Back of the Envelope

I first read about holographic storage around 1990. The idea is that you can store information in three-dimensions in a crystalline material which you can both write to and read from by crossing two laser beams and writing with their interference pattern. The two beams are a reference beam and a data beam, patterned by a 2-D mask, and storing that image in a light sensitive material. The reference beam can then read the data by projecting the data image on a photosensitive array. By changing the frequency or angle of incidence of the reference beam, you can store multiple 2-D data masks in the same block of material, multiplexing the images together and reading them out individually, vastly increasing the amount you can store.

Back in 1990, I was looking forward to when holographic storage was available on every desktop. Of course, that day's still not here, and I was wondering what had happened to it. Well, it hasn't gone away entirely, and there are companies still working on it. Via MIT's Technology Review (not available without a subscription, I'm afraid):

You could store a whole lot of stuff on a one-terabyte computer disc--say a million novels, 250,000 MP3 song files, or hundreds of full-length movies. A Lucent Technologies spin-off is hoping to bring you that kind of capacity using a long-talked-about technology: holographic storage, in which a laser records data in three dimensions on a polymer medium. The technology can store up to 300 times as much data as traditional optical drives of the same physical size, and the startup, Longmont, CO-based InPhase Technologies, says it will start selling the holographic drives next year.

Unfortunately, it's not yet rewritable, although InPhase hopes it will be in a couple of years. And even then commercial availability looks to be four years away, and these estimates tend to be optimistic. InPhase Technology has a website, and the explanation of how holographic storage works is here.

Doc Rampage has this to say about one-time pads:

The problem with one-time pads is that the pad contains as much information as the message and it requires a fully secure channel because if anyone can intercept the pad, he can easily decrypt the message. If you have a fully secure channel with enough bandwidth for the pad, why not use it to send the message? One-time pads are really only useful when you have two channels, one secure and one insecure, and you don't always have the secure channel available. Usually the non-secure channel is a wide-area network and the secure channel is some guy on a plane carrying a CD. In these cases, you can use the secure channel to send the pads whenever you can and you use the non-secure but faster, more reliable, or more widely available channel to send the messages.

This seems like the perfect time to talk about quantum cryptography, or as it's more accurately known, quantum key distribution, which proves once again that there's an exception to every rule, and it's quantum mechanics. The idea is to distribute some amount of data which will be used as the key to encrypt the message you want to send. So this data you exchange, the key, is the equivalent of a one-time pad, distributed securely. Why not just send the message this way? Well, as we'll see, QKD is very inefficient, and only a quarter of the data gets through, which would be pretty useless if you were sending message data. It's also vulnerable to eavesdropping; the trick is that you can tell when it's being eavesdropped.

Let's say you have a public channel, which can be eavesdropped. One party, Alice, wants to send a message to another party, Bob, but is worried that it could be eavesdropped by a third party, Eve. (These are the standard names used in the quantum key distribution literature.) However, this channel is capable of carrying not just regular bits, but also qubits. This is simple enough to imagine, since sending individual photons in essence sends qubits down the channel. Photons also make it easier to explain how the process works, so we'll stick with that. Alice's photons are linearly polarized, in 4 different directions, 0 degrees, 90 degrees, 45 degrees, and 135 degrees. If you use a polarizing filter, then orthogonal light can't get through the filter. If your filter is at 0 degrees, then the photon doesn't get through if it's at 90 degrees. However, due to the magic of quantum mechanics, a photon polarized at 45 or 135 degrees has a fifty percent change of getting through since you can decompose it into a 0 degree and a 90 degree component. Similarly, a 45 degree filter will block 135 degree polarized photons, but pass 50% of the 0 and 90 degree photons. There's no way to tell what the original polarization was. If you have a 0 degree polarizing filter, and a photon gets through to your detector on the other side, then it may have been polarized at 0 degrees, or it could have been polarized at 45 or 135. If the photon is blocked, then it may have been polarized at 90 degrees, or at 45 or 135. So we have two sets of two polarizations which are orthogonal to one another (0-90 and 45-135) but not orthogonal to the other set.

