian: “Taking someone who has lived a good life and never harmed another and roasting them in fire for eternity merely for lacking a belief in your existence is the height of disproportion.”

  Again, you don’t know the Bible because you haven’t read it. Neither do you know the life that every person has lived. God, and only God, has the power to judge correctly the life that any person has lived. God would never send someone who has lived a good life to hell. But then, you want to determine the standard for what constitutes a good life. God reserves that right for Himself. According to God’s standard, every man and woman who has ever lived deserves to go to hell, because we have all violated His standards multiple times in our lives. So in God’s eyes, no one has lived a good life. Because of His love, He provided a way out through His son, who’s birth we commemorate this week.

  Brian: “Especially if you have the power to show your existence but instead hide to the point where people wonder “Is God Dead.”

  Evidence of God is everywhere. That doesn’t mean people will accept it. Again, if you had read the Bible you would know that God has distanced Himself from mankind because mankind rebelled against God and doesn’t want to have anything to do with Him. God will not force Himself on people the way you insist He should.

  Brian; “Especially if you wrap the supposed evidence for your existence with absurdities, like virgin births, following stars, worldwide floods, and walking on water.”

  So what would you propose that God do to prove His existence? The Bible claims that He speaks to every person who is born. He has appeared to many people, but most people are like you and doubt those experiences. So you think everyone would believe in God if He appeared in front of their eyes? How would they know He was God? Wouldn’t He have to perform some sort of miracle, which you already consider a stupid thing to do? What would prevent you from thinking it was a dream brought on by pepperoni pizza? My point is that God has already done everything you ask of Him, and most people like you reject any attempt by God to reveal Himself to you and rationalize the experience away.
  
  Brian: “You don't know why proportionality is an ethical principle? “

  No, I don’t know wy proportionality is an ethical principle. If God didn’t say it is one, then what makes it one?

  Brian: “Do you object to chopping off the hands of thieves? I object on the grounds of proportionality, among other reasons.”

  I don’t see why chopping off the hands of thieves violates proportionality. Proportionality is very subjective. You may think something lacks proportion when I don't.

  Brian: “One of the objections to an eternal hell as a punishment is that punishment is mean to correct behavior.”

  That’s a very modern view of punishment and I don’t agree with it. Until very recently, punishment was to carry out justice, that is, to give criminals what they deserved for crimes committed and the victims what they deserve.
  

  Published: December 23, 2008 11:15 AM

• Uri DeYoung

  Morality.

  If we reject a God-given, universally applicable code of morality, why would it be "immoral" or "illegal" to murder, rape and steal?

  From my understanding, there are two reasons put forth by Libertarians:

  1. The Utilitarian argument that the initiation of force causes everyone's material well-being to suffer, and therefore we must ban the initiation of force.

  2. Natural rights, as put forth by Rothbard and Rand; i.e. that man survives by reason-directed action, and that when one person uses force to deny someone the right to act and keep the fruits of his actions, the victim may use force to protect himself.

  To Number 1, one could answer that the initiation of force may cause SOME people's material well-being to suffer, but the initiator could live quite comfortably on the fruits of his plunder. Examples abound: the Mafia, royalty, dictators, warlords, congressmen. So, why should we refrain from using force?

  To Number 2 one could answer in typical Rothbardian style: "So what?" If I have more firepower than any of my victims, why should I not use it to enrich myself? It's "morally wrong" or "irrational"? Says you -- and the eggheads at the Mises Institute. Maybe my "morality" says that I should maximize my fun in this world, and to that end I should live the life of Liberia's infamous General Butt-Naked.

  I would appreciate clarification of any points that I may have misunderstood.

  Published: December 24, 2008 6:33 AM

• Bruce Koerber

  History is a part of human knowledge.

  It is impossible to separate religion from history since it has been an important aspect of human life since the beginning of recorded time.

  If some individual wants to exclude religion from the unfolding of human civilization that is their right but it is not their right to expect that everyone else is supposed to erase religion from history.

  It is a fantasy, undefendable, that there is such a thing as history without the effects of religion. In contrast it would be scientific to recognize the importance and inseparability of religion and human history and then to find a way to understand it without trying to fit it into an atheistic box.

  No one is saying that a person cannot choose to be an atheist but trying to impose atheism on human history is unscientific. Those who try to impose atheism on human history and then claim that they are being scientific may be able to fool themselves and they may be able to fool some people but, like the Keynesians, they are unscientific.

