Month: May 2007

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Religion

Disturbing Bible reading example #56543

I read Judges last night and there was yet another rather disturbing story that I don’t know what to make of. So a guy and his concubine go to a town on the way back to his place. They specifically picked this place in order to be in a Jewish town and not a Gentile one. Some old guy offers them a place to stay in his house. Then it’s a repeat of what happened with Lot and the angels with a twist. Various townspeople pound on the door of the old man’s place demanding that he put the visitor outside because they want to have sex with him. The old man says no, that would be terrible, but he offers his virgin daughter and the man’s concubine instead. There is some discussion and then they throw the concubine outside. She is raped all night until she dies. The next morning, the man collects the body and goes home. He then cuts here body into 12 pieces and sends a piece to each tribe of Israel as “evidence” of the crime. The Israelites are so outraged they band together and attack the tribe of Benjamin (they were the ones responsible for the town in which this happened). There are heavy losses on both sides, but the tribe of Benjamin is almost wiped out, there are only 400 something men left. The Israelites feel bad for the men because they swore that they would never allow their daughters to mary someone from that tribe. So they arrange a plan where the men from the tribe of Benjamin can steal women from other tribes. This would be OK since they weren’t given to them…

I have a very simple question. WHAT THE HELL WAS THAT ALL ABOUT? It seems as though there is at least one story like this in each of the old testament books I’ve read so far. What are we supposed to do or think about these things? What are you supposed to say to your children when you encourage them to read the Bible and they come across a story like this? I am willing to believe that there are very useful parts of the Bible, and that sometimes terrible things can be very instructive, but I haven’t seen anything useful about these types of stories so far. I sure hope that the quality of material improves in the Old Testament, I’m getting downright discouraged…

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Yemen

A word about Yemen and religions

I’ve had plenty of people ask me about living here and not being a Muslim. “Aren’t you afraid of, you know, them hating you because you’re a Christian?” Not at all. There may be some people that don’t like me, but it isn’t because of my religion. There are probably more Christians that don’t like my version of “their” religion, LOL. Seriously, Muslims here have a real respect for anybody that ascribes to any of the three main traditions and is a decent person. I know a Jewish woman here who is afraid of “letting down” the Yemenis because she really isn’t as serious as they think Jews should be.

The people that need to watch out are atheists, polytheists, and Zionists. If you hold any of these beliefs, you can certainly come here, just don’t proclaim your beliefs loudly. If you’re an atheist, I would lie and claim to be a Christian. They really don’t have a clue about Christianity here, so if you claim to be a Christian, they won’t challenge you. Gays and lesbians shouldn’t fear coming here either. The culture is such that close close contact between members of the same sex is very common. No one would ever guess, and no one would ask. Hell a guy may kiss you here, but it wouldn’t mean the same thing as it does back home:-)

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Religion

Book of Joshua and Cain’s wife

I finished up Deuteronomy and Joshua. I think that everyone should read Joshua, not because of the deep religious insights contained in it, but to get a feel for the old testament God. When God gave the Israelites their land, He gave them orders to kill every living thing in the towns and cities. Every man, woman, child, and animal. When they did not do this once, God came down on them very hard. For every person that says that “God is love,” or some such nonsense needs to read these books. The people that were slaughtered (that’s the word used in many parts, at least in this translation) had never had any dealings with the Israelites, most had never shown any animosity to them either. God commanded that they be killed completely, that they be wiped off the face of the earth, so they were.

It’s quite chilling really. I think that it’s important to remember this episode when dealing with other religions that are still stuck in “Old Testament mode.” Many Jews and Muslims still feel that they might be commanded to kill people in God’s name. Christians shy away from this thank God, but they need to keep their heritage in mind.

I mentioned being confused about who Cain married. Seems like I’m not the only one. The question actually played an important role in the Scopes’ monkey trial. The inability of the expert witness to identify who Cain married supposedly lead to an inability to trust scripture and thus played a role in the ultimate outcome of the trial… Cain’s wife is not named, but the Bible says that he went to a city to find his wife. There are a couple of options here for the believers of the literal word. One of them is that Adam and Eve had many children, not all of them are named in the Bible. Cain simply married one of his many sisters… The fact that he went to a “city” doesn’t bother these people, the word just means something different than it does today. Not that any other words would mean something different…. Here’s my take, people need to embrace the fact that the Bible is not complete, that there are huge gaps in it. According to the Bible, Adam lived for 900 something years, but after fathering Cain and Abel, you don’t hear anything else about him. It’s as if he retired and didn’t learn anything or do anything in his remaining 800 years… These gaps don’t necessarily have to lead to not trusting it (although they certainly could), it just means that we have to use our heads and, dare I say it, our imaginations to fill in the blanks.

