Showdown at Pizz’a Chicago

“One: if God does not exist, objective moral values do not exist. Two: objective moral values do exist. Three: therefore, God exists,” I said, explaining the moral argument for the existence of God to my a few Christian classmates over Pizz’a Chicago. This argument is one of the oldest and best available to the Theist; for those interested in the argument itself, I would commend you to the work of William Lane Craig. We had just finished a wonderful hike in the mist and trees of the Santa Cruz Mountains and warming up around a fire at my place. We were beginning a lively philosophy discussion. For anyone who knows me, you know that there aren’t too many better possible days. The pizza was delicious (the “Al Capone”; who’d have thought pecans go well on pizza?), and it was looking like it would be the perfect end to a perfect day.

Then there was a person standing over us at the end of our table. It was the man from the next table. He was a short man in his fifties, balding slightly, wearing a full beard with flecks of grey. Surprised, I gave him my attention. He said, “We can hear you from over there. And, you’re wrong!” I suppose I had been a bit loud; it was a pizza joint, after all, and I had to raise my voice to get it across the table. I wondered which of the two premises he disagreed with (I guessed it was the first; this is the approach most Atheists take). I started gesturing for him to join our conversation, but he had already turned around and returned to his seat, next to what appeared to be his high school-aged son and elementary school-aged daughter.

He shot a glance over to me, to see what effect his breach in manners had caused. Perhaps he was hoping for shock, outrage or anger. I don’t think he was expecting polite curiosity. “Which premise?” I asked him. “Both of them!” he shot back, surprised and not looking at me. “Please explain,” I offered politely, again gesturing to the empty seat next to me. At this point, the man came to his senses. He did the most rational thing a mature thinker could have in such a situation: he utterly ignored me.

After this brash interruption of our conversation, I composed myself. I soon continued my exposition of the argument to my friends and the conversation continued pleasantly. All the while, in the back of my mind, I was thinking how to repay this guy. He had interrupted my conversation on a topic which was extremely important. He tried to embarrass me in public and in front of my friends. He wanted to make me look bad and show off to his kids. And then I thought of a way. He’d be so pissed. It would shame him in front of his kids and he’d never be able to get me back. He’d never forget me. Ever. It was perfect.

I called the waitress over, gave her my credit card, and quietly paid for his family’s dinner.

My friends and I finished our pizza, and got up to leave. I walked over to the man’s table while they were still unaware of what I had done and I said warmly, “Enjoy your dinner!” For those unaware of American customs, the proper response would have been something like, “Thank you.” Perhaps this courtesy had shocked the man into silence, or perhaps he was still ignoring me. Maybe his mouth was full. In any case, it was his son who responded with an accusatory tone that ought to be reserved only for the basest of criminals, “You can’t prove God! It’s not falsifiable and therefore false!” Recovering, the man, with what he must have thought was an irrefutable disproof of my argument, said with the confidence of a mathematician delivering the conclusion to a proof, “William of Occam.” Now for those of you who are not experienced in Philosophy, William of Occam is a man and not himself an argument, or at least the words “William of Occam” do not compose a well-formed or convincing argument. But it seemed to be offered as one, which might suggest conversation was actually possible.

I started to respond that proof was possible, but they weren’t listening. I cannot now remember how I knew that they were not listening and desperately wanted me to leave. I don’t have a memory of them covering their ears with their hands, or shouting to drown out my words, or shooing me away like a dog, but however they did it, they communicated as much to me. Then the most unexpected thing of all happened: the daughter, in stark contrast to her family, showed me kindness. She stood up, walked over to me, and gave me a paper craft she had been working on all through dinner.

I walked out of the restaurant smiling. The man and I had battled in the pizza parlor, and I think both of us will remember the day for years to come. And I will treasure my prize, his daughter’s paper craft.

Freewill and Fate in Photos

How can the sovereignty of God and Man coexist? How can God be omniscient and man retain freewill?