  Published: December 24, 2008 7:51 AM

• Brian Macker

  Bruce,

  You realize that comments sections are about discussion and you put your econo-religious beliefs up here as a talking point. Then you imputed that I was immoral for criticizing your econo-religious systems set of axioms. It's pretty silly of you to whine about someone actually criticizing your wholesale invention on the basis of claiming "your assumptions about things simply made up by you in your own mind."

  If you are so sensitive about your beliefs, the axioms, that you interpret simple criticism as "rabid", "loud-shouting", "bias", "hysteria", and "vehement" then I suggest that you express them within the confines of a religious ceremony on your own private property.

  I explained in detail why most of your axioms are platitudes, and didn't merely sling it as some kind of name calling. They, in fact, match the definition of platitude quite well.

  There is plenty of other criticism to be made with regard to your axioms, like what on earth are you trying to accomplish. I'm not going to get into it because a) It's clear you can't take criticism. b) You view religious belief as beyond criticism. c) You interpret criticism of your beliefs as and attempt to impose other beliefs on you.

  "I have no problem with you understanding ethics the way you do."

  Obviously you do have a problem with my understanding ethics in a different way. Your characterizing my opinion as bias and hysteria shows you to be hypocritical in making this statement.

  Your debating methods are intellectually dishonest. Instead of merely supporting your position you try to frame you opponent as immoral, emotional, etc.

  On to another point.
  "By the way, your criticisms of the axioms have the strong proof of your opinion ..."

  I guess that was in response to the following chain of comments:
  

  You: I know that in your opinion the world fits neatly into your imagined boundaries."

  Me: A platitude. Plus you have little conception of what I believe.

  This is a ludicrous response. You make up a set of axioms in an attempt to fit the world neatly into a box, and then when I criticize them you somehow figure out that "in my opinion the world fits neatly into" my "imagined boundaries".

  I happen to think the world is a very messy place, and also believe that any model of the world is bound to be inaccurate. Which is the exact opposite from what you claimed about my beliefs. That's why I said you have little conception of my beliefs.

  Frankly, I don't know what your problem is. I have no idea why you are read so much emotion into criticism and can't see simple reasoning. I don't know why you speak in platitudes, and don't see the contradictory nature of your positions.

  However, that's not my problem, it's yours. You have to look inside yourself and determine why you feel your ideas are above criticism. I certainly don't have that problem.
  
  

  Published: December 24, 2008 9:13 AM

• Brian Macker

  Fundamentalist,

  "Again, you don’t know the Bible because you haven’t read it."

  Unfortunately that is not true. I've read it and it's full of nonsense. Besides anyone can write a book and claim God wrote it and you still have the same problem. It's already been done.

  I can see from your comments where you are coming from. In your mind God can commit any crime and it becomes moral. Meanwhile, any crime becomes moral if he instructs you to do it.

  That's extremely scary and is the kind of thinking that lead to 9/11. Morality is more than "What God says to do."

  Given your position it is impossible to defend against other peoples claims about what God is telling them to do.

  If this is what early Christians believed then it's no wonder that Islam took over the homeland of Christianity. The Muslims had their own instructions from God and Christians had no ready answer.

  Hell, right now you couldn't even defend against the claims of the terrorists. The most you could do is say, "That's not what god told me to do". You have however claimed that God speaks to everyone, so they can retort, "Well he told us to do something different."

  You can't argue against that because, in fact, you claim that God can do whatever he pleases with the world, including the death and torture of innocent babies. Surely he can play the prank of telling you one thing and the Muslims another.

  It's certainly clear that in your conception he has no problem running an eternal torture chamber. Why not have a little sadistic fun here on earth while he's at it too.

  Heck, any murderer could claim that God had spoken to them and ordered the execution of his victim.

  Published: December 24, 2008 9:56 AM

• fundamentalist

  Brian: "I've read it and it's full of nonsense."

  If you have read it, you clearly didn't undestand what you read. The comments of yours above that I pointed out demonstrate that you have not understood it.

  Brian: "In your mind God can commit any crime and it becomes moral."

  No, that's distorting what I wrote. God cannot commit crimes by definition. Just because you don't like how God acts doesn't mean those acts are criminal. It just means that you don't like it. To have moral authority over God you have have to be His creator. Only then could you judge his actions.

