The Straight Dope on the War Situation

I don't know a whole lot about Iran, although I probably know more than 99% of Americans. I wrote the Today in Iraq blog for many years, and later started to cover Afghanistan as well. Both countries border Iran, and Iran was a very important factor in the U.S. occupation of Iraq. 

 

George Bush II is not a very bright guy, but the people around him -- Cheney, Rumsfeld, and the gang -- weren't quite as stupid and incompetent as the people around Cheeto Benito. They knew they couldn't dislodge the Baathist regime and get something more to their liking just by bombing the country, so they decided to finish what George Bush I started by invading the country and ruling it by force. As you may recall, unless you're too young,  

 

 As you know, in order to remove the Baathist regime and try to install a new one, the U.S. occupied Iraq for 8 years, at the cost of more than 4,000 U.S. troops' lives and something like 250,000 Iraqis, mostly civilians. During much of that time Iraq was convulsed by a horrific civil war, out of which the Islamic State emerged which took over a good chunk of Syria as well as Mosul and the Yazidi region of Iraq, requiring a secondary war in which the U.S. was deeply embroiled. (I'll get to a bit more about that anon.) When the U.S. finally cut out in 2011 it left behind a regime which is not as oppressive as the Saddam Hussein regime, but is corrupt, inept, and not particularly friendly to the U.S. It's complicated, but Iran wields substantial influence with the Iraq federal government, the opposite of the situation under Saddam, who as you also may recall tried to conquer Iran in 1980, leading to an 8 year war in which about 500,00 people died. 

 

The reason Iran is influential in Iraq today is that the majority of the Iraqi population is Shiite, and therefore feels some affinity with Iran. In fact the Iraqi Shiite leader Muqtada al-Sadr spent many years in the Iranian city of Qom studying theology.  Several Iranian-backed militias operate in Iraq, and during the occupation some of them spent more energy attacking U.S. troops than they did participating in the sectarian civil war. Some Iraq Shiites are nationalists who resent Iranian influence, and obviously the Sunni Arab and Kurdish populations of Iraq are hostile to Iraq, but Iran has enough influence that Iraq will at least stay on the sidelines in the present conflict, while Iran's proxy militias may well get involved. 

 

That they have not evidently gotten involved so far is probably largely for pragmatic reasons. U.S. troops in Iraq are based in Kurdistan and the Sunni Arab Anbar province, which means the Iranian backed militias don't have access to them. Iraqi Kurdistan is a semi-autonomous state, which participates in the Iraqi federal parliament but is also self-governing. Kind of like Scotland, except that Kurdistan has its own army, the peshmerga. The Iraqi Kurds would like to support the Iranian Kurds who also want their own state, but as part of federated Iraq they can't set their own foreign policy. While they briefly had dreams of independence, they realized that they're landlocked and basically have no choice but to be part of Iraq if they want to export their oil and otherwise trade with the world. They might allow an Iranian Kurdish insurgency to be launched from their territory but all that's going to accomplish is a Kurdish quasi-state in northern Iran, it won't affect the rest of the country. The Kurds certainly aren't going to march on Tehran.

So, what would it take to dislodge the Iranian regime and try to set up a puppet government? (A plan which failed in Iraq.) Bombing from the air can destroy most of Iran's potential offensive weaponry, but it can't kill a million troops equipped with small arms -- the Iranian Revolutionary Guard, regular army, and police. The Iranian regime and its affiliated militias in Iraq, Syria, Yemen and elsewhere are motivated by profound religious beliefs. They aren't going away. The population of Iraq is a little more than half the population of Iran. A ground invasion of Iran to install a regime of Dump's choosing would require twice the force that invaded Iraq, which BTW was launched through Kuwait. There is no country bordering Iran that would conceivably allow a U.S. invasion from its territory, so it would have to be an amphibious assault, presumably from the Gulf of Oman which is 1,000 miles from Tehran.

 

It's no surprise that the Administration has started talking about a military draft because that's what it would take. Obviously it would be a long time before the U.S. could assemble an invasion force and hit the beaches with the 500,000 or so troops it would require. As a practical matter, I would say it's impossible. So I wouldn't lose any sleep over that. But what I might lose sleep over is that there is no evident end to this in sight, until the U.S. runs out of bombs and missiles. Meanwhile, you can look forward to gasoline rationing.

 

Sunday Sermonette: Cannibalism

No doubt you have heard the accusation from the Military Freedom from Religion Foundation that some U.S. military commanders are telling their troops that the attack on Iran is the start of the fulfillment of the end times prophecy.  I am not sure what to think of this. It's uncorroborated -- no other journalistic or activist organization has publicly stated that they have heard anything about this. It's obviously possible, actually it wouldn't be surprising, if some officer somewhere believed this. However, it obviously isn't Ronald Dump's motive, and Pete Hegseth just seems to be a sadistic psychopath who glories in slaughter.

 

Be that as it may, the apocalyptic prophecy -- which according to the Gospels, repeated time and again -- was going to happen during the lifetime of the people who knew Jesus -- has haunted the world for 2,000 years and caused innumerable catastrophes. Why this insanity persists is a puzzle.

 

Anyhow, John 6 contains only a brief reference to the end times prophecy. It does have a version of the miracle of loaves and fishes, also  found in Matthew, Mark and Luke, although with some details not found there. It also has a version of the story in Matthew and Mark of Jesus walking on water and calming the sea. Sure.

 

The rest of it, however, is again unique to John. It's a lengthy disquisition on what will be the Last Supper and the passing mention in the synoptic gospels that the bread and wine are the flesh and blood of Jesus.  The reference to the judgment day is in verses 39-40 and 44, but it offers no detail on what will happen then. What the passage does concentrate on is literally cannibalism: 

 

⁵⁴ Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise them up at the last day. ⁵⁵ For my flesh is real food and my blood is real drink. ⁵⁶ Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood remains in me, and I in them. ⁵⁷ Just as the living Father sent me and I live because of the Father, so the one who feeds on me will live because of me. ⁵⁸ This is the bread that came down from heaven. Your ancestors ate manna and died, but whoever feeds on this bread will live forever.” ⁵⁹  

 

This is sufficiently weird that it drives a lot of his disciples away, and I don't blame them. But it is, to this day, absolutely central to Catholic doctrine. I propose an experiment: retrieve some of the stomach contents from Catholics who have just taken communion, and sequence Jesus's DNA. That should be informative, especially as to the problem I raised earlier of God's 23 chromosomes, including the Y. What is unique about them? We can easily find out!

