[djm2]

I missed a train wreck. EZ and Tbolt must be playing in their switching stations!

@jsconyers: All I will say is that every relationship will require some give and take for it to be healthy and sustaining. Regardless of what you ultimately come to believe regarding the value of organized religion or belief for you -- and note that I differentiate these into separate issues -- that give and take is a necessary but not sufficient part of making a successful long-term relationship.

@the-economist: When all is said and done, you and I are probably pretty close in terms of beliefs about world view and the like. There is, however, one fundamental area where we differ.

Long ago I had the great pleasure of being allowed to teach Philosophy of Science courses to our graduate students who were gearing up to begin their dissertations. It was probably my favorite course; I got to teach it every two years for a stretch of time. One of the fundamental issues that comes into play in this context is the role of the different levels of knowledge and certainty that exist within theories. And fundamentally, when you decompose and analyze any theory, you ultimately get to two (among others) different levels of knowledge: (a) axiomatic principles which are comprehensive laws supported by a broad selection of data, and (b) assumptions, which are considered to be basic truths that are used to derive other more specific hypotheses but which are usually not directly testable.

Consider, for example, the origins of the universe. Most contemporary science would focus on the Big-Bang Theory -- and the derivations from the assumption of the Big Bang are largely consistent with the physical evidence that we see. But ask the question: What caused the big bang? The answers that you will get will largely consist of circular reasoning designed to befuddle the questioner and duck the issue. Typically, what this reflects is a matter of faith. The answerer "believes" that his/her assumption(s) is/are valid and is not prepared to take the argument any further. And how different is that from believing that "time traveling bunnies" or a god is ultimately the driving source of causality in the model.

For someone who is presumably a proponent of the science of economics, I am compelled to point out to you that economics is more replete with assumptions than most of the hard sciences (physics, chemistry) and only slightly better than psychology and sociology -- usually derided as "soft" sciences. And failing to address those assumptions has in large part contributed to the meltdown of the financial markets that we saw in the past couple of years.

I suspect that you are a first year graduate student in economics who has not yet come to grips with the breadth of ignorance that confronts any true scientist, and thus is suffering from a massive case of over-blown ego and excessive hubris. Get a bit of humility, dude. It will help you understand the world.