I'm someone who typically leans on the left of center on political spectrum but today, I realized something intrinsic to human nature and its emotions that made me consider shifting my compass towards right of center (capitalism).

The core thought process here is asking yourself this fundamental question of which human emotion or tendency gives rise to these ideologies.

Capitalism is primarily driven by human greed, be it the greed to put tasty food on your table or better your living standard by getting a new equipment or acquire more stocks in some limited company. Greed for more resources is the motivation here.

On the other hand, the Communist and Socialist ideologies are primarily driven by much darker emotions of fear and envy. The envy is that the "rich capitalist" has a lot more resources than I have, and/or the fear is that the wealth inequality may increase even more due to inflation and my resources will naturally decline over the due course of time.

Despite the world being an unfair place and such fears even having some validation in economic data, I want to still insist that even though both emotions are roughly in the same realm of darkness (and beneath the realm of positive spiritual emotions like love and compassion), greed is way more preferable than fear/envy.

We can understand this with the help of an often used analogy of Would you rather your Foe be an X or Y?:

If you're lost in a forest, would you rather be chased by a Lion or a Cheetah?

I remember reading this anecdote or puzzle many years ago somewhere. Most people would answer Cheetah here as it would seem a less ferocious animal than Lion. However, when you consider that Cheetah can climb trees while Lions can't, you might reconsider that answer as you might get lucky if there is a tree around which you can use to climb and save yourself. However, what really makes Cheetah more ferocious is that it kills just for survival. Cheetah doesn't care if it's hungry or not, it sees you as a threat to be eliminated just due to some innate tendency (fear?). On the other hand, a Lion is more likely to kill you only if it's hungry (greed for meals?).

Would you rather your foe be a ruthless capitalist or a ruthless communist?

A ruthless capitalist is the Lion in above example. They might come after you but only if the cost-benefit analysis of coming after you makes sense and they materially gain something like money, wealth, data, etc. But a ruthless communist, on the other hand, would come after you regardless and blinded by the ideology just because you own more resources (or fall in a higher income strata than them). A ruthless communist will always try to shame you while reminding you of your "privileges" regardless of who you are because their ideology is powered by fear.

If we talk about religious ideologies like Christian Supremacy, Zionism, Islamist, Hindutva, etc, they also roughly fall in this same category as Communist/Socialist, they're also primarily driven by fear. As you climb up the wealth ladder, the fear of blaspheming your religious doctrine declines and the fear of losing the already acquired wealth increases - which is very much a positive fear because this fear doesn't harm anyone, it merely seeks to preserve and protect.

We know there is massive wealth inequality in this world, it isn't just or fair in any manner. But the way towards betterment is using the path of higher emotions like love, compassion and even positive greed and not the darker emotions of fear and envy. Wouldn't you agree?

Share your favorite argument for the existence of God below.

Background: I'm an atheist (and have been for a decade) who's been interested in Christian Apologetics since I was a young Christian. As I entered adulthood, I found myself losing my faith, largely because I grew up in a fundamentalist, Young Earth Creationist household which taught that evolution and God are incompatible. While I no longer believe in this lack of compatibility, my belief in God never came back. I've tried to give it an honest effort, and there are many compelling reasons why I want Christianity to be true:

• Reunification with loved ones who've passed
• Absolute moral justice exists
• A plan for my life, and meaning in my suffering
• Access to unconditional love; to have a personal relationship with my creator
• Surviving my own death

For a variety of reasons seemingly outside my direct control, I still don't believe. It doesn't help that I've been introduced to strong arguments against the existence of God (e.g. the problem of evil and its subsets) which have rebuttals of varying quality from Christian philosophers. I don't think this lack of belief is my fault, or for lack of trying; I can't make myself believe anything. I try to be open to arguments, and this has led to an obsession with revisiting apologetics.

Now I think of apologetics as at least a fun mental exercise; combing through the arguments, atheist rebuttals, and responses to those rebuttals. That's probably strange, but it tickles the right parts of the brain to keep me engaged.

Cain and Abel

The Story you Might know:

Cain was Adam and Eve’s first son, Abel was No. 2. “in the course of time,” Cain, a farmer, brought an offering of his harvest. Abel, a “keeper of flocks,” also brought “the fattest part of the firstborn of his flocks.” Cain got a God Thumbs Down, Abel, a God Thumbs Up.” Cain was pissed, killed Abel. God exiled Cain and put a “mark” on him so no-one would kill him.

You Might not Know:

Cain goes on to found a city and have progeny, one of whom is the father “of those who play stringed and wind instruments,” another becomes the father of “all those who keep flocks,” another the father of those who make tools. So like, everything you could do in the ancient world except farming.

The father of these three is a guy named Lamech. Perhaps merely coincidentally, Lamech is the name of the father of Noah, the next story in the Genesis. Bible Purists obviously distinguish these two, but we’re talking about the Law Books of Moses here, seems like they would have chosen these sorts of things pretty carefully. I am not a Bible purist (or scholar, for that matter).

Something in this story dings a low-pitched gong deep down in my psyche. Granted, I was raised in a certain christian religious tradition where lots of time were spent on certain bible stories, of which this was one. But it was always presented as a simple morality tale: God wants animal sacrifices, and it’s wrong to kill your brother. Also don’t read anything past where God, who is clearly so merciful, put a mark on cain to save his life.

I turned to the internet, and most of the Christian exposition points to a few New Testament passages that clarify Abel was more righteous and had better faith. I found that wholly unsatisfactory. So I looked for Jewish exposition. One, an academic at a (presumably reformed) Jewish university, basically was like, God, wtf? (totally my summary). Others had various moral expositions, albeit far more eloquently reasoned and rhetoricized than the christians, but still unsatisfactory.