 

6 Some time after this, Jesus crossed to the far shore of the Sea of Galilee (that is, the Sea of Tiberias), ² and a great crowd of people followed him because they saw the signs he had performed by healing the sick. ³ Then Jesus went up on a mountainside and sat down with his disciples. ⁴ The Jewish Passover Festival was near.

⁵ When Jesus looked up and saw a great crowd coming toward him, he said to Philip, “Where shall we buy bread for these people to eat?” ⁶ He asked this only to test him, for he already had in mind what he was going to do.

⁷ Philip answered him, “It would take more than half a year’s wages^[a] to buy enough bread for each one to have a bite!”

⁸ Another of his disciples, Andrew, Simon Peter’s brother, spoke up, ⁹ “Here is a boy with five small barley loaves and two small fish, but how far will they go among so many?”

¹⁰ Jesus said, “Have the people sit down.” There was plenty of grass in that place, and they sat down (about five thousand men were there). ¹¹ Jesus then took the loaves, gave thanks, and distributed to those who were seated as much as they wanted. He did the same with the fish.

¹² When they had all had enough to eat, he said to his disciples, “Gather the pieces that are left over. Let nothing be wasted.” ¹³ So they gathered them and filled twelve baskets with the pieces of the five barley loaves left over by those who had eaten.

¹⁴ After the people saw the sign Jesus performed, they began to say, “Surely this is the Prophet who is to come into the world.” ¹⁵ Jesus, knowing that they intended to come and make him king by force, withdrew again to a mountain by himself.

Jesus Walks on the Water

¹⁶ When evening came, his disciples went down to the lake, ¹⁷ where they got into a boat and set off across the lake for Capernaum. By now it was dark, and Jesus had not yet joined them. ¹⁸ A strong wind was blowing and the waters grew rough. ¹⁹ When they had rowed about three or four miles,^[b] they saw Jesus approaching the boat, walking on the water; and they were frightened. ²⁰ But he said to them, “It is I; don’t be afraid.” ²¹ Then they were willing to take him into the boat, and immediately the boat reached the shore where they were heading.

²² The next day the crowd that had stayed on the opposite shore of the lake realized that only one boat had been there, and that Jesus had not entered it with his disciples, but that they had gone away alone. ²³ Then some boats from Tiberias landed near the place where the people had eaten the bread after the Lord had given thanks. ²⁴ Once the crowd realized that neither Jesus nor his disciples were there, they got into the boats and went to Capernaum in search of Jesus.

Jesus the Bread of Life

²⁵ When they found him on the other side of the lake, they asked him, “Rabbi, when did you get here?”

²⁶ Jesus answered, “Very truly I tell you, you are looking for me, not because you saw the signs I performed but because you ate the loaves and had your fill. ²⁷ Do not work for food that spoils, but for food that endures to eternal life, which the Son of Man will give you. For on him God the Father has placed his seal of approval.”

²⁸ Then they asked him, “What must we do to do the works God requires?”

²⁹ Jesus answered, “The work of God is this: to believe in the one he has sent.”

³⁰ So they asked him, “What sign then will you give that we may see it and believe you? What will you do? ³¹ Our ancestors ate the manna in the wilderness; as it is written: ‘He gave them bread from heaven to eat.’^[c]”

³² Jesus said to them, “Very truly I tell you, it is not Moses who has given you the bread from heaven, but it is my Father who gives you the true bread from heaven. ³³ For the bread of God is the bread that comes down from heaven and gives life to the world.”

³⁴ “Sir,” they said, “always give us this bread.”

³⁵ Then Jesus declared, “I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to me will never go hungry, and whoever believes in me will never be thirsty. ³⁶ But as I told you, you have seen me and still you do not believe. ³⁷ All those the Father gives me will come to me, and whoever comes to me I will never drive away. ³⁸ For I have come down from heaven not to do my will but to do the will of him who sent me. ³⁹ And this is the will of him who sent me, that I shall lose none of all those he has given me, but raise them up at the last day. ⁴⁰ For my Father’s will is that everyone who looks to the Son and believes in him shall have eternal life, and I will raise them up at the last day.”

⁴¹ At this the Jews there began to grumble about him because he said, “I am the bread that came down from heaven.” ⁴² They said, “Is this not Jesus, the son of Joseph, whose father and mother we know? How can he now say, ‘I came down from heaven’?”

⁴³ “Stop grumbling among yourselves,” Jesus answered. ⁴⁴ “No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws them, and I will raise them up at the last day. ⁴⁵ It is written in the Prophets: ‘They will all be taught by God.’^[d] Everyone who has heard the Father and learned from him comes to me. ⁴⁶ No one has seen the Father except the one who is from God; only he has seen the Father. ⁴⁷ Very truly I tell you, the one who believes has eternal life. ⁴⁸ I am the bread of life. ⁴⁹ Your ancestors ate the manna in the wilderness, yet they died. ⁵⁰ But here is the bread that comes down from heaven, which anyone may eat and not die. ⁵¹ I am the living bread that came down from heaven. Whoever eats this bread will live forever. This bread is my flesh, which I will give for the life of the world.”

⁵² Then the Jews began to argue sharply among themselves, “How can this man give us his flesh to eat?”

⁵³ Jesus said to them, “Very truly I tell you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you. ⁵⁴ Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise them up at the last day. ⁵⁵ For my flesh is real food and my blood is real drink. ⁵⁶ Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood remains in me, and I in them. ⁵⁷ Just as the living Father sent me and I live because of the Father, so the one who feeds on me will live because of me. ⁵⁸ This is the bread that came down from heaven. Your ancestors ate manna and died, but whoever feeds on this bread will live forever.” ⁵⁹ He said this while teaching in the synagogue in Capernaum.

Many Disciples Desert Jesus

⁶⁰ On hearing it, many of his disciples said, “This is a hard teaching. Who can accept it?”

