The Spirit of Democracy

Think back to the time of 6th century BCE Athens. The city controlled an empire of dozens of separate Greek states. It was the world center of philosophy, science, and art. And it was the world’s first society to govern itself by democracy.

Of course we must qualify that statement by noting that only landed Athenian males 21 years of age and older were allowed to participate in the forms and offices of government. But within those limitations it was a true participatory democracy. Every eligible citizen was a member of the primary governing body– the Assembly. That would have been about 40,000 men at the height of the Empire. A quorum of the Assembly was 6,000 citizens.

We call it the age of Pericles, but he was neither king nor president. He was one of ten elected generals, each of whom served a one year term. He was elected to that position multiple times, so clearly he must have had both charisma and leadership skills. But it was the Assembly that made all key decisions. And all decisions were made by simple majority vote. In that respect the Athenian democracy was a true democracy, unlike our representative federation. Decisions of state in our system are not made by we the people, but by those we elect to represent us.

The delegates of what we now call the Federal Convention did not invent democracy, and they did not invent the key features of our federal system: separation of powers, a bicameral legislature, a hierarchical court system, and the guarantee of rights for all citizens. All of those elements were incorporated into the constitutions of various of the states after they declared independence.

The Constitution was a remarkable document for its time, but it retains many anti-democratic elements. The Senate represents states, not the people. Nine U.S. states contain more than half of total U.S. population, and yet those states only have 18% representation in the Senate. That is extremely unfair to the residents of the most populous states.

In 1929 Congress passed the Permanent Apportionment Act, which capped the total number of Representatives in the House at 435. That constraint, coupled with the Constitution’s requirement that every state must have at least one Representative, has resulted in the over-representation of low population states. The House now has 114 fewer members than it should on the basis of population alone.

Neither the House nor the Senate truly represent the national character. The Senate represents the separate states and the House represents state defined localities. The president is the only nationally elected official who represents the nation as a whole. That is the primary reason why the president and Congress are so often at odds.

And since the Electoral College is based on the number of members of the House and Senate, it amplifies the misrepresentations of those two bodies.

There is work to do if we wish our government to be more democratic and more fairly representative. But we should ask: is democracy necessarily a good thing? Can the public really be expected to make sound decisions in a world of every greater complexity? Perhaps we should allow those who have the greatest understanding of government, economics, and society to make the nation’s most important decisions. Maybe we would be wise to establish a class of professionals who are specially trained to lead the country, as imperial China did.

Alexander Hamilton touched on this question in his defense of the Electoral College:

It was equally desirable, that the immediate election should be made by men most capable of analyzing the qualities adapted to the station, and acting under circumstances favorable to deliberation, and to a judicious combination of all the reasons and inducements which were proper to govern their choice. A small number of persons, selected by their fellow-citizens from the general mass, will be most likely to possess the information and discernment requisite to such complicated investigations.

It was also peculiarly desirable to afford as little opportunity as possible to tumult and disorder. This evil was not least to be dreaded in the election of a magistrate, who was to have so important an agency in the administration of the government as the President of the United States. But the precautions which have been so happily concerted in the system under consideration, promise an effectual security against this mischief.

(The Federalist #68, Alexander Hamilton, 1788)

The chief question Hamilton did not answer in his musings is just how, exactly, we are to recognize the persons who possess the requisite “information and discernment”? We have seen many examples recently of people who loudly proclaim their credentials and their wisdom who in fact know little or nothing about their areas of alleged expertise.

Should we expect the average citizen to be an expert on all matters relevant to the health and safety of the nation? No, absolutely not. But that doesn’t mean that the average citizen has no stake in national or international affairs. On the contrary, national issues have national impacts. The entire nation will almost certainly be adversely affected by foolish national policies.

The greatest risk to the nation is when our leaders lose touch with the people. The examples of the Vietnam and Iraq wars show that it makes no sense to engage in foreign wars if you do not have the full support of the people.

The divine right of kings was firmly entrenched in ancient Egypt by no later than 3000 BCE. The king, later called “Pharaoh,” was declared to be the son of Ra– literally the son of God. And yet the trappings of divinity could never disguise the fact that kings of the centuries since have had frailties and foibles, or that we all are subject to the indignities of our mortality.

There is no single class of people who are most qualified to lead. That simple truth is the central glory of democracy. Great leaders do not always have the greatest pedigrees. Trust the people.

Is economics complicated? Yes, as is immigration policy, trade policy, cybersecurity, and many other aspects of modern society. But those who seek our votes should be able to state their positions on the issues of the day in such a way that the average citizen can understand them. Those who sneeringly assume that the average citizen is too uninformed to make sound decisions do not deserve our votes.

The central principle of democracy, whether representative or participatory, is fairness. The idea that every citizen should have the right to vote and to expect that vote to count forces everyone to respect others. Other governmental systems do not necessitate such behavior. In fact many– especially autocracies– thrive on intolerance. That is why the spirit of democracy is the highest and the most basic– something every religion should call its own. Without tolerance people can easily fall into vindictiveness and aggression. Without respect for others they can become aloof and indifferent to human suffering. Democracy is the only governing principle that is predicated on tolerance for all.

Federal Deficits

There is much confusion about federal budget deficits. Many people, whether liberal or conservative, believe that the federal government will go bankrupt “soon” because of its habit of deficit spending. There are multiple US debt counters, both online and IRL, that put this notion in the starkest possible terms. Here’s one:

https://www.usdebtclock.org/

The attention the national debt has received is indicative of a deep sense of fear that pervades much contemporary thought about the role of the federal government. But is it warranted?

First a couple of basic facts:

Congress– and only Congress– has the power to issue currency, as stated in Article I Section 8 of the US Constitution. So the financial constraints on the federal government cannot be meaningfully compared to those of a family, or a business, or even a US state.
The federal government issues treasury bonds whenever it expects to spend more than it receives in revenue. But that’s just a policy that was established by Congress. It’s not a fiscal necessity.¹
The federal government will always have the ability to pay for any programs or policies adopted by Congress. So said Alan Greenspan before Congress when he was asked to testify before it by Paul Ryan in 2005.²
Congress has paid down more than 20% of the federal debt 7 times in the past– and every time the result was either a recession or a depression.³

Here’s an example that will serve to explain the impact of deficit spending on the US economy.

Suppose that Congress decides to spend $100 billion on infrastructure improvements without raising revenue. That would result in negative $100 billion on the government’s ledger. But every ledger has two sides. So there must be a positive $100 billion somewhere else. Where would that be?

To figure that out we need to understand what the government would do with its $100 billion of newly issued currency. To improve infrastructure it will need to go into the private sector to purchase infrastructure improvement services. That is, the government will be writing checks to individuals and companies that can provide the required services. (The government could opt to have the US Army Corps of Engineers perform many of these services, but let’s ignore that case.)

So the result would be a positive $100 billion deposit to business accounts in the private sector.

