How We Might Move On From Racism

 

I like to spend time listening to people whose opinions differ from my own. During the financial crisis, I went to engage with the protesters who were camped outside banks; I've been to several Black History Month events; and I've even spent a weekend camping with environmentalists. All those experiences have been very useful in trying to understand how these groups think and what their motivations are. I've written a lot about socialism and environmentalism on this blog, but not much on racism, which is what I intend to do here.

The first thing to say about racism is that it is clearly a learned phenomenon. When young children are put together to play, they don't show any signs of racial discrimination. We are not born racist; it is implanted from other humans. What struck me from my conversations with people at the Black History Month events is how preoccupied they were with skin colour and racial wrongs from the past. I’m sure that is even truer of more hostile groups like Black Lives Matter – there is a propensity to see the world through the unhelpful, divisive and counter-progressive lens of group identity and ethno-tribal polarisation. Personally, I tend to live as much in the present as possible, I try to treat everyone as though they are loved and infinitely valuable, and I couldn’t care a jot about the things (like skin colour and ethnicity) that seem to cause so much prejudice. I care about you as a person, and am interested in you as a unique individual – not as a secondary group member to which you may happen to belong.

Now, I’m not saying the past doesn’t matter, and I’m not saying this country has no present day racism to contend with. But it seems clear to me that continually going on about past legacies, and remaining preoccupied with skin colour and so-called racial identity is only perpetuating a stratification that most people have moved on from (and most prejudice that appears racist probably isn’t racist anyway – see my blog here). This point is compounded by the fact that people who are preoccupied with what others have done to people like them in the past are generally preoccupied with what people have done to black people, as though that particular category of racism is the primary one in history. But the reality is, history is replete of all kinds of injustices committed by every kind of skin colour and ethnicity: white on black, black on white, black on black, Asian on black, white on Asian, and so on, dating back thousands of years.

We are living in a time when the anti-racists are behaving a lot like the historical racists, and the anti-fascists are behaving a lot like the historical fascists – and we need to move forward. As Marcus Aurelius said: “The best revenge is to be unlike him who performed the injury.” Suppose a magic switch was flicked, and everyone woke up tomorrow morning with no awareness of past ethnic, racial and religious injustices. Black and white people, Catholics and Protestants, Jews and Muslims, and so on, would no longer see each other through the prism of past troubles, but simply as different people co-existing alongside one another. I’m not saying that cultural identity and heritage isn’t important. But if we stopped making so much of past racial prejudices and began to refrain from preoccupations with skin colour and group identity, we’d prime ourselves for a future of diminished racial tension.

What about the Lady Susan Hussey and Ngozi Fulani debacle?
I think Lady Hussey's line of questioning could have been better, of course - but the same can be said about Ngozi Fulani's response too, which looked to be opportunist, disingenuous and self-serving. Lady Hussey was stitched up by Fulani, and then subsequently thrown under a bus by the Royals, including her own Godson, Prince William - who, if the media account is accurate, responded ignobly in this. After her 60 years of loyal service, Lady Susan Hussey deserved far better than this - and I think this has reflected very badly on the Royals.

To be fair to Ngozi Fulani, I have sympathy with the fact that it must be difficult to have your nationality questioned when she was born in the UK. And I'm sure it's not always easy to live in a nation in which your skin colour is the minority one. But it would have been very easy for her to have responded to Lady Hussey with more grace and understanding, and not to have capitalised on a poor dialogue in such an egregious way. Not that we should be surprised - from past activity, it looks very much like Ngozi Fulani is a racial grifter, in the same way that Dianne Abbott, Affua Hirsch, Yasmin Alibhai-Brown and Kerry-Anne Mendoza are racial grifters. To see what I mean by racial grifters, here's a quote from a blog post of mine from 2021:

"It seems clear that most tribal groups that peddle extremist propaganda (whether that's extreme left or right wing movements, environmentalists, woke social justice warriors or feminists) are doing so because they want to seek attention, find some meaning and purpose in their life, assuage their own insecurities and moderate their own self-dislike. And in order to this, they have to artificially construct injustices that aren't really there, or inflate the ones that are already there into something much more severe and unrepresentative of reality. An analysis of radical extremism that fails to consider what the participants personally get out of it is an anaemic analysis - and it is absurd that people go about their business as though this consideration doesn't matter. It really does matter; because if you find what's lurking beneath their virtue signalling and agenda-driven search for purpose, you'll find something dark and horrible (I'm sure it's in most of us)."

Ngozi Fulani and the aforementioned group are racial grifters in the same way that Owen Jones, Jeremy Corbyn and Ken Loach are poverty grifters; and in the same way that Greta Thunberg, George Monbiot and the numerous wacky environmentalist hysterics (Extinction Rebellion, Just-Stop-Oil, etc) are climate grifters. They make their living and their reputation on the attempted prolongation of the thing to which they claim opposition, seizing every opportunity to cry foul and attribute malice or bigotry where none exists or is intended.

And this leads us full circle to the opening points. Unless social and cultural grifting is shown up for the pernicious creep that it is, we are doomed to keep repeating the taints of the past, from which the vast majority of folk in the UK have moved on.

A Deeper Look At The Recent Census On Religious Belief

According to the headline-grabbing census, there has been a 5.5 million drop in the number of Christians in the UK, equating to a 17% fall in the number of people who identify as Christian. Apparently, it is the first time in a census of England and Wales that fewer than half of the population have described themselves as Christian. Humanists and secularists have been buoyed by this census, celebrating the news that, on the surface, we seem to live in a post-Christian society. But surface-level thinking is often deceptive, because it doesn't delve down into the real depths of the water.

Once we dive in, we'll find several key points being missed. In the first place, census results are only as good as the questions being asked. Belief and faith are complex propositions attached not just superficially to what people say, but to how people act, the values they adhere to, and the obvious deeper spiritual longings that play out alongside those actions. In the second place, for the past 100 years there has been a clearer distinction emerging between the identity of a British person as a cultural Christian and as a practising Christian who accepts Jesus as their Lord and Saviour. This distinction has been more carefully eroded away in recent decades, I'd suggest, where the number of people who call themselves Christian may have decreased as a proportion of the population, but the ones that do call themselves Christian continue to profess an active faith in the Lord Jesus, where the real decline is probably more in the demise of 'cultural Christianity'.

In the third place, despite what people claim to believe in a census, we cannot live in a post-Christian country, because Christ IS the Truth. All claims of post-truth of any kind, Christian or otherwise, are false by matters of degree. That is, people always have and always will act as though Christianity is true - in their underlying values, in their regard for truth over falsehood, for good over evil, for love over hate, for right over wrong, for marriage over divorce, for kindness over meanness, for grace and forgiveness over hostile resentment, for peace over war, the list goes on. Even if they don't consciously ascribe those qualities to a Christian underpinning, the fact is, Christ is the origin and the source of all goodness in the world. 

