How Did They Square That Problem?

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How did theists square that with this idea, not just a predestination, cause, you covered that. How can you be held accountable for you choose jesus as your saviour or you and if you don't, you're punished? And i think it's fair to say they struggled with it. They struggled hard with it. Think about witgenstein and schopenhauer and all those figures of the the twentieth century. So i think it's expecting too much to think that these theologians would have resolved that in a way it's easy to explain and easy for folks like us to understand.

In episode 162 of The Michael Shermer Show, Michael speaks with one of the nation’s preeminent experts on economic policy, Benjamin Friedman, about his new book Religion and the Rise of Capitalism — a major reassessment of the foundations of modern economic thinking that explores the profound influence of an until-now unrecognized force — religion.

Critics of contemporary economics complain that belief in free markets — among economists as well as many ordinary citizens — is a form of religion. And, it turns out, that in a deeper, more historically grounded sense there is something to that idea. Contrary to the conventional historical view of economics as an entirely secular product of the Enlightenment, Benjamin Friedman demonstrates that religion exerted a powerful influence from the outset.