Now imagine that after a couple of years of infrastructure improvements the deficit hawks win out and Congress decides to balance the federal budget. Doing so would add a positive $100 billion to the government’s ledger, bringing its balance to zero. But that positive $100 billion would have to be offset by a negative $100 billion in the private sector.

What does that negative $100 billion represent? That is Uncle Sam reaching into the bank accounts of private citizens and businesses to extract $100 billion. Exactly who will pay that $100 billion would depend on other government policies, such as tax policy. But the net effect is that the private sector will see $100 billion in liquidity evaporate. That is the recipe for a recession.

What about inflation? Doesn’t government spending always result in inflation? Didn’t Milton Friedman win the Nobel Prize for that insight?

Let’s go back to our example of a $100 billion spend on infrastructure improvements, and let’s imagine that at that time the national economy is running at 100% capacity. Every business is fully booked, and there is 0% unemployment nationwide. Now Congress jumps in and requests bids for $100 billion of infrastructure improvement services. In this case it’s pretty likely that the bidding service providers will offer their services for a premium price– which means that prices for such services will generally tend to go up.

But would that affect the general consumer? For general consumer products such as home electronics and groceries– no, probably not. But the increased demand for infrastructure services would likely put upward pressure on the cost of building new housing, since most housing foundations require excavation, grading, and cement footings. So there would very likely be a modest side effect on the Consumer Price Index.

When Congress funds new weapons systems for the US military, such purchases are relatively unlikely to affect the CPI since consumers can’t purchase warplanes or submarines at their favorite retail outlets. But there may be side effects. Weapons systems may require the use of specialized materials, such as rare earths, that might also be used for some consumer products, and the government induced increase in demand could result in an increase in prices for some categories of consumer goods.

All of the above analysis would be different if the economy were not running at full capacity. In that case it might be that businesses that provide the required services are hungry for work and therefore wouldn’t bid their services at premium prices.

Now let’s consider a different case. Imagine that Congress decides to buy flat screen TVs for every classroom in America. Since the government doesn’t have flat screen TV manufacturing facilities in its tool set it would have to go to the private sector to purchase flat screen TVs– and the increased demand would almost certainly put upward pressure on the prices of consumer electronics. That would definitely affect the CPI.

The point is that the impact of government spending on the nation’s economy depends on the state of the economy at the time of the expense and on the specific sectors of the economy that would be impacted by the increase in demand generated by the government’s requirements.

The primary constraint on government spending is inflation. So long as we are keeping an eagle eye on inflation, so long as we don’t allow inflation to spin out of control, government spending is not in and of itself a crisis. The accumulated “debt” of the federal government is simply a record of the funds that Congress has allocated for the good of the nation and it will never need to be repaid.

I underwent a massive re-think of my understanding of the federal deficit when I read “The Deficit Myth” by Stephanie Kelton. Ms. Kelton is a world class economist whose book clearly articulates the true nature of the federal deficit. I heartily recommend her book for those interested in a deeper dive. Most of the above is based on her book.

_____________________________________________________________

Notes:

1 “The Deficit Myth” by Stephanie Kelton, Chapter 4

2. “The Deficit Myth”, pg. 180-181

3. “The Deficit Myth”, pg. 96

A More Perfect Union

In 1789 the US Constitution was innovative and daring. It established the United States as a representative federation with some democratic elements. It was a radical departure from the norms of the time in that most every other government was either a monarchy or an autocracy.

Other nations found the US Constitution inspiring. The soaring words of the Declaration of Independence promised life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness to all, while the Constitution guaranteed protection from the depredations of an oppressive ruling class. Other nations adopted the Constitution as a template for their own governing principles.

But many of the anti-democratic elements of the Constitution were eventually discarded by other countries. Although some included a variation of the Electoral College in their own constitutions, all of them discarded it as unfair. The United States is the only major country with democratic-like government that still retains an Electoral College. See Chapter 7, “America the Outlier” from Tyranny of the Minority by Levitsky and Ziblatt for a brief history of these changes.

There are many other anachronisms in the US Constitution. Because the US Constitution is so hard to amend it has become stagnant and rooted in the past. For example, the Senate was designed to represent states, not people. There was much debate during the Federal Convention about how the Senate should be structured. The debate got so testy that it was handed off to a committee for resolution. The two primary advocates of direct representation of the people rather than states (Wilson and Madison), were purposefully excluded from the committee. The decision to cave in to the demands of low population states had already been made.

To improve the democratic profile of the US Constitution I propose the following 7 principles:

The Constitution should be much easier to amend. The requirement that amendments be approved by three quarters of the states is particularly onerous.
The president and vice president should be elected by the people directly, that he/she may represent the people of the nation as a whole, not the states.
The method of the election of representatives in the House should ensure that representation is proportional to population across the entire country, rather than skewed to the advantage of low population states.
The method of the election of senators should represent the people of the nation, rather than states.
The sizes of the House of Representatives and of the Senate should remain permanently fixed, regardless of the size of the nation’s population or the number of states.
Representatives and senators should represent the national character, not the characters of state defined localities.
The members of the House of Representatives and of the Senate should be selected by different methods to ensure that they represent two different aspects of the American character.

These 7 principles would eliminate most of the anti-democratic barriers in the current US Constitution and its amendments. While several possible structures for the House and the Senate could be compatible with the above 6 principles, I propose the following:

Change the Constitution to require that amendments be approved by two thirds votes in both House and Senate, rather than by three quarters of the states.
Eliminate the Electoral College for both the president and vice president.
The numbers of persons in the House of Representatives and of the Senate should be based on the psychology of group decision making, rather than on the numbers of states, or the numbers of citizens.
We traditionally think of the Senate as the more measured and deliberative body; so we would probably want the number of senators to be smaller than the number of representatives.
Representatives should be elected from national groupings based on relative population density, as this is the greatest single contributor to differences of perspective across the nation.
Senators should be selected from national groupings that are based on something other than population density. I suggest that senators should be chosen from random national groupings. That would ensure that senators represent the nation as a whole, regardless of their geographical origins.
Voter registration should be nationalized by adding a new data element to the Social Security Administration’s database of every American citizen for the state in which the citizen is registered to vote. Then require every state to update that field whenever a citizen registers to vote in that state. This will eliminate registration ambiguity.
Amend Article I Section 5 of the U.S. Constitution to state that members of the House and Senate can only block a vote to move a process forward with a 40% vote of the members. Then those of the blocking minority would have a limited period of time– I recommend 72 hours– to persuade the other members of Congress to their view. After that time the legislation must be brought to the floor for a vote. Only one such blockage can be issued for any one piece of legislation.

These changes would permanently eliminate gerrymandering, would eliminate voter registration ambiguities, and would ensure that both House and Senate represent the people of the nation as a whole, rather than local within-state groups. And they would ensure that proposed measures could be blocked by minorities only through concerted effort by those minorities.

These principles can be extended to the individual states. Doing so would ensure that state legislatures are representative of the people of their respective states in the same manner as the national government represents the nation as a whole.