In one sense, of course, we've never had a Christian country in the world, because no nation has ever faithfully reflected scripture to the level that it could justifiably call itself Christian. But despite that acknowledgement, when it comes to human morals, behaviour, values and decisions, we are always acting out the Christian truths or departing from them, whether we like it and know it, or not. The cause of everything that's wrong in human society finds its origin, somewhere down the line, in not adhering to the values Christ espouses; and the cause of everything that's right in human society finds its origin, somewhere down the line, in adhering to the values Christ espouses. It is profound, but it is true - Christ's truth, love, grace, wisdom, goodness and sovereignty are the metric we use for all our value systems, because their origin is in the Creator of the universe. Irrespective of what the census reveals, we can be a post-Christian country only in what we claim to believe, not in how we structure our life and our acted-out values, because they are Christian. A swimming fish can claim to be dry, but it cannot convince those fish who swim alongside it who know full well they live in the ocean.

Finally, to make the point even clearer, let's return to the nature of asking questions, and see what the census would look like with questions fit for the depth and gravitas of a Christian faith. Consider if everyone in the UK answered the following questions:

1) Do you value truth more than falsehood?

2) Can you imagine a standard of values higher than values you could attain?

3) Do you fail every day to live up to the standards of Jesus?

4) Are you imperfect, and in need of forgiveness for the wrongs you've committed in your life?

5) Is a society that values good over evil, love over hate, right over wrong, marriage over divorce, kindness over meanness, grace and forgiveness over hostile resentment, and peace over war better than one that does not?

6) Would a God who lived as a man on earth, suffered and died for our sins in an act of supreme love and grace, and rose from the dead to give us eternal salvation, be a God with whom it would be good and beneficial to have a relationship?

These are all questions to which the vast majority of the population, thinking clearly, would answer a resounding YES!

Christianity and its concomitant truths and values are always alive and well in the world, because we are all created to know Christ, and we impute onto our lives a framework narrative in which we act as though Christianity is true. We act as though Christianity is true when we do good and bad, because both times we are showing the truth of the gospel - its truths shine a Divine light when we do good, and its truth pervades and nudges with the absence of light when we plunge ourselves into darkness. 

It is a shame that so many people in the UK now claim to have no Christian belief. But the good news is, every unbeliever in the UK is only one visit to church away from discovering Christ in action, or one profound book away from uncovering the gospel, or one influential Christian friend away from having their perspective changed, or one honest prayer away from having their life transformed by Christ.

Understanding Inequality Better, In Three Easy Steps

 

Pretty much all commentary on inequality is misjudged, and it's largely for three reasons; one is to do with overlooking the inevitable dynamic, two is in misunderstanding what should be measured, and three is in overlooking the scale of measurement. Let's take them in turn.

The inevitable dynamic is basically that in a free country, where people have the opportunity to contribute according to their skills, intelligence, industriousness and competence, wealth will be distributed unevenly. When measuring capital, wealth distributions follow a near-inevitable power law, whereby the top 10% percent are going to have a large proportion of the wealth, and the bottom 50% are going to have significantly less, despite substantially outnumbering the top 10%. I have lots of individual blog posts in my 'Inequality' tab that explain why in more detail.

Regarding the misunderstanding of what should be measured, if you only measure capital, then you have a distorted picture of inequality, because you are disregarding all the things already in place that make us more equal. Once you factor in the many goods and services provided by the state - the health service, social services, the state pension and the many public services - they add up to a lot of value that narrows the wealth gap. Because equality, you see, isn't just about capital, it's mostly about consumption. We also have to factor in the knock-on effects of all this economic growth, like having access to the entire world's knowledge, having more leisure time due to technological enhancements, and all the other concomitant benefits associated with human innovation.

Lastly, on top of overlooking the inevitable dynamic, and misunderstanding what should be measured, there is also the overlooking of the scale of measurement. Where you are in particular stages of life says a lot about your capital and assets, but it often creates a distorted view of a nation's inequality. Students are an obvious case in point - when graduating, they start life in debt, but most go on to earn substantial wages, retire with their own property, and across their life timescale go from negative wealth to reasonable wealth. This is also applies to many other workers, who start life on lower wages when they are young, and progress through their careers with higher wealth.

Insipid left-wing articles about inequality never factor in how to properly measure wealth and standards of living, they don't factor in the big picture where most people get better off with age, and they ignore the fact that in any economically free society, an uneven distribution of wealth is an inevitable outcome of a thriving society.

Given the foregoing, my three easy steps to thinking about inequality correctly are as follows:

Step 1 - Be precise in your language, and define ‘inequality’ properly. Are you talking about inequality of capital assets, consumption, or income? Do you mean inequality before the state has taken tax and passed on public sector benefits or after? And are you factoring in the many other social benefits that reduce inequality in other ways, due to increased standards of living?

Summary: Define before you complain.

Step 2 – Be clear on the economic and social dynamic that causes inequality. Skills, intelligence, industriousness and competence are the biggest causes of most kinds of inequality, and they are good things. Good things cause most inequality. Every time you buy a best-selling book, go to a music festival, shop on Amazon, do your shopping at Tesco, renew your Microsoft subscription, etc, you make the world a little more unequal. But you do these things because you are supporting other people’s prodigious skills, intelligence, industriousness and competence.

Summary: Understand how the world works before you complain.

Step 3 – Be aware of the big picture regarding where, why and when people’s individual life circumstances contribute to the distribution curves of the Gini coefficient, and how those contributions change over time.

Summary: Be mindful that (in)equality is dynamical, not static, before you complain.

Finally, some more insight to digest. Suppose Rich Roger has accumulated lots of capital through market transactions. He's done so by providing value to society. But it doesn't end there. Roger's accumulation of capital is going to be two other things; if he spends it, it creates a living for other people; and if he conserves his capital, then in spending less than he is saving he is leaving more goods and services available to everyone else (and at a slightly cheaper price).

Diversity is so often rightly celebrated in society - diversity of looks, talents, age, specialisations, interests, passions, culture, personalities, etc - and diversity in wealth, income and consumption are a fundamental part of, and result of, those other diversities we celebrate. I think we need to get out of the habit of using the loaded term 'income inequality' and simply call it 'diversity of assets', because that's what it really is, and society is all the better for it.

The Most Interesting Monsters Are The Ones In The Head

 

I love movies and TV drama, and I have a fairly broad and eclectic taste. But I’m usually much more interested in the psychology of inner demons than those created enemy artefacts found in sci-fi, disaster and adventure movies. Films where the heroes are battling against external monsters, aliens, dubious supernatural weidos or big dangerous animals are far less appealing to me than films that delve deeply into the characters’ minds and explore the deep challenges and rewards of being human. 

As Charles Darwin expressed so well, 'We stopped looking for monsters under our bed when we realised that they were inside us.' The monsters inside even the seemingly ordinary men and women usually strike me as far more scary and compelling and thrilling than just about any outside monster Hollywood has tried to create. Even the best films about external dangers, like Jaws, are really about the nature of being human.

Sunday Faith Series: Dawkins' Faulty Belief-O-Meter

In his 2006 book The God Delusion, Richard Dawkins produced his popularly received seven point scale – a 1-7 valuation of the strength of belief or disbelief in God. Here it is:

1.Strong Theist: I am 100% sure that there is a God

2.De-facto Theist: I cannot know for certain but I strongly believe in God and I live my life on the assumption that he is there.

3.Weak Theist: I am very uncertain, but I am inclined to believe in God.