⁶¹ Aware that his disciples were grumbling about this, Jesus said to them, “Does this offend you? ⁶² Then what if you see the Son of Man ascend to where he was before! ⁶³ The Spirit gives life; the flesh counts for nothing. The words I have spoken to you—they are full of the Spirit^[e] and life. ⁶⁴ Yet there are some of you who do not believe.” For Jesus had known from the beginning which of them did not believe and who would betray him. ⁶⁵ He went on to say, “This is why I told you that no one can come to me unless the Father has enabled them.”

⁶⁶ From this time many of his disciples turned back and no longer followed him.

⁶⁷ “You do not want to leave too, do you?” Jesus asked the Twelve.

⁶⁸ Simon Peter answered him, “Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life. ⁶⁹ We have come to believe and to know that you are the Holy One of God.”

⁷⁰ Then Jesus replied, “Have I not chosen you, the Twelve? Yet one of you is a devil!” ⁷¹ (He meant Judas, the son of Simon Iscariot, who, though one of the Twelve, was later to betray him.)

Footnotes

1. John 6:7 Greek take two hundred denarii
2. John 6:19 Or about 5 or 6 kilometers
3. John 6:31 Exodus 16:4; Neh. 9:15; Psalm 78:24,25
4. John 6:45 Isaiah 54:13
5. John 6:63 Or are Spirit; or are spirit

 

Wednesday Bible Study: A torrent of bullshit

John 5 is so ridiculous, in so many ways, that I can't be bothered to point them all out. But let me say first that this material is unique to John. The other Gospels don't mention any of this, or anything similar.

The NIV translation omits the material given in footnote 2, which the KJV includes. I suppose this is because it seems so absurd. " ⁴ From time to time an angel of the Lord would come down and stir up the waters. The first one into the pool after each such disturbance would be cured of whatever disease they had." So God, at random intervals, sends an angel to stir up the water and whoever manages to get in the pool first is cured. Why would God do this? Because he's nuts I presume. So Jesus cures a guy who is too disabled to get into the pool first, and then tells him the reason he was paralyzed is because he was a sinner, so he'd better not sin again or something even worse will happen to him. 

As in the other Gospels, Jesus then predicts that the day of judgment is imminent.  Two thousand years later, we're still waiting. And regarding verse 46, the Torah - which was supposedly written by Moses but of course was not - never mentions Jesus or a Messiah. Those ideas came with later prophets. So Jesus hadn't even read the Torah. I could go on at great length, but again I won't bother.

 

5 Some time later, Jesus went up to Jerusalem for one of the Jewish festivals. ² Now there is in Jerusalem near the Sheep Gate a pool, which in Aramaic is called Bethesda^[a] and which is surrounded by five covered colonnades. ³ Here a great number of disabled people used to lie—the blind, the lame, the paralyzed. ^{[4] [b] 5} One who was there had been an invalid for thirty-eight years. ⁶ When Jesus saw him lying there and learned that he had been in this condition for a long time, he asked him, “Do you want to get well?”

⁷ “Sir,” the invalid replied, “I have no one to help me into the pool when the water is stirred. While I am trying to get in, someone else goes down ahead of me.”

⁸ Then Jesus said to him, “Get up! Pick up your mat and walk.” ⁹ At once the man was cured; he picked up his mat and walked.

The day on which this took place was a Sabbath, ¹⁰ and so the Jewish leaders said to the man who had been healed, “It is the Sabbath; the law forbids you to carry your mat.”

¹¹ But he replied, “The man who made me well said to me, ‘Pick up your mat and walk.’ ”

¹² So they asked him, “Who is this fellow who told you to pick it up and walk?”

¹³ The man who was healed had no idea who it was, for Jesus had slipped away into the crowd that was there.

¹⁴ Later Jesus found him at the temple and said to him, “See, you are well again. Stop sinning or something worse may happen to you.” ¹⁵ The man went away and told the Jewish leaders that it was Jesus who had made him well.

The Authority of the Son

¹⁶ So, because Jesus was doing these things on the Sabbath, the Jewish leaders began to persecute him. ¹⁷ In his defense Jesus said to them, “My Father is always at his work to this very day, and I too am working.” ¹⁸ For this reason they tried all the more to kill him; not only was he breaking the Sabbath, but he was even calling God his own Father, making himself equal with God.

¹⁹ Jesus gave them this answer: “Very truly I tell you, the Son can do nothing by himself; he can do only what he sees his Father doing, because whatever the Father does the Son also does. ²⁰ For the Father loves the Son and shows him all he does. Yes, and he will show him even greater works than these, so that you will be amazed. ²¹ For just as the Father raises the dead and gives them life, even so the Son gives life to whom he is pleased to give it. ²² Moreover, the Father judges no one, but has entrusted all judgment to the Son, ²³ that all may honor the Son just as they honor the Father. Whoever does not honor the Son does not honor the Father, who sent him.

²⁴ “Very truly I tell you, whoever hears my word and believes him who sent me has eternal life and will not be judged but has crossed over from death to life. ²⁵ Very truly I tell you, a time is coming and has now come when the dead will hear the voice of the Son of God and those who hear will live. ²⁶ For as the Father has life in himself, so he has granted the Son also to have life in himself. ²⁷ And he has given him authority to judge because he is the Son of Man.

²⁸ “Do not be amazed at this, for a time is coming when all who are in their graves will hear his voice ²⁹ and come out—those who have done what is good will rise to live, and those who have done what is evil will rise to be condemned. ³⁰ By myself I can do nothing; I judge only as I hear, and my judgment is just, for I seek not to please myself but him who sent me.

Testimonies About Jesus

³¹ “If I testify about myself, my testimony is not true. ³² There is another who testifies in my favor, and I know that his testimony about me is true.

³³ “You have sent to John and he has testified to the truth. ³⁴ Not that I accept human testimony; but I mention it that you may be saved. ³⁵ John was a lamp that burned and gave light, and you chose for a time to enjoy his light.

³⁶ “I have testimony weightier than that of John. For the works that the Father has given me to finish—the very works that I am doing—testify that the Father has sent me. ³⁷ And the Father who sent me has himself testified concerning me. You have never heard his voice nor seen his form, ³⁸ nor does his word dwell in you, for you do not believe the one he sent. ³⁹ You study^[c] the Scriptures diligently because you think that in them you have eternal life. These are the very Scriptures that testify about me, ⁴⁰ yet you refuse to come to me to have life.