Jesus was NOT the Son of God

When Jesus was baptized by John the Baptist, God declared that Jesus was in fact his son:

And when Jesus was baptized, just as he came up from the water, suddenly the heavens were opened to him and he saw God’s Spirit descending like a dove and alighting on him. And a voice from heaven said, “This is my Son, the Beloved, with whom I am well pleased.”

(Matthew 3:16 – 17)*

The claim that Jesus is the Son of God is repeated throughout the New Testament, as the following passages illustrate:

Mary said to the angel, “How shall this be, since I am a virgin?” The angel said to her,

“The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you; therefore the child to be born will be holy; he will be called Son of God.”

(Luke 1:34 – 35)

When he came to the other side, to the region of the Gadarenes, two men possessed by demons came out of the tombs and met him. They were so fierce that no one could pass that way. Suddenly they shouted, “What have you to do with us, Son Of God? Have you come here to torment us before the time?”

(Matthew 8:28 – 29)

Peter answered him, “Lord, if it is you, command me come to you on the water.” He said, “Come.” So Peter got out of the boat, started walking on the water, and came toward Jesus. But when he noticed the strong wind, he became frightened, and, beginning to sink, he cried out, “Lord, save me!” Jesus immediately reached out his hand and caught him, saying to him, “You of little faith, why did you doubt?” When they got into the boat, the wind ceased. And those in the boat worshiped him, saying, “Truly you are the Son of God.”

(Matthew 14:28 – 33)

He said to them, “But who do you say that I am?” Simon Peter answered, “You are the Messiah, the Son of the living God.”

(Matthew 16:15 – 16)

Whenever the unclean spirits beheld him, they fell down before him and shouted, “You are the Son of God.”

(Mark 3:11)

When Jesus saw Nathanael coming toward him, he said of him, “Here is truly an Israelite in whom there is no deceit!” Nathanael asked him, “Where do you get to know me?” Jesus answered, “I saw you under the fig tree before Philip called you.” Nathanael answered him, “Rabbi, you are the Son of God! You are the King of Israel!”

(John 1:47 – 49)

Jesus said to her, “I am the resurrection and the life. Those who believe in me, even though they die, will live, and everyone who lives and believes in me shall never die. Do you believe this?” She said to him, “Yes, Lord, I believe that you are the Messiah, the Son of God, the one coming into the world.”

(John 11:25 – 27)

Then Jesus gave a loud cry and breathed his last. And the curtain of the temple was torn in two, from top to bottom. Now when the centurion who stood facing him saw that in this way he breathed his last, he said, “Truly this man was God’s Son!”

(Mark 15:37 – 39)

Now Jesus did many other signs in the presence of the disciples that are not written in this book. But these are written so that you may believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, and that through believing you may have life in his name.

(John 20:30 – 31)

But these many attestations to the divinity of Jesus are complicated by a few other passages that seem to imply that Jesus was not the only child of God. For example, this well known passage from the Beatitudes says that peacemakers are children of God:

“Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God.”

(Matthew 5:9)

The following passage, from a dispute between Jesus and the Sadducees about marriage in the afterlife, states that resurrected people are also children of God:

Jesus said to them, “Those who belong to this age marry and are given in marriage, but those who are considered worthy of a place in that age and in the resurrection from the dead neither marry nor are given in marriage. Indeed, they cannot die anymore, because they are like angels and are children of God, being children of the resurrection.”

(Luke 20:34 – 36)

And here is a passage from Paul that says that any who follow Jesus are children of God:

So then, brethren and sisters, we are obligated, not to the flesh, to live according to the flesh– for if you live according to the flesh, you will die, but if by the Spirit you put to death the deeds of the body, you will live. For all who are led by the Spirit of God are children of God.

(Romans 8:12 – 14)

Here’s another passage in which Paul repeats this idea:

But now that faith has come, we are no longer subject to a disciplinarian, for in Christ Jesus you are all children of God through faith.

(Galatians 3:25 – 26)

In addition, Jesus several times refers to himself as the “Son of Man,” as in the following passage:

“For John came neither eating nor drinking, and they say, ‘He has a demon’; the Son of Man came eating and drinking, and they say, ‘Look, a glutton and a drunkard, a friend of tax collectors and sinners!’ Yet wisdom is vindicated by her deeds.”

(Matthew 11:18 – 19)

Jesus may have meant that he is the Son of God in the respect that Mary was made pregnant not by a human male, but by the Holy Spirit; and that he is the Son of Man in the respect that he was born to a perfectly normal human female via a perfectly natural human birth. That would reinforce the idea that Jesus was God made incarnate, and was therefore both divine and human. And it would make his suffering on the cross seem as real as it would be to any human.

Was Jesus really the Son of God? Certainly the New Testament provides many examples of miracles that Jesus performed, including the following:

Jesus cured a man of his leprosy (Matthew 8:1 – 3, Mark 1:40 – 42, Luke 5:12 – 13)
He healed the servant of a Centurion merely by saying that it would be done (Matthew 8:5 – 13, Luke 7:2 – 10)
Jesus stopped a windstorm (Matthew 8:23 – 27, Mark 4:35 – 40, Luke 8:22 – 25)
He drove two demoniacs into a herd of swine that drowned themselves in the sea (Matthew 8:28 – 34)
He healed a paralytic by telling him to get up, take his bed, and go home (Matthew 9:1 – 7, Mark 2:4 – 5, Luke 5:17 – 25)
He cured a woman who had endured a hemorrhage for 12 years (Matthew 9:18 – 22, Mark 5:25 – 29, Luke 8:41 – 48)
He brought a young girl back to life (Matthew 9:23 – 25, Mark 5:32 – 34, Luke 8:49 – 55)
He restored vision to two blind men by touching their eyes (Matthew 9:27 – 30)
He restored a man’s withered hand (Matthew 12:9 – 13, Mark 3:1 – 5, Luke 6:6 – 11)
He healed a man who was blind and dumb (Matthew 12:22, Mark 7:31 – 36)
He fed 5,000 people with 5 loaves of bread and 2 fish (Matthew 14:13 – 21, Mark 6:30 – 44, Luke 9:10 – 17, John 6:1 – 13)
He walked many furlongs across the rough waters of the sea (Matthew 14:22 – 27, Mark 6:45 – 50)
He healed the sick of Gennesaret, most of whom were healed by merely touching the fringe of this garment (Matthew 14:34 – 36, Mark 6:53 – 56)
He healed a woman’s daughter who was possessed by a demon (Matthew 15:21 – 28, Mark 7:27 – 29)
He healed a great many of the lame, the maimed, the blind, the dumb, and many others along the Sea of Galilee (Matthew 15:29 – 31)
He fed 4,000 people with 7 loaves of bread and a few small fish (Matthew 15:32 – 39, Mark 8:1 – 9)
He healed two blind men by touching their eyes (Matthew 20:29 – 34)
He cursed a fig tree and it withered immediately (Matthew 21:18 – 22, Mark 11:12 – 14)
He removed an unclean spirit from a man (Mark 1:23 – 26)
He healed Simon’s mother-in-law, and many others who lived nearby who were sick with various diseases (Mark 1:29 – 34, Luke 4:38 – 41)
He drove demoniacs named Legion out of a man and into a herd of swine (Mark 5:1 – 13, Luke 8:26 – 33)
He cured a blind man of Bethsaida (Mark 8:22 – 26)
He removed a dumb and deaf spirit from a boy (Mark 9:14 – 29)
He cured the blindness of a man named Bartimaeus (Mark 10:46 – 52)
He restored a man who had died in Nain to life (Luke 7:11 – 15)
He removed a demon from a man’s only son (Luke 9:37 – 42)
He healed a woman who could not stand straight (Liuke 13:10 – 13)
He healed a man of dropsy (Luke 14:1 – 4)
He healed 10 lepers (Luke 17:11 – 14)
He healed a blind beggar near Jericho (Luke 18:35 – 43)
He healed the son of an official (John 4:46 – 53)
He cured a man’s blindness (John 9:1 – 12)
He resurrected Lazarus after he had been dead for 4 days (John 11:1 – 44)