  Published: December 24, 2008 11:09 AM

• Brian Macker

  ""In your mind God can commit any crime and it becomes moral.""

  "No, that's distorting what I wrote."

  Only by a rationalization did you write something that does not match what I said. You merely defined the issue away by equivocating on what crime is. You've given an alternate definition of crime that no normal person would assent to.

  No normal person would assent to the idea that having their baby tortured, mauled, drowned, burned, etc. is "good" merely on the grounds that God is the sick SOB doing it.

  "God cannot commit crimes by definition."
  That's a convenient definition, and ridiculous.

  "Just because you don't like how God acts doesn't mean those acts are criminal."
  It's not because I don't like them that they are criminal. It's because they are crimes that they are criminal.

  If God burns down a building with an innocent baby in it then he has committed murder. You can't kill a baby just because you made it. In fact, he didn't even make the baby, the parents actually did. It's a product of their choice, not his, even in your fantasy metaphysics.

  "To have moral authority over God you have have to be His creator. Only then could you judge his actions."

  Baloney. Just because you create something doesn't mean you can do with it as you please. The fact that I create a baby does not mean that I get to do with it as I please. I can't kill it on a whim, torture it, etc.

  In fact, the obligation runs the other way round. I as the person who created the baby have an obligation to care for it while it is unable to do so itself. I know that when I created the baby that it would be helpless. Therefore it is I who put the baby in the position it is in. The baby is innocent in this regard.

  When someone sets up a situation then they are responsible for the consequences of that situation. If I'm flying a plane I built over over a suburb I can't just put on a parachute and jump out declaring, "I renounce ownership of this plane. I am the creator and therefore I get to decide what happens.". My actions have put others in danger of no fault of their own, and I am responsible. It is my duty to make sure that plane lands safely.

  Likewise bringing a baby into the world puts it in danger, and it is my duty to protect the baby against that danger.

  So your imagined God has a responsibility to his creations even if you don't recognize that.

  Furthermore your claim is nonsense on further grounds. You implicitly claim that I can only judge Gods morality if I am his creator. This however leads to absurdities like the belief that I cannot judge the moral actions of others merely because I am not their creators.

  I did not create the burglar who breaks into my house or the guy who tries to murder me. Yet I have full moral authority to stop either one of them. Furthermore, I am fully in my rights to use lethal force, should it come to that, to do so.

  There are ethical reasons that I can't jump directly to lethal force but that is not because I don't have moral authority. The fact is that I can stop them because they are violating the principles of reciprocity that may me refrain from interfering with their actions in the first place.

  There are no rules to ethics that allow God to be above moral reprimand. Ethics is a rational enterprise and even if God has the power to do as he likes he's still the logic's bitch. He still is a murderer when he murders.

  To say otherwise is to abandon reason, which I see you have no problem doing. Just don't pretend that you are being reasonable. You aren't. You are only play acting at being reasonable.

  Brian: "I've read it and it's full of nonsense."

  You: If you have read it, you clearly didn't undestand what you read.

  No clearly, you haven't understood it. If you did then you would renounce your Christianity, like I have.

  The bible is full of crazy and contradictory nonsense. If you didn't realize that then you were not paying attention.

  Books and articles pointing this out are freely available in our culture. I'm not going to write a bunch of examples here. Read some of the literature written by our Founding Father's for examples. Thomas Paine's book "The Age of Reason" would be a good starting point.

  I have no problem with people being Christian if they want for traditional reasons, social reasons, cultural reasons, etc. Hell I celebrate Christmas. Just don't try to tell me nonsense like the idea that morality can't be based on anything other than the concept of a diety. That's factually incorrect.

  I know because I live by a code of morality that isn't, and yes certain aspects of that morality does have moral authority over you. Like my belief that you are not allowed to murder me. Just try to murder me and you will find out how that moral authority is enforced. It's recognized and enforced by men, not gods.

  BTW, your beliefs about natural selection are also nonsense. Natural selection has no problem generating organisms that have morals. All that is require for morality to arise is that a) it needs to be a good strategy to survive, b) being moral is incrementally better in degrees, c) and that mutations happen to arise to walk you up the slope of morality. Nothing more. No creator, no plan.

  It is clear from the evidence of other animals that morality can arise incrementally. We can see lower stages in the process.

  Published: December 24, 2008 1:34 PM

• fundamentalist

  Brian: "Natural selection has no problem generating organisms that have morals."

