You can read it here.

Oh, don’t apologize for discussing religion. You always made it clear that your simplicity ideal includes your faith. It’s not like an episode like this is a surprise.

And you know me. I always enjoy a good religious discussion.

Taking literally the idea that if one trusts God, then one will be provided with food, clothing, etc. is morally problematic. Every true statement’s contrapositive is also true. The belief you hold to be true is:

If one trusts God, then one will always have enough food.

It’s contrapositive is:

If one doesn’t not have enough food, then one does not trust God.

It means that if someone starves or is starving, then it’s their own fault for not trusting God. It blames the victim. I’d imagine this is why so few people take this part of the Bible as literal truth.

Secondly, I’d argue that such a belief is simply false. It suggests that Christians should never starve if they truly trust God. I would argue that of all the Christians who have died of starvation over the centuries, at least one of them trusted God in this way. She/He trusted God to provide and he failed to come through.

The reason you gave for homeschooling your son is actually not the most common. Most often homeschooling in America is primarily motivated out of fear and/or religion (see links in my post). Initially coming from a position of ignorance on this issue, my guess was that the quality of education would be the most common.

Otherwise, I guess my response to this episode can be summarized as “I applaud your dedication to your kids’ education, but would ask you to consider the ill side-effects on the wider society.”

Sid, you have made some great points about making changes slowly—sounds like you and your wife ARE on a similar path that Steve and I are on—it’s nice to make that connection

I also agree with you about allowing indulgences…this can lessen the chance of a regression in making a change such as the one we are discussing.

My wife and I continually go through the simplification process with respect to food. We’ve taken a similar approach to the one you suggest. We’ve picked one area of our eating and altered it. It started with us becoming semi-vegetarians. We both eat seafood and animal products like eggs and dairy. Additionally, I eat poultry. After a few years and some reading, we gave up hydrogenated oils and high-fructose corn syrup. Most recently, we’ve been slowly adding a hormone and antibiotic free criteria as well as trying to buy produce locally when available.

As you point out. There’s no reason to change everything swiftly. With each step, both of us have felt better and have become healthier. For instance, I was beginning to develop acid-reflux. Cutting out hydrogenated oils almost completely eliminated the problem.

I would also suggest to anyone thinking about attempting this is to allow indulgences. If you have something you really like, but want to give up for the sake of your health, don’t go cold-turkey. Slowly cut back. If it is bad for your body, you’ll likely discover that you’ll lose the taste for it eventually. If that doesn’t happen, you find a point where you’ve cut back enough that the harmful effects disappear.

Congratulations on your first episode, it sounded great. Neither of you sounded nervous. In fact, you sounded like you had fun. I like the premise of the podcast as well. As you probably can guess, I’m a big fan of complexity and often need reminded that in many cases, the simpler option really is the better one.

This will also provide an opportunity to challenge my negative views of homeschooling.

I do want to make one comment about medicine and their listed side-effects. Most listed side-effects are completely bogus. Manufactures must, by law, list _all_ side-effects mentioned by their human study subjects even if the side-effects where as prevalent in the control group (meaning the drug actually didn’t cause the effect). They must also list it if another cause is obvious. If someone with a family history of ulcers happens to get an ulcer during the trial study, ulcers gets listed as a possible side effect. It’s also true of someone gets divorced during the study and lists ‘depression’ or ‘insomnia’. If common aspirin had to go through these human trials, it’s list of side effects would be just as long as modern medications.

While the laws governing this were written with the best of intentions – full disclosure to protect the public – it has some serious downsides. One is this growing perceptions that all modern medicines’ cures are worse then the disease. People then turn to alternative ‘medicine’, which are under little or no requirements to list side effects, to rigorous clinical trials, or even prove efficacy. It also shapes a negative perception of the FDA because it seems like their letting these drugs with all these nasty side-effect through. That erosion of trust is harmful as well.

Side note: I think there are some serious problems with the FDA as well, mostly relating to under-funding and under-staffing but also with respect to food regulations. But I think these are things that can be fixed and doesn’t need replaced. On that note…

Steve: This podcast has finally allowed me to connect some pieces on how you view the world and why you believe and say some of the things you do. To over-simplify it, you seem to be a builder and not a fixer. When you find problems with something, whether it be the church or public school, you are more interested in building a superior alternative than in working to fix and improve the existing. Even our brief conversation about taxes fit this mold. You clearly find fault with our current income-based system. Instead of looking for ways to improve it, you’d rather scrap it and create an alternative.

It’s an admirable trait and as a fellow programmer, one I can completely understand. Fixing someone else’s code is often more difficult and painful than building code that does the same thing from scratch. But I would mention that for many things, fixing the existing system is superior than building an alternative. Public education is one such system (I promise I will finish that post at some point ).