⁴¹ “I do not accept glory from human beings, ⁴² but I know you. I know that you do not have the love of God in your hearts. ⁴³ I have come in my Father’s name, and you do not accept me; but if someone else comes in his own name, you will accept him. ⁴⁴ How can you believe since you accept glory from one another but do not seek the glory that comes from the only God^[d]?

⁴⁵ “But do not think I will accuse you before the Father. Your accuser is Moses, on whom your hopes are set. ⁴⁶ If you believed Moses, you would believe me, for he wrote about me. ⁴⁷ But since you do not believe what he wrote, how are you going to believe what I say?”

Footnotes

1. John 5:2 Some manuscripts Bethzatha; other manuscripts Bethsaida
2. John 5:4 Some manuscripts include here, wholly or in part, paralyzed—and they waited for the moving of the waters. ⁴ From time to time an angel of the Lord would come down and stir up the waters. The first one into the pool after each such disturbance would be cured of whatever disease they had.
3. John 5:39 Or ³⁹ Study
4. John 5:44 Some early manuscripts the Only One

 

Sunday Sermonette: Cold Reading

The story of the Samaritan woman at the well is unique to the Gospel of John, though the story of the nobleman in Capernaum with a sick son is similar to stories in Matthew and Luke. 

Jesus does what's called a "cold reading" on the Samaritan woman.  These tricks have been around for as long as there have been phony psychics and prophets. John of course does not give us the entire record of the encounter to show us how JC did it, but if you follow the link, which is quite interesting, you'll understand how he could have done it. Of course, this is assuming that anything like this actually happened at all. I'll just add that according to Luke, the Samaritans rejected Jesus and his teachings. But keeping track of all the contradictions gets tiresome.

 

4 Now Jesus learned that the Pharisees had heard that he was gaining and baptizing more disciples than John— ² although in fact it was not Jesus who baptized, but his disciples. ³ So he left Judea and went back once more to Galilee.

⁴ Now he had to go through Samaria. ⁵ So he came to a town in Samaria called Sychar, near the plot of ground Jacob had given to his son Joseph. ⁶ Jacob’s well was there, and Jesus, tired as he was from the journey, sat down by the well. It was about noon.

⁷ When a Samaritan woman came to draw water, Jesus said to her, “Will you give me a drink?” ⁸ (His disciples had gone into the town to buy food.)

⁹ The Samaritan woman said to him, “You are a Jew and I am a Samaritan woman. How can you ask me for a drink?” (For Jews do not associate with Samaritans.^[a])

¹⁰ Jesus answered her, “If you knew the gift of God and who it is that asks you for a drink, you would have asked him and he would have given you living water.”

¹¹ “Sir,” the woman said, “you have nothing to draw with and the well is deep. Where can you get this living water? ¹² Are you greater than our father Jacob, who gave us the well and drank from it himself, as did also his sons and his livestock?”

¹³ Jesus answered, “Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again, ¹⁴ but whoever drinks the water I give them will never thirst. Indeed, the water I give them will become in them a spring of water welling up to eternal life.”

¹⁵ The woman said to him, “Sir, give me this water so that I won’t get thirsty and have to keep coming here to draw water.”

¹⁶ He told her, “Go, call your husband and come back.”

¹⁷ “I have no husband,” she replied.

Jesus said to her, “You are right when you say you have no husband. ¹⁸ The fact is, you have had five husbands, and the man you now have is not your husband. What you have just said is quite true.”

¹⁹ “Sir,” the woman said, “I can see that you are a prophet. ²⁰ Our ancestors worshiped on this mountain, but you Jews claim that the place where we must worship is in Jerusalem.”

²¹ “Woman,” Jesus replied, “believe me, a time is coming when you will worship the Father neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem. ²² You Samaritans worship what you do not know; we worship what we do know, for salvation is from the Jews. ²³ Yet a time is coming and has now come when the true worshipers will worship the Father in the Spirit and in truth, for they are the kind of worshipers the Father seeks. ²⁴ God is spirit, and his worshipers must worship in the Spirit and in truth.”

²⁵ The woman said, “I know that Messiah” (called Christ) “is coming. When he comes, he will explain everything to us.”

²⁶ Then Jesus declared, “I, the one speaking to you—I am he.”

The Disciples Rejoin Jesus

²⁷ Just then his disciples returned and were surprised to find him talking with a woman. But no one asked, “What do you want?” or “Why are you talking with her?”

²⁸ Then, leaving her water jar, the woman went back to the town and said to the people, ²⁹ “Come, see a man who told me everything I ever did. Could this be the Messiah?” ³⁰ They came out of the town and made their way toward him.

³¹ Meanwhile his disciples urged him, “Rabbi, eat something.”

³² But he said to them, “I have food to eat that you know nothing about.”

³³ Then his disciples said to each other, “Could someone have brought him food?”

³⁴ “My food,” said Jesus, “is to do the will of him who sent me and to finish his work. ³⁵ Don’t you have a saying, ‘It’s still four months until harvest’? I tell you, open your eyes and look at the fields! They are ripe for harvest. ³⁶ Even now the one who reaps draws a wage and harvests a crop for eternal life, so that the sower and the reaper may be glad together. ³⁷ Thus the saying ‘One sows and another reaps’ is true. ³⁸ I sent you to reap what you have not worked for. Others have done the hard work, and you have reaped the benefits of their labor.”

Many Samaritans Believe

³⁹ Many of the Samaritans from that town believed in him because of the woman’s testimony, “He told me everything I ever did.” ⁴⁰ So when the Samaritans came to him, they urged him to stay with them, and he stayed two days. ⁴¹ And because of his words many more became believers.

⁴² They said to the woman, “We no longer believe just because of what you said; now we have heard for ourselves, and we know that this man really is the Savior of the world.”

Jesus Heals an Official’s Son

⁴³ After the two days he left for Galilee. ⁴⁴ (Now Jesus himself had pointed out that a prophet has no honor in his own country.) ⁴⁵ When he arrived in Galilee, the Galileans welcomed him. They had seen all that he had done in Jerusalem at the Passover Festival, for they also had been there.