In focus: the Sovereignty of God

In focus: the Sovereignty of Man

Venipuncture and the Essence of Love – Relationships

In my last post, I talked about how Christian love was, at its essence, sacrificial. This is in sharp contrast to the common understanding of love which seems to be, at its essence, for the benefit of the other. If love is as Jesus defined it, then it changes everything. The first thing it changes is what is for most people where they will experience the deepest love: the romantic relationship.

This Christian view on love turns relationship on its head, or at least it turns what we’ve been calling relationship on its head (I feel like I’m late to the party on this one; St. Paul seemed to already understand this 2,000 years ago). We Americans believe that relationships (that is, sexual relationships, both “boyfriend/girlfriend” and modern “marriage”) are about love, and love is about pleasure. Both parties get peace/happiness/pleasure by entering the relationship, and so long as that peace/happiness/pleasure endures, so does the relationship. This theory of relationship is supported by data collected by the dating site MyCupid that shows that people of my generation have an average of about 1 new sexual partner per year from the time they’re 18.

On the American definition of love, Biblical passages on marriage like Ephesians 5 sound terrible: “Wives, submit yourselves unto your own husbands, as unto the Lord… Husbands, love your wives, even as Christ also loved the church, and gave himself for it” (Eph 5:22,25). Why should the wife have to submit when the husband only has to love?

But what if love was not pleasure? What does a marriage entered into under Christian terms look like? It is not about pleasure (or at least not directly), it’s about suffering and sacrifice. Suffering and sacrifice are not things that must be endured for the love. They are the love. Today, suffering is a red flag, it’s a sign that we are in the wrong relationship; we try to minimize our own suffering. Christians would rather forget about the Godly marriage of Hosea who was commanded to marry a prostitute named Gomer, and stay married to her while she stayed a prostitute. For that matter, we want to forget about Christ, who did the same thing except we, the Church, are the prostitute.

On Christ’s definition of love, the Ephesians passage takes on an entirely different meaning: women have to serve men; men really have to serve women. CS Lewis explains, “The husband who gets this verse is the one whose marriage most feels like a crucifixion…This verse is most embodied in the husband whose wife receives most and gives the least.”

Then how do we pick our partners? Could we maximize suffering by picking the least compatible person possible, a person who hated us? Would that lead to happiness?

To answer that question, I think I need the council of St. Ignatius. Christians in the first and second century died violent deaths with such joy that it was inexplicable to the world. This witness was so dramatic that it became a major factor in the conversion of the brainy Justin Martyr (whose given last name gives some clue as to the fate he himself would later ‘suffer’). People were legitimately asking, “If you like death and martyrdom so much, why don’t you actively seek it out, or commit suicide?” Ignatius, on his way to his own martyrdom, wrote that it is something that must be borne, but not sought. As a warning, he tells the story of another Christian who volunteered for martyrdom, but apostatized at the moment of truth. He denied Christ; he chickened out. So we should not seek martyrdom, neither in the lions' den nor in the bedroom.

So the question remains. How do we pick our partners? Well, how does Christ pick the Church? It seems arbitrary, following no pattern that we can understand. We, the Church, certainly aren’t intrinsically beautiful; we have nothing to offer, neither dowry nor wealth. Contrary to all reason, Jesus chooses us nonetheless. What does that sound like? Could that be anything but romance?

Surely all of our desires can honor God when used properly, even (perhaps especially) romance. Romantic feelings seem to follow no rules, pairing up people that really have no rational business with each other. In a culture without arranged marriages, I think this is as good a pairing rule as any. The important part is not who you pick, but how willing you are to sacrifice for the person you’ve picked.

Sacrificial love completely transforms relationship. It’s no longer about maximizing your own benefit, but your own sacrifice to your partner. If this is love, it does not need to be bi-directional; one partner can always give and never receive, and still have love. But of course, the most loving relationship is one where both parties are sacrificing completely to each other. How often would we cheat on each other if our eyes were perpetually fixed on sacrifice instead of pleasure? How many arguments would be averted? How many tears of sadness prevented? How many more tears of joy would we shed? How happy we would be if we stopped obsessing so much about pleasure, and thought more about love, that is, about sacrifice!

Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4

Venipuncture and the Essence of Love – Introduction

[This is a working "paper." I’m not sure all this (or the connected posts) is right, and would really love feedback on it]

Today we were practicing drawing blood on each other (everybody’s favorite day in medical school). My partner (who shall remain nameless), had trouble hitting a vein, and so I encouraged them to try again. And again. I now have 13 holes in my skin.

The person felt terrible. Part of it was pride (not being rock star doctors after 11 months of medical school instruction is infuriating for most of us here at Stanford). But part of it, and I would venture to say most of it, was because of the pain that the person caused me. I said that I was happy to be of service. And I really meant it. I was legitimately happier after the session; I was in a significantly more pleasant mood having served the person in this way (and, indirectly, a patient who would not have to get poked). The pain was significant, but the pleasure in service was far greater. But why? What theory of pleasure/pain was I working under? I’m no masochist; pain did not directly become pleasure. I searched for something encouraging to say. I said, “It’s an important part of my religion to love my neighbor as myself, and there aren’t too many opportunities to serve my classmates.” I’m not sure it helped much.

Later in the day, I thought about what I said. Why was it that I connected love with service, and service with pain? I thought of Jesus’ words: “No greater love hath a man than this, that he lay down his life for his friends” (Jhn 15:13). Christ was no hypocrite; He gave up His life for us day by day in Palestine, and then literally, dying on the cross. But why is that the greatest love? Why isn’t it, “No greater love hath a man than this, that he benefit his friends maximally”? Why was suffering so connected to the Christian definition of love? This is a really important question that I do not have a good answer for yet but will be praying and thinking about in the days, weeks and probably years to come.

The why is still a mystery to me. But the what is clear: love as Christ defines and demonstrates it, is sacrifice. But if that is true, it changes everything. Everyone agrees with “love thy neighbour as thyself,” but the statement has entirely different meanings if love is sacrifice or if love is benefit. We all seek love, and to a lesser extent, we seek to love in relationships and in society. Jesus’ flip of the definition of love threatens to change everything that we thought we knew. Over the next few posts, I’ll discuss some of these implications.

Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4

How Glenn Beck convinced me to leave the Republican Party

Yesterday, I was a Republican. Today, well, I’m still a Republican, but that’s only until I can re-register. Glenn Beck, the anathema of everybody and the very popular host on Fox News, convinced me to leave the Republican Party. If you’ve read this far, it probably means Glenn Beck wasn’t who you thought he was: just another crazy Republican. He’s not who you think he is, and his ideas aren’t as crazy as you think they are. He wrote a book called “Common Sense,” and is what it claims to be. Before you make another snipe at everyone at Fox News or call him crazy, read this book; see if it makes sense. Try to understand him and this position; it’s the Democratic thing to do. But even if you care only for Democrat/Republican power, this opinion is surging in popularity and it would be prudent, even for strategic reasons alone, to read it so you know how to fight it.


The great thing about being convinced through reason is you don’t have any hard feeling about it. In fact, you’re somewhat grateful to the convincer because your old ways were wrong and erroneous. This has happened to me many times, but it has happened acutely twice. The first time was in listening to Bill Clinton on a proposition for clean energy a few years ago. I wanted to see him speak (convinced that I would vote against the bill). After his speech, I had completely changed my mind. And I was happy I did it.

Today, a similar thing happened. Glenn Beck talked about the Corrupt Two Party System. I’ve often talked about the Corrupt Two Party System. You’ve often talked about the Corrupt Two Party System. It’s bad. Congress has 13% approval ratings, 95% of incumbents get reelected. There is a serious problem with this system! Beck asks why we are playing into it. He says we’re playing into it every time we vote against someone or some party. We’re not voting for leaders; we’re voting for colors. We ought to judge candidates not by the color of their party, but by the content of their character.