Surely if Jesus performed such miracles, it could only be because he was divine.

But there is an aspect of the teachings of Jesus that cast his divinity in doubt; and that concerns the most important prophecy that he made. In Matthew Chapter 24, his disciples ask Jesus about the last days:

When he was sitting on the Mount of Olives, the disciples came to him privately, saying, “Tell us, when will this be, and what will be the sign of your coming and of the end of the age?”

(Matthew 24:3)

Jesus answers the second part of this question first, with a lengthy description of the events that will take place leading up to the last days. There will be many pretenders who claim to be the Christ. There will be wars and famines and earthquakes. The followers of Jesus will be hated; many will be killed; many will surrender their beliefs; and some will betray their fellows. And then the Son of Man will appear:

“Immediately after the suffering of those days

the sun will be darkened,

and the moon will not give its light;

the stars will fall from heaven,

and the powers of the heavens will be shaken.

“Then the sign of the Son of Man will appear in heaven, and then all the tribes of the earth will mourn, and they will see ‘the Son of Man coming on the clouds of heaven’ with power and great glory. And he will send out his angels with a loud trumpet call, and they will gather his elect from the four winds, from one end of heaven to the other.”

(Matthew 24:29 – 31)

Then, finally, Jesus answers the first part of the disciples’ question by telling them exactly when this will all happen:

“From the fig tree learn its lesson: as soon as its branch becomes tender and puts forth its leaves, you know that summer is near. So also, when you see all these things, you know that he is near, at the very gates. Truly I tell you, this generation will not pass away until all these things have taken place.”

(Matthew 24:32 – 34)

Jesus said that his return as the Son of Man, the resurrection of the dead, and the last judgment would all happen before the passing of his generation. That is, Jesus expected the end of time to happen sometime very early in the first century CE.

Well, that simply did not happen. Therefore the most important prophecy that Jesus made was wrong. Why would a divine being have been so completely wrong about such an important prophecy? The simplest explanation is that Jesus wasn’t divine at all but was instead a character in a human authored narrative.

The story related in Matthew 24 concerning the end of time is repeated in Chapter 13 of the book of Mark. There is a similar narrative in Luke 17:20 – 37 and Luke 21:20 – 32, though Luke’s version has several differences. Even so, the narratives in Mark and in Luke both repeat the same prediction that the end of time would occur before the passing of the then present generation. This story is not repeated in the book of John.

The idea that the resurrection was near is repeated several times in the New Testament. Here are the words of John the Baptist:

“Repent, for the kingdom of heaven has come near.”

(Matthew 3:2)

And here is Jesus making the same point:

From that time Jesus began to proclaim, “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven has come near.”

(Matthew 4:17)

Mark has a slightly different rendition of that passage in Mark 14 – 15. And here is Jesus making the same point again when he gives the Apostles their commission:

“When they persecute you in this town, flee to the next, for truly I tell you, you will not have finished going through all the towns of Israel before the Son of Man comes.”

(Matthew 10:23)

What about the book of John? Here is John 3:16 again:

“For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life.

(John 3:16)

The phrase “may not perish” is a tell. John certainly did not believe that people who were born in his time and who believed in Jesus would still be living several thousand years later. And yet he said they would not perish. He must have thought that the time of the resurrection would arrive before his generation passed away. That is, he must have agreed with the Jesus of the books of Matthew, Mark, and Luke that the time of the resurrection was near.

Was Jesus divine? Certainly the miracles he allegedly performed are not the sort of actions that could have been carried out by a normal human being. But his prophecy as to the time of the resurrection of the dead was wrong. It’s difficult to understand how a divine being could have made such a monumental mistake.

*All passages from the Bible are taken from the New Revised Standard Version, Updated Edition, which was published in 2019. The owner of the copyright on that edition is the National Council of Churches of the United States of America and it therefore represents the orthodox Christian translation in the United States.

Why I am an atheist, just like you

Let’s begin by asking what it is that theists (people who believe in God) want– with the understanding that we are talking about monotheists only. I think there are three key beliefs at the heart of monotheism:

There is one and only one God in the universe
God is responsible for the creation of all that exists
God also exists

If God created all that exists, and God also exists, then God must have created God. Does that make any kind of sense?

Well, it’s an idea that certainly has precedent. The Egyptian gods Ra and Ptah were both self-created gods, according to some of the Egyptian creation myths. But regardless of whether the idea has been advanced previously, is it reasonable? Is it even possible?

To answer that question we first need to identify the attributes that a being must have to be able to self-create. We’re not talking about a god that just suddenly pops into existence with no antecedent. To self-create the being must have consciously decided to bring himself into existence.

At the absolute minimum such a being must have self-awareness– that is, sentience. But this being must also realize that he doesn’t exist. That is, the being must have consciousness, but must not exist– and must be aware that he does not exist.

Secondly, this being would need to have the will to bring himself into existence. And that implies that he must perceive some advantage in existence.

And thirdly, he must have the power to bring himself into existence.

As I see it this line of inquiry poses far more questions than it answers. I don’t understand how it is possible for a being to have conscious awareness without existence. I would want to have that explained to me– and as far as I am aware, no one has ever offered any such explanation.

As to the requirement that he perceive some value in existence, I suspect that the only way such a being could appreciate the advantages of existence is if he had already experienced existence.

And finally, I have difficulty believing that this being could bring himself into existence without having some foothold in existence. I think of this being immersed in an ocean of non-existent consciousness who must somehow bring himself out of this ocean of non-existence into a realm of existence. I don’t understand how that would be possible– and again, I’ve never heard anyone explain such a thing.

So I regard the notion of a self-created God as profoundly unhelpful to our understanding of God. It raises a lot of questions, but provides no answers to any of those questions. Consequently I believe we should not base our theology on this idea.