⁴⁶ Once more he visited Cana in Galilee, where he had turned the water into wine. And there was a certain royal official whose son lay sick at Capernaum. ⁴⁷ When this man heard that Jesus had arrived in Galilee from Judea, he went to him and begged him to come and heal his son, who was close to death.

⁴⁸ “Unless you people see signs and wonders,” Jesus told him, “you will never believe.”

⁴⁹ The royal official said, “Sir, come down before my child dies.”

⁵⁰ “Go,” Jesus replied, “your son will live.”

The man took Jesus at his word and departed. ⁵¹ While he was still on the way, his servants met him with the news that his boy was living. ⁵² When he inquired as to the time when his son got better, they said to him, “Yesterday, at one in the afternoon, the fever left him.”

⁵³ Then the father realized that this was the exact time at which Jesus had said to him, “Your son will live.” So he and his whole household believed.

⁵⁴ This was the second sign Jesus performed after coming from Judea to Galilee.

Footnotes

1. John 4:9 Or do not use dishes Samaritans have used

 

Reaching the top floor

I've taken a day or two to gather my thoughts about social science, which sits on top of psychology and biology. Social scientists are -- or at least should be -- the most self-reflective of all scientists. Among scientists, we are the fullest inhabitants of Habermas's Second and Third Worlds. The Second World -- The Good -- includes the social order, what are considered to be the proper social roles for people, which includes "right" or "good" behavior according to the position one occupies in society, as well as what people actually do, which may or may not accord with that.

Inevitably, we have our own opinions of The Good, and relatedly, of The Beautiful. We cannot approach the study of society from a position outside of it, although some pretend to do so. We can study societies other than our own, but that requires imposing our own frameworks of understanding on them. There's nothing necessarily wrong with that, but it is wrong to pretend it isn't happening. When we study our own society, we must be conscious that our frameworks of understanding are a product of the society we are studying. 

Many social scientists, historically, have essentially set out to justify what they see. Broadly speaking, this is called a structural -functionalist viewpoint. They explained social norms and institutions as serving purposes, as accomplishing ends that benefit the entirety of society. We can take a critical or dissenting position, but that obviously isn't value free either. These are usually called conflict viewpoints -- people in different positions in society have contrasting interests, and the more powerful exploit the less powerful. There may be some perceivable communal interest, but it is often subordinate to the interests of particular groups. These may be defined by class, caste, gender, ethnicity, or other criteria, but all of us are embedded in all of those categories.

I was at a conference some years ago, I don't remember what it was about. Maybe public health, or communication in healthcare. Anyway we had a special interest group meeting on cross-cultural communication. We went around and introduced ourselves and a man said (I'm putting it in quotes but it's from memory so maybe not a literal quotation) "I always wanted to have a culture. My neighbors were Latino and Chinese, and I didn't have a culture."

As the jaws hit the floor I said, "I assure you sir, you do have a culture." But the truth is, until the latter half of the 20th Century, many social scientists were blind to this obvious reality, which from our point of view today seems truly astounding. The convention was to write papers in what purported to be the view from nowhere. Reviewers and editors would ding you for using active voice in describing the methods and the analysis. It couldn't be "We did this," it had to be "This was done," apparently by nobody. 

The myth of the disembodied investigator in fact denies the very foundations of social science. But does that mean social science isn't really science? Some people, e.g. Stephen Pinker and Richard Dawkins, will say so. Next, I'll explain why they are wrong and in fact are blind to themselves. 

 

 

 

Wednesday Bible Study: Has anyone given this even a moment's thought?

John 3 contains the passage Christian proselytizers are most fond of. They hold up signs at ballgames reading just "John 3:16." I won't trouble you with numerous disparities between this chapter and the other gospels, because I realize that gets tiresome. We know that as the stories got passed down they morphed, as in the telephone game. Okay, we got that. 

So let's just think about this.  

¹⁶ For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. ¹⁷ For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him. ¹⁸ Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe stands condemned already because they have not believed in the name of God’s one and only Son. ¹⁹   

Okay. Homo sapiens -- or at least skeletons that look like ours -- came into being around 300,000 to 250,000 years ago. It's possible, and much debated, whether their brains were fully modern until maybe 75,000 years ago, because that's when we see the oldest symbolic artifacts and the pace of technological change seemed to accelerate, so let's be conservative and say that's when people started to talk and got religion. So God let's them carry on for at least 73,000 years before he decides to do this trick with his son. 

So tough luck for everybody who lived before then. This actually posed a problem for Dante, because he had to put Socrates and his contemporaries in hell. In other words, even if you believe God created the world 10,000 years ago, this is still very puzzling. If God so loved the world that he wanted to give people a shot at eternal life, why the wait? Did he not love the world before then? And why couldn't he just do it? Why did he need to have his son tortured to death? 

And what does it mean that Jesus was God's "son" anyway? Did God ejaculate inside Mary? Did Jesus have God's Y chromosome and a full set of the other 22? What is God's DNA like anyway? And why does God decide that anybody who believes this cockamamie story gets eternal life, while anybody who doesn't believe it is shit out of luck? What's the point of that? 

In other words, this is total gibberish and it only takes a minute to see that.  

 

 

3 Now there was a Pharisee, a man named Nicodemus who was a member of the Jewish ruling council. ² He came to Jesus at night and said, “Rabbi, we know that you are a teacher who has come from God. For no one could perform the signs you are doing if God were not with him.”

³ Jesus replied, “Very truly I tell you, no one can see the kingdom of God unless they are born again.^[a]”

⁴ “How can someone be born when they are old?” Nicodemus asked. “Surely they cannot enter a second time into their mother’s womb to be born!”

⁵ Jesus answered, “Very truly I tell you, no one can enter the kingdom of God unless they are born of water and the Spirit. ⁶ Flesh gives birth to flesh, but the Spirit^[b] gives birth to spirit. ⁷ You should not be surprised at my saying, ‘You^[c] must be born again.’ ⁸ The wind blows wherever it pleases. You hear its sound, but you cannot tell where it comes from or where it is going. So it is with everyone born of the Spirit.”^[d]

⁹ “How can this be?” Nicodemus asked.

