Sunday Sermonette: Stop Making Sense

 The writers have a continuity problem. At the end of Chapter 2, Neb appears to convert to Judaism:

 

⁴⁶ Then King Nebuchadnezzar fell prostrate before Daniel and paid him honor and ordered that an offering and incense be presented to him. ⁴⁷ The king said to Daniel, “Surely your God is the God of gods and the Lord of kings and a revealer of mysteries, for you were able to reveal this mystery.”

But evidently he immediately forgot entirely that he had said that. He builds an immense gold statue of himself (which BTW if it were solid gold would consist of about half as much gold as is now in Fort Knox) and demands that the people worship it. For some reason Daniel is not even mentioned in this chapter, but only his friends Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego. Being Jews, they refuse to worship the gold statue so Neb's astrologers denounce them, not only for refusing to worship the gold statue but for refusing to "serve your gods." Presumably Daniel would also refuse but evidently he gets away with it.

 

You can read for yourself what happens to SM and A. It's completely preposterous. Anyway, they miraculously survive the furnace, heated "seven times hotter than usual." Since the zero on a temperature scale is arbitrary, and they didn't have thermometers anyway, it's unclear what this might mean.* Anyway, seeing the newest miracle, Neb once again converts to Judaism. The author of this ludicrous tale then goes on to completely both his history, as we shall see.

 

*To get technical about it, the actual lowest temperature, zero degrees Kelvin, is -273.15 Celsius. So room temperature is about 293 degrees Kelvin, and a hot furnace might be 493 degrees Kelvin or thereabouts. So 7 times as hot as usual would be 3,451 degrees Kelvin, which is not quite as hot as the surface of the sun.

 

 

 

3 King Nebuchadnezzar made an image of gold, sixty cubits high and six cubits wide,^[a] and set it up on the plain of Dura in the province of Babylon. ² He then summoned the satraps, prefects, governors, advisers, treasurers, judges, magistrates and all the other provincial officials to come to the dedication of the image he had set up. ³ So the satraps, prefects, governors, advisers, treasurers, judges, magistrates and all the other provincial officials assembled for the dedication of the image that King Nebuchadnezzar had set up, and they stood before it.

⁴ Then the herald loudly proclaimed, “Nations and peoples of every language, this is what you are commanded to do: ⁵ As soon as you hear the sound of the horn, flute, zither, lyre, harp, pipe and all kinds of music, you must fall down and worship the image of gold that King Nebuchadnezzar has set up. ⁶ Whoever does not fall down and worship will immediately be thrown into a blazing furnace.”

⁷ Therefore, as soon as they heard the sound of the horn, flute, zither, lyre, harp and all kinds of music, all the nations and peoples of every language fell down and worshiped the image of gold that King Nebuchadnezzar had set up.

⁸ At this time some astrologers^[b] came forward and denounced the Jews. ⁹ They said to King Nebuchadnezzar, “May the king live forever! ¹⁰ Your Majesty has issued a decree that everyone who hears the sound of the horn, flute, zither, lyre, harp, pipe and all kinds of music must fall down and worship the image of gold, ¹¹ and that whoever does not fall down and worship will be thrown into a blazing furnace. ¹² But there are some Jews whom you have set over the affairs of the province of Babylon—Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego—who pay no attention to you, Your Majesty. They neither serve your gods nor worship the image of gold you have set up.”

¹³ Furious with rage, Nebuchadnezzar summoned Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego. So these men were brought before the king, ¹⁴ and Nebuchadnezzar said to them, “Is it true, Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego, that you do not serve my gods or worship the image of gold I have set up? ¹⁵ Now when you hear the sound of the horn, flute, zither, lyre, harp, pipe and all kinds of music, if you are ready to fall down and worship the image I made, very good. But if you do not worship it, you will be thrown immediately into a blazing furnace. Then what god will be able to rescue you from my hand?”

¹⁶ Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego replied to him, “King Nebuchadnezzar, we do not need to defend ourselves before you in this matter. ¹⁷ If we are thrown into the blazing furnace, the God we serve is able to deliver us from it, and he will deliver us^[c] from Your Majesty’s hand. ¹⁸ But even if he does not, we want you to know, Your Majesty, that we will not serve your gods or worship the image of gold you have set up.”

