Y Safle

You are in a game show, and at the end of the show you are allowed to
choose one of three possible doors. Behind two of the doors are goats,
and behind the third is a cash prize (which is what you want to win!).
You choose a door, but instead of opening the door, the game show host
will always open one of the remaining two doors, showing you a goat.

You now have two doors remaining, and the game show host offers you
the chance to switch doors. The question is: is there any advantage to
switching?

Yesterday I wrote about an error in Thomas Kida’s book over probability. Probability is a tricky thing, and the question above is a rephrasing of what has come to be called the “Monty Hall Problem” (after an American game show, which had a slightly different version of this problem on it).

This problem was quite famously presented by Marilyn Vos Savant in “Parade” magazine – a syndicated magazine found in many American newspapers. She presented the right answer to the problem above, and received a barrage of letters from some very clever people (including professors of Mathematics) arguing she was wrong. Eventually many of these professors wrote back to apologise for their mistake, but the experience shows that even the brightest minds can be fooled by the tricks of probability.

Because against all intuition, you should indeed switch.

Why?

There are three doors. The probability of the cash prize being behind the door you choose is 1/3. You choose door A, and there is a 1/3 chance that you have now won, and a 2/3 chance that you have chosen a goat.

The presenter shows your door C has a goat. What is the probability that door B has the cash prize?

Because the presenter must always reveal one goat or another, the scenario is still the same scenario. He has shown you a goat from one of the two remaining doors, but the chance that you have chosen the prize is still 1/3. Nothing has changed. The presenter would show you a goat if you had chosen the cash prize or not.

So against all instinct (especially for anyone who would not be fooled by the gambler’s fallacy), you should change to door B. Your chances of winning are now 2/3.

I bought Thomas Kida’s book, “Don’t believe everything you think (The 6 basic mistakes we make in thinking)”, in part because the title was similar to my occasional “Mistakes we Make in Thinking” series.

There is some good stuff in the book. But there is also a rather worrying example of exactly the kind of sloppy thinking Kida is supposed to be warning us against. He spends considerable space on the gambler’s fallacy, and then launches into a discussion of the unpredictability of the Stock Market, and how research has shown that there is no evidence that highly paid fund managers add any value to an investment fund, and that over the long haul, no funds significantly beat the index.

All this may well be right, but Kida’s error lies in what he does with these data:

Oftentimes investors move their money into a fund that has experienced good recent performance. However, statistcs tell us that we have regression to the mean. That is, if a fund is currently outperforming the market, its performance is likely to drop in the future to bring it back to average. And so, if we buy into a fund right after it has posted recent gains, we’re likely to be in for a fall. In effect, going after strong past performance often means we take money out of funds that are likely to rebound, and put it into funds that are ready to drop.

Kida has misunderstood regression towards the mean, and has committed an error known as the gambler’s fallacy (which he had already discussed in an earlier chapter).

Let us suppose that fund manager’s are indeed irrelevent, and that a fund has a 50/50 chance of underperforming or overperforming the market each year. If this assumption is indeed correct – and this is indeed Kida’s argument, then whether the fund will outperform or underperform the market this year is entirely unconnected with whether the fund outperformed or underperfomed the market last year.

If Kida is correct, then it makes no difference in the long run whether we leave the money where it is or move it (except for dealing charges incurred of course), because all funds will eventually do equally well.

If we buy into a fund right after it has posted gains then it is wrong to expect that we are in for a big fall. We are just as likely to do well (or badly) as if we buy into a fund that recently posted very poor gains.

But what is regression towards the mean then?

If we take the whole “population” of funds, and we measure all their respective gains each year, we come up with a mean (average) gain for all funds. Now, suppose we choose the 100 best performing funds and measure their gains – because these are the best perfroming funds, their mean gain will, of course, be higher than the mean for all funds.

Let us suppose that their mean gain was twice that of all funds.