¹⁰ “You are Israel’s teacher,” said Jesus, “and do you not understand these things? ¹¹ Very truly I tell you, we speak of what we know, and we testify to what we have seen, but still you people do not accept our testimony. ¹² I have spoken to you of earthly things and you do not believe; how then will you believe if I speak of heavenly things? ¹³ No one has ever gone into heaven except the one who came from heaven—the Son of Man.^{[e] 14} Just as Moses lifted up the snake in the wilderness, so the Son of Man must be lifted up,^{[f] 15} that everyone who believes may have eternal life in him.”^[g]

¹⁶ For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. ¹⁷ For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him. ¹⁸ Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe stands condemned already because they have not believed in the name of God’s one and only Son. ¹⁹ This is the verdict: Light has come into the world, but people loved darkness instead of light because their deeds were evil. ²⁰ Everyone who does evil hates the light, and will not come into the light for fear that their deeds will be exposed. ²¹ But whoever lives by the truth comes into the light, so that it may be seen plainly that what they have done has been done in the sight of God.

John Testifies Again About Jesus

²² After this, Jesus and his disciples went out into the Judean countryside, where he spent some time with them, and baptized. ²³ Now John also was baptizing at Aenon near Salim, because there was plenty of water, and people were coming and being baptized. ²⁴ (This was before John was put in prison.) ²⁵ An argument developed between some of John’s disciples and a certain Jew over the matter of ceremonial washing. ²⁶ They came to John and said to him, “Rabbi, that man who was with you on the other side of the Jordan—the one you testified about—look, he is baptizing, and everyone is going to him.”

²⁷ To this John replied, “A person can receive only what is given them from heaven. ²⁸ You yourselves can testify that I said, ‘I am not the Messiah but am sent ahead of him.’ ²⁹ The bride belongs to the bridegroom. The friend who attends the bridegroom waits and listens for him, and is full of joy when he hears the bridegroom’s voice. That joy is mine, and it is now complete. ³⁰ He must become greater; I must become less.”^[h]

³¹ The one who comes from above is above all; the one who is from the earth belongs to the earth, and speaks as one from the earth. The one who comes from heaven is above all. ³² He testifies to what he has seen and heard, but no one accepts his testimony. ³³ Whoever has accepted it has certified that God is truthful. ³⁴ For the one whom God has sent speaks the words of God, for God^[i] gives the Spirit without limit. ³⁵ The Father loves the Son and has placed everything in his hands. ³⁶ Whoever believes in the Son has eternal life, but whoever rejects the Son will not see life, for God’s wrath remains on them.

Footnotes

1. John 3:3 The Greek for again also means from above; also in verse 7.
2. John 3:6 Or but spirit
3. John 3:7 The Greek is plural.
4. John 3:8 The Greek for Spirit is the same as that for wind.
5. John 3:13 Some manuscripts Man, who is in heaven
6. John 3:14 The Greek for lifted up also means exalted.
7. John 3:15 Some interpreters end the quotation with verse 21.
8. John 3:30 Some interpreters end the quotation with verse 36.
9. John 3:34 Greek he

 

Bad Science

I need to digress from the hierarchy of knowledge story to discuss what is called the Replication Crisis, which you can read about at length here if you are so inclined. It primarily affected psychology, which is why I discuss it here, although it did affect educational (i.e. pedagogical) research and even biomedical research to some extent. In 2015 a project called the Open Science Collaborative tried to reproduce results of 100 widely cited studies in social psychology and found that only 36% of them could be replicated at all, and that even then the effect sizes were generally much smaller than the original report.

 

The problem is generally attributed to the incentives faced by investigators. They need to publish, and they need to get grants, which are mutually reinforcing requirements. Scientific journals have several "publication biases" that push investigators toward practices that can result in non-reproducible research. Editors favor positive results -- they aren't interested in studies that show that an intervention doesn't work, or a hypothesis is false. They favor dramatic results -- large effect sizes over small, novel and surprising findings. And they favor novelty -- they don't like to publish even positive replications, let alone refutations. 

 

One response to these incentives, obviously, can be outright fraud, and that does indeed happen. For example, Dutch social psychologist Diedrik Stapel was found to have fabricated data for dozens of highly cited studies in prominent journals. Fifty-eight of his publications have been retracted, but that actually puts him only at number 8 on the Retraction Watch leaderboard. For some reason most of the leaders are Asian. The GOAT is the German researcher Joachim Boldt at 233, although his main problem was failure to secure IRB approval -- the research was not necessarily all fraudulent, but it was unethical. The U.S. champ is Adrian Maxim, a former electrical engineer.

 

However, blatant fraud is relatively uncommon. There are many ways to fudge data, not necessarily with consciousness of ill intent. Publication bias would result in a substantial amount of irreproducible research even without so-called "Questionable Research Practices" (QRP) because, as I said last time, positive results can happen purely by coincidence and those are the ones that are more likely to get published. But yes, plenty of QRPing does go on. I started to get at this last time when I talked about various ways study designs can be weak, but that isn't necessarily detectable from the manuscripts. 

 

Probably the most common QRP is "p hacking," which basically means forming hypotheses after you do the research, when you already know what associations were significant. If you make many comparisons among different groups within your sample, you're bound to find some that are statistically significant, just by chance, but the p value is meaningless. Sometimes investigators don't tell readers, including reviewers and editors, that they did this. 

 

The good news, however, is that the scientific establishment has become far more aware of these problems. Federally funded research now requires pre-trial registration, so you're hypotheses and methods are on the record before you begin. Journals, including and perhaps most particularly the most prestigious, are more willing to publish replications, refutations, and negative results. People are looking at their colleagues with more suspicion. The main end point, for me, is that science does often go wrong, but ultimately it corrects itself. Sometimes it takes longer than it should, but it does have a ratchet: we gain more and more accurate information over time. That's why you can read this, because I wrote it on a computer and posted it on the Internet.  

Sunday Sermonette: Not synoptic

John is the only Gospel that has the story of the wedding at Cana, and turning water into wine. That this is Jesus's first miracle, according to John, must be significant. First of all, obviously, for certain Christian sects that eschew alcohol, it's an embarrassment that they just ignore. That the wine is good quality also seems important. Apparently Jesus wants us to drink the best vintage.