¹⁹ Then Nebuchadnezzar was furious with Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego, and his attitude toward them changed. He ordered the furnace heated seven times hotter than usual ²⁰ and commanded some of the strongest soldiers in his army to tie up Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego and throw them into the blazing furnace. ²¹ So these men, wearing their robes, trousers, turbans and other clothes, were bound and thrown into the blazing furnace. ²² The king’s command was so urgent and the furnace so hot that the flames of the fire killed the soldiers who took up Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego, ²³ and these three men, firmly tied, fell into the blazing furnace.

²⁴ Then King Nebuchadnezzar leaped to his feet in amazement and asked his advisers, “Weren’t there three men that we tied up and threw into the fire?”

They replied, “Certainly, Your Majesty.”

²⁵ He said, “Look! I see four men walking around in the fire, unbound and unharmed, and the fourth looks like a son of the gods.”

²⁶ Nebuchadnezzar then approached the opening of the blazing furnace and shouted, “Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego, servants of the Most High God, come out! Come here!”

So Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego came out of the fire, ²⁷ and the satraps, prefects, governors and royal advisers crowded around them. They saw that the fire had not harmed their bodies, nor was a hair of their heads singed; their robes were not scorched, and there was no smell of fire on them.

²⁸ Then Nebuchadnezzar said, “Praise be to the God of Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego, who has sent his angel and rescued his servants! They trusted in him and defied the king’s command and were willing to give up their lives rather than serve or worship any god except their own God. ²⁹ Therefore I decree that the people of any nation or language who say anything against the God of Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego be cut into pieces and their houses be turned into piles of rubble, for no other god can save in this way.”

³⁰ Then the king promoted Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego in the province of Babylon.

Footnotes

1. Daniel 3:1 That is, about 90 feet high and 9 feet wide or about 27 meters high and 2.7 meters wide
2. Daniel 3:8 Or Chaldeans
3. Daniel 3:17 Or If the God we serve is able to deliver us, then he will deliver us from the blazing furnace and

Yes, they really do want to kill you

 As we noted recently, the depraved lunatic who 100% of Republican senators voted to confirm as secretary of HHS said publicly that he does not believe in the germ theory of disease, that healthy people don't die of infections, and that he intends to shift the focus of his department to chronic disease under the label of "Make America Healthy Again." Ha ha, funny thing.

 

Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the nation’s health secretary, has said that tackling a chronic disease “epidemic” would be a cornerstone of his Make America Healthy Again agenda, often invoking alarming statistics as an urgent reason for reforming public health in this country.

On Friday, President Trump released a proposed budget that called for cutting the funding of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention by almost half. Its chronic disease center was slated for elimination entirely, a proposal that came as a shock to many state and city health officials. . . .

The federal health department last month cut 2,400 jobs from the C.D.C., whose National Center for Chronic Disease Prevention and Health Promotion runs on the largest budget within the agency.
Programs on lead poisoning, smoking cessation and reproductive health were jettisoned in a reorganization last month.

The budget blueprint makes no mention of the Prevention and Public Health Fund, a $1.2 billion program. If that figure is taken into account, the cut may be even larger than Mr. Trump’s proposal indicates. The agency would also lose a center focused on preventing injuries, including those caused by firearms, as well as programs for H.I.V. surveillance and prevention, and grants to help states prepare for public health emergencies.

 

Hmm. Do I detect any inconsistency here?  What's really going on? You might have noticed Kennedy's recent remarks about people with autism.

 

Autism destroys families, and more importantly, it destroys our greatest resource, which is our children. They'll never pay taxes, they'll never hold a job, they'll never play baseball, they'll never write a poem, they'll never go out on a date. Many of them will never use a toilet unassisted. 

 We'll have to note in passing that most people who are diagnosed on the autism spectrum will in fact hold a job, pay taxes, and go on dates. Fewer than half are diagnosed with any intellectual disability and maybe 25% require intensive supportive services. Actually it's probably an umbrella term for several different conditions, but that's not the main point here. I'll turn it over to Derek Beres in The Guardian:

 

English polymath Francis Galton formulated the concept of eugenics in 1883. Inspired by animal breeding, Galton encouraged people with “desirable” traits to procreate while discouraging or preventing those with “undesirable” traits from doing the same. As social and intellectual qualities were hereditarily “fixed”, he thought some groups were naturally superior. Galton constructed a racial hierarchy, with white Europeans at the top.