4.Pure Agnostic: I don’t know about God’s existence or non-existence, so am undecided.

5.Weak Atheist: I do not know whether God exists but I’m inclined to be skeptical.

6.De-facto Atheist: I cannot know for certain but I think God is very improbable and I live my life under the assumption that he is not there.

7.Strong Atheist: I am 100% sure that there is no God.

In stating where on the scale he sits, Dawkins says “I count myself in category 6, but leaning towards 7. I am agnostic only to the extent that I am agnostic about fairies at the bottom of the garden.” In other words, Dawkins is fairly unequivocally an atheist with not much room for change. 

Alas, despite its popularity, Dawkins' 1-7 scale is so philosophically naïve it is all-but meaningless as an exercise. The main thing wrong with it is that as an indicator of strength of belief the model is entirely empty, because the strength of belief is inextricably linked to the quality of mental acuity put into that belief. In other words, anyone can tell you where his strength of belief sits on a made up scale of 1-7, but it is only worth taking seriously if he has a competent understanding of the subject and a good philosophical brain with which to reason.

Suppose someone calls themselves a 6 on Dawkins' scale, and when you ask them why they don't believe in God, they tell you that it's because they once asked Him to reveal Himself by writing 'God' in the sky with stars, and because He didn't, then that is grounds to not believe in Him. Obviously a relatively smart mind would simply object that that's a terrible reason to not believe God exists - in which case, calling your self a 6 on the scale means absolutely nothing to anyone with half a brain.

Theology and philosophy and probability theory are broad and complex subjects, and unless you are competent at all three, any high rating you give yourself on the atheistic part of the Dawkins scale is like calling yourself an excellent literary writer just because you happen to know a lot of words in the dictionary. Dawkins' attempt to construct a scalar model of belief and treat it as a unique metric for philosophical returns is about as narrow-minded and parochial as it gets. What the Dawkins model does is treat people as though they all see religious belief in the same way and with the same ability, and it treats the ‘God’ concept as though it is homogenous in thought structure, when it’s about the least homogenous concept around.

And if it still isn't clear why, then to show the absurdity of making a faux homogenous model, let me alter the concept to something Dawkins will understand; let’s replace the word ‘God’ with ‘evolution’, and ask a bunch of people in the Bible-belt in America where they stand on the 1-7 scale. If the polls are anything to go by, no doubt many fundies in America will say they are a 6 to 7 when it comes to evolution. That is to say, they are as sceptical about the fact of evolution as Richard Dawkins is about God. What do you think Richard Dawkins would say to them when they told him that they were a 6 or 7 when it comes to evolution? He would make the same criticism of them that I have made of him. He’d say with full justification that their comprehension of evolution is so bereft that their gradation is rendered inadequate by such a defective and inept understanding of the object of study. 

When the signs are reversed, that is precisely what is wrong with Dawkins’ own gradation. And by the way, it does not matter that evolution is amenable to scientific study and God is not, because we are only talking about how well the subjects are understood, not the empirical tractability or the final conclusions. Dawkins states that he thinks God does not exist - but his strawman caricatures are so clumsy that most Christians do not believe in the god (small g) that Dawkins denies. This is the principal point of this message, one which makes a good rule of thumb for future reference with another Knight-ism I like to employ;

The God one accepts or denies is only likely to be as intellectually tenable as the intellectual tenability of the person holding those ideas. 
JK
 

Climate Hysteria Overlooks The Key Part Of The Equation

I have been consistently critical of climate alarmism and the billions wasted on misjudged climate policies, but I think most critics of my views on this don't really understand the position of people like me. I believe they assume that, either; a) I'm trivialising the empirical forecasting of climate scientists, b) I don't under Navier-Stokes equations, or c) I'm dismissive of the dangers of climate change on the spurious pretext that the vast majority of people pushing the agenda are such incompetent thinkers.

But that's not it at all. I do take the empirical forecasting seriously, I do understand Navier-Stokes equations, and fallacious ad hominem reasoning is not my game.

So, I'm not an adversary up to this point, because I'm also fully seized of the high likelihood that there are significant climate issues to solve. The data models suggest there will be an increase in floods and droughts, sea level rises, a changing ecosystem, and the need to adapt to some regional disruptions as the earth's temperature increases.

But after this point of small concordance, our harmony ends - because if you are a climate alarmist, activist, or just generally behind the financially exorbitant environmentalist policies, then I'm afraid you are missing too much of the bigger picture. Even if we ignore the fact that simulated atmospheric and ocean conditions based on computational fluid dynamics increases in margins of error the further forward we try to project (and we shouldn't ignore that, but let's be generous and do it anyway), computational fluid dynamics is not the tool for assessing economic change, technological change and climate change combined, over time. If you only focus on the latter one of the three, it's an anaemic, sub-standard equation.

For that reason, the proffered formula for spending so many billions on future climate change mitigation now is so unbalanced, it's astounding it persists unquestioningly. The formula for taking such drastic action now would have to be this: analysis of a reasonable margin of error taking into account the possibilities of chaotic anomalies in the Navier-Stokes models, and a projected model of the curve of human progress during the same timeframe, alongside which, a red queen-type of projection justifying why the arms race is won by the climate-over-human-ingenuity forecast not human-ingenuity-over-climate forecast.

And that has never been propounded, not once, ever, by anyone, as far as I can tell. It's the second part of the equation - the projected model of the curve of human progress during the same timeframe - that always gets missed. Both have potential chaotic perturbations, but the climate alarmism model speculates with billions of pounds of sunk costs without any regard for the progression curve of humans within that frame period. In layman's terms, the choices made are roughly; spend billions now and regulate the oil industry out of the market and have no regard for future progression, or spend the money today on a more prudent allocation of resources, and expect that, because of several good reasons (we'll be smarter, richer, more technologically astute in the coming years, and because we already adhere to the law of parsimony), we'll have far far far less trouble solving these problems than the misguided people of today think.

Sunday Faith Series: Are We Alone In The Universe? 5 Questions On Alien Life

 

The two best known examples of a systematic attempt to evaluate the probabilities of finding alien life in the universe are the Fermi paradox and the Drake equation. They were set up a few decades ago, but were proffered to calibrate probabilities based only on modelling our galaxy (no further). Given the less sophisticated technology, they were largely speculative equations - assessing the rate of star formation, the number of stars with planets, and the number that are likely habitable. The trouble is, given that there are 100 billion stars in our galaxy alone, and around 100 billion galaxies, both the Fermi paradox and the Drake equation proved inadequate to the cause of assessing the fraction of planets with life, and the odds of life becoming intelligent, and even more so the odds that intelligent life becomes communicative.

A few years ago, the Breakthrough Listen project was launched, heightening our search for other life in the universe by searching planets that orbit the million stars closest to Earth and the hundred nearest galaxies. This was the biggest and most sophisticated search we've ever had, and has, for me, elicited 5 questions:

1) What are we likely to find out there?
Here's a hunch - we won't find anything. The universe existed for around 10 billion years before the earth began to form some 4.6 billion years ago, therefore if there is intelligent life on other planets much of it is likely to be a lot more advanced than we are as many of the planets we search will be older. While this comment makes a lot of assumptions about a similar evolutionary story (see below), if you imagine how much more advanced we'll be in just 500 years, consider how much more advanced a civilisation could be that had extra thousands or even millions of years to evolve.