So we are back to our original dilemma. How do we resolve the two thoughts that (a) God is responsible for the creation of all that exists and that (b) God also exists?

To address that question I would ask that you cast your thoughts back 5,000 years to ancient Egypt and Mesopotamia to see how religion was observed in that very ancient time. That’s a reasonable thing to do because those were the only two regions of the world at that time that had writing systems.

And when we think back to that very ancient time we find that the forms of religion at that time were broadly similar. Each town had its own god or goddess. That deity lived in a temple in the form of a carved or cast statue. Every morning the temple priests would bathe the god, dress the god, feed the god, pray to the god, and plead to the god for answers to the issues of the day. When should we plant crops. Our neighbors to the east are acting aggressively; should we be planning for war?

Then once a year the priests would remove the god– the carved statue– from the temple, put it in a sedan chair, and parade it down the main avenue of the town. That would be the one time when the average citizen would be able to see and interact with his god. And yes, it really does seem that the people of that very remote time did think that the carved statue really was imbued with the spirit of the living god.

That is how religion was practiced for at least 2,000 years throughout that broad region. But then, sometime after the Bronze Age Collapse, a people who called themselves Israelites appeared on the scene. They said, per the Second Commandment, that it isn’t possible to represent their God as a carved statue. God, they said, is beyond human understanding. Moses went to Mt. Sinai and saw a bush burning– but it was never consumed. And then he heard God’s voice speaking from it. He watched as God carved the ten commandments in stone. But he only saw the hand of God– never God’s face. In the book of Job, it was only when Job finally acknowledged that God’s purposes and designs are beyond human understanding that God finally restored to him everything that had been taken from him. God is not something that you can liken to a mere human, or represent in physical form. God is beyond our understanding. God transcends reality.

Consider a chair– a real chair, perhaps the one you are currently sitting on. No one would argue with the statement that the chair exists. But what exactly does that mean? In a modern context it means that we understand the chair to be comprised of a very large number of elementary particles– quarks, leptons, and bosons– and that those particles abide by a rather large set of rules. Rules that govern the strong force, the weak force, electricity and magnetism, special relativity, general relativity, the laws of thermodynamics, the Pauli Exclusion Principle, the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle, and so forth. When someone tells me that God created the universe from nothing, I interpret that to mean that God created the material substances of the universe– the quarks, leptons, and bosons– and the rules that govern their interactions. If God created those rules, then God must not be subject to those rules. God must in a very real sense transcend the rules that govern reality. So the statement “God exists” cannot mean anything like what the statement “this chair exists” means.

If God is not bound by the rules that govern material objects, then not only cannot God be represented as a carved statue, but God cannot be represented as any kind of material object. If God truly transcends reality, then God is not bound by any of the constraints of reality. And therefore God cannot be real.

I am reminded of a song by George Harrison:

I really want to see you, really want to be with you

My Sweet Lord, George Harrison

Isn’t that what we all want– to know that which cannot be known? To see that which is hidden from us? To touch the face of God? But just because you want something, that doesn’t mean you can have it.

We need a new definition of God. And so I will offer you my own:

God is that which makes reality possible.

Note that this definition does not say how, or when, or why. It purposefully leaves unanswered the question of whether God created God. And yet I claim that this definition gives monotheists everything they want without giving them the one thing they cannot have– existence.

There is one and only one reality. Therefore there can only be one “that which makes reality possible.” The notion that there is only one God in the universe falls naturally out of the above definition.

Reality envelops us. Everything you can do, or think, or imagine, or dream– everything you know and touch and believe– is a component of reality. So “that which makes reality possible” is absolutely necessary. Logically necessary. Therefore God is the logical antecedent of reality. And God is logically necessary.

But this definition of God says nothing about the existence of God. That’s not a limitation of the definition. It’s the boundary of our knowledge about God.

Did God create himself? The definition above gives us no answer– but it also doesn’t exclude the possibility.

2,500 years ago the leaders of the Israelites asked their people to believe that their God could not be represented as a physical statue. They said that God’s purposes are beyond human understanding. Now I ask you to carry that principle to its logical extent by recognizing that God cannot exist for the simple reason that God is transcendent. The God that has made reality possible is necessarily beyond reality– and existence.

I really want to see you Lord, but I know that I cannot.

Jesus Was NOT the Messiah

The word Christ is Greek for Messiah. Throughout the Greek language books of the New Testament Jesus is called the Messiah, as in the following well known passage from the book of Luke:

Now in that same region there were shepherds living in the fields, keeping watch over their flock by night. Then an angel of the Lord stood before them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them, and they were terrified. But the angel said to them, “Do not be afraid, for see, I am bringing you good news of great joy for all the people: to you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, who is the Messiah, the Lord.”

(Luke 2:8 – 11)*

From his birth Jesus was announced to the world as being the Messiah. But what exactly does that mean? The Hebrew word “Messiah” means “Anointed one.” But there were a great many Hebrew leaders who were anointed before the time of Jesus. Every king of Israel and of Judah was anointed by the temple priests. Here Samuel describes the anointing of Saul as King of Israel:

Samuel took a vial of oil and poured it on his head and kissed him; he said, “The LORD has anointed you ruler over his people Israel. You shall reign over the people of the LORD, and you will save them from the hand of their enemies all around.”

(I Samuel 10:1)

At the time of Saul, there were two kingdoms populated by the descendants of Jacob: Israel in the north, with its capital in Samaria; and Judah in the south, with its capital in Jerusalem. After the death of King Saul, David was first anointed King of Judah:

Then the people of Judah came, and there they anointed David king over the house of Judah.

(2 Samuel 2:4)

Saul’s son Ishbosheth was king of Israel at the time. After the assassination of Ishbosheth, David was anointed king of all Israel:

So all the elders of Israel came to the king at Hebron, and King David made a covenant with them at Hebron before the LORD, and they anointed David king over Israel.

(2 Samuel 5:3)

Following the death of this father King David, Solomon was anointed as king:

There the priest Zadok took the horn of oil from the tent and anointed Solomon. Then they blew the trumpet, and all the people said, “Long live King Solomon!”

(1 Kings 1:39)

Anointment was also used for the installation of Hebrew priests:

“The sacred vestments of Aaron shall be passed on to his sons after him; they shall be anointed in them and ordained in them.”

(Exodus 29:29)

And even some foreign kings were considered to be among the anointed, as in this passage from Isaiah that describes Cyrus the Great of the Persian empire:

Thus says the LORD to his anointed, to Cyrus, whose right hand I have grasped to subdue nations before him and strip kings of their robes…

(Isaiah 45:1)

Was Jesus anointed? He was baptized by John the Baptist, as is reported in this passage:

Then Jesus came from Galilee to John at the Jordan, to be baptized by him. John would have prevented him, saying, “I need to be baptized by you, and you come to me?” But Jesus answered him, “Let it be so now, for it is proper for us in this way to fulfill all righteousness.” Then he consented. And when Jesus had been baptized, just as he came up from the water, suddenly the heavens were opened to him and he saw God’s Spirit descending like a dove and alighting on him. And a voice from the heavens said, “This is my Son, the Beloved, with whom I am well pleased.”

