the test

Sunday night Jimmy Kimmel hosted the Lost review show and provided an explanation about religion that I used to share, but that I now disagree with and believe is horribly dangerous. He said that most religions, and certainly Christianity, involve living your life like it is a test then finding out at death whether or not you passed the test. Kimmel's history is with Catholicism, but I am relatively certain that even the majority of Catholic theologians would agree with my take on this over Kimmel's.

Why is this wrong?

Christianity's foundational claim is that humans are flawed and that Jesus came from Heaven to atone for our flawed nature and provide a means of salvation. If our salvation relies on our passing a test, then God arbitrarily denies people salvation, or Jesus' sacrifice was unnecessary, or the sacrifice alone was not enough to provide salvation.

What could be interpreted as a test?

Since I am not Calvinist I believe that all people can reject God. If I am correct, then rejecting God could be seen as a test. This is especially the case as people go through hardships that are meant refine them. If they reject God because of the hardships, then they could be said to have failed the test.

Even in this scenario, though, this implies too much that our salvation relies on us. We are not earning our salvation. We are just enduring life's occurrences. In life stuff happens. Some stuff happens to strengthen us. Some stuff happens just because that is the way things work out. I do not think it is wise to think of the stuff that happens as questions or sections on a test, though. When God allows or causes things to happen to us He is changing us rather than testing us.

Why is it dangerous?

First, I have already mentioned that the test metaphor makes it appear that we are the source of our salvation. It goes hand-in-hand with the idea that a lot of people have that salvation is possible by just being a good person. In his most famous sermon in Matthew 5, Jesus explained to his audience that no one is perfect, but that we need to be perfect as our Father in Heaven is perfect. The book of Romans is even more explicit about this. This teaching directly contradicts the idea that we can "pass the test" in ourselves.

Second, it is not merely our actions that need saving. It is our nature. Though no one has done it, even if a person had been able to follow all of the rules of the Law and keep every command in Scripture, he or she would still have a sin nature needing to be undone. The fix to our sin nature simply does not fit the test metaphor. In a test if you do the right things you pass. In real life you have to become a reflection of Christ, and that does not come from ourselves.

Third, the test metaphor detracts from the fact that we are supposed to have a relationship with God. He is not our proctor waiting to find out who makes the cut once the curve is accounted for. He is a Father who desires to draw us to Him. Even if the test metaphor was accurate, who would want to serve a God who claims to want a personal relationship with me, but expects that I score at least an eighty percent on the multiple choice?

So, what is the right metaphor?

There probably is not a perfect metaphor, but there are a lot of good ones in Scripture. The Prodigal Son, while probably more about the "obedient" son, is a good example of one I think is useful. The prodigal's salvation occurs when he reaches rock bottom, humbles himself, and throws himself on his father's mercy. The father in the parable offers the forgiveness and salvation. The "obedient" son sees this and demands justice rather than mercy, probably foreshadowing his own undoing. When compared to the illustration of a test, this is a superb metaphor.

future capitalism/socialism

As is typical for most science fiction fans, I like to try to figure out what the future holds. I am especially interested in those things that will probably impact me or my family so that keeps me to near-term predictions, which is great because they are easier to make anyway.

Since most political debate of late has focused on where on the Capitalist to Socialist continuum the country should reside, and since the economics of pay, social welfare, regulation, and taxation have been in the news a lot over the last year, my futurism thoughts have been largely employment-related. While the future trajectory of work could be different than I predict, I think my following predictions are the most likely scenario. My prediction is that American society is going to get more Capitalistic in the short term (for the next ten years, maybe), then it is going to get very Socialistic after that. I am biased to believing I am right, but it just feels inevitable to me.

I believe that the country is primed to become more capitalistic in the short term for a few reasons which I will list below.

1. A more capitalistic free market system is the way the political pendulum is swinging right now.
2. Probably most important, technology will enable people to freelance more and will allow companies to hire freelancers rather than maintaining a staff of people to do specific tasks. The internal functioning of most companies is actually more authoritarian than capitalistic, so a free market system that relies on freelancers is actually much more capitalistic
   
3. A lot of people in the United States long to be able to be their own boss without really thinking through the implications of that are.
4. It is possible that if any more tinkering is done with healthcare that someone might figure out how to decouple health insurance from people's place of employment. Believe it or not, this would lead to a more capitalistic employment system because there would be more incentive for people to try to freelance rather than hold down a steady job.

