The Great Disappointment in the World Ididn't End

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There is this strong strand, again, amongst pre millennialists. The word for it is dispensationalism. Dispensationalism was mostly invented by an irish a cleric named john nelson derby. Derby visited north america seven times. It's a very literalist reading of scripture, especially the book of revelation. A lot about relating real world events to a to biblical prophecies. And you see that right through the present day. I have a picture in my new book, which i took from the new york times showing a bunch of people sponsored by the family radio network, predicting that the world would end on may eleventh or two thousand 11.

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.