(Matthew 3:13 – 17)

These passages illustrate that baptism isn’t the same thing as anointment. For one thing, baptism was performed with water, whereas anointment was done with oil. And anointment was the ceremony by which a person was initiated into a leadership position, whereas baptism was intended to be a form of confession:

Then Jerusalem and all Judea and all the region around the Jordan were going to him, and they were baptized by him in the River Jordan, confessing their sins.

(Matthew 3:5 – 6)

Baptism and anointment were two different processes that were devised for two different purposes. But in addition to being baptized Jesus was also anointed, as described in this passage:

While he was at Bethany in the house of Simon the leper, as he sat at the table, a woman came with an alabaster jar of very costly ointment of nard, and she broke the jar and poured the ointment on his head.

(Mark 14:3)

That was a very different type of anointment. The woman didn’t anoint Jesus as part of an initiation ceremony; she did it in preparation for his burial:

“She has done what she could; she has anointed my body beforehand for its burial.”

(Mark 14:8)

So yes, Jesus was anointed with oil, but not as part of a ritual that would have appointed him a king or priest. This story is told in Matthew 26:6-13 and again in John 12:1-8; but in the book of John the woman is named as Mary the sister of Lazarus.

Jesus even made every effort to avoid being anointed as king:

When Jesus realized that they were about to come and take him by force to make him king, Jesus withdrew again to the mountain by himself.

(John 6:15)

Luke says that Jesus was anointed in a completely different sense:

When he came to Nazareth, where he had been brought up, he went to the synagogue on the Sabbath day, as was his custom. He stood up to read, and the scroll of the prophet Isaiah was given to him. He unrolled the scroll and found the place where it was written: “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me,

because he has anointed me to bring good news to the poor.

He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives

and recovery of sight to the blind,

to set free those who are oppressed,

to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.”

And he rolled up the scroll, gave it back to the attendant, and sat down. The eyes of all in the synagogue were fixed on him. Then he began to say to them, “Today this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.”

(Luke 4:16 – 21)

(The passage from the book of Isaiah referenced in the above passage can be found in Chapter 61.) According to Luke, Jesus wasn’t anointed with oil, as would be done in an initiation ceremony; he was anointed with the Holy Spirit. The Annunciation of Luke 2:8 – 11 proclaims Jesus to be the Anointed One. But as we have seen, every king and priest of Israel was anointed– so Jesus could not have been “the” Anointed One– at least, not in the terminology of the Old Testament. And since Jesus was never anointed in the fashion of the kings of either Israel or Judah, he couldn’t have been a king, at least not in the Old Testament sense.

Returning to the annunciation, we should note that Jesus was also called a savior:

“…to you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, who is the Messiah.”

(Luke 2:11)

The word “savior” makes many appearances in the Old Testament, as for example the following:

“The LORD is my rock, my fortress, and my deliverer,

my God, my rock in whom I take refuge,

my shield and the horn of my salvation,

my stronghold and my refuge,

my savior; you save me from violence.”

(2 Samuel 22:2 – 3)

In the Old Testament it is God who is the savior. But there are a few passages that describe a savior who is to arrive at some point in the future:

On that day there will be an altar to the LORD in the midst of the land of Egypt and a pillar to the LORD at its border. It will be a sign and a witness to the LORD of hosts in the land of Egypt; when they cry to the LORD because of oppressors he will send them a savior, and will defend and deliver them.

(Isaiah 19:19 – 20)

The savior Isaiah described is someone who will defend the worshipers of Yahweh, the god of the Old Testament. The above passage is part of a longer narrative of the conquest of Egypt by Judah:

On that day the Egyptians will be like women and tremble with fear before the hand that the LORD of hosts raises against them. And the land of Judah will become a terror to the Egyptians; everyone to whom it is mentioned will fear because of the plan that the LORD of hosts is planning against them.

(Isaiah 19:16 – 17)

The LORD will make himself known to the Egyptians, and the Egyptians will know the LORD on that day and will serve with sacrifice and offerings, and they will make vows to the LORD and perform them.

(Isaiah 19:21)

Well, that did not happen. The kingdom of Judah was conquered by the Neo-Babylonians in 597 BCE. So the savior of this passage is really just a literary device employed by the author to serve his thematic purposes.

Here is another passage in which Isaiah identifies God as the Savior:

Truly, you are a God who hides himself,

O God of Israel, the Savior.

All of them are put to shame and confounded;

the makers of idols go in disgrace together.

But Israel is saved by the LORD with everlasting salvation;

you shall not be put to shame or confounded

ever again.

(Isaiah 45:15 – 17)

God in this selection is viewed as the savior of Israel, not of all the people of the world. The passage states that Israel has already been saved, and that its salvation shall last forever. That, too, turned out to be false, since long after this passage was written the Romans conquered Palestine. After a revolt in Judaea the Romans destroyed the city of Jerusalem in 70 CE, tore down the temple of Solomon, and used booty from the temple to build the Colosseum of Rome. That hardly sounds like a permanent salvation.

This gives us some context to understand what the word “Messiah” meant to the authors of the Old Testament. So does Jesus measure up to their expectations?

To answer that we need to go back to the story of the garden of Eden. Here’s what that story says about why God threw Adam and Eve out of the garden:

Then the LORD God said, “See, the humans have become like one of us, knowing good and evil, and now they might reach out their hands and take also from the tree of life, and eat and live forever” — therefore the LORD God sent them forth from the garden of Eden, to till the ground from which they were taken. He drove out the humans, and at the east of the garden of Eden he placed the cherubim and a sword flaming and turning to guard the way to the tree of life.

(Genesis 3:22 – 24)

God threw them out because he didn’t want the humans to eat the fruit of the tree of life, because doing so would extend their lives. He even posted cherubim and a flaming sword at the entrance to the garden to prevent any of their descendants from entering the garden and getting access to the tree of life. In other words, God threw them out to prevent any of their descendants from having eternal life.

And that is the perspective from which the entire Old Testament was written– except for Chapter 12 of the book of Daniel. That is the only section of the Old Testament that explicitly describes the resurrection of the dead, a last judgment, and rewards or punishments in the afterlife.

Here’s a passage from the Psalms:

I am counted among those who go down to the Pit;
    I am like those who have no help,
like those forsaken among the dead,
    like the slain that lie in the grave,
like those whom you remember no more,
    for they are cut off from your hand.

(Psalm 88:4-5)

If God no longer remembers the dead, then he can’t forgive their sins. If the dead are cut off from the hand of God then God can’t resurrect them.

The Old Testament authors (with the exception of Daniel) didn’t believe in the single most important teaching of Jesus: the rewards of the afterlife.

