Thursday, February 16, 2012

Does Jesus Hate Me?

I sent the below clip to Bob Murphy, sort of taunting him to put it up as a Sunday post. Murphy discusses economics Monday thru Saturday at his blog and on Sunday he puts up a religious piece. He put the clip up, but not on Sunday. He said he just couldn't wait.

In the clip, Los Angeles Laker player Metta World Peace (formerly Ron Artest) explains how Jesus cares for us because our baby teeth fall out when we are young and it would be terrible if they didn't fall out until we were 18 or older.

But here's the backstory on this clip. Unknown to Bob, and just about everyone else, something close to what Metta World Peace described actually has occurred to me. For some reason, roughly a half-dozen of my adult teeth never developed and, thus, there was nothing to push many of my baby teeth out.

So in my teens, I had a mouth that was a combination of adult teeth and baby teeth. Try getting a date with that combination. Since then, I have, of course, had more dental work than you can imagine. I refuse implants so I have bridges and other combinations of tooth support than would really be difficult to imagine. I have had top specialists consider it a challenge to get it right. It puts the Golden Gate bridge to shame. At this point, I have a set of pearly whites that George Clooney wouldn't be able to compete with.

But did Jesus hate me, because I had a few tough smile years, while the technology developed to fix things? I'll let Bob Murphy and Metta World Peace pontificate on that.

What I do know is that I was lucky to be born in the United States where free markets were allowed and solutions were found to problems like mine. If I was born in the old Soviet Union or Mao's China, my smile would have never been corrected.

In his writings, Ludwig von Mises often wrote about how free markets result in better medical care and many surviving, who would have died in a more primitive society. My situation required only a cosmetic fix, but there are probably many people walking around, who are walking around because of medical "miracles" that are the result of free market medical innovation.

Central planning suffocates knowledge, information and actions. That medical central planning, via universal coverage that will determine what ailments are treated and by what techniques, is coming to America is very scary.  Life expectancy will decline, perhaps dramatically. And others may not even try to smile.

Here's the great philosopher Metta World Peace:




14 comments:

  1. Uhh, yeah. I'm sure preserving your image was what Jesus had in mind when he designed the process of tooth development. LOL

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  2. Obama would say "Yeah, but it's not 'fair.'"

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  3. i'm 30, and i also have three baby teeth with no adult teeth under them to push them out. the roots are still healthy, although two have needed some patching up, with composite.

    i also have no wisdom teeth. they never formed; there has never been anything to remove and never will be. this is considered to signify the process of evolution, in that wisdom teeth are said to be vestigial.

    screw you artest. your album sucked. but, as a christian, i forgive you.

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  4. Wow, all I can say is that it is a good thing this guy is good at basketball because he probably wouldn't get very far in other ventures. Although he is probably more knowledgeable of economics than Bernanke or Krugman. And I've heard Newt Gingrich and Rick Santorum say a lot dumber things. Maybe he has a future in politics.

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  5. Zzzz. Your fallacy begins when you start on the basis of on what some dumbfuck has said.

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  6. Jesus loves you. Maybe he wanted to force you to develop the rest of your dating game. Now you are unstoppable.

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  7. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/He_Hate_Me

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  8. I have the same ailment! I have 6 adult teeth that didnt form. I am scheduled to have 2 implants and 2 bridges after I get these brace off. How are the bridges working out for you?

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  9. can I ask why do you refuse implants?

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  10. I was born in the former Yugoslavia, where due to the Communist regime, both free markets and Jesus were forbidden. Growing up there we had a "free healthcare system," including dental, whereupon, not only did I not lose a couple of my baby teeth, unbeknownst to me, my adult teeth had developed, but grew sideways inside my scull. Why? Because those brilliant doctors from communist countries you always here about from lefties (1) never bothered to wonder why my baby teeth weren't being replaced; (2) dentists weren't using X-rays, since that technology is "irrelevant to teeth."
    Now I live in Canada, where we also have nationalized healthcare, and a few years ago my mother spent several months living on the verge of her gall bladder exploding, because doctors kept bumping her down the waiting list, since her ailment was not "life threatening," until it got to be live threatening.

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  11. Murphy:

    Jesus loves you. Maybe he wanted to force you to develop the rest of your dating game. Now you are unstoppable.

    You see that? Christians can never be wrong. Jesus gave people adult teeth because he loves them. Jesus did not give people adult teeth because he loves them.

    Jesus gave people the ability to be atheist because....?

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  12. Bob- This is Jesus.

    I don't hate you, sometimes you annoy me though. Why can't you just live with how you were created and leave the heavy thinking to me?

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  13. He should put aspirin between his ears.

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  14. Jesus doesn't hate anyone, even you. (He even has a scripture that says, "if a man's hair falls out it is just his hair falling out - not a curse."

    But in science we are amazed at the design of the engineering of the human body as well as universal forces like dark matter. (I can't believe I"m sticking up for Metta). There are many fascinating like this including things like photosynthesis. (here:http://bit.ly/wSCVWH)

    And the theological answer (for any who care) is that Adam and Even were created perfectly. (She must have been one hot babe). With the handing over of authority to to the serpent - imperfection was allowed in. Your DNA was corrupted (it's always good to blame it on the parent you least like) and we live in fallen world. But another amazing part of God is how he uses these terrible problems. Israel would never have gotten their own state if it wasn't for their evil treatment by Hitler. America would likely never have had the prosperity it did without the tyranny of King George. And most of us who have had personal physical, emotional, relational or spiritual challenges would never have developed strengths in all of those areas if they hadn't existed. The strongest trees grow in the toughest environments, and the most easily uprooted grow in areas where conditions are too ideal.

    God had a purpose. Maybe just to keep the dental surgery market afloat. And God bless you for that.

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