2) Are we better of not finding each other?
If such life does exist, it would perhaps be advanced enough to have been able to find us by now. Perhaps they are watching us; perhaps they are so ultra-sophisticated that they have no need to communicate with us, rather like how we earthlings have no need to communicate with ant colonies. Or perhaps if they stumble upon us they might see us as enough of a potential threat to challenge their supremacy in time. In which case they might wipe us out, rather like how heads of empires used to have their armies wipe out groups of peasant radicals that saw themselves as revolutionaries and future over-throwers of the ruling elite.

Alternatively, perhaps alien life out there is less evolved than we are. In which case, mutatis mutandis, judging by the way that we earthlings have treated those who are less-capable and less-powerful than us, if there were such creatures in the universe that are less developed than us, it might be better for them if we never find them.

3) What might aliens look like?
This is an intriguing question. Presumably any other life in the universe would share the commonality of having evolved from carbon-based origins (silicon is unlikely). That is to say, given that science shows that regeneration occurs most optimally at moderate temperatures, and with an increased amount of chemical variability, carbon based life is much more probable than any other kind of base. One presumes creatures on other planets would have had a primordial soup of some kind - therefore one wonders if natural selection on their planet would produce anything like us. Given the fecundity of qualities like wings, eyesight, vocal expressions, a central nervous system, memory and the intelligence to find food and outcompete rival species - all of which are so fecund that they've evolve multiple times independently on our planet, one wonders whether evolution on other planets would select for those same qualities. If we did find life on other planets, It wouldn't be surprising to me to see them possessing many (if not all) of the above qualities.

4) What if we miss life by arriving at the wrong time?
I'm not sure I've ever heard anyone ask this question - but it is worth considering, particularly after the news that Kepler, NASA space telescope, has discovered a planet in the Milky Way similar to Earth. NASA said the Earth-like planet, named Kepler 452b, orbits a star similar to Earth's sun over the course of 385 days, and is located 1,400 light-years away from Earth.

The reason I mention our timing is that even if we do find a planet habitable for life, we have to catch it at the right period of its cosmological evolution. Kepler 452b is 6 billion years old, making it roughly 1.5 billion years older than earth - and it is getting rather hot apparently - just as our own planet will be in several billion years’ time. Given what I said above about how biological evolution selects for fecund qualities and traits that increase the odds of genetic propagation, that 6 billion year period may well have engendered a reasonably high level of intelligent life, only to be gradually discontinued as Kepler 452b gets hotter and hotter, meaning that by the time we discovered it all trace of intelligent life has gone the same way as the evaporated oceans.

5) What are the ramifications for Christians?
Finally, a question I pondered a few years ago is whether or not the discovery of alien life on other planets might affect our religious faith. The first point of note is that in my experience atheists are bound to find a way to elicit the wrong accusations on this one. That is to say, when broaching the question of whether we are alone in the universe or whether there is life elsewhere, one ought to be mindful, first off, of the way that either answer (‘yes’ and ‘no’) is used by the atheists (rather dishonestly and disingenuously, as it happens) against Christianity. They say that if we are the only life in the whole universe then that must prove that our being here is merely the result of the sheerest fluke. If, however, there are other planets which contain life of some kind that must prove that we are not the special creation that the Bible claims we are. Both contentions are, of course, equally spurious - but it is easy to see how atheists like to have it all their own way. 

So what if we did find sophisticated life on another planet, then, complete with language, intelligence and complex multivariate societies like we have on earth - how would that affect our faith? I think it's a very good question. Suppose they had evolved no concept of God, and had had no incarnation, death on the cross, and resurrection in their history at all - how might you respond to that as a Christian? Could it simply mean that they are another branch of God's creation that do not require the same kind of salvation we do, or perhaps (highly questionably) no act of salvation at all? Or might the absence of God on their planet lead us to wonder if our own religions are simply human inventions? Or, alternatively, might we stick to our faith and accept that there are things we don't understand, and accept perhaps God has not yet chosen to reveal Himself to that planet? After all, sophisticated God-fearing aliens that arrived on our planet 20,000 years ago might think the same about earth.

Personally, my faith is built on so much by way of experience, evidence, cognitive consideration and emotional conviction that I don't think the discovery of a completely God-less civilisation on another planet would shake my faith very much. Of course, the first reaction might be for us to wonder if their being bereft of the good news constitutes an urgent need for us to go share it with them (as per Matthew 28:19-20). But that in itself brings another interesting hypothetical question: is telling the good news to a planet full of people currently unapprised of Jesus actually good news for them or is it bad news? For one presumes that if they had no knowledge of God, they could have no knowledge of sin and their need for salvation. Are they better off remaining ignorant so they are not indicted for their lack of accepting Jesus as their saviour? Would telling them be a bit like taking a deadly pandemic to their planet and then trying to provide them with the cure? Or would not telling them be like leaving them to a pandemic they already have and refusing to take them a cure?

The problem St Paul tells us in Romans 3:11 is that on earth “there is no one who understands, and no one who seeks God”, so imagine how much more this would be the case on a planet that had never even evolved the concept of God. Or might it be the case that just as God has clearly revealed Himself in the natural world (Romans 1:20) and has set eternity in the hearts of all people (Ecclesiastes 3:11), that there is no such thing in the universe as being wholly unapprised of God?

This blog post has been much more about questions than answers. I am of the view that sometimes questions are more interesting than answers - so hopefully they are questions that got you pondering with interest.

Counterintuitive Economics: Why People Are Often Confused About High Prices

 

High costs are not necessarily good or bad; it depends entirely on how things are being measured. The cost is what the consumer sacrifices when they decide on a transaction. If I want solar powered garden lights, I pay the cost; if I want my roof fixed, I pay the cost. Now, suppose there are three types of light I like - spike lights, bollard lights and meteor shower lights. Suppose my preferential order is meteor shower lights, spike lights and then bollard lights. If I buy meteor shower lights, I sacrifice the opportunity to enjoy spike lights and bollard lights - and that forgone experience, plus the retail price of the meteor shower lights, is the cost I incur for my favourite lights. If I love spike lights nearly as much as meteor shower lights, then my cost of choosing meteor shower lights is higher than if I don't really like spike lights then bollard lights at all.

Now, which position of the two do you think is most beneficial to you? Evidently, it's the first option - the one in which you like spike lights nearly as much as meteor shower lights. Even though the first option is a higher cost, it's more preferable than option 2, where you are indifferent to the other 2 options. The take home economic wisdom here is that the better your range of choices, the higher your cost in choosing your favourite, but the higher quality the thing usually (but not always) is.

This can be applied to many other walks of life - employment offers, marriage offers, dating, holiday offers, and so on. Let's take online dating. Suppose you have two scenarios. In the first scenario, you have the choice of dating Fantastic Fay and Amazing Amy. Let's suppose overall quality (looks, intelligence, personality, kindness, trustworthiness, wit, occupation, etc), can be measured out of 100, and say Fay is 95 out of 100 and Amy is 92. The cost of choosing Fay over Amy is 92. In the second scenario, you have the choice of dating only Fantastic Fay or Reasonable Ruby, who scores 63 to Fay's 95. Assuming that you'd rather date Ruby than be single, choosing to date Fay costs you 63. In other words, the cost of choosing Fay over Ruby in scenario 2 (where Amy doesn't exist) is 29 points cheaper than choosing Fay over Amy in scenario 1 (where Ruby doesn't exist).