But it goes much deeper than that. They didn’t believe in anything Jesus had to say about the forgiveness of sins. The Old Testament was about knowing the law, following the law, and punishing those to disobey it. But Jesus said:

“Do not judge, so that you may not be judged.For the judgment you give will be the judgment you get, and the measure you give will be the measure you get.”

(Matthew 7:1-2)

You can’t punish someone according to the law unless you first judge them an find them guilty of violation of the law. Here’s another quote:

Then Peter came and said to him, “Lord, if my brother or sister sins against me, how often should I forgive? As many as seven times?” Jesus said to him, “Not seven times, but, I tell you, seventy-seven times.

(Matthew 18:21-22)

So every sin must be forgiven 77 times. And which sins must be forgiven? Jesus answered that question too:

Therefore I tell you, people will be forgiven for every sin and blasphemy, but blasphemy against the Spirit will not be forgiven. Whoever speaks a word against the Son of Man will be forgiven, but whoever speaks against the Holy Spirit will not be forgiven, either in this age or in the age to come.

(Matthew 12:31-32)

So murder, rape, incest, sodomy, assault, robbery, battery, fraud, slander, libel– all must be forgiven, and must be forgiven 77 times each. That is literally the opposite of what the Old Testament authors taught.

The Old Testament authors had a vision of the end of time– but it was nothing like that of the New Testament authors. Zechariah 14 describes a final battle that will take place before the gates of Jerusalem. And here’s what he says will happen afterwards:

Then all who survive of the nations that have come against Jerusalem shall go up year after year to worship the King, the Lord of hosts, and to keep the Festival of Booths. If any of the families of the earth do not go up to Jerusalem to worship the King, the Lord of hosts, there will be no rain upon them.

(Zechariah 14:16-17)

That is decidedly NOT a New Testament vision. That is a vision of a world converted to Judaism, not to Christianity.

The Old Testament authors did not believe in Jesus’s message about the afterlife, they didn’t believe in anything he had to say about forgiveness, they didn’t believe in his morality, and they had a completely different vision of the end of time. Why would they have predicted the coming of someone whose beliefs were so antithetical to their own? Answer: they wouldn’t have.

*All passages cited are taken from the New Revised Standard Version, Updated Edition that was published in 2019 by the National Council of Churches of the United States of America.

Book review: Great Physicists

I just finished reading William Cropper’s book Great Physicists, published in 2001 by Oxford University Press. It’s a wonderful book of the life stories of 30 of the leading figures in the field of physics, from Galileo to Stephen Hawking.

I was aware, at least marginally, of most of the people in the book, but I also encountered several surprises. My first surprise was to learn about Sadi Carnot who can, in some respects, be considered the founder of modern thermodynamics. I had never heard of him. But Cropper’s thoughtful discussion of Carnot’s ideas about devices that employ heat to produce power (like the steam engine) convinced me that his work was, indeed, original and important.

I was vaguely familiar with the name of Lise Meitner, but I was truly surprised to learn of the tremendous struggles she endured. She had the misfortune to be both female and Jewish– two disadvantages that did not serve her well during the rise of Nazism. She and her nephew Otto Frisch discovered the process by which a uranium atom could be split in two by a neutron. It was an absolutely stunning idea– one that certainly deserved a Nobel prize– but although her friend and collaborator Otto Hahn won the 1944 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for the discovery of nuclear fission, neither Lise nor her nephew were recognized. She had great difficulty escaping from Nazi Germany during the war, and she met with many barriers to recognition and success after.

I was surprised by the stuffiness of Edwin Hubble who, in later life, exaggerated his wartime bravado (during WWI), his career as a lawyer, and his achievements as an athlete. Apparently he did that to conceal his middle class background from his wife’s wealthy relatives.

I was stunned to learn of the hostility that Sir Arthur Eddington expressed toward Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar’s deduction that stars larger than about 1.4 time the mass of the Sun cannot collapse into a white dwarf. That rule is now known as the Chandrasekhar Limit, and it has long since been accepted as a fundamental fact about stellar evolution.

I was surprised that Johannes Kepler was not included in the book. In my view, Kepler was a genius of the first rank. But I suppose you can’t write a book about everyone of importance in the history of science.

And I was puzzled and saddened to read that Ludwig Boltzmann committed suicide while he, his wife, and his daughter were traveling near Trieste. He was clearly on the forefront of thermodynamics research at the time, and he was loved as an instructor. But apparently he was also prone to severe bouts of depression.

So many of these stories are full of vitality– and a sense of wonder. That, I suppose, is the main lesson of this book. All of the subjects appear enraptured by their love of the subject. From the indomitable Marie Curie (the only person to win two Nobel prizes in two different subjects), to the casual Albert Einstein to the reclusive Paul Dirac– all of these people exhibit first and foremost a love of the quest, the search for the secrets of nature. That sense of wonder is what I think is most the most enduring lesson of this book. A very good read indeed.

Book Review: Pathogenesis

Many years ago– probably 50 or so– I read Rats, Lice, and History by Hans Zinsser at my father’s suggestion. Mr. Zinsser was a biologist who made significant contributions to our knowledge of typhus. That book, published in 1935, really opened my eyes to the impact that diseases have had on the history of the world.

I just finished reading Pathogenesis, A History of the World in Eight Plagues, by Jonathan Kennedy. In many ways it is an update to a book written by William McNeill titled Plagues and Peoples, published in 1976. (I have not read McNeill’s book.) Since that time the technology used to investigate past pathogens has radically improved and has enabled Kennedy to describe the impact that diseases have had on the arc of human history with far greater detail and precision.

The scope of the book is breathtaking. Mr. Kennedy achieves nothing less than a complete rewriting of much of history, from the paleolithic to the present. The book is bursting with detail, it is quite well written, and much of it reads like a thriller.

Why did Homo sapiens replace Neanderthals and Denisovans throughout Europe? Answer: disease.

Why are the people of Europe descended from three distinct population groups– Western Hunter-gatherers with dark skin, dark hair, and light eyes; Neolithic European farmers with olive skin and dark hair who moved into the region about 9,000 years ago; and Steppe Herders, who were tall, light skinned, and fair haired and who swept across Europe about 5,000 years ago? Answer: disease.

Why did the Athenians lose the Peloponnesian War to the Spartans and thereby pave the way for Philip of Macedon to conquer all of Greece? Answer: disease.

Why did the Roman empire come crashing down? Answer: disease.

Why did capitalism replace feudalism in England and in no other European society? Answer: disease.

Why were Europeans able to conquer the powerful cultures of the Aztecs, the Incas, and Native American Indians, despite having vastly inferior numbers? Answer: disease.

Why did the European colonies that were established in North America and the Caribbean rely primarily on African slaves, rather than indentured servants from Europe for their plantations? Answer: disease.

Why were no European powers able to establish colonies in the interior of Africa until the 1870s? Answer: disease.

Why were the slaves of what is now Haiti able to free themselves from their overlords, the French, at a time when the French military was the mightiest in the world? Answer: disease.