Alice takes a string of random bits, a, and decides on the polarization from a equal-length string of random bits b. For the kth bit in each string, if a(k)b(k) is 00, then she sends a photon polarized at 90 degrees. If a(k)b(k)=10, she sends a photon polarized at 0 degrees. Using a 0 degree polarizing filter with a photodetector on the other side, measuring a photon indicates that a(k) is 1 and measuring no photon indicates that a(k) is 0. If a(k)b(k) is 01, the photon Alice sends is at 135 degrees, and if a(k)b(k) is 11, the photon is at 45 degrees. So if b(k) is 0, the photon should be measured with the 0 degree filter, if b(k) is 1, it should be measured with the 45 degree filter. However, neither Bob nor Eve have any way of knowing this. Instead, Bob randomly chooses the filter with which to measure, using random string b'. The results of the measurement gives a string of a'. If there's an eavesdropper, Eve, she can also try to measure it, but there's no way to measure a photon and then send it to Bob. It's also not possible to copy a photon exactly and measure the copy. Eve could try measuring the photon by guessing at the correct polarization, then send a new photon to Bob based on her guess. If she guessed that the photon would be either 0 or 90 degrees and used a 0 degree filter, she could send Bob a new photon at either 0 or 90 degrees based on her measurement, and if she had guessed correctly, the photon would be at the correct angle. However, if she guessed incorrectly, it would be at the wrong angle. If Bob also measures with the 0 degree filter, it won't make much difference, so if Alice, Bob, and Eve all used the same polarization (a 1 in 4 chance), Eve would have successfully eavesdropped. If Bob measures with a 45 degree filter and the original photon was in the 45-135 set, while Eve measured and resent at 0 degrees, then there's only a 50% chance he'll get the correct value.

Once Bob tells Alice he's gotten the message, the two compare their b and b' strings. This is done publically, so Eve can hear what's being said. They then toss out all the bits where b and b' disagree, where Bob measured at a different polarization than Alice sent, since for each of those bits a(j)=a'(j) only 50% of the time. All the remaining bits should agree. So next they randomly choose about half the remaining bits to compare. There'll probably be some errors just due to the difficulty of sending single photons over long distances, but if the error rate exceeds a certain threshold, then they can know that someone's been eavesdropping on their communication. In that case, they can scratch the attempt and try again. (However, if Eve was smart, she may have eavesdropped only a small number bits, thus settling for a partial key while keeping below the threshold error rate.) If they decide they weren't eavesdropped, they need to correct for errors in the transmission by information reconciliation. Information reconciliation is a form of error correction, doing parity checking on random subsets of the shared string (a and a'), discarding the last bit each time so that Eve gains no new information (a parity check of a set of bits sums all the 1s and determines whether the result is odd or even; any single bit in a set can change its parity, so if you discard a bit without disclosing its value, you reveal no new information by revealing a set's parity). The subsets are chosen to be small enough so that each is unlikely to contain more than one error, and if an error is found, the subset is bissected and the parities checked again until the error is located. This is done repeatedly, with different, randomly chosen subsets, to negate mistakes caused by selecting subsets where an even number of errors may have given a false parity check. Let's say this is done, but Eve still has some information about the key--not a lot, else they would have detected her. Information reconciliation neither increases nor decreases the amount of information Eve has, since if you discard a bit she knew, she then learns what the parity of the remainder of the subset is. Privacy amplification reduces the information available to Eve, even if she's intercepted some information, while reducing the total number of bits in the key. One way of doing this would be to publically select a permutation of the remaining bits in a=a' (without sharing any of the values), then divide it into blocks of a certain size, and using the parity of each block to form the new key. This is a pretty inefficient way of doing it, where the total number of bits in the new key, r, equals the original number of bits divided by the block size. However, it drastically reduces the amount of information that Eve has, since Eve only knows the parity of a block when she has all the bits in it. There are more efficient functions, but the smaller the final key is compared to its original length, the less information available to Eve, even if she managed to get some information from eavesdropping.

The remaining bits form the key, which can then be used to encrypt the message Alice wants to send. Depending on degree of privacy amplification (how much you're willing to reduce the key size) and the error threshold (how many errors you'll accept before concluding that someone's eavesdropping), the distributed key can be made arbitrarily secure.

One thing you'll notice right away is that QKD is very inefficient. Even before information reconciliation and privacy amplification, you're down to about one-fourth the number of bits you started with. However, you can't expect any provably secure communication over a public channel to be efficient. This form of quantum cryptography (there are others, different in details but similar in concept) has been demonstrated in a lab environment, and at distances of up to 100 km. This particular application of quantum information is in the early stages of commercial application.

I didn't write all of this from memory, although I have studied it before. I needed to look up the details, so I used Nielsen and Chuang's Quantum Computation and Quantum Information, and this useful website.

Update: Doc Rampage gives a... uh, simpler explanation. Also, I edited for clarity.