Now next year we measure these means again. The mean gain for all funds and the mean for what were last year’s 100 best funds. What we find is that the mean for the 100 best funds of last year is now much closer to the mean of all funds. If fund performance is entirely random then that mean may be less than the mean for all funds, or more – but it will almost certainly be less than twice that of all funds.

Why does this happen? Because there was nothing special about the 100 best funds, and there is no guarantee that the funds that did well last year will do well this year. Thus their average should approach the population average.

But any individual fund could still be in the top 100 – and we would expect that to be the case. Regression towards the mean is only concerned with averages.

Still not convinced?

By Kida’s principle – moving money into an outperforming fund sets you up for a fall. Thus it would follow that moving money into an underperforming fund will set you up for a gain. Therefore, one should put money into the underperforming funds as the best strategy for success.

But it doesn’t work. Because Kida is wrong.

If the performance of a fund is random, the best strategy for success is to buy the fund with the lowest charges and leave your money where it is (or better still – just buy the shares that all the funds hold, and hold the shares).

October 12th is Columbus day, but what is the real deal with Columbus? I am frequently presented with arguments such as this:

This sort of thing goes back to Ptolomy’s opinion that Earth is flat, such is “peer review” that all evidence to the contrary was rejected for about one and a half thousand years until Columbus sailed to the West Indies.

 

The issue with Columbus was not whether the Earth was round, but whether one could find a shorter passage to India by sailing west. You see, there had been some rather accurate measurements of the circumference of the Earth. The Greek philospher Erastothenes had measured the circumference of the Earth in 230BC by looking into wells on the summer solstice to measure shadow lengths at two locations at the same time.

The locations were Syene and Alexandria, some 500 miles apart, and the difference in shadow lengths allowed him to calculate the circumference of the Earth using some clever trigonometry.

His first figure wasn’t at all bad. Indeed, whilst he underestimated the circumference of the Earth somewhat, he was as close as experimental error might allow.

Now Ptolemy, who the above quoted writer incorrectly tells us posited the flat earth, had an estimate of his own for the circumference of the Earth. His estimate made the Earth much smaller than it is. King Ferdinand knew of the estimate of Erastothenes and others, and when Columbus told him that he knew a shorter westward way to India, Ferdinand turned him down on the basis of Erastothenes’ estimates.

Imagine if you replaced the continents of America with water, and you wanted to travel directly westward to India – your journey would involve crossing the Atlantic, the breadth of America and the Pacific ocean before you could make landfall.

As you can see, Ferdinand was right to reject Columbus’s mistaken calculations, and Columbus was lucky that America was where it was, to break his journey, or else he would have surely died. This mistake made by Columbus is why he named the place he made landfall as the “West Indies”. He mistakenly thought he had proven his calculation correct, and that he was in the west of India!

This myth about Columbus seems to have been put out by one or two atheists. Particularly the French historian Antoine-Jean Letronne (1787-1848) and the American satirist Washington Irving (1783-1859). Apologists – particularly for Letronne – argue that he was simply working from questionable sources, but the prevalence of the Columbus myth is a good example of how atheists will abandon critical thinking and good scholarship when it comes to pushing an anti Christian view (something they often accuse Christians of doing in the other direction. Of course, no one is immune from this. That is how our brains are wired up).

So what do we see from this?

1. Columbus rejected peer review, was completely wrong, but was spared from death by pure fluke, and the gift of the gab (he pretended – against all evidence – that the West Indies were fabulously rich with Gold, in an attempt to justify his trip).
2. Academic study can reveal remarkably accurate and useful results, but peer review is essential to the process. All but Columbus rejected Ptolomy’s measure, because Erastothenes’ method was superior (indeed we are not told Ptolomy’s method at all).
3. The quoted writer above, like far too many people, are willing to accept information they are told uncritically. Such facts are blithely quoted about Columbus et al., but are just plain wrong. Like so many things, people like to think they know a lot because they learned facts about such things, whereas a lack of critical thinking shows that they really understand very little.
4. Atheists do not have a monopoly on good critical thinking skills.
5. Sometimes it is better to be lucky than right!