Questions based on the English text alone:

What was really wrong with Cain’s offering, and how would Cain know in advance? Sure, all the whole rest of the bible is about animal (and human) sacrifice, but at this stage? After all, God requires Adam to be a farmer, so Cain is just being a dutiful son, and offering what he has to offer. The implication from the text is not that it was wrong in kind, but that it wasn’t “nice” enough, suggested by the text’s additional detail about Abel’s offering being fat and firstborn.

Also, how can Cain’s descendant, born well after this incident, be the of father those “who keep flocks,” when that’s what Abel did?

How did Cain ditch his curse?

What other people were there to kill Cain? At this point, technically, there’s only Adam, Eve, Cain (and dead Abel). Also, where’d he get a wife? And don’t say Adam and Eve were busy. The text says their next child after Cain and Abel was Seth, born after all this mess.

Other than the nature of the offering and the curse, these questions are really only important to Ken Hamm and his pals.

Based on preliminary research:

The questions don’t easily resolve, as some scholars believe that what Cain offered was flax, which would have been the best of his crops. Also, what Abel offered was goats, when the best offering would have been cows. Conclusion: god doesn’t care what kind, so long as it’s the best of that kind. Or, God prefers a Chevy with full options over a base model BMW (better get that heated seat subscription now!).

Cain’s name might mean “blacksmith.” The father of tools is Tubal-Cain. “Abel” might be a transmogrifation of “Jabel,” the father of those who keep flocks.

Lamech is the same Lamech in both stories, what we are seeing is an attempt to include and combine two traditional sources into one text. Assuming that is true, would keeping the name the same be an effort to signal the reader needs to understand we are bridging two stories? I mean, if I were trying subterfuge, I’d change one of their names. If I were trying to be real, I’d add a footnote explaining it. But then again, I don’t have to write on papryus by hand.

Later interpretations:

In the late middle ages/early post middle ages, depictions of this story show Abel as clean shaven, smaller, with soft features, and wearing fine, aristocratic clothing. Cain is bigger, bearded, aggressively countenanced with sharp, angular features. He’s wearing the clothes of a field-hand.

Why I am writing this:

Like I said, it bangs a ceremonial gong. I feel like there is an important truth embedded here. It’s more spiritual, and important, than merely accepting it as an artifact of changing and competing cultures. There’s some talk of two traditions merging here, one priestly, the other “YHWH-ist,” especially when you consider the preceeding and succeeding texts (Adam <> Noah). The competing cultures are nomadic, pastoral (these two are not exclusive), and agricultural, and also urban “industrial.” Everything comes from Cain—nomadicism, agriculture, technology, music, animal husbandry. Some jewish scholars say Architecture is included in there, too.

My interpretation:

I deign to practice midrash. When Cain lets his displeasure at God’s judgment be known, God says something like, don’t you know if you do right, I will lift you up? I think what is being said here is that what Cain did was not good enough—for Cain. That is, Cain could do better. Abel did the best he could, he gave some juicy meat. But God had bigger plans for Cain. No offering of mere crops, or money, or even cows would have satisfied coming from Cain. No, Cain needed to literally found civilization. And following that path is when the blessings started to flow.

Side-note, In old Egypt, Osiris was the first-born brother of Set, and created culture for humans.

Abel the first capitalist.

I believe that medieval interpretations were attempting to perpetuate feudalism. The depictions of poor, innocent Abel, righteous and faithful servant of God, as aristocratic, against aggressive, crude, farmer Cain as a peasant, is meant to keep the judgmental finger of God pointed firmly and clearly at the heart of the serfs. God’s (through his faithful feudal Lord) is going to expel you if you act like Cain. Keep offering your crops to God (through your faithful feudal Lord) plus some phat veal.

It’s also possible that the story was holding up an early form of capitalism. I’m getting speculative (and casual) here. But whereas farming is a very labor intensive endeavor, flocking is very capital intensive (and also, like modern big capitalists, is very good at externalizing costs). Farming does require land-capital, a few tools, and seed, but mostly crops are grown through effort. Pastoral endeavors, otoh, require capital, namely, the flock. The inputs are externalized-water and pasture not owned by the shepherd. The flock largely persists, producing milk, wool, and babies (ROI!!), requiring much less effort to maintain than dirt. Don’t believe me? How do you think David had all that time to sing those psalms?

Thanks for reading.

For those of us in the northern hemisphere, today is the hiemal solstice. Today is the shortest day of the year, and for the next half of the year, the period of daylight will only get longer.

Since ancient times, people have marked this day each year, through celebration and through the construction of buildings that line up with the sun or stars on this day; for instance, Stonehenge in Britain and Newgrange in Ireland both act as solstice indicators. Celtic, Chinese, Indian, ancient Roman, and even ancient Hebrew solstice ceremonies are recorded in various forms, with some (such as Newgrange) dating as far back as 3200 BC.

Today, many of these solstice ceremonies have been wrapped up into the Christian winter holiday of Christmas. For instance, the Celtic tradition of hanging evergreen plants, such as holly and ivy, as a sign of hospitality became the British Christian tradition of hanging mistletoe. Even the Jewish holiday of Hanukkah bears a striking resemblance to the Celtic idea of the Yule Log, a fire that was meant to burn for twelve days without re-fueling.

In addition, the solstice itself remains meaningful to many, both in mainstream religions and in neo-Pagan revival movements. So, to all of you who celebrate, happy Solstice, and may the sun shine warm on your face for the rest of the year.