Freakonomics posed this as “The greatest question ever asked”
The economics hook is, of course, that people act according to incentives and it’s fun to try and examine a ‘selfless’ act.
It’s a polarizing topic; the post gets 200 comments where a more normal number would be around 30. But what kind of comments? I looked at this, and said, “Boy the opinions are sure to come out on this.”
It’s a chance to see a fascinating cross-section of viewpoints on an interesting topic.
jimi (#1) starts off well with a balanced viewpoint. He thinks, “People are inherently selfish, Jesus is not.” but affirms altruism and acknowledges a spectrum.
charlie (#2) points out the massive incentive of all the glory.
justin (#3) whips out a false dichotomy based on a poor understanding of Christian theology. “If you’re a Christian, then he isn’t a person…”
orphan cow (#4) “Eternal Life… or eternal fame… depending on your beliefs.”
superdave (#5) indicates Jesus was exceptional and is points out that he is now worshiped.
ben (#6) thinks the incentive was love.
nate (#8) concurs.
matt (#9) suggests that God is just polishing his image.
dolores (#10) cracks a joke. It’s an okay joke.
sai (#12) thinks we do things for the warm fuzzies we get; altruism doesn’t exist.
keven (#13) – he was maximizing utility.
jim (#14) blames the Romans.
abhishek (#16) thinks Jesus was exceptional.
pierre-louis (#20) slips in a dig at religion while explaining altruism as long term selfishness.
howie (#21) brings forth the christian rhetoric.
Tommy in the beanfields (#22) thinks Jesus was a madman and not rational.
richard deliberty(#23) figures Jesus never saw it coming
gerv (#25) points out that responding to incentives is not necessarily selfish. Good point, gerv.
tim (#30) has a big problem with religion.
petteri (#33) says you can’t apply statistical economics to individuals.
rishi (#36) also blames the romans
mike d (#42) is eloquent.
“There are no economics in heaven.
Economics is the study of the allocation of scarce resources. Because scarcity exists, incentives exist. Jesus’ promise – the promise of heaven – is the end of scarcity and an eternity of abundance. Jesus’ choice, then, was between ruling a world of scarce resources and completely transforming it into a world of abundance.”
PsiCop (#43) thinks altruism is a good story-telling device.
joshua (#46) brings the Bible into it – Hebrews 12:2 aka he did it for joy.
PaulD (#48) mentions the mother-child relationship. I’m surprised it took so long.
caca feugo (#52) gives a solid breakdown that he did it for love.
#57 takes #3 to task – Jesus was fully human
#58 – Jesus was fictional
#60 – Jesus was crazy
#62 – He didn’t have a choice
#65 – For the legacy
apok #70 “…But incentives mean that had the price of going to the Cross increased, he would’ve not done so, and I think it’s likely the Cross was inelastic with respect to price.”
#72 – it’s a good story about love.
#80 – Jesus was a jewish nationalist who was killed by the Romans but who never intended to redeem people’s sins.
#83 – He didn’t exist
#88 – Jesus was being tricky and unconventional
#91 – Jesus knew what he was doing.
#92 doesn’t like religion
#97 – soldiers die for their comrades and get medals for it
#122 – we make choices according to how we interpret our current experience. Spiritual/enlightened decision making is better.
#130 – the West can’t understand Jesus
#136,7,8 – Jesus isn’t human so it doesn’t count
#154 – we don’t know that church provided records are accurate
Observations and Conclusions
There were a great many (different!) honestly held beliefs about who Jesus was – they ran the spectrum from entirely fictional to a Jewish nationalist to a madman to a cult leader to a teacher to the Son of God. I was surprised by the number of people who believed Jesus was purely fictional.
I was also surprised by the number of people who viewed Jesus (and his experience) as fundamentally unlike them and their experience – the ‘Jesus was exceptional’ stance. It feels like it’s being used to justify a more ‘reasonable’ set of expectations for every one else.
Comments on a blog are a terrible place for discussion. They encourage shallow, quick retorts. There’s the pressure to post before the discussion moves on past you and your comment never gets read. There’s quite a bit of empty zealotry, although not nearly as much as on CBC message boards.
The couple people who labeled themselves ‘agnostic’ seemed to be able to describe the Christian position fairly well and without undue malice.
I don’t know what I intended to learn from summarizing the discussion; but I’m suddenly convicted of my own tendancy to live a life defined by scarcity – “I must do XXXX because…”