Eugenics has since played out in varying, always tragic ways. Attempted genocides and forced sterilization are first to mind, though the 20th century brought about the concept of soft eugenics: non-coercive methods of reducing certain conditions through individual choice and medical advice. Popularized in Nancy Stepan’s 1991 book, The Hour of Eugenics, “soft” eugenics is accomplished by indirect, environmental, and educational interventions while “hard” eugenics is marked by direct biological interventions (such as sterilization). The term has since been expanded in discussions of genetic technologies, prenatal screenings, and physical fitness.

Enter Robert F Kennedy Jr, the US secretary of health, who regularly laments over the “back then” of his youth when he says that diabetes and autism was almost unheard of and obesity rates were far lower. (In his campaign videos he would often do this over vintage footage of white bodies splayed on a beach.) Kennedy champions living harmoniously with nature, free from the burdens of “poisonous” food additives, fertilizers, cooking oils and the most toxic chemistry of all: vaccines.

Kennedy’s myopic emphasis on personal responsibility as the main driver of health means he’s at best indifferent, and at worst welcoming, of the idea that those that don’t heed his counsel might die.

In fact the most powerful determinants of health are social. Rich people live longer than poor people, and they are healthier. Yes, they tend to have healthier diets, but that's because they can afford them, and they have access to them. They also have better quality housing, breathe cleaner air, are less subject to violence, and of course have better medical care, among other advantages. Oh yeah, they generally have higher rates of vaccination. Beher's argument is a bit too complicated to properly summarize, but it sums up the entire MAGA philosophy. Leave people to their fate (mostly meaning the people who vote for them), let 'em die, and let the wealthy rule the world.

 

 

 

 

Wednesday Bible Study: Dream on

 Remember that the Book of Daniel is entirely a work of fiction, written two or three hundred years after the events it purports to describe. The author may have been inspired in part by Exodus. Remember that Joseph got ingratiated with Pharaoh by interpreting a dream. Of course this story is utterly absurd. Neb would not threaten to murder all of the so-called "wise men" (actually various categories of charlatans and con artists) just because they couldn't tell him the content of a dream that he refused to reveal to them.

 

Suffice it to say there is no historical record of any part of this happening.  'Nuff said. 

 

2 In the second year of his reign, Nebuchadnezzar had dreams; his mind was troubled and he could not sleep. ² So the king summoned the magicians, enchanters, sorcerers and astrologers^[a] to tell him what he had dreamed. When they came in and stood before the king, ³ he said to them, “I have had a dream that troubles me and I want to know what it means.^[b]”

⁴ Then the astrologers answered the king,^[c] “May the king live forever! Tell your servants the dream, and we will interpret it.”

⁵ The king replied to the astrologers, “This is what I have firmly decided: If you do not tell me what my dream was and interpret it, I will have you cut into pieces and your houses turned into piles of rubble. ⁶ But if you tell me the dream and explain it, you will receive from me gifts and rewards and great honor. So tell me the dream and interpret it for me.”

⁷ Once more they replied, “Let the king tell his servants the dream, and we will interpret it.”

⁸ Then the king answered, “I am certain that you are trying to gain time, because you realize that this is what I have firmly decided: ⁹ If you do not tell me the dream, there is only one penalty for you. You have conspired to tell me misleading and wicked things, hoping the situation will change. So then, tell me the dream, and I will know that you can interpret it for me.”

¹⁰ The astrologers answered the king, “There is no one on earth who can do what the king asks! No king, however great and mighty, has ever asked such a thing of any magician or enchanter or astrologer. ¹¹ What the king asks is too difficult. No one can reveal it to the king except the gods, and they do not live among humans.”

¹² This made the king so angry and furious that he ordered the execution of all the wise men of Babylon. ¹³ So the decree was issued to put the wise men to death, and men were sent to look for Daniel and his friends to put them to death.

¹⁴ When Arioch, the commander of the king’s guard, had gone out to put to death the wise men of Babylon, Daniel spoke to him with wisdom and tact. ¹⁵ He asked the king’s officer, “Why did the king issue such a harsh decree?” Arioch then explained the matter to Daniel. ¹⁶ At this, Daniel went in to the king and asked for time, so that he might interpret the dream for him.