When should we separate over theology? When is it right for Christians to say that they will not work with another Church because their theology is so mixed up that it would compromise our testimony to do so? When should we say that there will be no platform in our church for Christians who hold to certain views, because they are not our views?

I don’t have all the answers here, but the question has come up in a few places lately so I wanted to try and address it. One person told me that he would no longer be welcomed to preach in the churches of his youth because he no longer holds to a position of pre-millennialism and the secret rapture.

When we start dividing over such issues of theology, we are (I think) guilty of party spirit. I am quite happy to tell you that my own position is amillennialist – I don’t think we can do away with such labels, but I don’t want to stand proud in my position and my belief in the superiority of my doctrine. That would be the Corinthian error: One follows Paul, another Apollos…

I don’t want to divide over this issue, and I have very great respect for Bible teachers and scholars who are both post-millennialist and classical pre-millennialist (and I don’t exclude the possibility of such respect for dispensationalist pre-millennialists either – I just can’t think of any as I write this!)

The experience recounted above is exactly the kind of thing I think we should avoid. An honest and searching Bible teacher should not be excluded from a position in the Church because they do not agree with the party line of the Church. I think our faith should be more honest and open to questions.

I deliberately worship in a Church that does not match my views, despite the existence of a Church that does more closely match my beliefs nearby. I do this because the security one receives from confirmation behaviour is a false one. If we surround ourselves with those who agree with us, then how do we differ from Rehoboam, who surrounded himself with yes-men to tell him what he wanted to hear, and ignored the cries of his people?

So I deliberately worship in a Church that teaches things with which I disagree, I read a paper whose politics are opposed to mine and I prefer Bible studies, discussions etc.
with people whose ideas challenge my own. But the question then must be asked, how do we allow people to teach in our churches if we believe that the teachers are occasionally unorthodox? The answer to that comes in two parts:

1. Insist on the fundamentals. For instance, any teacher who doubts that God raised Christ from the dead has no place teaching in a Church.
2. On the grey areas, recognise the legitimacy of other opinions and try to teach less “fact” and more critical thought.

On the second point, a Bible study on Revelation 20:1-3 would probably involve describing all views regarding the Millennium, using the sources of those who agree with them.

Thus we would quote Wayne Grudem in favour of classical premillennialism for instance. We would then encourage people to consider the question in the light of other Biblical
evidence, and in the context of a much fuller exegesis of Revelation as a book. We would then leave people to make up their own mind on the topic.

The end result? A church full of people with differing opinions, yes – but an honest Church of people who agree to disagree except on the fundamentals. People who do not stress what divides them, but agree on Who unites them.

In last week’s Geek Counterpoint Episode, you can hear a summary of some of the latest research about why it is that political arguments get so heated. In essence, it seems that we are predisposed to overlook the weak thinking, assumptions and problems in a view with which we agree, whilst latching on to the same problems in the arguments of those with whom we disagree.

This was tested scientifically, but it is essentially just another demonstration of an effect that I think pervades human nature. We all have certain needs. We all look for security, and when we have that security, we look to fill our needs for significance and self worth.

Now where do we go to meet those needs? As a Christian, I believe these can be met in a relationship with God, but even if that is the case, it is clear that not all Christians successfully do so. So where else do we meet these needs?

Well the answer is: wherever we can. We are sociable beings, and we form relationships and communities, and we seek to fulfill those needs in those relationships and communities.

Those involved in politics at any level are invested in a political community. If I, at some point in my life, make a decision to support the “purple party”, then I will discuss purple politics with other purples, and become immersed in the purple ideas. The problem is that a closed feedback loop develops.

As I discuss purplism with my purple friends, I assimilate their world view and internalise their cultural assumptions, so that I am not particularly aware of the inconsistencies in purple thought. If challenged on these by a hostile “yellow”, then I take the query back to my purple community and am happy to accept their answer to the issue raised, because the yellow is hostile and the purple is my friend.