Clearly, if you date Fay in both scenarios, you're as intrinsically well off in each scenario, but you're not as extrinsically well off in each scenario, because your next best option is better in scenario 1 than in the scenario 2. That is to say, the cost of being in scenario 1 is higher than scenario 2, but it's still better to be in the higher cost scenario. To see why, suppose Fay takes a job abroad, and your relationship ends abruptly just as it begins. You're gutted, but now you look at your next option. In scenario 1, it's Amy at 92 points, whereas in scenario 2, it's Ruby at 63. You are better off in the higher cost scenario (scenario 1), even though here, 'higher cost' is synonymous with 'a more preferable scenario'.

All this we've covered constitutes one of those counter-intuitive things about economics - things that are true yet few people believe because on the surface they appear false. After all, how can the option we don't choose cost anything? That's not how we ordinarily measure cost. When we go shopping in the supermarket and buy £100 worth of goods, we don't think up a bill in our heads of all the items we neglected to buy, and what that opportunity cost amounted to. But to understand opportunity costs in relation to consume and producer surpluses means understanding that as the options get better and more plentiful, so do the costs.

I deliberately saved this one until last, but here's a scenario that should make all the above even more plainly obvious. If you're told you can go to a car showroom and pick a free car of your choice as you have the winning ticket, it would be easy and not feel very costly to go and pick out the Lamborghini if it was alongside rusty old bangers. You would hardly give what you left behind a second's thought. But if you had to select a car from a range of superb, luxury cars of all different kinds, you'd take a lot longer to choose one, and you'd spend more time thinking about the ones you left behind. That's an understanding you should bring to the considerations around high prices. 

Sunday Faith Series: An Interesting Observation About Adam & Eve

Humans are culturally primed to take responsibility for their own misdemeanours. If Celia in Liverpool is caught speeding, we wouldn't expect Carol in Newcastle to get sent the speeding fine. If Jack in Bristol assaults someone in a nightclub, it would be unfair if the judge gave Tom in Manchester a prison sentence. The story of Adam and Eve, then, even when one takes it as a myth intended to convey powerful truths about humankind (as I believe we are meant to take it), is an interesting illustration of what it means to be humans under sin.

Taken literally, it would be a silly story; one man sins, and because of that original sin the imputation falls on everyone who lives. That's even more unfair than my illustration of Carol in Newcastle getting the speeding fine for Celia's offence. It's more like Carol in Newcastle getting the speeding fine for someone who was caught speeding before she was even born.

How are we supposed to take the Adam and Eve story then? I have a rule about reading scripture - I think it all has to be read through the lens of the grace of Christ on the cross. Every book and every chapter is bound to be read anaemically unless understood in relation to God's awesome grace - even the difficult parts. With that in mind, here's a suggested way to view the Adam and Eve story. We know from our present day lens of understanding psychology, biology and neuroscience just how inevitable it is that people will make a mess of things in life. Our heredity, or psychological damage, our emotional weaknesses and the other numerous human shortfalls are now understood to be key components in how we screw up. Or to put it another way, the world is full of things that are bound to make us fall.

In contrast, the scene set for Adam & Eve is a paradisiacal backdrop, where we're told none of these earthly afflictions would have been a danger to them. They had no insecurities, no other people to damage them or bring out the worst in them. But yet even in paradise, susceptible to none of these faults, they were disobedient - they chose 'self' over choosing God - the primary sin that leads to all other sinning.

Perhaps the primary message the story is conveying is that if paradisiacal Adam and Eve can slip up under their conditions, it shows just how hopeless our attempts are at avoiding sin. If even the two safest people ended up sinning, it is quite unsurprising that relatively unsafe people like us were always going to sin. But with that comes the realisation of how the grace lens is brought to bear on our affliction. We are all so naturally screwed by ourselves that the only possibility antidote for us is the same antidote for paradisiacal Adam and Eve - the love and grace of God, given to us through the death and resurrection of Christ as a free gift that we had no chance of earning.

On The Curious Nature Of Incuriosity

I’ve known quite a few people over the years who are largely incurious about pretty much all of the most interesting things available to humans to ponder deeply. They live a fairly contented life, where family, work, friendships, running a household and some leisure time take up virtually all of their time and mental energy. But deep and profound questions and considerations about God, reality, existence, the universe, life, philosophy, morality, consciousness, free will, etc are met with, at best, a brief but transient spark of curiosity, and, at worst, blithe disinterest.

I’ve always found this strange, on at least two counts:

1) Those deep and profound considerations are really the elixir of life’s purpose, joys and wonders, not mere adjuncts to the story

2) It’s near-certain that, with the right balance, your family life, work life, friendships, home life and leisure time are greatly enhanced, not compromised, by an interest in the deep and profound considerations of the world

Consequently, then, if being curious seems to be much more beneficial than being incurious, why do so many people prefer incuriosity over curiosity? One obvious possibility is that being curious requires a lot of effort that being incurious does not, so most people choose not to bother. Another possibility is that curiosity takes you on a journey that engenders more internal mental anguish than simply leaving well alone. Yet another possibility is that curiosity leads to more knowledge and more opinions, and therefore the likelihood of more epistemological conflict with others.

All three of those possibilities seem mutually plausible – they tap in to the human tendency to act according to the law of parsimony (the law of least effort). In order to think competently about something, you need to have learned lots of facts, and also how to reason well, and when faced with that, parsimony can probably seem quite seductive.

But incuriosity is to our detriment. I’ve often pondered whether people can be taught or encouraged to be more curious. I’m pretty sure that once people begin to learn and discover more, their curiosity compounds like interest. I should imagine it’s unlikely that you can comfortably know lots and not want to know lots more. Consequently, perhaps the most influential curiosity is the nascent curiosity – helping create the spark from which all fires can burn. Or perhaps, we have to get excited about thinking big before we can even start thinking small. It may be, as Antoine de Saint-Exupery said, that if we want people to build ships, we don’t get them gathering wood, collecting tools, and assigning tasks – we, instead, teach them to “yearn for the vast, endless sea.”.

 

Sunday Faith Series: Christianity - Genius or Madness?

There are two common binary considerations associated with Christianity - one is: Is it true or false? - and the other is: Is it good or evil? I prefer to frame it a different way by asking; Is it genius or madness? If it is madness, it is probably false and evil too, whereas if it is genius, it is probably good and true. Hang on, I hear you object - why can't it be a work of genius in its moral proclamations, but not in the least bit true when it comes to its claims of Jesus' divinity?

It's a fair question. Telling us to love our neighbour as ourselves, and to be charitable, compassionate, kind and morally excellent is hardly wisdom that could not have been thought up by an excellent human. But as C.S Lewis reminds us in his 'Lord, liar or lunatic' trilemma, Jesus made claims to have co-equality with God, so as long as we accept that the scriptures are an accurate portrayal* then Christ couldn't have been thoroughly excellent if He either a) told so many lies about being God, or b) was under so many false misapprehensions.

