Monthly Archives: December 2008
On the limitations of computers
This is Bill James again, from his comment on the Oakland A’s in the 1984 Baseball Abstract; the essay was republished in This Time Let’s Not Eat the Bones: Bill James Without the Numbers under the title “On Computers in Baseball,” which is where I have it. Nearly a quarter-century after he first wrote this, it still seems to me to be as true as ever.
The main thing that you are struck with in the process of learning about a computer is how incredibly stupid it is. The machine simulates intelligence so well that when you accidentally slip through a crack in its simulations and fall to the floor of its true intelligence, you are awed by the depth of the fall. You give it a series of a hundred or a thousand sensible commands, and it executes each of them in turn, and then you press a wrong key and accidentally give it a command which goes counter to everything that you have been trying to do, and it will execute that command in a millisecond, just as if you had accidentally hit the wrong button on your vacuum cleaner at the end of your cleaning and it had instantly and to your great surprise sprayed the dirt you had collected back into the room. And you feel like, “Jeez, machine, you ought to know I didn’t mean that. What do you think I’ve been doing here for the last hour?” And then you realize that that machine has not the foggiest notion of what you are trying to do, any more than your vacuum cleaner does. The machine, you see, is nothing: it is utterly, truly, totally nothing.
Deliverance
(Exodus 3:1-10; Hebrews 11:24-28)
I said last week that Advent is a season of waiting—that it’s about waiting for God’s redemption, for his promised deliverance from the power of sin and death. It’s about learning to wait faithfully and patiently, trusting God to keep his promise; it’s about preparing ourselves to celebrate Christmas by using the time leading up to that celebration to examine our hearts and discipline our impatience. Especially in our broadband microwave instant-oatmeal society, it’s about stepping back from our culture’s emphasis on fasterfasterfaster and learning to slow down, to understand that just because God doesn’t give us what we want rightnow doesn’t mean he isn’t at work; it’s about learning to understand the work he does in our lives while we wait.
And it’s about learning to understand the importance of trusting God in the waiting, and for the waiting. The Exodus gives us a great example of that. You may remember the story of how Joseph was sold into slavery in Egypt, and eventually rose to power as the right-hand man of the Pharaoh, the king of that nation; and how in a time of famine, Joseph’s father and brothers and their whole household came down from Israel to live in Egypt. For a long time, this worked out well, and Joseph’s family grew into a large and flourishing tribe, known as the Hebrews; but then a Pharaoh came to power who hated and feared them, and made them slaves as the first step in destroying them. Moses was a Hebrew who had been raised in the palace as Pharaoh’s grandson, who fled Egypt after killing an Egyptian who was beating one of his fellow Hebrews, and who made a home with one of the nomadic tribes of the wilderness.
That’s the setup for our passage from Exodus: God putting his plan in motion to deliver his people from their slavery in Egypt and bring them back to the land he promised their ancestors. This would become, for the people of Israel, the definitive example of God’s deliverance, the original act which, above all others, defined them as a people and gave them reason to trust in God’s promises. When he brought them back from their exile in Babylon, that was seen as the “new Exodus”; the New Testament takes the “new Exodus” language of Isaiah and applies that to the coming of Jesus. We’ll talk some about all that next week. For now, the key is this: Pharaoh enslaved the people of God, and they cried out to him to deliver them, and did he swoop down right away and set them free? No. People were born in slavery and died in slavery. The Pharaoh who first enslaved them died, and his heir took the throne, and their slavery continued. But in the proper time, when everything was right, God acted, and they were set free.
And notice who he used. Moses grew up in the palace; he was a golden boy. He could have settled in to his position as royalty, turned his back on the people from whom he came, and joined the oppressors; certainly many, many people in his position would have done so, given the chance, and many throughout history have. He didn’t do that. Equally, if he was going to be the one to free his people from slavery, you might have expected that he’d do that from his position of influence, as one of the heirs of the man who held the reins of power. That didn’t happen either. Instead, he let his anger get the best of him, ruined the whole thing—or so it must have seemed at the time—and left himself no choice but to run for his life. Sure, his early life had seemed promising, but he’d squandered that promise, and now he’d spent forty years out in the wilderness tending sheep. He was a nobody, a has-been, a footnote to history. He was a sermon illustration in the temples of Egypt on what happens when you lose your temper. That’s all.