It is all a game. They’re both the same. They both want the government bigger and you more dependent on it. The vilification of the other side is a red herring. The issues which make blood boil (gay marriage, abortion) are making us hate each other and not see/notice/have time to care about the massive increases in debt and spending that are going on, the erosion of our rights and incomes in exchange for peace, safety and comfort. We owe $13 trillion (every one of us owes ~$43,000). We have another $100 trillion in unfunded liabilities (e.g. social security). We have a spending problem, and this problem is turning us and our children into the servants of our debtors.

Bush spent trillions on a war because it, “woulda’ been worse if we didn’t.” Obama spent trillions on a bailout because it, “woulda’ been worse if we didn’t.” This game has been going on for a century. One crisis to the next, there is always some urgent need for our money. And when that ran out, the crises didn’t. We started spending our children’s money. There always has to be a crisis for the system to survive. It reminds me of the need for perpetual war in Orwell’s 1984: “War is Peace.” But instead of wars with guns (we have some of those, too) the war is Red vs. Blue. “Sure my party lacks principles, but at least the right color is in power.”

Make politicians into public servants again. Give them term limits (some of our congress people have served longer than Fidel Castro). Fairly redistrict. Move tax day right before election day (ever notice how they’re as far apart on the calendar as can be?). Hold them equally accountable for the laws they pass (no get-out-of-jail-free cards for ‘errors’ on taxes).

All that to say: I’m independent. I want out of the Corrupt Two Party System. I’m returning to common sense and I’m voting for people who can balance a budget, red, blue or neither. I’ll start there. Once we’re out of the spending tailspin, we can start to talk about other issues. I want comfy incumbents, safe with campaign contributions and gerrymandered districts, to be afraid of We the People; I want unaffiliated candidates to be viable. And I will work to bring this about with my pen and my ballot. All the other issues which the parties talk about are important, but not if our country collapses under the weight of its own debt or if our freedom and livelihoods are corroded away, right by right, dollar by dollar, into nothing, by fear of class warfare/terrorism.

There is a way out of the Corrupt Two Party System: leave your party.

Why I Should Be Able To Sell My Kidney

Today in class we learned about organ donation. We found out that there is a huge need for organs, and that 5,000 people are dying annually waiting for kidneys. Then we talked about how people can get kidneys and organ markets were mentioned. The message on them was, more or less, that they’re bad, but some people think they’re a good idea. The ethics professor and doctor who presented were both very strongly and ethically against the black organ market and a legalized true market (i.e. “Buyers’ Market”), and moderately opposed to legalizing government organ purchases (“Sellers’ Market”) in the US (6).

I’ve generally believed that markets can solve most resource problems when allowed to do so. This shortage of organs is artificial. We have hundreds of millions of spare kidneys in the US. It’s like the government making farming illegal and creating a food shortage. There are plenty of healthy people who would donate a kidney, but they just have no reason to do so. If markets existed, we’d have more than enough supply to meet the present (and growing) demand. I was surprised to see so great a need contrasted to so little support for the idea. In my mind, society should try to ethically maximize the number of years its citizens are alive and well; it seems that organ markets would do that. I figured that there must be compelling ethical reasons to prohibit organ markets.

My professors brought many objections to the idea. Some of the reasons seemed minor or question-begging (e.g. “Commoditization of organs is objectionable”)(9). The two real objections to organ markets that I want to focus on are on issues of equity and undue inducement. First, would rich people benefit more than poor people? Second, would more poor people sell their organs and thus get coerced into taking bad risks?
Superficially, this seemed not utterly different from a normal trade. It’s a voluntary transaction. In general, people should be allowed to trade something they value less for something they value more. That is the essence of every Starbucks purchase, every home sale, and the foundation of our economy: trading your labor for money, and that money for stuff. And indeed, it does seem likely that if people were allowed to sell their organs, poor people would do so more than rich people. But is there a problem with that? Let’s imagine an analogous situation.