This period of increased Capitalism cannot last for long, though. At some point it will become dramatically more socialistic. A few of the reasons for this are below.

1. A lot of people will find that freelancing is great when the economy is great, but it is rough when no one is buying services. The first strong economic downturn will push former freelance capitalists toward the security of Socialism.
2. Capitalism relies on people acting in their own personal interests. No one cares when things are good, but it makes capitalist greed a popular scapegoat when things turn sour. This means that people tend to lean more socialist during bad economic times. This is a tendency that already exists, but it will be magnified by the other things I am mentioning.
   
3. Automated technology will eventually replace most jobs. If you have seen WALL-E, think about the automated world presented in that movie. In a world like that where every necessary function is performed by an automated system what possible service can a typical person provide to earn money to make a living? I do not know how long it will take, but eventually almost every job conceivable (even "creative" jobs, which are believed to be safer) will be performed by some computerized system. When a critical mass of job functions no longer exists for people to perform for payment, capitalistic society will either collapse or morph. Both of those options will eventually lead to Socialism, though the second would be far less painful.
   
4. Going with the WALL-E theme, if there is any type of society where Socialism works, it is in the society where no one can produce anything better than an existing automated system can produce it. Pure socialist societies today have serious incentive problems that a "WALL-E World" (my term) society simply would not have.
   
5. Most people are actually more socialistic than they think they are based on the services they believe government should provide. This means that they can palate some Socialism so long as it is not called "Socialism," and this will be how a socialist system can be established.
   

I should note that I do not think that there really is not any one system that is inherently more Godly than any other system. I think the most effective system does not go to either extreme, but effectiveness does not equate to Godliness, either. I do happen to believe that we will be cycling through a few different types in the coming years, so we will be finding out what the good and the bad implications of each system are firsthand.

it is finished

I walked the line last night. After four-and-a-half years, eight or nine semesters (depending on if you count the semester I skipped), and what I calculated to be just short of two hundred classes, I am done with my degree. I thought I would be graduating with honors since my GPA is 3.97 (this is me bragging), but this program apparently does not have a cum laude system. As I like to do, I would like to post some observations about the graduation process.

The speakers for the night kind of phoned it in. Three people spoke, and only one appeared to have put much thought into it. The theme of the one decent speech was that having an MBA is great because you aren't tied to one industry. It was a good point considering the venue, but there was not a lot of meat even in that speech.

Someone mentioned that MBAs are not held in as high regard right now because they, specifically those that have gone into finance, are believed to be the cause of the current economic mess. Why isn't anyone pointing the fingers at the economists and actuaries whose models suggested there was no housing bubble? I'm just saying...

All of the graduations I have witnessed have involved the graduate handing a card to a person who reads his or her name as the graduate walks across stage to be recognized. While I was watching this it occurred to me that someone could crash a graduation rather easily if he or she knew ahead of time what the name cards were going to look like. I would not be surprised if some enterprising reality show tried a stunt like that in the near future.

I have not researched the traditions surrounding mortarboards, tassels, hoods, etc. Part of me wants to believe that some of this was a practical joke that got out of hand. I heard another graduate observing that the whole regalia is about as impractical as it could reasonably be.

I always planned on taking as long as I did for both family and economic reasons. Unfortunately, this meant that most of the people I new well in the program graduated in 2008 or 2009. I knew a handful of people in the ceremony, but not a ton of them. That is kind of a shame because I think the main appeal to me of a graduation is that there is supposed to be a shared camaraderie of what we have survived.

We brought both kids to the ceremony. They were apparently a handful. Golden and my mom dealt with them well, though. I was told that there were a lot of toddlers who had to be taken to the lobby because they weren't doing well in the ceremony. I'll leave it at that.

The main thing on my mind at this point is that I am just happy to have the whole process behind me. In the year or two before I started pursuing the degree I decided that I was going to get a masters degree sooner or later, so I am happy to not have that still hanging over me. If I take academic (rather than corporate) classes in the future, it will almost certainly be simply for my personal benefit and growth, though.