  I'll sign off on this discussion with an appeal to authority. I know it's irrational, but I thought I would join you in your total lack of rationality on the subject.

  All of the great 20th century philosophers were atheists and all agreed that without God morality is impossible. That includes the post-modernists. A small amount of humility should cause one to ask why such intelligent men would uniformly agree on that subject across more than a century. Those men were neither religious fanatics nor idiots. Aren't you even the least bit curious?

  
  

  Published: December 24, 2008 2:13 PM

• Bruce Koerber

  It's clear that you want the last word to feel victorious!

  You recreated how the discussion unfolded but forgot that you initiated all of the conflicts and attacked every response.

  Its in print and you can go back and read it if your memory fails you.

  The Mises blog serves as a place for dialogue but you carry it further and use belligerent tactics. For what? You imply that you are 'right' but if that is the case then you would be peaceful. Even if the content of what you say is correct, if you hit other people with it in a deliberate manner then it is wrong.

  The irony is that you act this way when you are speaking about ethics? Step back and contemplate.

  Published: December 24, 2008 2:54 PM

• Brian Macker

  Fundamentalist,

  "All of the great 20th century philosophers were atheists"

  False. Many of the great philosophers of the 20th Century were agnostics. Even if I spot you the agnostics are surely many theists on any such list.

  I've never seen Acton on a list of atheists, I think he counts as "Great".

  You should be careful using gross over-generalizations.

  "and all agreed that without God morality is impossible. "

  False, and can be proven false with one example, Daniel Dennett is a great 20th Century Philosopher and he would disagree. There are many others.

  I wouldn't call her a "great philosopher" but she was popular, and Ayn Rand, certainly counts as a atheist philosopher that would not agree that without god there can be no "morals". She has a zero god based moral system.

  The whole "great" issue is subjective however.

  In fact, I don't know of a single atheist philosopher that thinks that morality requires a God. Certainly Christian Moral Theory requires a God but that's an entirely different subject. Just because Christianity collapses in the absence of a God doesn't mean the field of ethics does.

  "That includes the post-modernists."
  I wouldn't count any post-modernists as great philosophers, more like 3rd rate Marxists.

  "A small amount of humility should cause one to ask why such intelligent men would uniformly agree on that subject across more than a century."

  I'm not talking with a great philosopher. I'm talking with you. No humility required. Furthermore, great men are never of one voice and that is why an appeal to authority doesn't work here. Not that, if you understood philosophy, appeals to authority ever work.

  Arguments must stand on their own, and in-so-far as I understand the arguments there is no humility required in dealing with them.

  You seem to assume that I haven't read anything on the subject of philosophy. You are mistaken.

  BTW, I object to your injecting the ad hominem* of my "humility" into the argument.

  *See I have read some philosophy

  "Those men were neither religious fanatics nor idiots.

  You don't have to be an idiot or religious fanatic to get things completely wrong. The fact that they disagree means someone's wrong, and possibly everyone is wrong. The same goes for god based religions.

  Aren't you even the least bit curious?"

  Apparently I'm more curious than you. I actually knew they weren't all atheists after all.

  I've read Plato, Kant, Popper, Dennett, Rand, Hume, Russell, .... and so on. I've taken University level courses in philosophy. I've taken courses in logic. I've read at least 30 books on philosophy.

  Perhaps you should ground your future statements in information that you actually have instead of things that you have fantasized.

  "I know it's irrational, but I thought I would join you in your total lack of rationality on the subject."

  The only person being irrational in our conversation is you. I actually value rationality extremely highly on my scale of values. So much so that when rationality contradicted faith I choose the former and rejected the latter. I betcha you can't make that claim.

  Feel free to claim my total lack of faith. That would at least be well founded. That might buy you something in church but it isn't going to get you anywhere in an argument.

  
  

  Published: December 24, 2008 2:59 PM

• fundamentalist

  Brian: "I've read at least 30 books on philosophy."

  Apparently you understood them as poorly as you understood the Bible.

  Published: December 24, 2008 3:42 PM

• Brian Macker

  "It's clear that you want the last word to feel victorious!"

  Nope, I just happen to disagree with you, and also happen to be on vacation. I'm also not adverse to argumentation.

  I certainly don't think the person who gets the last word in wins. In fact, I thought you were failing to support your position all along.