If I did the opposite – arguing against the purple viewpoint then I would be opposing my friends – the ones from whom I gain feelings of significance and self worth, and as I perceive my standing in the purple community diminish, I also feel my sense of significance and self worth diminish too.

So I am all too ready to accept the line I am given by my community – to challenge it would be a personal risk, for no gain.

Furthermore, as I don’t want to accept the yellow point of view on some issue, I will latch on to problems with their thinking, and dismiss their views based on these errors – even if the argument is ad hominem. I am happy thinking of all yellows as foolish, shallow thinking and rather stupid people. In that way I do not have to engage with the substance of their thought.

Dredge through this blog and you will find my argument on capital punishment. In the comments for that article, you will see a commentator opened his criticism of my argument with this:

But I believe you’re a Christian, ain’t cha? And that I’ll be saved if I accept Cheeses Christ but not saved if I don’t?

And this is a perfect example of someone who rejects my faith community, and because he preceives me as being in a “hostile” community to his own, he attacks the community rather than the argument. The argument is clearly ad hominem (whether you accept his view or mine on Capital punishment), but the question is: why does an intelligent person think that such ad hominems will do?

The answer is that his community sees mine as an outsider, and therefore members of that community may be attacked simply for being members of the community. In so doing we do not feel the need to actually consider arguments proposed on their merits?

How do we stop this?

Not easily is the answer. As the Geek Counterpoint article points out, we are naturally predisposed to this kind of thinking. But here are some possibilities:

0. For Christians at least, recognise that our security, significance and self worth are found only in Christ.

1. Whenever presented with an argument, consider: why are we predisposed to accept or reject it? Is it that we like the person presenting the argument? Imagine putting the argument in the mouth of someone you dislike (or vice versa).

2. Always be critical of any new idea. Especially among friends. Educate your friends to know that the fact you are being critical shows that you care about what they think..

3. Avoid ad hominem arguments. There is plenty of advice on this on the Internet. In short, if you attack the person or their community rather than the argument, your argument is ad hominem.

4. Whenever you hear an ad hominem argument, reject it and reconsider the issue for yourself.

5. Try to build questioning communities.

These are just some pointers. I would be grateful to commentators who can add some more.

Since Alan Dershowitz has been brought up as an authority in the comments in this blog, I thought perhaps we should look at this more closely, as it is instructive with respect to my post on dealing with an appeal to authority in debate.

To recap, I have argued that Israel have repaid the evil of Hezbollah terrorism with war criminality, by targetting civilians (and the U.N., and the Red Cross and indeed, the whole nation of Lebanon). I have defended my argument with the facts as we have them, but David commented that I was not competent to present the analysis because of lack of training in International Law, and then he quoted this piece, making much of his credentials as a Harvard academic:

When terrorists use civilians as human shields, it is the terrorists who are criminally responsible for the “foreseeable” deaths of the civilian shields

Military targets located in cities can be attacked so long as reasonable efforts are made to minimize civilian casualties. Indiscriminate carpet bombing of cities with no military targets is prohibited, except possibly in instances of belligerent reprisal for attacks on one’s own cities

Alan Dershowitz, Felix Frankfurter Professor of Law, Harvard

This then is a classic appeal to authority. Yesterday, I proposed some tests that may be applied to an appeal to authority, so let us analyse this case:

1. Has the argument of that authority been properly quoted and represented? If not, we reject it.

The quoted argument comes from Dershowitz’s opinion piece which has been widely quoted. Some parts that David did not quote are “International law, and those who administer it, must understand that the old rules … are now being used as shields”. Also the piece opens with “The absurdity and counterproductive nature of current international law was proven…”

Dershowitz is complaining in his opinion piece that International Law is inflexible and being used as a shield, and that we should revise it (recognising a new sliding scale of civilianity! Although I presume even Dershowitz would acknowledge the civilianity of the one third of Lebanese casualties who are children). What he is not denying is that Israel have broken International Law as it stands – his thesis is that the law should be changed to accommodate his understanding.