Christianity is based on the proposition that Christ is God in human flesh - not a mere man. Therefore, to consider Christianity as true or false, or good or evil, means to consider it in terms of genius or madness. If God loves us, and can see that by ourselves we are all pretty wretched, ego-stroking, status-mongering, selfish creatures, then there may be a certain genius to the creation story - one that even the world's greatest human genius probably wouldn't have the imagination or audacity to think up.

Consider the story. Thanks to His penchant for autonomy and volition, God creates a world full of humans, and gives us the freedom to be ourselves. In being human, we learn, we grow, we slip, we fall, we have joy and gladness and pain and hardship - the whole rich tapestry of experience. Yet constrained by the limitations of being human, God knows that the only way we can reach the destiny for which we were created is to have help - rather like a teacher helps a pupil, or a parent helps their child. God's cosmic story is that He would be born into this world in a backwater village in ancient Palestine, live as we live, suffer immense pain and torture, die under the most horrific circumstances and then demonstrate through the resurrection that bodily death is not the end.

It sounds a strange way to bring justice to the creation story - and I remember it certainly sounded positively bizarre before I became a Christian. But a God who helps us to salvation and to renewal by nailing all our sins to the cross, and inviting us into His kingdom with love and grace, may just be demonstrating the work of a Divine genius - the work of such genius, in fact, that no group of people would be crazy enough to make it all up and proclaim it as the pivot around which the rest of existence revolves.

Surely an ordinary man or a woman, even if they were a genius, wouldn't have thought of such a peculiar thing - it makes for strange consideration at a human level. Why couldn't God have just forgiven us without needing to come down to earth and suffer as a man? Perhaps He could have chosen that method - but the idea of a God who loves us enough to put Himself in our shoes, live all the earthly hardships that we live, and suffer grief, pain, humiliation loss and death for us might just be so something so ingenious that ordinary humans would never entertain it.

You may object that that kind of reasoning could justify all sorts of nonsensical ideas about God. We could just as easily envisage a God who became a five dimensional object, or a God who juggled 100 balls with one hand for a year - the imaginative possibilities are endless.  But hold on, the alternatives may be endless, but they do not have the same gravitas as the real accounts of Christianity. It takes something quite remarkable to change the whole course of human history in the way that Christianity did, and to inspire such a multitude of creative excellence - theology, apologetics, literature, poetry, art, music, architecture, and so on. And let us also not forget the numerous martyrs that died for their faith by standing up to oppressive authorities and refusing to renounce their beliefs. This Christian faith is no ordinary thing. I have no inclination towards false dichotomies or faulty trilemmas - but it seems to me that such an extraordinary thing is either the work of a Divine genius or else it is utter madness.

I won't deny that the idea of an infinitely good God seeing everything we do and knowing our thoughts and our intentions better than we do sounds very much like madness. I also won't deny that the idea of Heaven being a gift earned for us by Jesus on the cross also sounds a bit like madness too. The first one sounds a bit like madness because it involves God as some kind of surveillance camera in the sky from whose attention we can never escape. And the second one sounds a bit like madness because it means that our bad deeds are not quantifiable in terms of desert - so a genocidal dictator and a nice lady volunteering in a charity shop can both be with Jesus in paradise by accepting God's free gift.

But once we conflate the two 'mad' ideas, we see them both in a more enriching way, as two complementary sides to the same golden coin. So much so that even our day-to-day sins - like uncharity, a bad temper and selfishness are up for continual re-examination when we have a relationship with God. But on the other hand, our continual efforts to improve and be better people are part of the grace-centred relationship with God too. So while God sees everything we do, and knows our thoughts and our intentions inside out, He views us not as reproachable sinners but as forgiven sinners. He sees us as sharing in the victory that Christ's free gift won for us on the cross. 

* Not everyone accepts this claim, of course - but given that faith in God involves faith in the accurate propagation of His word, it's a bit of a moot objection.

How Future Humans Will Look Back On Climate Change

Most benefits accrued in the future begin with an immediate short-term cost. To have a successful business, you have to take a risk and invest capital; to have a pretty garden, you have to cultivate it or pay someone else to do it; to get fit, you have to exercise, and so on. Even when you learn something, you have to pass through a period of ignorance or error in order to gain knowledge. Great progress usually begins with birthing pains.

The same can be said of our industrial period, from about 1850 to the present day, and a few decades henceforward – we’ve done a remarkable job increasing the living standards and material prosperity of humanity, and the effects on the climate have been one of the inevitable costs of that. We could have done better, of course, but on balance, we’ve done amazingly well to engender this great enrichment, and we’ll continue to do even better. Throughout this journey, we’ve made the transitions in terms of energy consumption, as we’ve learned how to be even more efficient, and we’ll keep learning, and keep getting more efficient still. We have technological prowess that our great-grandparents wouldn’t have thought possible – and our own grandchildren will make even greater advances than we can possibly imagine today.

When future humans look back in history on our society, I’m fairly certain they will view this generation’s preoccupation with climate change for what it really is (was). They will be incredulous about our worry; they will be shocked by the short-sightedness and lack of perspective; they will be horrified at how much money we spent on it, when it could have been so much more wisely spent; they will see it for what it was – a temporary, monomaniacal, mass-propaganda, peddled by self-interest groups who could gain billions from the indoctrination, and swallowed hook, line and sinker by the public (and, as a consequence, politicians and the media alike). They will be mortified that so many people got so easily sucked in, and that they couldn’t subject climate change to the proper cost-benefit analysis it required, in order to see it with a more appropriate sense of perspective.

But, more so, they will look back with pride and a sense of accomplishment at how adroit we were at passing through the cult of Gaia, and how scientifically and technologically astute we were at giving the religion of climate alarmism its redundancy notice, as we advanced ever further into the next phase of our progression-explosion, at an even greater rate than any of the previous advancements. Future humans will look back at our climate problems with a far more enlightened evaluation, just as we look back at problems our ancestors faced, and pay regard to the fact that they are problems we have left in the past and have learned how to overcome.

Despite the mass-hysteria, many of us today are appalled at the damage done by climate alarmism. In the future, we’ll reach a point where almost everybody is.

Sunday Faith Series: Actually, The Bible Does Look Like The Word God Would Write

Matters that have been debated for centuries are usually compelling, because if we’ve been talking about them for such a long time, they must be interesting and complex enquiries to begin with. One such topic worthy of deep contemplation is the nature of the Bible, and whether it appears to bear resemblance to a book given to us by a Divine, Omniscient, Omnipotent mind. Some Christians think every word of the Bible is infallibly dictated by God, but I’m not in that camp. Others, including myself (and the majority of Christians, I think) believe that the Bible is divinely choreographed, but that it is a created artefact subjected to the limitations of the people commissioned to write it.