In Leviticus, there is a rule saying that you shouldn’t weave linen and wool together and that you should not wear clothes made of two different cloths. That seems really odd, at least with a lot of the other nit picking rules there was a health upshot to it. Not this one. I can imagine the conversation between Moses and God going something like this…

“YOU MAY NOT WEAR DACRON/POLYESTER BLENDS, I AM THE LORD YOUR GOD AND THIS IS MY RULE GIVEN TO MY PEOPLE”
“Ummm, OK Lord, but what is it?”
“OH, IT IS EVIL, YOU HAVE NO IDEA… TRUST ME, IT IS AN ABOMINATION TO WEAR CLOTHES MADE OF THIS COMBINATION”
“Alright, what was that again? Dcranonester?”
“DO NOT TRY MY PATIENCE! I HAVE GIVEN YOU MY RULE, NOW GO TELL THE PEOPLE!”
“Yes, of course…”
So it comes out as the only thing Moses could understand, linen/wool combinations…. I personally think that there had to be quite a few misunderstandings between the supreme being and His creations. Look at what Jesus did to Levitical law, he pretty much gutted it. Either they got it wrong to begin with, they modified it over time, or God just changed His mind… I lean towards the first two options, but the third is certainly a possibility…

Another thing that strikes you as you read the Old Testament is how everything takes place in one relatively small area of the world. There isn’t any mention of Africa, Europe, the vast bulk of Asia or the Americas of course. At the time it was written, and for the people reading it, it probably covered everything that needed to be. But we are reading it now and we are aware of parallel histories happening all over the globe. Ancient Greece, ancient China and Japan, etc, these histories are completely outside of the Biblical narrative. Only a fool would deny that they existed, but what to make of them from a Christian perspective? It’s a deep question. To me, the only way to make sense of it is one that many Christians don’t like. God (if He truly is all powerful and the only God) most likely communicated with these people as well. I know that many, if not most Christians do not like the “many religions, one God” theory, but I don’t see any way around it. I’d like to hear some other reason why “the message” still has not gotten to many people on this earth despite the fact that all this stuff happened at least 2000 years ago…

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Yemen

Random curious things in Yemen

Here in Yemen, ATM, as in ATM machine stands for All Time Money…

Many people are very careful about ordering a “beef burger.” When asked why they add beef to the front, they reply it is to make sure they don’t get one made of ham…

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Arabic

Once more, with feeling…

Today in class we went over how to use “this,” “those,” and “that.” We also went over when to use aliph lam with those as well. I had “learned” this stuff before, but it definitely needed going over again. “This” is used for things that are right here whereas “that” is used for things over there. Of course in Arabic there is the singular, the plural, and the dual. And then there are the genders to worry about… OK, no problem, but there is a catch of course. All nonhuman plurals take on the singular feminine with it comes to their adjectives and their demonstrative pronouns (these, that, those). Errr, OK, I think I have that down. If you are using numbers, you use the dual if there are 2 and you use the plural if there are 3-11 of them. If they are nonhuman, you use the plural word for the noun, but describe them with singular, feminine adjectives. If there are more than 11, you use the singular version of the noun, but continue to use the feminine adjectives (singular) regardless of the gender of the noun. Of course if you are dealing with human plurals (sisters, engineers, students), you use the plural noun and have the adjectives agree with both the gender and the plural as long as there are 3-11 of them. If there are more than that, you use the singular noun but the plural adjective (I think) and the adjective must agree gender-wise…

So if we have a sentence like, “These are the new pens.” It ends up being literally translated as “This pens new.” What doesn’t translate is the singular feminine version of the adjective even though we are dealing with a plural masculine noun. Fun fun. If I were to add the actual numbers, it gets even better. “These are the 7 new pens,” ends up closer to “This the seven pens new.” If I go to a higher number like “These are the 15 new pens,” it ends up like, “This the 15 pen new.” Whoosh, and to think that there is much more complicated stuff than this to get through my head…