So he has not been quoted correctly as an authority, although there are arguments in his piece that seem to pertain (even if they are easily refuted. His argument that a policeman is innocent if he kills a hostage in preventing the hostage taker shooting anyone else is relevant if Israel kills civilians near active terrorists – say when launching or preparing to launch missiles. It is irrelevent if Israel bomb the people in their beds because Hezbollah terrorists may be present. That is akin to a policeman knowing his criminal is asleep in a residence, and so bombing the house. In such a case, the police most certainly would be guilty of murder).

So whilst we should reject the appeal to authority at this step, we will let it proceed (primarily because it is instructive to do so).

2. Do we need the appeal to authority, or can we decide on this issue without it? If we can, we should.

We have the facts before us, and the ability to understand International Law. If we want to be competent thinkers, it is incumbent on us to examine the issues carefully in face of the facts, and not someone’s opinion.

However, we can argue that Dershowitz’s opinion is instructive. We reject the appeal per se at this point but acknowledge the benefit of considering Dershowitz’s views alongside the views of other commentators.

So to proceed.

3. Is the authority actually an expert on the matter at hand?

Dershowitz often weighs in on this subject, but his area of expertise is civil liberties, and American criminal law. However, we acknowledge that this is a good basis from which to have an understanding in International Law. We should give him a pass on this point.

To proceed:

4. Is the authority unbiased?

The answer here is a resounding no. Dershowitz is the son of Orthodox Jews. He frequently weighs in on issues regarding Israel, and always from the pro Israel side. He is not an impartial commentator, and he has been criticised in the past both for the positions he has taken and for the manner in which he dismisses his critics (sometimes citing anti-semitism against valid academic criticism)

That is not to say we can dismiss his point of view simply because he is a Jew. That would be ad hominem. However, we acknowledge his bias and thus rightly treat his opinions with caution. If we had not already twice rejected this appeal to authority, we would rightly reject it here.

5. Is the authority actually in sync with the consensus of expert opinion in the field?

Well it is hard to evaluate this one, as we have noted that the opinion of Dershowitz is that international law is too inflexible, not that Israel have not committed war crimes. But on the latter point, it is clear that other experts (such as the U.N. High Commissioner on Human Rights) are in sharp disagreement with Dershowitz – which is why he directs his attack at her.

As we have seen in the material I posted in the debate with David, there is plenty of expert opinion against Dershowitz (The International Red Cross, Human Rights Watch and the U.N. being three notables), and Dershowitz himself seems to feel that the consensus is against him (he sees this as part of the problem). There are certainly many people who have objected to Dershowitz’s whole thesis.

So this appeal to authority fails on four out of five points. The argument that because Dershowitz says it, we should believe it is fallacious.

Have you noticed how our current world wants qualifications for everything? These days if you are to be a minister of religion, you need to have a degree or some such qualification (despite the fact that perhaps the greatest preacher of the 20th Century had no such qualifications, neither did many of the methodist, nor indeed did the ministers of the early church).

And it does not stop there. If someone is asked to give comment on a subject then they need to have a degree or qualification. Stephen L Gibson, on his truth driven thinking podcast seems to feel it is important to list his contributers qualifications before they begin, as though the acquisition of post nominals is a good guide to someone’s ability to discern truth.

Of course, this is not entirely foolish. If I need medical advice I would rather ask a doctor than a first aider, and we understand that in any profession, people who have trained in a subject and continue to work in that subject to understand it will have a better handle on the subject matter then a mere dabbler.

But it is fallacious to suggest that because someone has a qualification in a subject, that we should accept any proposition of theirs on that basis alone.

Indeed this is the fallacy of appeal to authority (argumentum ad verecundiam). If someone introduces an appeal to authority in an argument, there are certain steps that we really must take before accepting what that authority says:

1. Has the argument of that authority been properly quoted and represented? If not, we reject it.
2. Do we need the appeal to authority, or can we decide on this issue without it? If we can, we should.
3. Is the authority actually an expert on the matter at hand?
4. Is the authority unbiased? Microsoft manages to commission plenty of “independent” reports that reveal how good its products are! But will that independent researcher really bite the hand that feeds him?
5. Is the authority actually in sync with the consensus of expert opinion in the field? It is certainly possible that the expert is right and the consensus is wrong, but we are back to relying on evaluation of the case on its merits if the expert is disagreeing with the consensus on the issue.