Imagine that I am the CEO of a drug company. My company invents a drug that cures breast cancer. The production cost is high and I decide to set the price near the cost of production. Nevertheless, only a tenth of those with breast cancer can afford it. As an act of corporate responsibility, I also donate free treatment to 1% of the poor with breast cancer. Also imagine part of the high cost of the drug is because it’s made out of a rare mineral found in the oceans and I have to hire a crew of 35 fishermen for a year to find enough for one cure (3). The work is non-technical, dangerous, and well-paying; thus I attract mostly poor people to do it. Is this situation unethical? Is the disparity in rich and poor so bad as to prohibit this from happening? Are the fishermen being unduly induced to do the dangerous work?

How does this connect to kidneys? If we are trying to save life, how could we do the best job at it? A kidney transplant recipient will live, on average, about 15 years longer than on dialysis. A healthy kidney donor will have minimal adverse health effects, certainly no more than 1 year of lost life on average (that is, some may die in surgery, others from later complications but almost all of them will live without complication; as far as I know, it has not been accurately measured but is presumed small). There are ~5,000 people dying on the transplant list every year. This list is thought to be biased toward the rich who can push and connive their way onto lists(7). So, every year, we’d roughly save 70,000 life-years annually if we had enough kidneys. Even assuming only 1 in 10 on the transplant list was poor, and everyone donating a kidney was poor, that would still be net 2,500 life-years saved for the poor.

This breast cancer cure story above is ethically equivalent to organ markets in terms of life-years lost by the poor and gained by the rich. 70,000 life years are saved amongst the diseased (breast cancer victims; people on the waiting list), 7,000 of which are for the poor (charity recipients; poor on the waiting list). To deliver this treatment, the poor are voluntarily exchanging risk for money and collectively losing 2,500 life years (fishermen; poor donors). The sick rich are living longer; the sick poor also are living longer. The only people who lose life years are the fishermen/donors who voluntarily take a risk for high pay.

It seems that this situation is equivalent to those which we now permit. Even without my imaginary company’s charity (that is, assuming the poor didn’t benefit in life years at all), it’s hard to argue that we should prohibit the saving of some lives by the voluntary action of others. Shall we pass laws like, “No one shall run into burning buildings to save people, especially not if one is being paid by rich people to do it?” On the contrary; we have government-run public safety systems that pay poorer people to take risks for richer people. It’s not movie stars who come to the rescue when Malibu catches fire. We permit dangerous jobs, and we permit poor people to do them. We consent to this system of risky jobs every every time we order a pizza or use a piece of paper; delivery servers and lumber workers have among the highest mortality rates (4). If allowing the poor to take risks for pay is absolutely unethical, then I ask you: how many drops of the blood of the poor are you comfortable having mixed into your pizza sauce, and how bloodstained is too bloodstained for your white paper?

What does losing 70,000 life-years mean? That means that this question is a big deal. To give you a sense of scale, in 2004, there were 42,000 life-years lost in Iraq and Afghanistan, 79,000 to fires and 86,000 to drowning (5). In other words, far more life is lost because of the government-created kidney shortage than to terrorist bullets and IEDs; the benefit of a kidney supply is about as good as preventing every lethal fire, or throwing a life preserver to every would-be drowning victim.

This is a big ethical fork in the road, and we should not change course without a compelling reason. 70,000 life-years annually is a compelling reason. It’s like someone invented a $1 cure for uterine cancer and we’ve outlawed its use for ‘ethical’ reasons (5). We’d better have a good ‘ethical’ reason to let people die. And they are dying, about 12 a day, because we’re worried about the equity of some rich people living a bit longer than they should, or poor people taking risks that they shouldn’t. If we legalize organ markets two things would happen: 1. Rich people and poor people would live longer 2. A lot of rich people’s money would end up in poor people’s pockets. Why is this bad?(8)

(1) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_life_expectancy

(2) http://seer.cancer.gov/statfacts/html/breast.html

(3) Fisherman mortality: 71 deaths per 100,000 http://www.menatrisk.org/health/dangerousjobs.html Assuming an average US age of 36.7, and an average life expectancy of 78.2 years, and a mortality rate of fishing of 71.1 per 100,000 per year. That works out to A x (78.2-36.7)x71.1/100,000= 1 life-year (where A is the number of people exposed to this risk to equal 1 life-year). A = 33.9 fishermen working for a year together lose 1 life-year. Round to 35.