Oddly enough, the next story, the cleansing of the Temple, does occur in Matthew, Mark and Luke, but it happens in the last week of Jesus's life. Here, it happens immediately after his first miracle. Hmm. 

 

2 On the third day a wedding took place at Cana in Galilee. Jesus’ mother was there, ² and Jesus and his disciples had also been invited to the wedding. ³ When the wine was gone, Jesus’ mother said to him, “They have no more wine.”

⁴ “Woman,^[a] why do you involve me?” Jesus replied. “My hour has not yet come.”

⁵ His mother said to the servants, “Do whatever he tells you.”

⁶ Nearby stood six stone water jars, the kind used by the Jews for ceremonial washing, each holding from twenty to thirty gallons.^[b]

⁷ Jesus said to the servants, “Fill the jars with water”; so they filled them to the brim.

⁸ Then he told them, “Now draw some out and take it to the master of the banquet.”

They did so, ⁹ and the master of the banquet tasted the water that had been turned into wine. He did not realize where it had come from, though the servants who had drawn the water knew. Then he called the bridegroom aside ¹⁰ and said, “Everyone brings out the choice wine first and then the cheaper wine after the guests have had too much to drink; but you have saved the best till now.”

¹¹ What Jesus did here in Cana of Galilee was the first of the signs through which he revealed his glory; and his disciples believed in him.

¹² After this he went down to Capernaum with his mother and brothers and his disciples. There they stayed for a few days.

Jesus Clears the Temple Courts

¹³ When it was almost time for the Jewish Passover, Jesus went up to Jerusalem. ¹⁴ In the temple courts he found people selling cattle, sheep and doves, and others sitting at tables exchanging money. ¹⁵ So he made a whip out of cords, and drove all from the temple courts, both sheep and cattle; he scattered the coins of the money changers and overturned their tables. ¹⁶ To those who sold doves he said, “Get these out of here! Stop turning my Father’s house into a market!” ¹⁷ His disciples remembered that it is written: “Zeal for your house will consume me.”^[c]

¹⁸ The Jews then responded to him, “What sign can you show us to prove your authority to do all this?”

¹⁹ Jesus answered them, “Destroy this temple, and I will raise it again in three days.”

²⁰ They replied, “It has taken forty-six years to build this temple, and you are going to raise it in three days?” ²¹ But the temple he had spoken of was his body. ²² After he was raised from the dead, his disciples recalled what he had said. Then they believed the scripture and the words that Jesus had spoken.

²³ Now while he was in Jerusalem at the Passover Festival, many people saw the signs he was performing and believed in his name.^{[d] 24} But Jesus would not entrust himself to them, for he knew all people. ²⁵ He did not need any testimony about mankind, for he knew what was in each person.

Footnotes

1. John 2:4 The Greek for Woman does not denote any disrespect.
2. John 2:6 Or from about 75 to about 115 liters
3. John 2:17 Psalm 69:9
4. John 2:23 Or in him

 

Next story up

Before we return to the clinical trials and snake oil discussion, let's take another step up the epistemological ladder to psychology. Now it gets complicated. First, we're confronting a problem directly that's actually been there all along, but unacknowledged. How do we know what we know, or do we really know anything? What is the relationship between the world "out there," and the world inside our skull? Second, we're explicitly entering deeply into Habermas's Second and Third worlds. We can no longer only be concerned with the True, but we must also consider the Good, and the Beautiful, because these are categories that are generated by and only by the human brain.

 

So let's start with the connections downward. The brain is a physical organ. It is a biological entity and it is part of the body. Other metazoans also have them, but ours is the most complicated and the one in which we are most interested. Animal behavior, psychology if you will, is not as far from biology as is human behavior so I won't consider it here. 

 

It is possible, in fact it has been done, to completely map and understand the behavioral functionality of animals with no more than a few hundred neurons, e.g. flatworms, but it is a practical impossibility to understand the behavior of anything with a nervous system as complicated as an arthropod simply by mapping out the biology. Nervous systems have emergent properties which means they must be studied by methods and theories that transcend biology, just as biology has emergent properties that transcend chemistry, and chemistry transcends physics. 

 

Our power to see inside the human brain and get some idea of what's going on there has increased in recent years but it's still at a very gross level. We've identified areas and circuits that have certain functions but that's about as far as we've gotten. That sort of investigation belongs to neurobiology, the in-between of biology and psychology. But to understand what we mean by psychology, how the mind works, we only have two major alternatives. 1) We can observe people's behavior, and we can do experiments to try to learn how particular stimuli are associated with particular behavioral outputs; and 2) we can ask people to tell us what they perceive as happening in their own minds. That's it. We cannot directly observe any other person's consciousness, which makes it a profound mystery.

 

We must also consider the Good and the Beautiful because they are categories of motivation, but also because they are inevitably goals of psychological investigation. What is the Good, why do people pursue it or not, how can we make people do more of it? And how can we give people beauty and make them happy? Note, by the way, that we're trying to do the latter in a very limited way through biomedicine because we're trying to give people bodies that don't hurt them and enable them to pursue happiness, but physicians, in my view, don't spend enough time and effort trying to understand what really matters to people. And it's because we need to consider that more deeply that I put biomedicine and clinical research in the parking lot while I moved on to this level. 

 

More to come. 

 

Wednesday Bible Study: Now for something completely different

Scholars think the Gospel of John was written around 90 BCE, which means that like the other Gospels, the writer cannot possibly have been an eyewitness to any of the events it describes.* In any event, while the events it describe overlap broadly with those of the other Gospels -- you have John the Baptist, recruitment of disciples most of whose names match (not all), miracles, crucifixion, resurrection, all the basics -- there is no shared language except for some minor overlap with Luke. The chronology is also different in many respects and, as always, there are numerous other discrepancies among the accounts.

John is also different because there's a lot of editorializing by the writer -- he doesn't put all his ideas in the mouth of Jesus. But, like much of what is attributed to Jesus, a lot of it is hard or even impossible to understand. What's all this about the "word" in the beginning? You can decide for yourself what you think it's supposed to mean. 

For now, just one more reminder. This is stuck in the middle of the Book of Luke. The second half of Luke is the Acts of the Apostles, which is placed after this in the canonical New Testament.