So those are some ideas on avoiding the fallacy of the appeal to authority. So why do we want everyone to be experts before we will even listen to them?

Is it that it is too hard to think for ourselves on an issue if an expert is not available to guide us? Look at point 2 again. If we can determine an issue ourselves, then we should.

Like when we look at the war in the middle east. Two sides hurling bombs at each other. Are we to listen to what we are told to think by an appropriate expert? In a comment last night on this blog, David suggested that one should have a qualification in International Law, or be an International Human Rights Lawyer before being able to comment on war crimes perpetrated by the two parties.

This is the trap that leads to a misplaced appeal to authority. We need to judge these issues for ourselves, rather than rely on experts to do so for us. What, should we let our governments decide these issues (by exercising a veto in the UN)? It should now be clear from the discussion above what is wrong with that notion.

No, the onus is on us to impartially consider the facts, and unpalatable as that may be, to come to a rational judgement on the issue.

A rational judgement is open to challenge – but not by appeal to authority. By reassessment of the facts at issue.

There are all kinds of mistakes we can make in our thinking, and not one of us has reasonable claim of a consistent set of beliefs and knowledge.

But whilst that claim may seem uncontentious, it masks a part of our human nature that all to often prevents us from approaching an argument rationally and finding the truth of a matter. At some deep unconcious leve (or perhaps not so very deep!) we all want to believe we are right.

That is to say, our behaviour often seeks confirmation of the rightness of the beliefs we already hold. We have a whole set of confirmation behaviours designed to provide us with evidence that confirms beliefs that we may even have subconcously accepted even before we had any rational evidence to do so.

Thus socialists read socialist newspapers, conservatives read conservative newspapers. We interact with the media in such a way that we allow them to confirm what we have already decided is true. These are the things we have pre judged – our prejudices.

Blogs are just a new medium, so we see the same in the blogosphere. We look at Juan Cole’s excellent “Informed Comment” blog and see links to scores of liberal blogs. Juan Cole is an intelligent commentator – but is this confirmation behaviour if he only links to what he agrees with? And “Blogs for Bush” does the same thing – linking only to conservative blogs.

When people debate an issue, it has been demonstrated that observers of opposing opinions will both leave the debate strengthened in their divergent opinions. We are not good at divining the truth of a matter because wehave a natural tendency to soak up information that we agree with and pass over the information we are less happy with.

And this is a mistake.

As long as we allow ourselves to fool ourselves with confirmation behaviours, we will not really understand issues. We should deliberately read people that we disagree with. And then don’t stop there. Think – why do we disagree? What are the strengths of their argument? If we assume the other person is a rational and intelligent thinker, why do they come to such a divergent viewpoint.

Because until we understand the viewpoint of those with whom we disagree, we cannot really say we understand our own point of view.

What else can we do?

Do not accept confirming evidence uncritically. I have said on this blog that I don’t think it likely that Iran is involved in arming Hezbollah. But I am likely to be proved wrong (if not on this issue, then another).

I could look at a statement from George Bush, who said that arms from Iran are being shipped via Syria as confirmation of my viewpoint (because the statement is silly – to ship via Syria, the arms must be shipped through Turkey or Iraq first! The US has Iran boxed in). But if I was discussing with another commentator they might suggest that Iran ships direct to Hezbollah by some other means.

And be honest about your motives for believing something to be true. None of us tend to engage ourselves with things we dislike, and we don’t like difference. What are our real motives for holding a belief?

At first sight this may seem like a no-brainer: that killing for vengeance is nowhere near as immoral as killing for some other reason.

However, after a particularly nasty murder in the UK, I noticed one person, Blewyn, wrote to say that to kill the murderer would make us as bad as the original murderer.