  "You recreated how the discussion unfolded but forgot that you initiated all of the conflicts and attacked every response."

  You've just describe an argument. Are you unfamiliar with this concept. I disagree with you. Of course I am going to attack the ideas you presented.

  Where do you get this idea that you can present your beliefs unchallenged in a public forum?

  "Its in print and you can go back and read it if your memory fails you."

  There's nothing wrong with what I did. Calling a platitude a platitude is not a crime.

  "The Mises blog serves as a place for dialogue but you carry it further and use belligerent tactics. For what?"

  What specifically did you think was 'belligerent'? I don't see anything belligerent about it. Questioning is not belligerence.

  I don't think you are evil. However, if you start insinuating that I'm unethical then I'll certainly point out a little hypocrisy on your part.

  I'm actually trying to teach you something while you argue with me. Some of your methods of debate hit below the belt. You should refrain from those.

  You may not realize it but religious claims are, in many instances, inherently belligerent. You should be aware that people with other religious beliefs are on this economics forum and when you start injecting religion into it that it's bound to get ugly. You should accept that fact.

  Christians can't spend two thousand years denouncing non-believers as evil , persecuting them on that account, and then expect to pull out the God card without getting some push-back.

  Implicit in the idea that God is the source of good and bad, when married to a bible that excoriates unbelievers as evil, is quite a bit of insult. It's like a racist talking in front of a Jew about what a great guy Hitler was.

  When you come on the forum claiming that good economics has as it's axiom God then, of course, you are going to get a discussion going. Not everyone here is a Christian.

  "Even if the content of what you say is correct, if you hit other people with it in a deliberate manner then it is wrong."

  Are you speaking about the convention established by believers that religion should not be questioned? Why is that? Why do religious people get to express their views without question, regardless of the insult it carries, but if a non-believer expresses his opinion that is wrong?

  I contend that the only reason you believe it is wrong is because you were taught it was wrong. I very much doubt that you will be able to support your contention that expressing truths to other people in a deliberate is wrong.

  You have written a book expressing a theory, are charging money for the book, have set up web sites, etc. You are trying to persuade others of your beliefs. You are running a consulting firm based on this. Yet, I'm suppose to keep my mouth shut?
  How's that right.

  Sure it hits you in the pocketbook but is that my fault?

  "You imply that you are 'right' but if that is the case then you would be peaceful."

  Exactly how am I not being "peaceful". I don't recall punching you in the nose or anything.

  Your reasoning here is almost like those Islamic fundamentalists who stab critics while screaming blaspheme. When questioned they claim that the critic was not being "peaceful".

  Blaspheme is not trespass. It would only be a trespass if I intruded into your private property to do so. Even then the trespass is not the blasphemy but the physical interference with your property, and/or your right to freedom of association.

  You can run your own blog however you want. You could erase every comment I wrote there. It's your property and you can run it as you please. Of course, if you did that people would think your beliefs couldn't stand up to criticism.

  So I don't see how I have in an way initiated force or fraud against you. I'm perfectly peaceful.

  I don't even remember calling you any names. If I have done so, and you can quote it then I will apologize.

  I won't apologize for characterizing your behavior in your writing, unless you can muster an argument that shows me wrong. You certainly have the advantage in that regard since only you truly know what you intend to mean when you write. I certainly could have misread you. I'm perfectly willing to accept reasonable excuses, we're all fallible.

  So why exactly are you calling me a non-peaceful person? Surely you don't mean what you wrote.

  
  

  Published: December 24, 2008 3:54 PM

• Bruce Koerber

  I contributed to this Mises blog dialogue strand several times and then the third time I commented I submitted this comment because I thought it might be useful: "Here are the fifteen axioms of the ethics of the divine economy (a positive ethical theory) that I have identified."

  You then over several exchanges accused me of selling a Masters degree and then of selling books both of which are half-truths. So it would be proper for you to acknowledge that you spoke half-truths as part of your 'argument' and that would suffice as an apology.

  As far as being peaceful, it will be evident.

  Published: December 24, 2008 4:14 PM

• Brian Macker

  "You then over several exchanges accused me of selling a Masters degree and then of selling books both of which are half-truths. So it would be proper for you to acknowledge that you spoke half-truths as part of your 'argument' and that would suffice as an apology."

  1) How about you explain why they are half truths.