Either way, a Facebook friend – let’s call him Mike (because that’s his name), devised a thoughtful post expressing his doubts that the Bible was influenced by a Divine, Omniscient, Omnipotent mind. He objects on grounds that the Bible sounds to him a lot more like the sort of things that primitive tribes of humans from the past would say than the sort of things that a Supreme Being would say, and that it’s what the primitive human imagines God would be like if He had ultimate power. Mike thinks a book influenced by God would contain the most illuminating and profound and insightful things that he had ever read, and is under the impression that a book inspired by God’s revelation would contain special insights that we couldn’t have thought up ourselves, and even factual impartations that would give us knowledge of things we wouldn’t otherwise discover until tens of thousand of years henceforward.

It's certainly an interesting line of enquiry – and one I thought about myself while I was still exploring the Christian propositions in my pre-Christian days. But I think, with further contemplation, Mike might reach stronger conclusions about God’s word. In the first place, on Mike’s insistence that the Bible sounds to him a lot more like the sort of things that primitive tribes of humans from the past would say – well, that’s certain to be true of whenever God sought to give revelation to humans of any particular time or culture; if it is to be transcribed in a manner conducted by humans in possession of the revelation, then it is bound to reflect the cultural and epistemological limitations of the time. And if the purpose of the Bible is to equip us we everything we need to know God and have a relationship with Him, it doesn’t need to contain advanced scientific facts that we can go on to discover by ourselves when we have the sufficient tools and resources to do so.

In the second place, on Mike’s claim that a book influenced by God would contain the most illuminating and profound and insightful thing that he had ever read – well, what makes him so sure that the Bible isn’t the most illuminating and profound and insightful book to which he has access? What are his criteria for a book’s illuminations, insights and profundities, and how does he know that the Bible falls short of his metric? Moreover, how does he know his metric is of a high enough standard to begin with, in order to apprehend what a Divinely inspired book would look like? 

In the third place, how is Mike so sure the Bible, taken as a whole, doesn’t contain special insights that we couldn’t have thought up ourselves? If the Bible never existed, what makes him so sure we would have thought up the central truths of the Bible; that God loves us enough to die for us, and that He wants to offer us intimate knowledge of His character? How could we know God loves us enough to live as a man and suffer and die for us if God didn’t make Himself known through the Incarnation and folk at the time and shortly after recorded those teachings and events for generations to come? It’s not self-evident that we would even understand the Divine standard of truth, goodness, perfection and love without being told about it. Whatever the height of standards we can construct through our evolution, there is always a higher standard than the very best we can conceive, and that's one of the most astounding things we ever get to contemplate.

And then there's the matter I wrote about in this blog post, about how the Bible is the most remarkable book in the world in terms of its multi-layered connectivity and profound complexity, which is worth deep and careful consideration in itself. 

It’s all very well saying we could have thought up all this ingenious stuff by ourselves, but we are saying this as people who’ve already had access to the Bible, and been enriched by its theological, moral, cultural and psychological implantations on our humanity. In other words, we are only making the claims by virtue of having these things already – it is not at all clear that we could have written it ourselves because we only know of a reality in which the people who did write it were claiming to so with God’s revelation. Perhaps we could have, but I seriously doubt it, because these things seem to me to be Divine, and humans certainly seem not to be, at least not without God’s help. We can’t prove that we couldn’t have thought it up ourselves, but we can’t prove we could have either. And given that if we scan the evidential landscape the only experience we have of these things being expressed is through people who said they got it from God, it's plausible to me that we needed God to come up with proclaimed revelations about God. It's good to remember, there is no evidence of anyone thinking up these truths without Divine inspiration, because God had already got in first. We have no idea whether we could have thought these things up without God’s revelation, because we’ve never experienced a reality in which there is no proclaimed understanding of God’s revelation.

A similar point can be observed about nature herself, and can be contemplated like this. A bunch of people claim that nature (however many universes that comprises) exists because God created it, and that without God, nothing in creation would or could exist. And a bunch of people claim that nature can exist without the need for God. The question is, is it even possible for nature to exist without God? If nature can’t exist without God creating it, then the theists are right, and the atheists are wrong. The atheists are only claiming that a nature without God can exist by virtue of living in a nature that God created. If nature can’t exist without God creating it, then we’d never get to live in the atheists’ universe because it would never exist in the first place. In other words, if the universe can only exist by virtue of God creating it, the atheists (without knowing it) are living in a universe that’s only possible because of the God they think doesn’t exist. In saying this universe can exist without the need for God, they are making an impossible claim that they don’t realise is impossible. The theists who say this universe exists because God created it are making a claim they couldn’t possibly make in the atheists’ universe if the atheists are wrong, because such a universe wouldn’t exist.

We don’t know if it’s even possible that nature could exist without God, but we know that if nature can’t exist without God, then the theists must be right. If nature can’t exist without God, then the theists can presume they are right on this fundamental question. The atheists, on the other hand, don’t even know if it possible to live in this world without God, and therefore are wholly unsure of whether their proposition of nature without God is even possible. At least the theists know for sure that their proposition is possible; atheists don’t even know if theirs is possible because we don’t know if such a reality could exist without God. This doesn’t, of course, give us much of clue at this stage about whether the theists or atheists are right – but it does at least indicate that the atheists’ position is guaranteed to be a supposition at least as highly speculative as the theists.

Sunday Faith Series: Why Did God Create The Devil?

 

Have you ever wondered why God created Satan, as described in Isaiah 54:16?

“See, it is I who created the blacksmith who fans the coals into flame and forges a weapon fit for its work. And it is I who have created the destroyer to wreak havoc"

I have. Given the devil causes so much havoc in God's creation, and that presumably it would have been a nicer creation without the notorious fallen angel Lucifer in the story, mightn't it have been a better creation story if Satan had never been created at all? I doubt it, and here's why. Given that God did create the devil, one must presume that his inclusion in the story ultimately works for our betterment. God is clearly more concerned about our spiritual development and building of character than He is our worldly comforts.

That's why I think the devil is actually a provision of God's regard for us, His love for us, and His desire for us to fulfil our potential. Remember, God also tells us through Isaiah that the enemy will not prosper against us. What's absolutely astounding about God's creation is that fallenness, including Lucifer's fall (Ezekiel 28, Isaiah 14), is a key part of the story, and its inclusion makes a better world than its omission.

Even God Himself declares that the inclusion of Satan in creation is part of the provision of His love for us, and an instrument to refine us and sharpen us, ready for being Heavenly creatures. Perhaps we shouldn't be surprised; just about everything in nature conforms to a similar pattern: for things to grow and prosper fully, they need to be victorious against competition and come face to face with less-favourable things to resist against, and grow stronger as a consequence. It seems God uses Satan's antics to help us turn stumbling blocks into stepping stones.

Naturally, for humans, in the midst of our "light and momentary troubles" it's often quite hard to focus on the "eternal glory that far outweighs them all" (as per 2 Corinthians 4:17) - but it's reassuring to know that it is an essential part of the best of all possible worlds. And how great that if we live with a steadfast Christ-centredness, we know that "no weapon forged against us will prevail, and we will refute every tongue that accuses us".

Sunday Faith Series: Can You Lose Your Salvation?