Dean Esmay reports that the blogwar to start collecting money for Spirit of America starts tomorrow. I'm not listed on the Alliance blogroll, but I did receive the e-mail. Until Dean confirms that I'm part of the Alliance, I'll be unable to mobilize my vast Internet audience--all three of them--to contribute to the effort.

I haven't blogged much today. Aside from my church small group earlier tonight, I was in the lab all day at work. I've been learning how to do laser trapping and cooling, or more accurately, how to get a laser up and running at the right wavelength so you can use it for laser cooling. I've never done much work with laser optics before (I'm a superconducting Electrical Engineering guy), so it was fun and informative. I suspect that once I've been doing it for a while, it'll become pretty tedious. I'll probably be in the lab most of the day tomorrow as well, so I don't know how much blogging I'll be doing.

I've been adding to the blogroll, and I thought I'd point out the new entries. The first, Mostly Cajun, is the view of the world from Southwest Louisiana. The writer's probably to the right of me, and his language is rough at times, but an entertaining read nonetheless. Intolerant Elle writes a lot about abortion, but also covers a wide range of topics from a Christian perspective. Finally, Dean's World is one of the bigger blogs (he gets links from Instapundit all the time), and he's writing in what he calls the "Liberal Tradition." From his perspective, though, liberal means free, not leftist.

Update: Oops, I forgot to add Parablemania. Jeremy Pierce is a Christian philosophy student from Syracuse, and his blog shows tight logic.

I've finished the first revision of the story, which means it's time for the second revision, which generally takes even longer.

The way I write, the first draft is like a rough sketch, containing the basic outline of the story, but hazy on the details. I place all sorts of little notes in the story, along the lines of [NOTE: Describe this room in more detail.], [NOTE: Look up details on ancient Roman construction techniques.], [NOTE: I need to clarify the logical connection to show why the detective would suspect this guy.], or [NOTE: Place scene here.] It's messy, but I'm in a hurry to give the story its skeleton. The first revision has the big job of filling in all these little details. If I do it right, there's no more need for the notes when I'm done. Then comes the second revision, where I print out the whole story and read through it out loud, making changes to how it sounds and flows. I find this helps a lot, especially when it comes to spotting things that sound good in my head but really stupid when said out loud. It also helps me to make sure each character's style of speaking is consistent and just fits. Anyway, I mark up the hard copy of the story a lot when I do this, and the next step is to go back to the word processor and make the revisions there. Once this is done, the story is ready to share--with my close friends who can advise me of whether the story makes sense and is any good. Once I've gotten their input, I make the corrections they've suggested (if I agree with them, anyway), then read through it one more time, fixing any errors that have cropped up due to all the revising.

At that point, the story is "done," at least in the sense that it's ready to share with the public. This doesn't necessarily stop me from going back and revising it again, but I'm pretty reluctant to do that once it's been published, even in the web format.

New Post: I finally have a tentative name for the story, above.

I've been leading a group which gets together to study Philip Yancey's The Jesus I Never Knew. I thought I'd share a passage from it (p. 219):

One detail in the Easter stories always intrigued me: Why did Jesus keep the scars from his crucifixion? Presumably he could have any resurrected body he wanted, and yet he chose one identifiable mainly by scars that could be seen and touched. Why?

I believe the story of Easter would be incomplete without those scars on the hands, the feet, the side of Jesus. When human beings fantasize, we dream of pearly straight teeth and wrinkle-free skin and sexy ideal shapes. We dream of an unnatural state: the perfect body. But for Jesus, being confined in a skeleton and human skin was the unnatural state. The scars are, to him, and emblem of life on our planet, a permanent reminder of those days of confinement and suffering.

I take hope in Jesus' scars. From the perspective of heaven, they represent the most horrible event that has ever happened in the history of the universe. Even that event, though--the crucifixion--Easter turned into a memory. Because of Easter, I can hope that the tears we shed, the blows we receive, all these will become memories, like Jesus' scars. Scars never completely go away, but neither do they hurt any longer. We will have re-created bodies, a re-created heaven and earth. We will have a new start, an Easter start.

This is a great book, and I highly recommend it.