  Saying they are half truths implies that I know more than what I've said. Certainly if I knew more and was holding back that would be a kind of lie. A lie of omission. Unfortunately, I don't know anything more than the statements I made. I'm not ommitting anything.

  I did a search on "divine economy" found your blog. I saw that you were offering degrees in your ideology and selling a book to get the degree. I did not link further to see what kinds of fees you would be charging for the degree. If you don't want people to think you are trying to make a profit off your theory perhaps you should name your blog, " Divine Economy Consulting."

  Isn't the claim that you don't charge money for your Masters Degree also a kind of half truth? I mean you charge money for the materials required to get it. Your book. Or are you claiming that the book is not required, and that you are going to provide, free of charge, all information required for the course online?

  
  2) I did this skim of you blog before I wrote the first post. When I hadn't yet seen the rest of the comments where the conversation had degraded into ethics, and a stab at atheists.

  I then gave you a sort of backhanded apology because I didn't particularly like the tone of the conversation I saw, nor your comment "You can test them or simply scorn them." I'm referring to the comment where I said, "I see the thread degraded long before you got involved."

  3) I don't just go around "scorning" ideas. My criticism is all about testing them. You either can support your claims or not. If not you've failed.

  You haven't even attempted to show why those items I identified as platitudes, are not platitudes. Being a platitude isn't a good thing but it isn't merely scorn if it's true. Platitudes are considered bad for a reason.

  Perhaps instead of posting a laundry list that looks like you were taking an opportunity to advertise your goods (which you've already practically admitted), you could have either responded directly to the article, or to some aspect of another comment.

  Who's going to know what the heck you are talking about with "Divine Economy" without looking it up. I'm sure you expected people to do a search.

  At least you didn't include a link back to your site. I'll grant you that.

  I'm also willing to apologize if you can present someone who has a Master's degree from you in Divine Economy who didn't have to shill out for a book.

  
  

  Published: December 24, 2008 5:11 PM

• Bruce Koerber

  "Or are you claiming that the book is not required, and that you are going to provide, free of charge, all information required for the course online?"

  Yes.

  "You haven't even attempted to show why those items I identified as platitudes, are not platitudes."

  Brian, you claimed they were platitudes not me. I disagree with your assessment. I assume that if someone is interested in the divine economy theory and if they are interested in what I have contributed to that theory that they would simply correspond with me.

  If a person is not interested that is fine with me. You have made it clear that you are not interested.

  If you then make the assertion that your point of view is correct and mine is wrong then I counter that with an assertion that you are poorly informed about the divine economy theory.

  If you make the assertion that your point of view is correct and that you are aware that my point of view is different than yours then we both know enough about the other to show respect for each other.

  Apparently you are convinced that you have tested the divine economy theory and found it lacking. That is why you are not interested in it.

  I have tested it and continue to test it and I have found it to be an original and significant contribution to the science of economics and the science of ethics. Our views are different.

  Published: December 25, 2008 12:26 AM

• Brian Macker

  Yes
  Well then I apologize for thinking you were making a sales pitch. Although I could not find such materials online.

  "Apparently you are convinced that you have tested the divine economy theory and found it lacking."
  It's lacking for me. I told you some of the reasons why. You post a list of axioms here like you're joining into a conversation. It didn't seem connected to the article. I would also say that it doesn't seem connected to the other comments.

  You've said: "Here's my list" and given a list that is for all appearances is a bunch of platitudes out of context. I went to your site and that doesn't help. I see that you charge money for your book. So essentially your list of axioms does not serve to inform anyone of anything here, unless we go and buy a book.

  What the hell these axioms mean is beyond me. Why you picked them and why they are compelling is also beyond me. For example, what the heck does this mean, and why did you pick it as an axiom?

  "6: The content of our actions is the conveyance of the names and attributes of God."

  I did a search for this phrase online and could only at most find this:
  

  The sixth axiom is: The content of our actions is the conveyance of the names and attributes of God.

  Our actions are manifestations of the names and attributes of God! Can you see why it is impossible to separate ethics and economics?

  That's from your site and that was totally unhelpful. Is this the entire content of what you have online to get your "Master Degree"? A platitude followed by a restatement of the platitude with an exclamation point, followed by the question: "Can you see why it is impossible to separate ethics and economics?"

  Well the answer to that question is,"No not from that platitude, and an exclamation point."

  It was utterly unhelpful.