 

A long-standing question debated in Christianity is whether someone, once saved, can ever lose their salvation? I feel fairly convinced that the answer is no, we can’t lose our salvation. Here’s why. I believe that the power of having the Holy Spirit gives us a certainty of a relationship with God from which, once we know it, we can never go back. In other words, if you have accepted Jesus as your Lord and saviour, and as a consequence you have the Holy Spirit (Acts 16:31; Ephesians1:13–14, Ephesians 2:8–9) the Holy Spirit will never leave or forsake you, and you will not be able to be anything other than a Christian. A Christian is someone who has accepted that they have been saved by the free gift of grace; they are now a ‘new creation’ (2 Corinthians 5:17). We cannot be separated from God’s love once we are saved (Romans 8:38–39), nor can we be taken from God’s hand (John 10:28–29), and in Christ we are kept from falling (Jude 24–25).

The Bible, coupled with my own experience, seems fairly clear to me that we cannot lose our salvation. But yet I’m sure many of us know people who used to call themselves ‘Christian’ but who have walked away from the faith, and claim to no longer believe. If I’m right that a Christian cannot lose their salvation, then this leaves only two possibilities:

1) They were never a Christian in the first place

2) They still are a Christian and haven’t really walked away

On the first group, St. John seems to confirm this is true for some people, when in 1 John 2:19 he says of dubious believers “They went out from us, but they did not really belong to us. For if they had belonged to us, they would have remained with us; but their going showed that none of them belonged to us”. That’s about as comprehensive as it gets. And I think we see this quite a lot in the modern era regarding those who have walked away. It’s quite possible, it seems, to claim to be a Christian, to be active in church, to say some of the things Christians say, and act out a faith that resembles belief in Christ, but yet not be a Christian ‘new creation’ who accepts Jesus as his Lord and Saviour.

On the second group, it is also possible, I think, that many people who seem to have walked away from the faith were, and are, actually Christians, who are going through a tough time in their faith, and will return to the fold when the time is right. Of course, it should go without saying, that I’m making no personal judgements on either group – only God knows their heart. But I think the likelihood that we cannot lose our salvation leaves us Christians with two important considerations. One is how much we should rejoice in the fact that God has guaranteed our salvation, based on His grace and love for us, and that that guarantee is a perfect springboard from which we can go on to fulfil our potential in Him. And the second is that, when we meet people who appear to have fallen away from the faith, whichever of the two above groups they are in, there is plenty for us to do in being good witnesses. If they never did know Christ, then we have the opportunity to help them see how amazing it is to be in a relationship with Him. And if they do know Christ, but have temporarily stumbled, then we have an opportunity to help them get back on their feet in their walk with God. Either way, I’m fairly sure that nobody has ever been a Christian and then lost their salvation.

Why Energy Prices Are Higher & Why The "People Before Profit" Slogan Understands Neither People Nor Profit

 

People habitually talk about the right quantity of things - they are always going on about whether there is too much of something or too little - not enough being done to tackle climate change, too much sugar in our diets, not enough taxation of the rich, too much currency in circulation - the list goes on. It must be tiring always trying to attribute the proper quantities of everything in life.

The one doing the rounds at the moment is that there is too much profit being made by big energy companies - often accompanied by the misguided "People before profits" slogan. To see why the "People before profits" slogan is misjudged, you first have to see that, imprudent political meddling aside, a business can only survive in the free market if it is profitable. And a business can only be profitable if it can sell its goods or services at a higher rate than the cost of producing them. Businesses that can do this provide not just benefits for its owners, shareholders and workforce, but primarily for society too, by providing value to consumers at prices they are willing to pay. That is, the businesses have taken raw material (human talents and ideas, labour and material resources) and transposed them in a way that makes them more beneficial and valuable to society. It requires abject foolishness to utter the words "People before profits", because profits are about people, where, in terms of value, the one is not distinguishable from the other.

In a competitive market, without government impediments, profits can keep increasing only up to a point, after which they become exhausted, because new competition emerges to ensure that, by and large, the prices are charged in line with supply and demand and consumer preference. If an industry contains diminishing profits, then it is becoming inefficient - and everyone can understand this. But if an industry contains so-called 'excessive' profits (short-term shocks aside), many people become habitually myopic to the opposite truth; that the industry probably has too few providers, and there are likely potential suppliers who can compete in the sector and make smaller profits but still thrive.

Of course, the relationship between proper quantities, proper prices and proper profits is hamstrung by government price fixing, taxes and subsidies, but we'll return to that in a moment. What conditions the analysis is whether or not the good or service is a fungible one – by which we mean whether or not that good or service is easily replaceable in competition. The trouble with energy is that it is not a fungible good in the same way that beer, food, clothes or cars are. If you need to heat your home, you can't suddenly decide to substitute the narrow range of options and the relatively small range of providers able to produce the infrastructure to enable you to stay warm. Whereas, if you're thirsty, and you find that beer is too expensive, you can buy some other drinks instead. Similarly, if the price or BMWs or leather jackets became undesirable, there are plenty of other alternatives you can seek, like Fords, Vauxhalls, wool or denim. The only competition for your energy is from a very small range of big firms offering other tariffs. A small range of big firms that provides a service (like energy to millions of people) is a very hard group to break into, as competition for such a service is hard to generate. It's very costly to start up a rival firm to provide energy to millions of people.

It's true that energy companies are currently making big profits, but the picture the 'windfall tax' proponents are trying to create is inadequate, over-simplistic and misleading. In the first place, these profits must be offset against huge industry setbacks during the pandemic, in which the sector saw huge losses as the price of energy slumped when most people weren't travelling or and trading as much. If you think the huge surge in profits is simply down to greed, then you ought to wonder why the energy firms weren't greedier before the pandemic. If there are shortages in energy (Ukraine conflict, pandemic, etc), meaning that supplies might reduce and prices would go up, then wholesale prices are going to go up too, so one of the main reasons the energy companies are charging us more is because they are paying more.

But there's even more to it than that. Because of the volatility of the industry in recent times, many smaller energy firms have collapsed, which, of course, is a factor in increased profits for the bigger firms able to sweep up their custom. Part of the cause of their collapse was the government-imposed price cap, which meant they were not able to increase their prices in line with supply and demand. Furthermore, the profits of energy firms are not just made by the energy provided to consumers - the profits continued to soar despite a price cap that kept the price of energy below its marginal rate. Many of the profits we have been reading about have come from traders buying and selling commodities and seeing their value increase by the volatility of the market.

The upshot is, energy prices are caused by a number of complex factors - supply, demand, global (in)stabilities, future projections, and the minutia related to raw materials and provision of those materials in generating those supplies. People may bemoan what they think are high prices and excessive profits, but finding something hard to afford does not enable you to claim that it is too expensive. We can say why something is expensive, and we can acknowledge that the price is too high for some people to afford, but neither of those things means it's too expensive. A £5000 Porsche might be unaffordable to a jobless man, but that doesn't mean £5000 is too expensive for a Porsche.

Price caps, taxes and subsidies muddy the waters, because price caps mean goods and services are not sold in line with supply and demand's prices; taxes mean businesses are bearing more than the full production costs of their operation; and subsidies mean businesses are not bearing the full production costs of their operation. The plethora of articles that compare the relative prices and profits of energy in various countries, are fairly pointless, as they are oblivious to the complex distortionary effects created by respective price caps, taxes and subsidies in the respective nation's economy.

Further reading on this subject: 

On The Economics Of High Oil Prices (And Why They Can Be Good)