¹⁷ Then Daniel returned to his house and explained the matter to his friends Hananiah, Mishael and Azariah. ¹⁸ He urged them to plead for mercy from the God of heaven concerning this mystery, so that he and his friends might not be executed with the rest of the wise men of Babylon. ¹⁹ During the night the mystery was revealed to Daniel in a vision. Then Daniel praised the God of heaven ²⁰ and said:

“Praise be to the name of God for ever and ever;
    wisdom and power are his.
²¹ He changes times and seasons;
    he deposes kings and raises up others.
He gives wisdom to the wise
    and knowledge to the discerning.
²² He reveals deep and hidden things;
    he knows what lies in darkness,
    and light dwells with him.
²³ I thank and praise you, God of my ancestors:
    You have given me wisdom and power,
you have made known to me what we asked of you,
    you have made known to us the dream of the king.”

Daniel Interprets the Dream

²⁴ Then Daniel went to Arioch, whom the king had appointed to execute the wise men of Babylon, and said to him, “Do not execute the wise men of Babylon. Take me to the king, and I will interpret his dream for him.”

²⁵ Arioch took Daniel to the king at once and said, “I have found a man among the exiles from Judah who can tell the king what his dream means.”

²⁶ The king asked Daniel (also called Belteshazzar), “Are you able to tell me what I saw in my dream and interpret it?”

²⁷ Daniel replied, “No wise man, enchanter, magician or diviner can explain to the king the mystery he has asked about, ²⁸ but there is a God in heaven who reveals mysteries. He has shown King Nebuchadnezzar what will happen in days to come. Your dream and the visions that passed through your mind as you were lying in bed are these:

²⁹ “As Your Majesty was lying there, your mind turned to things to come, and the revealer of mysteries showed you what is going to happen. ³⁰ As for me, this mystery has been revealed to me, not because I have greater wisdom than anyone else alive, but so that Your Majesty may know the interpretation and that you may understand what went through your mind.

³¹ “Your Majesty looked, and there before you stood a large statue—an enormous, dazzling statue, awesome in appearance. ³² The head of the statue was made of pure gold, its chest and arms of silver, its belly and thighs of bronze, ³³ its legs of iron, its feet partly of iron and partly of baked clay. ³⁴ While you were watching, a rock was cut out, but not by human hands. It struck the statue on its feet of iron and clay and smashed them. ³⁵ Then the iron, the clay, the bronze, the silver and the gold were all broken to pieces and became like chaff on a threshing floor in the summer. The wind swept them away without leaving a trace. But the rock that struck the statue became a huge mountain and filled the whole earth.

³⁶ “This was the dream, and now we will interpret it to the king. ³⁷ Your Majesty, you are the king of kings. The God of heaven has given you dominion and power and might and glory; ³⁸ in your hands he has placed all mankind and the beasts of the field and the birds in the sky. Wherever they live, he has made you ruler over them all. You are that head of gold.

³⁹ “After you, another kingdom will arise, inferior to yours. Next, a third kingdom, one of bronze, will rule over the whole earth. ⁴⁰ Finally, there will be a fourth kingdom, strong as iron—for iron breaks and smashes everything—and as iron breaks things to pieces, so it will crush and break all the others. ⁴¹ Just as you saw that the feet and toes were partly of baked clay and partly of iron, so this will be a divided kingdom; yet it will have some of the strength of iron in it, even as you saw iron mixed with clay. ⁴² As the toes were partly iron and partly clay, so this kingdom will be partly strong and partly brittle. ⁴³ And just as you saw the iron mixed with baked clay, so the people will be a mixture and will not remain united, any more than iron mixes with clay.

⁴⁴ “In the time of those kings, the God of heaven will set up a kingdom that will never be destroyed, nor will it be left to another people. It will crush all those kingdoms and bring them to an end, but it will itself endure forever. ⁴⁵ This is the meaning of the vision of the rock cut out of a mountain, but not by human hands—a rock that broke the iron, the bronze, the clay, the silver and the gold to pieces.

“The great God has shown the king what will take place in the future. The dream is true and its interpretation is trustworthy.”