Not to be alarmist, but someone ought to be alarmed (via Instapundit):

Jordan's King Abdullah revealed on Saturday that vehicles reportedly containing chemical weapons and poison gas that were part of a deadly al-Qaida bomb plot came from Syria, the country named by U.S. weapons inspector David Kay last year as a likely repository for Iraq's weapons of mass destruction.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't this the nightmare scenario? The one where the terrorists get hold of WMDs and use them against the US and its allies? If these are the missing Iraqi WMDs, this shows that we should have moved sooner, ignored the UN and invaded a year earlier, before Saddam had a chance to send the WMDs off to where they could be used by the terrorists. Whether they are or not, this shows we need to do something about Syria. I thought we could wait. I was pretty sure that Assad would come around, that he might already be negotiating, and King Abdullah at least believes that Assad had no knowledge of this attack, but is he willing and able to deal with the terrorists and their supporters in his own country? Or is he one of those supporters himself? I think that unless he starts showing Libyan-style cooperation, we may have to move against Syria, without the luxury of waiting for Iraq to settle down and the resolution of the November election.

Update: At Letters from Babylon, Jeremy Frank notes that while plenty of other news sources talk about the chemical nature of the planned attack, CNN does not. It's always possible that the chemical part is based on bad intelligence--there have been plenty of other scares that proved false, and I hope this is one--but with a source as high as King Abdullah, you'd think it would be worth reporting.

New Post: Apparently the attempts to break up this plot are still in progress, as discussed above.

Here are my major posts from the previous week.

The Harmony of the Gospels -- I quote from all four Resurrection accounts. Don't miss the follow-up post on the similarities and differences.

Galileo: Other sources -- A follow up on an earlier post, I quote from another source to confirm some of the details about Galileo's difficulties with the Catholic Church.

Ted Kennedy's Vietnam -- I explain why Iraq won't be George Bush's Vietnam, but why it could be John Kerry's.

The Progressive Church -- The first in a series of posts about liberal Christianity, its good points and its bad.

Democratic Advertising -- I point out that the ad which called for Rumsfeld's execution (figuratively, at least) was, aside from inflammatory, also poorly researched. This post appeared in Right Wing News's sidebar for a couple of days.

Blogging Bush's Press Conference -- I live-blog Bush's press conference.

Gerard Alexander at Rochester -- Gerard Alexander, the author of "The Myth of Republican Racism," is giving a talk at Rochester. I'll be attending, and if you have any questions you think I should ask, please pass them along.

Spirit of America -- I offer to join the blogwar between Michelle Catalano and Dean Esmay -- for a price to be named later.

The Shroud of Turin -- My sparse thoughts on the Shroud of Turin.

And now we'll divert ourselves from discussing religion to discussing webcomics. I'm getting this done early, but I'll eventually bump it to its rightful place at the end of the week.

Sluggy Freelance -- Once Gwynn defeats the evil vacuum cleaner, it's time for a Kiki activity week. Ooooh, shiny!

Day by Day -- Plenty of comments on Iraq, and I thought Chris's thoughts on the press conference were most appropriate.

It's Walky! -- Walky and Joyce. Joe and what's-her-name. Love, or maybe hate, is in the air. But back at SEMME headquarters, there's trouble brewing.

College Roomies from Hell! -- Roger meets a unicorn, Mike meets a mermaid, and Dave meets, well, fights with, anyway, a half-metal mad scientist doctor who just wants to escape. Can Dave retain consciousness long enough to stop him from abandoning the others?

General Protection Fault -- Ki's plan to visit Nick gets off to a rough start, but all's well that ends well. Right?

Schlock Mercenary -- Tagon's would-be employer is vaporized. It's a good thing he got half in advance.

Old Post: My previous post is here.

In my previous post, I acknowledged that the progressive church's efforts to reach out to groups who had traditionally been neglected by the Church indicated an admirable desire on their part. After all, Jesus reached out to prostitutes and tax collectors. Unfortunately, this desire is not matched by a respect for scripture. Indeed, they seem to be encouraging the very normalization of sin that bothered me in the previous post, and they seem to have a contempt for orthodox Christianity that is apparent on their front page:

Religion doesn't have to be irrelevant, ineffectual, repressive...

Do you find more grace in the search for meaning than in absolute certainty, in the questions rather than in the answers?

Do you have religious interests and longings but cannot accept the beliefs and dogmas you associate with Christianity?

Are you repelled by claims that Christianity is the "only way"?

In their desire not to offend people who are normally offended by Christianity, they forget that Christianity is a message of offense. "And blessed is he who does not take offense at Me." (Matt. 11:6) Jesus was not universally loved, and those who thought themselves sinless had the hardest time accepting him. Ignoring sin, offering acceptance without redemption, tells people that they don't really need Jesus. (Of course, this doesn't seem to bother the progessive Christians, judging from their second point: "Recognize the faithfulness of other people who have other names for the way to God's realm, and acknowledge that their ways are true for them, as our ways are true for us.") Jesus taught the legitimacy of the law, with strong warnings for those who ignored it: "Whoever then annuls one of the least of these commandments, and teaches others to do the same, shall be called least in the kingdom of heaven; but whoever keeps and teaches them, he shall be called great in the kingdom of heaven." (Matt. 5:19) While we need to love all sinners, while there is forgiveness available for them and for us, we dare not forget just how dangerous, how deadly sin is. When we do, we treat Christ's sacrifice as worthless.