Except, Hebrews tells us, that he still had one thing: he still had faith in God, for whom he had chosen the side of his enslaved people over the side of luxury and privilege to begin with. He spent those forty years in the desert waiting, and maybe he still had ambitions or maybe he figured that he’d be a shepherd in the wilderness for the rest of his life, but he never stopped believing that God would be faithful to set his people free from their slavery in Egypt; and so when the time was right, God came to him and said, “Moses, I’ve chosen you to go tell Pharaoh to let my people go.” To be sure, Moses argued with him, but in the end, he went and told Pharaoh to let his people go; and in the end, Pharaoh didn’t really, but God delivered them anyhow, with Moses leading the way.
There’s an important lesson in this, I think: when we’re waiting for God’s deliverance—from whatever we might need him to deliver us from—our waiting isn’t wasted time, and it isn’t unnecessary. It’s God preparing the ground, and preparing us—not only for our own deliverance, but to be his agent of deliverance for others as well. This is how he works, in this time between the times, when Jesus has come to begin the reign of God on earth but not returned to complete that work; he has left us in place here as his body, the body of Christ, his hands and feet through whom he works to carry on his ministry. What God is doing in us and for us isn’t just about us; as we wait for the answers to our prayers, he’s lining things up to answer them in the proper time, but he’s also preparing us to be the answer to other people’s prayers. We wait, not only for God to deliver us, but for him to work through us to deliver others; and even the waiting is part of his work.
Further thought on Islam and Christianity
Whenever Christians start arguing about Islam, it always seems to come down to assertions as to whether or not Christians and Muslims “worship the same God.” Broadly speaking, liberals will assert that we do, and conservatives will assert that we don’t, with the sides pointing to different Scripture passages and historical facts to make their case.Every time this happens, I have the same question: what on earth does that statement mean, anyway? From the typical Christian point of view, there only is one God, and the question is how truly or faithfully or properly one worships this God; there simply aren’t any other deities out there. With that in mind, granted that Muslims are seeking to worship the one true God rather than something of this world, we might say that the real question is whether they’re doing so in a way which God finds acceptable.That said, one might say that the Muslim and Christian conceptions of God are so different as to be mutually exclusive, which seems to me to be a perfectly reasonable conclusion. All that proves, however, is that they’re different religions—which is to say, it doesn’t tell us anything we didn’t already know (since I don’t think anyone’s under the illusion that Islam is merely one among many Christian denominations). For the statement that “Muslims and Christians worship the same God” (or “don’t worship the same God”) to be in any way meaningful, it has to say more than that; it has to be a statement about the relationship between the two religions. Maybe it’s intended to be; but if so, what is it intended to mean? I’ve honestly never been able to figure that out. As far as I can tell, it’s just an unhelpful bit of rhetoric deployed not to convey real meaning, but merely for emotional effect; and if that’s all it is, it would be better to drop it from the conversation.
A thought or two on Islam
A preacher of my acquaintance was recently asked whether Islam is evil. Being a blunt-spoken sort and not one for pulling his punches, he said, “Yes.” I can’t help thinking that it wasn’t a very helpful answer, in part because it isn’t a very helpful question; it can mean several different things, covering multiple areas of interest and concern.For instance, one might consider this question theologically: is Islam, considered as a body of beliefs about God, evil? As a Christian, I would say that Islam is a religion which preaches a form of works righteousness, thus encouraging people to put their faith in their own efforts rather than in Jesus Christ; as such, it’s as evil as any other such religion, including a number of things which generally pass themselves off as forms of Christianity. This is not to say that there’s no real difference between a given stream of Islam and your typical American church preaching “moralistic therapeutic deism,” but the core theological issue would seem to be the same in both cases. One may call specific versions of Islam evil—the jihadists who plan terrorist attacks and preach suicide bombing as a form of religious martyrdom are clearly teaching something evil—but it seems to me that you can’t call Islam as a whole evil, on a theological level, without saying the same about some ostensibly Christian preachers. (To some, that might be a deterrent to calling Islam evil; to others, it might prompt a re-evaluation of some American religious leaders.)That said, I’m pretty sure that the person who asked that question didn’t have that concern in mind; I suspect that their interest was less theological than political. We might therefore ask, Is Islam necessarily the cause of political evil? I know there are those who are pessimistic and would say “yes” to this because