Now I take it that Blewyn is alluding to some deeper understanding of human motive and the human condition, which we really ought to try and understand before firing off the first ad hominem that comes to mind.

Why should we consider the issue? Well it is clear to me that Blewyn is an intelligent person, who thinks differently from others on this issue. By granting that he is clearly intelligent, we must suppose there is intelligent reason for his comparison above, and until we understand that reasoning, we cannot hope to accept or refute it.

That alone is an important principle of critical thinking that would do so much to promote understanding in our society.

Now for this discussion, I intend to use a hypothetical example so as not to distress anyone familiar with real cases who may happen to find this message.

So let us suppose that someone, Cornelius, murders another person – Aurelia. Let us suppose that Aurelia is an accomplished archer, and that Cornelius hates archers.

Now to get inside the head of Cornelius is difficult, and not wholly desireable, but let us suppose that his hatred for archers has consumed him to some extent. It stems perhaps from a childhood event where his father stood him by a tree and shot an apple from above his head; but over the years his nightmares of that event turned to hatred, and his hatred was repressed until eventually he came to the point where he could not look at an archer without feeling a mix of hatred and a longing for his father (who left him alone shortly after the apple event).

Thus whenever Cornelius sees Aurelia he is consumed by normally repressed emotions, and on one occasion, given the opportunity, he lapses into a kind of insanity and seeks to gratify his repressed emotions in the murder of Aurelia.

Now anyone who knows all this about Cornelius will perhaps see that there is a curious tension here between his neurosis, in which he is a victim of his own life circumstances, the product of his up bringing, and between his own personal responsibility and choice, which he exercised many times – both in failing to address his base instincts, and also when he deliberately chose to gratify his deepest repressed desires.

Note this carefully: we do not hold Cornelius to be free from personal responsibility simply because of his upbringing and neurosis. He is very much at fault in the matter of Aurelia’s death.

But now, what is our response to Cornelius? Most people who knew and loved Aurelia, and many more besides will instinctively wish for the death of Cornelius. Deep down we all have a desire for retribution when wrong is done against us, or those we love. Such emotions are not a neurosis, but they are an emotional, not a rational response.

If we give in to those emotions and deliberately allow the torture or killing of Cornelius, then we have made exactly the same choice that Cornelius made. We have chosen to kill (or torture) simply to sate our base instincts.

We should not hold Cornelius responsible fo his neurosis – that is beyond his control, but we rightly hold him responsible for his choices, and thus his actions. But if we make the same choices as he did, then we really are no better than he is. If we were in his shoes, we must conclude we would have done what he did.

Thus when we punish Cornelius, we must hold to some higher ideal for the punishment than simply that it sates our inate desire for vengeance. Punishment may hold an element of retribution, but a restrained retribution that allows for some measure of healing.

Punishment should be a deterrant, but also with the hope that the offender may be rehabilitated too.

This is what I understand Blewyn to be saying when he says that killing the offender makes us as bad as he, and this is why we need a rather more rational debate on the whole concept of punishment than can be found following straight after various deradful tragedies.

Note that killing Cornelius will not bring Aurelia back, nor heal the hurt that her beloved Marcus feels deep inside.

Someone might say:

Actually it solves the danger of the perpetrator doing it again, and it solves the financial burden of keeping them in jail. And it sends the message that if you cross the line, you go down, permanently.

The message seems to be lost, if the U.S. is anything to go by. The issue of cost should not be a factor – what price our humanity? As for the danger of the perpetrator doing it again? Life sentences can achieve this.

Last month I wrote a post criticising the “Truth Driven Thinking” podcast, and Tom Harpur’s view of a mythical Jesus. The nub of his argument seems to be that ancient literature is “widely understood” to be written in a mythical manner, and that no-one really believed what was written to be truth. Rather they all accepted an assumption that what was being written was spiritual myth.

On the other hand there are people who say that not only is Harpur talking rubbish, but that every part of the Bible must be taken as literal historical fact, including the six day creation six thousand years ago.