(4) Timber workers have a mortality of 117.8 per 100,000 and delivery servers have a mortality of 37.9 per 100,000.

(5) WHO BOD – 2009; US data from 2004. Breast Cancer: 612,000 DALYs. Uterine Corpus Cancer: 75,000 DALYs.

(6) The only difference, it seems to me, is not an ethical but practical. Organ donors would only get a fair price or have adequate supply in one of those two systems. Governments don't have a very good track record at setting prices.

(7) Another essay could be written on the economics of a market. With the amount that Medicare already spends on the poor for dialysis, it could probably buy the kidneys, transplant them, and have lots of money left over. There very well might not be any gap in rich and poor, at least when it comes to kidneys. In this case, the money flow would still be from rich (through taxes) to poor (after a stop in a Medicare account).

(8) This analysis is from a policy perspective, making assumptions about people acting out of self interest. Much more could be said about the virtue of self-sacrifice. I hope to write more on sacrifice, its virtue, and how medicine tends to prevent it. More on that later.

(9) The argument seemed to be of the form: 1. Commoditization is unethical 2. Selling organs is commoditization 3. Selling organs is unethical. This argument gives no actual insight into the problem, but simply confuses it with an econom-ethic word to obscure meaning. Why is premise 1 true?

The Solomon Scale (6 of 6)

Dear Grandmother,

First, I am thrilled to hear the news about your neighbor! The angels in heaven are rejoicing over it! And it fits in nicely with this letter; it seems like He has thought this through.

I’m excited to write this letter to you! I have not been able to share these insights with many others, as most in my lab are atheists, and the Christian community is still skeptical this science and of me in particular. I’m glad that I have someone like you who is interested and can ask such good questions.

Last week I told you about the results of our paper. What excites me most about these results are their implications, some of which you have already guessed. I think this slipped past most people, because they might be very upset otherwise. It’s also interesting think about this in terms of eternity. Think about a normal person at 26.3S and -0.01S/year and no acceleration. Consider what would happen to that person if he continued along that track. In just 1000 years, he would be what most murders test at, 16.3S. After two, he would be morally equivalent to a dictator, 6.3S. Before three millennia come, he will have reached absolute zero. There will literally be no goodness in him at all. And what happens to a soul when it is utterly corrupt? Does it even remain human? Can something even exist without Goodness?

And on the opposite side, consider a reforming Christian. Let’s assume that the moral acceleration of true convert to Christianity we measured is actually true. Consider a perfectly normal person who truly converts to Christianity on his deathbed, dying at 26.3S with a velocity of -0.01S/year and an acceleration of 0.017S/month². Where would he be after a millennium? His Solomon score would top 5000S. Can you even conceive of that? He would be thirty times more righteous than the current world record holder. That is the power of Christianity: not to make bad men nice, for any religion can do that; but to make Old men New.

I think this is what Lewis was talking about. There is a big difference between a murder and your friendly neighbor (~20). But that difference is miniscule when compared with the difference between even the most saintly on earth and one who has been accelerating for 1000 years. If God’s goal were to maximize the number of Solomons in the universe, then there is no means but Christianity that He should use. Certainly a billion people improving linearly in Islam is very good. But that goodness would almost be swallowed up by a tenth that number accelerating even within a thousand years, not to mention eternity.

And so we shall go on, approaching the likeness of God at ever increasing speeds.

Thank you for continuing this correspondence with me. I hope that is might continue.

Your loving grandson,

Jeremiah Paul

Part 1   Part 2   Part 3   Part 4   Part 5   Part 6