It’s a powerful book. It forces you to confront the fact that much of what we think of as human directed events are in fact driven by other factors– especially disease. I was already somewhat prepared for the findings of this book through other readings. But it has a depth and breadth of scholarship that goes far beyond anything I was expecting. I cannot recommend this book highly enough.

Book review: Hen’s Teeth & Horse’s toes

This book, Hen’s Teeth and Horse’s Toes by Stephen Jay Gould, has been sitting unread on my bookshelf for a couple of decades. I finally decided to get around to reading it. I had read an article he wrote many years ago (in Daedalus, I think) and admired it greatly. So I was prepared to be impressed. It was published in 1983.

Mr. Gould taught paleontology and biology at Harvard University. He was also a tremendous writer, and a scholar of the history of biology, geology, and paleontology. This book is a collection of essays he wrote over the course of many years. The topics covered traverse a wide range of issues from his several realms of expertise. Subjects include the parental care habits of boobies, the dazzling originality of Nicolaus Steno’s landmark work Prodromus to a dissertation on a solid body naturally contained within a solid, the asteroid that wiped out the dinosaurs, the “Monkey” trial, the Piltdown conspiracy, the proper classification of Zebras, and the teeth of hens and the toes of horses.

These essays are masterfully written, impeccably documented, and wonderfully diverse. The one element they have in common is the theory of evolution– its principles, its evidence, its elegance, and its many critics. It’s impossible, really, to summarize this book. The subject matter is too broad and the evidence and arguments are too subtle to characterize in a brief overview.

But what emerges unquestionably from these essays is Mr. Gould’s love and mastery of his studies. He was unquestionably a scholar in the highest sense– one who was driven by boundless curiosity and who loved nothing more than learning. These essays are true models of the very best in expository writing on difficult scientific matters. I would encourage anyone to read them.

Book Review: Dune Messiah

I had read Frank Herbert’s science fiction novel Dune many years ago, when I was in college. I even took a college class from Frank Herbert. But I had never read the second book in his series, Dune Messiah. Recently I had seen Part 2 of the new film version of Dune and had seen the director Villeneuve interviewed on TV. He said that they were considering making a Part 3 that would be based on Dune Messiah, so I decided I had better read it.

I’ll begin by saying that this is a book that sorely needs a glossary. There are a lot of words that Herbert invented for his books, and it would have been really helpful to me if it were possible to look some of them up.

By the time I was finished with the book I felt that there were a number of loose ends that I wished he had tied off. To avoid spoilers, I won’t mention them all here– but the very first character introduced in the book, Bronso of Ix, was one such dangling piece.

From a pure “writing as craft” point of view the book violates virtually everything that present day tastes dictate. For example, Herbert has many scenes in which multiple people are involved, and for which the personal perspectives of several characters are narrated in sequence. That’s called “head hopping” in contemporary parlance– and it’s considered a grave sin that proper writers should never employ. Personally, I thought it worked alright in most cases– but then I think that many contemporary standards about what constitutes proper writing today are highly contrived. I especially rebel at the rules regarding the use of numerals in written text– but that’s probably best left for another essay.

The first two thirds of the book is mostly head games. We encounter several of the adversaries of the Atreides family and we learn in great detail their motivations and impulses. To avoid spoilers, I won’t get into specifics. By about two thirds of the way in I thought I wasn’t going to like the outcome and that all of the angst and vitriol of the many personal narratives amounted to so much overblown hyperbole. But as it turned out I did like the ending. Or at least I found it a fitting ending for the story line as it was developed. It’s a very wordy book, and I personally felt that a great deal of its wordiness went off in unresolved directions. That was probably the greatest contributor to my sense of loose ends.

One curious detail: At one point in the narrative Paul Muad’Dib mentions the atrocities of several humans from Earth history. He specifically mentions Hitler and Genghis Khan, and he attributed 4 million deaths to Genghis Khan. Today’s research pegs that number at something closer to 40 million. I don’t doubt that Herbert was using what were probably regarded as the best known numbers at the time, and of course we’ll never know the true count. I just thought it odd that the number he used was one tenth the present day number. It shows, I think, just how little Genghis Khan’s impact on the medieval world was understood.

I have spoken elsewhere about faster-than-light travel. If you haven’t read that blog entry, here’s the summary: I don’t believe in it. And consequently I don’t believe in galactic empires. In Herbert’s universe traveling across a galaxy, or across the universe, is accomplished by “folding space.” That sounds very technologically cool, but there is no physical basis for such a thing. The premise of the Dune series is that there is a single emperor who presides over the entire universe. That’s possible because of human mastery of the folding of space. And since I don’t buy into the concept of folding space, I can’t really buy into the fundamental setting of the story.

Dune Messiah is about Paul’s role as emperor of the known universe– and as the figurehead of a religious cult. Regardless of whether you accept the notion of a universal empire, it’s a good premise. It’s the tension between Paul the emperor and Paul the religious figurehead that is the real driver of the narrative. Paul won the position of emperor by defeating his predecessor, but his role as a figurehead was thrust upon him by his adoring followers. Again, it’s a good tension, and one that made Paul’s character complex and engaging. But I also think this aspect of the story often got smothered by the wordiness of Herbert’s introspective narrations. It’s yet another dangling element.

In addition to the emperor/figurehead duality Paul struggles throughout the book with his prescience. Because he drank the Water of Life (in the first book) he can see into the future. But the visions he has of the future are often incomplete, or blurry. Sometimes it sounds like Paul sees absolutely every detail; and other times he misses major aspects of the course of the future. So is he truly prescient, or is he not? And if he’s truly prescient, and if he knows exactly what’s going to happen, what can he do about it? Can he avoid the pain that he envisions, or must he sublimate his feelings of revulsion and simply go with the flow? It’s a constant tension throughout the story, and in my opinion it was never adequately resolved.

I don’t believe in prescience. I don’t see how it will ever be possible for anyone– regardless of how many drugs they may consume– to see the future. In mathematics there is a concept known as “chaos.” It’s defined as “sensitive dependence on initial conditions.” That phrase has been rendered in everyday speech as “the Butterfly Effect.” The idea is that if a butterfly flaps its wings in Rio de Janeiro, six months later the weather in London will be different from what it would otherwise have been. Tiny changes in a complex system today can have a ripple effect that can drastically alter the course of future events. Nonetheless, the question of whether prescience is a good thing or a bad thing seems like it might be worth discussing. It’s a recurring theme throughout the book.

To me the most frustrating aspect of the book is that I still don’t think I know who the real players were in the narrative. I can’t add any detail around that statement without spoiling the entire story. But as I read it there were things that some of the leading characters did that they could not have done without a highly detailed prescience of their own. And it was never made clear as to just how they obtained that level of prescience.

The first book– Dune— was very engaging. There was much more action– and violence. And it arrived at a satisfying conclusion when Paul defeated the emperor of the known universe and assumed control if the empire’s most important resource– spice. This book is much more cerebral. There’s far less action, far less violence. But there’s also more introspection and deliberation. And more to think about.