 

1 In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. ² He was with God in the beginning. ³ Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made. ⁴ In him was life, and that life was the light of all mankind. ⁵ The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome^[a] it.

⁶ There was a man sent from God whose name was John. ⁷ He came as a witness to testify concerning that light, so that through him all might believe. ⁸ He himself was not the light; he came only as a witness to the light.

⁹ The true light that gives light to everyone was coming into the world. ¹⁰ He was in the world, and though the world was made through him, the world did not recognize him. ¹¹ He came to that which was his own, but his own did not receive him. ¹² Yet to all who did receive him, to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God— ¹³ children born not of natural descent, nor of human decision or a husband’s will, but born of God.

¹⁴ The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the one and only Son, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth.

¹⁵ (John testified concerning him. He cried out, saying, “This is the one I spoke about when I said, ‘He who comes after me has surpassed me because he was before me.’”) ¹⁶ Out of his fullness we have all received grace in place of grace already given. ¹⁷ For the law was given through Moses; grace and truth came through Jesus Christ. ¹⁸ No one has ever seen God, but the one and only Son, who is himself God and^[b] is in closest relationship with the Father, has made him known.

John the Baptist Denies Being the Messiah

¹⁹ Now this was John’s testimony when the Jewish leaders^[c] in Jerusalem sent priests and Levites to ask him who he was. ²⁰ He did not fail to confess, but confessed freely, “I am not the Messiah.”

²¹ They asked him, “Then who are you? Are you Elijah?”

He said, “I am not.”

“Are you the Prophet?”

He answered, “No.”

²² Finally they said, “Who are you? Give us an answer to take back to those who sent us. What do you say about yourself?”

²³ John replied in the words of Isaiah the prophet, “I am the voice of one calling in the wilderness, ‘Make straight the way for the Lord.’”^[d]

²⁴ Now the Pharisees who had been sent ²⁵ questioned him, “Why then do you baptize if you are not the Messiah, nor Elijah, nor the Prophet?”

²⁶ “I baptize with^[e] water,” John replied, “but among you stands one you do not know. ²⁷ He is the one who comes after me, the straps of whose sandals I am not worthy to untie.”

²⁸ This all happened at Bethany on the other side of the Jordan, where John was baptizing.

John Testifies About Jesus

²⁹ The next day John saw Jesus coming toward him and said, “Look, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world! ³⁰ This is the one I meant when I said, ‘A man who comes after me has surpassed me because he was before me.’ ³¹ I myself did not know him, but the reason I came baptizing with water was that he might be revealed to Israel.”

³² Then John gave this testimony: “I saw the Spirit come down from heaven as a dove and remain on him. ³³ And I myself did not know him, but the one who sent me to baptize with water told me, ‘The man on whom you see the Spirit come down and remain is the one who will baptize with the Holy Spirit.’ ³⁴ I have seen and I testify that this is God’s Chosen One.”^[f]

John’s Disciples Follow Jesus

³⁵ The next day John was there again with two of his disciples. ³⁶ When he saw Jesus passing by, he said, “Look, the Lamb of God!”

³⁷ When the two disciples heard him say this, they followed Jesus. ³⁸ Turning around, Jesus saw them following and asked, “What do you want?”

They said, “Rabbi” (which means “Teacher”), “where are you staying?”

³⁹ “Come,” he replied, “and you will see.”

So they went and saw where he was staying, and they spent that day with him. It was about four in the afternoon.

⁴⁰ Andrew, Simon Peter’s brother, was one of the two who heard what John had said and who had followed Jesus. ⁴¹ The first thing Andrew did was to find his brother Simon and tell him, “We have found the Messiah” (that is, the Christ). ⁴² And he brought him to Jesus.

Jesus looked at him and said, “You are Simon son of John. You will be called Cephas” (which, when translated, is Peter^[g]).

Jesus Calls Philip and Nathanael

⁴³ The next day Jesus decided to leave for Galilee. Finding Philip, he said to him, “Follow me.”

⁴⁴ Philip, like Andrew and Peter, was from the town of Bethsaida. ⁴⁵ Philip found Nathanael and told him, “We have found the one Moses wrote about in the Law, and about whom the prophets also wrote—Jesus of Nazareth, the son of Joseph.”

⁴⁶ “Nazareth! Can anything good come from there?” Nathanael asked.

“Come and see,” said Philip.

⁴⁷ When Jesus saw Nathanael approaching, he said of him, “Here truly is an Israelite in whom there is no deceit.”

⁴⁸ “How do you know me?” Nathanael asked.

Jesus answered, “I saw you while you were still under the fig tree before Philip called you.”

⁴⁹ Then Nathanael declared, “Rabbi, you are the Son of God; you are the king of Israel.”

⁵⁰ Jesus said, “You believe^[h] because I told you I saw you under the fig tree. You will see greater things than that.” ⁵¹ He then added, “Very truly I tell you,^[i] you^[j] will see ‘heaven open, and the angels of God ascending and descending on’^[k] the Son of Man.”

Footnotes

1. John 1:5 Or understood
2. John 1:18 Some manuscripts but the only Son, who
3. John 1:19 The Greek term traditionally translated the Jews (hoi Ioudaioi) refers here and elsewhere in John’s Gospel to those Jewish leaders who opposed Jesus; also in 5:10, 15, 16; 7:1, 11, 13; 9:22; 18:14, 28, 36; 19:7, 12, 31, 38; 20:19.
4. John 1:23 Isaiah 40:3
5. John 1:26 Or in; also in verses 31 and 33 (twice)
6. John 1:34 See Isaiah 42:1; many manuscripts is the Son of God.
7. John 1:42 Cephas (Aramaic) and Peter (Greek) both mean rock.
8. John 1:50 Or Do you believe … ?
9. John 1:51 The Greek is plural.
10. John 1:51 The Greek is plural.
11. John 1:51 Gen. 28:12

 

 

 

 

 

 

* Some believe that Mark planted a brief description of a personal experience in Ch. 14: "⁵¹ A young man, wearing nothing but a linen garment, was following Jesus. When they seized him, ⁵² he fled naked, leaving his garment behind." I agree it's hard to explain why this is here otherwise, but I don't think that's definitive evidence of anything.