they believe that Islam naturally tends to despotism; but I believe this question is properly answered in the negative. One, even if one agrees that there can be no such thing as a healthy Islamic democracy, modern Western democracy isn’t the only good way to run a country; Morocco, as a constitutional monarchy that has seen significant positive developments over the last couple decades, offers another possible way forward. Two, there are Muslim thinkers at work developing a particular Muslim theological and philosophical groundwork for democracy, and I don’t think it’s reasonable to declare their work a failure before it even has the chance to bear fruit. This is especially true given that we have in Iraq a potential cradle for Islamic democracy, and early signs of its success are encouraging.At this point, someone might object by pointing to evil Islamic governments and leaders, and certainly I have no great opinion of any of the rulers of Iran; but to say that there are evil people who carry the label “Muslim” is not to say even that all Muslims are evil, let alone that Islam itself is evil. After all, there are evil people who claim to be Christian, too; the first person who comes to my mind isn’t a political figure, but Dennis Rader, the BTK Killer, who was an elder in his Lutheran church in Wichita. It’s a severe logical stretch at best to assume that because a person who professes a given faith is evil, that faith must be the cause of their evil.The bottom line: I believe Christianity is true, which logically entails the belief that Islam is false. I think it’s perfectly fair to say that there are streams of Islamic tradition, such as Wahhabism, which are bad news. A sizeable percentage of the world’s terrorists are Muslim, and while I suspect a lot of them (perhaps most of them) would still be pretty malignant people if they’d been raised as Buddhists or Baptists, the fact remains that they both justify and promote their terrorist activity on the grounds of their Muslim beliefs; I think it’s foolish in the extreme to pretend not to see that. But all of that said, it seems to me that treating Islam (and Muslims in general) as if the likes of Osama bin Laden and Ayman al’Zawahiri are representative of what it necessarily means to be Muslim is like holding up Fred Phelps and saying, “This is what a Christian looks like.” A more nuanced evaluation, I think, would be preferable.
Politics just keeps getting stranger
as Michelle Malkin points out; if it isn’t Sarah Palin inspiring the loonies on the Left, it’s Barack Obama inspiring the nutcases on the Right (although some of those, it seems, are actually Clintonites who just can’t let go). I particularly appreciate her conclusion:
I believe Trig was born to Sarah Palin. I believe Barack Obama was born in Hawaii. I believe fire can melt steel and that bin Laden’s jihadi crew—not Bush and Cheney—perpetrated mass murder on 9/11. What kind of kooky conspiracist does that make me?
HT: Baseball Crank
And you think bureaucracy is bad now
I’ve been reading David Hamilton-Williams’ book Waterloo: New Perspectives: The Great Battle Reappraised, which I picked up used some time ago on a flyer; it’s a controverted work and I’m no expert in Napoleonic history, so I don’t claim to pronounce on the accuracy of the author’s conclusions, but it’s an interesting read. One of the things which struck me was his account of the screwy bureaucratic structure under which the British army labored, and the ways in which it hampered military operations. I don’t think one needs to know much about the Peninsular War (the 1807-13 war in Portugal and Spain; Arthur Wellesley took command of the British forces in 1809 and was eventually created Duke of Wellington for his success) to understand this letter from Wellington to the War Office which the book quotes:
Gentlemen: Whilst marching to Portugal to a position which commands the approach to Madrid and the French forces, my officers have been diligently complying with your request which has been sent by H.M. ship from London to Lisbon and then by dispatch rider to our headquarters. We have enumerated our saddles, bridles, tents, and tent poles, and all manner of sundry items for which His Majesty’s Government holds me accountable. I have dispatched reports on the character, wit, spleen of every officer. Each Item and every farthing has been accounted for, with two regrettable exceptions for which I beg you your indulgence. Unfortunately, the sum of one shilling and ninepence remains unaccounted for in one infantry battalion’s petty cash and there has been a hideous confusion as to the number of jars of raspberry jam issued to one cavalry regiment during a sandstorm in western Spain. This reprehensible carelessness may be related to the pressure of circumstances since we are at war with France, a fact which may come as a bit of a surprise to you gentlemen in Whitehall. This brings me to my present purpose, which is to request elucidation of my instructions from His Majesty’s Government, so that I may better understand why I am dragging an army over these barren plains. I construe that perforce it must be one of the alternative duties, as given below. I shall pursue one with the best of my ability but I cannot do both. 1. To train an army of uniformed British clerks in Spain for the benefit of the accountants and copy-boys in London, or perchance, 2. To see to it that the forces of Napoleon are driven out of Spain.