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Yemen

I just can’t do it…

One of the new American students came into the school today sporting a mouaz (I call them man skirts) and a jambiya. He said that I should get them too… I dunno, I just can’t bring myself to dress like a Yemeni. Maybe if I met one that I respected or even liked a lot I might be more tempted. I think that Americans dressing like that just look silly. I have never, in my adult life, enjoyed dressing up in a costume. I know that all clothing or fashion is ultimately a costume of some sort, but at least I’m comfortable in this one:-) Besides I find the entire culture around Jambiyas rather distasteful, and since it is so close to the concept of being a man in Yemen, I end up finding the male culture here a bit distasteful. So don’t expect to see me in a thobe or moaz any time soon…

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Religion

Numbers

OK, I’ve finished Numbers. This one was at least interesting since stuff happened. It’s a real page turner… The Israelites did this, they killed people, the Israelites disobey God, God smites the Israelites, etc… If a cynic were to read this, it would only confirm his idea that this stuff is all made up. Despite being led around by a pillar of fire and eating manna from heaven, the Israelites continue to doubt Moses and question God. Obviously, the miraculous things didn’t actually happen and people were reacting to the bossing around by Moses. How else could people rebel? I have to admit, this has some appeal, it is far easier to believe that Moses did all this stuff (minus the pillar of flame and the appearance of God) himself and this caused the Israelites to rebel. Of course that also raises the question of how did they get out of Egypt if it wasn’t for the miracles? If Moses was indeed manipulating the Israelites for his (and his brother’s) benefit, why didn’t he go across the Jordan river?

Lots of questions either way really. I find the story of the Israelites rebelling to be rather comforting actually. They were living with obvious signs of God every day and managed to question Him anyway. I dunno, maybe they were stupid, but I think that it’s a great example of human behavior. “Sure, OK, He feeds us with manna from heaven every day, leads us with a pillar of fire at night, delivered us from Pharaoh, but defeating the people across the Jordan river? C’mon, how stupid does He think we are?” That is far more extreme than the typical jew or Christian today, but the basic concept and lesson still applies…

Once again, I can’t recommend this book to anyone that wants to be convinced, there is plenty to question if you are so inclined. I keep hoping that one of these books will really show me what all the fuss about the Bible really is, I haven’t seen it yet…

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Yemen

I’m thinking about getting a job…

Well, yes, I am starting to wonder what kind of job I could get when I get back home. I’ve become convinced that my Arabic will not be good enough to get any sort of job as a translator, certainly not after a single year here. I do think I’ll be able to have basic conversations and read newspapers and the like. If anyone has any ideas or suggestions for a potential job back home I’m all ears…

Right this second, I’m thinking about getting a job here. I would be teaching English of course. It’s a hot job market here for native English speakers. Of course the pay sucks when compared to other places despite the fact that it is a hot job here. As a conversational English teacher (i.e. a native speaker that is articulate but does not have a degree in English or any certification for teaching English) I can make about 10 bucks an hour. That doesn’t sound like much (it isn’t) but remember, country wide the average yearly income here is only $400 US dollars a year. So it turns out to be a rather well paying job for this country. If I could work 10 hours a week, I could make an average yearly salary here every month. If I have 10 hours a week of class and 10 hours a week of a job, that is only 20 hours a week taken up. That should leave plenty of time for me to do whatever else I need to do, like study:-) From my perspective, it would allow me to extend my stay here and hopefully learn the language better. There’s no way in hell I will spend Christmas here, but if I can get a job I will be able to afford a round trip ticket back to the states and come back for more. I’m going to start looking around this week for positions. I feel pretty confidant that I can get a job since I have the very desirable “neutral” American accent. I know that some schools supplement the pay with Arabic lessons as well, so that could be a plus. We’ll see what’s out there for me…

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Economics

Prediction markets, Wikipedia, and dispersed knowledge

Hayek is generally credited with the insight that the problem with socialism and command economies in general is that knowledge is widely dispersed throughout the population. Everyone knows something, and as a whole, we know much more than any small group or individual. Capitalist economies tend to extract this knowledge through price signals whereas command economies take their best guess but end up not having enough information to make the proper decisions.