  Suppose I wrote the following:
  

  "Axiom Q: The instrumentation of our beliefs is the utterness of the labels and properties of the devil.
  The quality of our beliefs is the utterness of the labels and properties of the devil!
  Can you see why it is impossible to separate rhythm and music?
  "

  Would that give you any idea what the heck I was talking about?

  So I'm trying to figure out what you mean. Being a person who thinks rationally I try to proceed a step at a time. Let's try to apply the sentence to a specific situation.

  Ok, It mentions "our actions" so I think of all possible actions to see if this sentence would have meaning for one of these actions. I look for a difficult case so as to better understand the meaning. Something trivial like whistling doesn't seem to be suitable.

  So I think of stabbing someone because that had come up recently at a party where someone received a set of kitchen knives and another person (not me) said "Ouch, I wouldn't want to be stabbed with that one."

  Ok, a guy is stabbing someone else as his "action". So in this sentence what does "the content" mean. Well I'm lost already. I guess the content is murder. But the phrase "content of action" is a platitude. Sounds profound but is really meaningless. But let's pretend it refers to murder in this case, since that's what the "content" of stabbing someone to death is.

  Now let's move on. The sentence now becomes, for this particular situation, "Murder is the conveyance of the names and attributes of God."

  Alright, I've got to figure out which of the several meanings of conveyance you mean. You probably don't mean "a means of moving an object". Ok, that leaves. 1) To communicate by action. or 2) To cause to pass from one person to another.

  Since names an attributes are words and concepts I don't think you mean 2) since that is physical. So you must mean 1).

  So now the sentence is: "Murder is the communication by that action of the names and attributes of God."

  Well, the names of God are Yahweh, Jehovah, The Lord Almighty, etc.

  The supposed attributes of God are Omniscience, Omnipotence, Omnipresence, All-Loving, etc.

  Well I don't see how murder conveys Gods names or attributes. In fact, I don't see how any physical action conveys Gods names or attributes.

  If you went to an Island full of people ignorant of any religion, and did all sorts of actions, like hopping, drinking, buying, selling, etc. then there would be no communication of anything about God. They'd be just as ignorant as they started. After all, they'd have seen themselves performing all these actions.

  Almost every single action has this non-effect.

  Surprisingly, there are actions that will convey the names and attributes of God. But they are trivial. You could take the action of telling the natives the names of God and telling them his attributes.

  So the sentence seems to have no meaning in most cases, but in those cases where it does have meaning that meaning is trite.

  Since trite sentences that are trying to be profound are called platitudes then this is yet another one.

  So 1) I don't see any online material to explain this sentence. 2) The sentence, stand alone, is impossible to understand, or trite. 3) If that info I found above is all there is to understanding the sentence then why does it require a "Masters Degree".

  BTW, are you accredited by some institution to offer a "Masters Degree", or did you just make that up? Why do you think you are qualified to give out such degrees? Is it more that, "I made this stuff up so I'm the most knowledgeable."
  

  Published: December 25, 2008 10:00 AM

• Bruce Koerber

  I will start here: "BTW, are you accredited by some institution to offer a "Masters Degree", or did you just make that up? Why do you think you are qualified to give out such degrees? Is it more that, "I made this stuff up so I'm the most knowledgeable."

  These are good questions. You may misunderstand my answers but here they are: No, there is not an institution accrediting this Masters Degree in divine economy theory. I am qualified because I am offering a rigorous program to study the divine economy theory. When a person is finished they will have mastered the divine economy theory as described in my first three books. Your last sentence appears to be a half-truth. I am the author of the subjective models that the theory uses to advance economic science and no one else has that knowledge as of yet. That is a fact but the motivation that you imply is incorrect.

  The sixth axiom is: The content of our actions is the conveyance of the names and attributes of God.

  You eventually used the words on the page to make it appear that logically you could arrive at: "Now let's move on. The sentence now becomes, for this particular situation, "Murder is the conveyance of the names and attributes of God."

  I think my use of the phrase 'the content of our actions' caused the confusion. A better way of stating it is: 'the motivation behind our actions.' If someone commits murder or takes an action it is purposeful. Something is desired. The essence of what is desired fulfills the desire to acquire one of the attributes of God, like power, strength, justice, etc.

  As I stated: "Not only are we attracted, mothlike, to the inherent names and attributes of God manifested by all things but we reciprocally express them."

  Published: December 25, 2008 12:45 PM