Both are wrong, because both misunderstand this issue of how literature was understood.

Let us be clear – all literature has certain conventions, and those conventions change over time. A verbatim narrative of an event is about the dullest thing one could possibly read, and so narrative histories modify conversation somewhat, leave out the dull bits, perhaps re-arrange a little. But in essence, they are narratives of actual events.

Now it may be instructive to look at Thucydides’ Magnus Opus, The History of The Peloponnesian War. (Actually, it is not all the work of Thucydides, but we can ignore that for now, as these comments apply to the part he did write).

In this work, Thucydides recounts the war between Athens and Sparta, with remarkable insight and clearly a first hand knowledge of the events he recounts. When Thucydides stops writing, the account loses some of this detail, and we must marvel at what a remarkable historian this man was.

However, he was not just a historian. Thucydides was also a philosopher, and he used his history to paint a picture of the degeneration of the Athenian empire. The theatre of history is the backdrop for his philosophical teaching (and in this, he is not unusual as a historian).

So consider Thucydides’ accounts of various speeches and motivational addresses in his history. These are often pages in length, and it is clear that Thucydides was not present to hear and record these. Thus we suppose that the speeches are gists of originals, modified by Thucydides to carry his message. It may be that everthing that Thucydides attributes to the speech maker was actually said by someone, but by placing the words in the mouths of the key actors in his history, the narrative is enriched, the point is carried, and the history is richer for it.

Now Tom Harpur would be wrong to suggest that anyone reading the History of the Peloponnesian War should understand that the account is mythical. No one would agree with Harpur, for instance, that the General Pericles was not a historical figure who lived and then died of plague (or perhaps typhoid) in the siege of Athens. Did Pericles actually speak certain words attributed to him? Perhaps not, although we can be near certain that the direction he gave Athens was as reported by Thucydides, because we know that Thucydides had access to the information that allowed him to report accurately on the war.

So based on documents such as this one, we see that we can dismiss Harpur’s suggestions at once. There was no assumption that when reading history one was reading a mythical account.

But the hstory of the Peloponnesian war tells us something else: That history is often arranged to make a spiritual point. In the Old Testament we might read the book of the Chronicles of the Kings of Israel and be taken with an understanding that Kings that followed God were blessed, and those who failed to do so did badly. 2 Chronicles in particular brings out this point, and it is notable how little attention a godless king might get. Perhaps the most significant example is Omri. Chronicles talks of his son, the king Ahab, and uses this to make its points well. Omri gets no mention at all (except as father or grandfather or son).

In the book of Kings, chapter 16 we read “But Omri did evil in the eyes of the LORD and sinned more than all those before him.”, so we know this much about him and very little more. The Chronicler does not rewrite history – he does not say Omri was a good king, or that he met a quick and unfortunate death because of his evil. The Chronicler just ignores him entirely.

Does this worry us? No – because the message God has placed in the Bible is the message he wants us to read. And the message here is that it does not matter how great your works are – without God they have no lasting significance. All crumbles and decays in its time, and all are forgotten. Without God we really are nothing.

So the omission itself is a part of the teaching of the Bible, and we can learn from it.

But there are also parts of the Bible that are not observed history. The six day creation is an example, because who could have observed God creating the world before Adam was created?

Thus we must treat this part of the Bible as direct revelation, and this being the case, it is not unwarranted to suppose that the six day creation was allegorical, as Origen thought and as Augustine also believed.

Augustine held that creation must have taken place in an instant. And in a sense that is exactly what science says, for in the instant of the big bang, the precise configuration of the Universe that would create me and you was created.

Whether you accept that interpretation or not is up to you, but to me that is the most elegant of all universes. It is beautiful in simplicity hiding its incredible complexity.

And the book of Genesis? If it is allegorical, then what is it teaching us? To me that is the most exciting part of this whole journey – that we can learn so much from Genesis too.

But that will have to wait for another message. This one is long enough already.