A fascinating (to me at least) result of this is the ability of large numbers of people to properly guess random things like the weight of the horse that won the Kentucky derby. Several studies have been done on this and they always end up being within a pound or two of the actual number. There are other examples as well, but how do they work? The idea is a simple one. If people have an idea of the right answer, the “average” of their answers will converge on the correct one given enough answers. Now most people don’t have a very good idea about the specific weight of horses, but we all know that they aren’t 5 pounds, and we know that they aren’t 5000 pounds either. So we have a good enough idea that we guess within a reasonable amount plus or minus around the actual value. This statistical “noise” cancels out with enough answers and you’re left with the proper weight.

Things get even more interesting when you start dealing with “experts.” It takes far fewer answers for the average to come to the correct number. This makes sense since we would expect that experts would have far less variance to their answers. How do you limit these questions to “experts?” The simplest way is to put some money on the line, make a bet. This keeps the people who really don’t have a good idea from contributing and limit your answers to expert opinions. This is curious when dealing with the weight of horses, but it gets downright amazing when you start talking about policy issues, business decisions, and even presidential candidates.

Google has been using these sorts of “Prediction markets” with great success when dealing with internal questions, and there is a thriving market for presidential nominations. This may sound kind of strange, but it is a way of extracting knowledge from a dispersed population. Imagine if before the recent invasion of Iraq, a decision market was formed in the CIA asking what they thought the likelihood of WMD being in Iraq. If you allow anyone with some knowledge to contribute instead of a select few that may be guided by politics moreso than facts, you are much more likely to come up with the right answer. If people from not only the Iraq and middle east bureaus were allowed to vote but also anti-terrorism, Africa, nuclear proliferation teams, in short anyone that would have some sort of expertise on the proliferation of these sorts of things were allowed to vote, you would gain much more information than just following a handful of “experts” advice. There’s a good chance that the opinion CIA-wide about the probability of WMD in Iraq would have been negative. Of course who knows if that would have changed anything….

There is a potential problem of course. If there is a systemic bias among the “experts”, the results can be way off. It has to be systemic though, if only a few suffer from it, the results will wash out with enough contributers. I learned about this from a recent podcast from econtalk. There are some amazing examples given where this has worked very well. Of course the host gave a chilling counter example. he regularly holds seminars for the press and people up on capital hill. One of the questions he usually asks everyone is what percentage of Americans are paid the minimum wage. He claims that the median answer given to him is usually between 15% and 20%. The actual percentage is just below 3%. Clearly, this approach won’t work with everything, but it has promise and is being used successfully in the business world.

In the same podcast they also discussed the Wikipedia phenomena. For those of you not familiar with it, Wikipedia is an online encyclopedia that is written by the people that read it. Anyone may contribute to it, and may edit whatever entry that they are reading. Most people never would have thought that this could work, but it does, and amazingly well. Errors are usually seen quite quickly and corrected. Once again, the idea is that everyone is knowledgeable about something, and our collective knowledge is far greater than any ad hoc group formed with the idea of writing an encyclopedia. The amount of knowledge out there is impressive, not just in depth, but in breadth. Wikipedia has articles on things that would never be in a regular encyclopedia, primarily because the publishers wouldn’t think of including some topics. Even if they did think about it, they may not have access to people that know much about them. Wikipedia keeps growing, both in the number of topics it covers and the amount of information included on any given topic.

The CIA is using a variation of this, their own intellipedia. The idea is that people can post articles on whatever topic that they feel is important. People then read the articles and they can add to it or edit it as they see fit. The article can be edited and reedited numerous times until some sort of consensus is formed, either in agreement or in opposing camps. By allowing the free flow of information among all of the people there, topics can be fleshed out quite a bit more completely and quickly than if it went through the traditional editing process. It also allows people from widely differing specialties to offer their expertise. Even if an expert that has tangential interest only qualified one sentence in the report, that is information that wouldn’t have been in there if done the traditional way. Once again, the idea is to take advantage of the dispersed knowledge that is out there. If enough people contribute, just about everything that is known about a topic can be gathered.

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Yemen

Lazy lazy lazy

I had the day off and had great plans. I figured I’d clean my room (I’ve been threatening to do this since I got back), do my laundry, do extra homework, etc. Of course I woke up late and haven’t done a damn thing. I have zero motivation to do anything, even fun things. Just lazy lazy lazy….