⁴⁶ Then King Nebuchadnezzar fell prostrate before Daniel and paid him honor and ordered that an offering and incense be presented to him. ⁴⁷ The king said to Daniel, “Surely your God is the God of gods and the Lord of kings and a revealer of mysteries, for you were able to reveal this mystery.”

⁴⁸ Then the king placed Daniel in a high position and lavished many gifts on him. He made him ruler over the entire province of Babylon and placed him in charge of all its wise men. ⁴⁹ Moreover, at Daniel’s request the king appointed Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego administrators over the province of Babylon, while Daniel himself remained at the royal court.

Footnotes

1. Daniel 2:2 Or Chaldeans; also in verses 4, 5 and 10
2. Daniel 2:3 Or was
3. Daniel 2:4 At this point the Hebrew text has in Aramaic, indicating that the text from here through the end of chapter 7 is in Aramaic.

How we got to survive to retirement, continued

As you will recall, early in the 20th Century children stopped dying en masse from infectious diseases because of milk pasteurization, and chlorination of drinking water, both of which our current secretary of HHS objects to, evidently because he wants kids to die. Anyway, to continue . . .

 

Gains in life expectancy were temporarily set back by the 1918 influenza pandemic, but then resumed their relentless rise. You can see that the rise actually started to take off in 1890, before the widespread adoption of pasteurization and chlorination. The reasons for this are unclear but it’s generally believed that better nutrition was important. It probably didn’t hurt that doctors stopped bleeding and purging people, and adopted sanitary practices. Even if they weren’t doing much good, they were doing less harm. 

 

 

 

However that may be, although physicians led the way in campaigning for pasteurization and clean drinking water, medical intervention as such had little or nothing to do with that upward line until after WWII. We noted earlier that tuberculosis (TB) was the second leading cause of death in 1900. Pasteurization largely eliminated human cases of bovine tuberculosis from contaminated cow’s milk, but TB is mostly transmitted through the air. Nevertheless deaths from tuberculosis in the U.S. declined sharply and steadily throughout the 20th Century. There was no treatment for TB until 1944, but this had no discernible effect on the downward trend, which continued as before.

Knowledge of the contagious nature of TB resulted in some public health interventions that may have contributed to the decline. These included isolating people with TB in so-called sanatoria, and public education campaigns to discourage spitting. These probably had little impact, however.
 

So RFK Jr. is about 1% right in that people who are in better health are somewhat less susceptible to infectious disease. The biggest reason for the decline in TB deaths was indeed probably better living conditions. TB is an opportunistic infection that is most likely to strike people with weakened immune systems, which can be caused by malnutrition. The nutritional status of the population improved markedly throughout the early 20th Century and this is thought to be perhaps the biggest contributor to the decline in TB. Less crowded and better ventilated housing also likely contributed. (Effective antibiotic treatment of tuberculosis did not enter the picture until the 1950s.)

These factors may have contributed to declines in deaths from pneumonia and influenza as well. It’s hard to say because the influenza virus mutates constantly and its virulence and transmissibility vary from year to year. (Virulence means the severity of disease a pathogen is likely to cause, transmissibility is the likelihood of infected person infecting others.) After the WWI flu pandemic burned itself out, flu was much less a problem. But pneumonia is often caused by bacteria and, while it’s likely that better nutrition and living conditions also meant people were less susceptible to bacterial pneumonia, that effect was not as strong as the decline in TB infections.

Bacterial pneumonia can be a complication of influenza and other viral infections, or strike people who are debilitated for other reasons, including old age. I got pneumonia while I was recovering from my surgery, which is actually fairly common. Fortunately, by the time that happened to me, it was readily treatable with antibiotics, which is a damn good thing because I was very, very sick. (Oh yeah. The doctor gave me too short of a course and it recurred, so I had to start over. This is the best way to create antibiotic resistant strains of bacteria. We’ll have more to say about that later.) 

So sure, every physician and public health researcher and practitioner in the world agrees that among the essential keys to population health are good nutrition and healthy living conditions. That isn't some big secret that THEY have been suppressing. Before the 20th Century, aristocrats and kings on average lived no longer than peasants, because bacteria and viruses don’t care about your social class, and without vaccines and antibiotics, infectious diseases might kill fewer people than they did in the 19th Century but they'd still be leading causes of death and disability, surgery would be unsafe, and epidemics would periodically decimate the population. More on that next.