TV is for losers?
No, not exactly; but a new study reported in the New York Times has found something interesting:
Happy people spend a lot of time socializing, going to church and reading newspapers—but they don’t spend a lot of time watching television, a new study finds.That’s what unhappy people do.Although people who describe themselves as happy enjoy watching television, it turns out to be the single activity they engage in less often than unhappy people, said John Robinson, a professor of sociology at the University of Maryland and the author of the study, which appeared in the journal Social Indicators Research.
Very interesting. This is not, I’m sure, to say that watching TV makes you unhappy (though the news these days could have that effect); but the other activities referenced (in the article, anyway) are either communal, or require effort, or both. TV is neither—it’s a passive activity which can be isolating (though it need not be); it’s an easy pleasure, and easy pleasures get us nowhere that matters.HT: Ray Ortlund
Holy dread
I live with the dread of tame, domesticated Christianity. I fear for my students that they will chase after what they want—and therefore miss what God wants.—Dr. Howard HendricksWhat a remarkable statement. My thanks to the Rev. Dr. Ray Ortlund for posting this. It is, I think, far too rare a realization that missing out on what God wants for us is a far greater loss, and far more to be feared, than missing out on what we want. As C. S. Lewis said in perhaps his greatest single work, “The Weight of Glory,”
Indeed, if we consider the unblushing promises of reward and the staggering nature of the rewards promised in the Gospels, it would seem that Our Lord finds our desires, not too strong, but too weak. We are half-hearted creatures, fooling about with drink and sex and ambition when infinite joy is offered us, like an ignorant child who wants to go on making mud pies in a slum because he cannot imagine what is meant by the offer of a holiday at the sea. We are far too easily pleased.
May God deepen and strengthen our desires, and expand our vision.
Being inconvenient is a capital offense
Such, at least, is the logic of abortion; such is the logic of euthanasia. Such is the logic of the culture of death, which we might also call the culture of “might makes right.” And don’t let talk of “death with dignity” misdirect you; though there are certainly those who are suicidal because of illness or injury, those who advocate euthanasia have far broader concerns. As Dr. Bob of The Doctor Is In writes,
While invariably promoted as a merciful means of terminating suffering, the suffering relieved is far more that of the enabling society than of its victims. “Death with dignity” is the gleaming white shroud on the rotting corpse of societal fear, self-interest and ruthless self-preservation.
This is where we end up when our only concern is what is reasonable in our own eyes, and our only standard for reasonability is our own self-interest: with
a philosophy where the Useful is the Good, whose victims are the children whom Reason scorned.Euthanasia is the quick fix to man’s ageless struggle with suffering and disease. The Hippocratic Oath—taken in widely varying forms by most physicians at graduation—was originally administered to a minority of physicians in ancient Greece, who swore to prescribe neither euthanasia nor abortion—both common recommendations by healers of the age. The rapid and widespread acceptance of euthanasia in pre-Nazi Germany occurred because it was eminently reasonable and rational. Beaten down by war, economic hardship, and limited resources, logic dictated that those who could not contribute to the betterment of society cease being a drain on its lifeblood. Long before its application to ethnic groups and enemies of the State, it was administered to those who made us most uncomfortable: the mentally ill, the deformed, the retarded, the social misfit.
The immediate material benefits of such a policy are easy to articulate. The hidden long-term costs, material, cultural, and spiritual, are equally easy to overlook through deliberate short-sightedness, yet they are in the end far greater:
The benefits of suffering, subtle though they may be, can be discerned in many instances even by the unskilled eye. What are the chances that Dutch doctors will find a cure for the late stage cancer or early childhood disease, when they now so quickly and “compassionately” dispense of their sufferers with a lethal injection? Who will teach us patience, compassion, unselfish love, endurance, tenderness, and tolerance, if not those who provide us with the opportunity through their suffering, or mental or physical disability? These are character traits not easily learned, though enormously beneficial to society as well as individuals. How will we learn them if we liquidate our teachers?Higher moral principles position roadblocks to our behavior, warning us that grave danger lies beyond. When in our hubris and unenlightened reason we crash through them, we do so at great peril, for we do not know what evil lies beyond.
As Dr. Bob notes, the truth of that is clearly illustrated by the German history with euthanasia. Here’s hoping we will ultimately show ourselves willing to learn from their experience, rather than condemning ourselves to relive it.HT: Gerald Vanderleun, with special thanks to the Anchoress.