My blog traffic has been up and down this week, as can be seen from this graph of visits per day from Sitemeter.

The Blogs for Bush carnival on Monday (no doubt augmented by the Instapundit link to Blogs for Bush on that day), the Christian Carnival on Wednesday, the link in Right Wing News's sidebar, all brought a lot of traffic at the beginning of the week. Of course, it tapered off near the end, helped along by my own sluggish blogging. For a while there I thought my average might be moving up to 50+ per day, but it looks like I'm still in the 25-35 range (which actually is an improvement since I last mentioned it, as I've since figured out how to ignore my own visits--well I technically knew how, I just didn't think it would work with dynamic IP addressing, but it's smarter than I thought).

Bill Hobbs has a post pointing out that a link in a high traffic blog brings a blog more traffic than a mention in any "old media" outlet. Not to be facetious, but is anyone really surprised by this? As I see it, there are two reasons:

1. Ease of use: I mean, really, if you're reading a blog, and you see a link to something you're remotely interested in, you click on it. Easiest thing in the world. Now, if you hear about it on television, or read it in a newspaper, first you have to get online, then type in the address. If you think to yourself "I'll do it the next time I'm online," are you going to even remember the intention, much less what the URL was?

2. Targeted advertising: People who read the big blogs are, after all, the people who, um, read blogs. If you see a link in a blog, then obviously you already know what a blog is, and you already read them, so you're the perfect audience for the link.

Both Letters from Babylon and the Captain's Quarters have thoughts about the new evidence concerning the Shroud of Turin. The Shroud is supposed to be evidence for the resurrection, but very few Christians consider it important evidence for their beliefs. The Catholic Church has maintained careful neutrality. It is supposed to be the cloth in which Jesus was wrapped when he was buried, and it has the image of a face that is particularly visible in photonegatives. It turns out that this image is actually visible on both sides of the shroud, thus making the possibility of forgery less likely.

I first heard the details about the shroud when I went to a lecture on it at the Virginia Junior Classical League Convention when I was in High School (the VJCL Convention is a get-together for Latin students, with contests and lectures and all sorts of fun stuff). This lecture was actually the first place I heard about the gruesome details of crucifixion. Oh, I knew about Jesus's death from the Bible, but oddly no one had ever explained to me how crucifixion actually killed someone. I had never understood how nailing someone to a piece of wood could kill them in just three hours. (It does so by asphyxiation. The arms are drawn out to expand the ribcage and make breathing difficult and painful. You can ease the difficulty by supporting yourself on your legs, but this also becomes very painful when there's a nail driven through them. Usually, though, it took days to die. They broke the thieves' legs to speed it up for them, but Jesus had already given up the ghost, apparently not fighting to survive.) The impression I got from the lecture was that the shroud had most likely been wrapped around someone who had been crucified, although no one really knew whether that person was Jesus. (The speaker was pretty neutral on this point, preferring naturalistic explanations for the image.) As for myself, I don't really consider it evidence for the Resurrection.

From the "In case you were wondering" desk, the revising proceeds apace. I'm about 77% through the first revision of the still unnamed short story.

Old Post: My previous post was here.

John Zimmer at Letters from Babylon commented on my post on the progressive church:

I found the statements about welcoming those groups not traditionally associated with Christianity (like homosexuals) particularly notable. It seems to me that the positions espoused by these "liberal Christians" are born of a commendable desire to extend the love of God to all. Indeed, it is desirable for the Church catholic to be as welcoming as possible, just as Jesus was to the traditionally unrighteous people of his day, like the tax collectors. But how do we strike the right balance between the desirable unconditional acceptance of people and the diligent adherence to the teachings of Scripture (e.g., homosexual practices are sinful)? How do we make it clear that we strive for the holiness of God but also accept all people who, like we, are failing miserably in that pursuit?

Perhaps part of the problem is labeling in our minds some sins as more abhorrent than others. For example, we may not consciously hold the idea that homosexuality is a greater evil than pride, but we often behave as if we did believe so. We should denounce both with the same spirit.

I think it is true that we have a tendency to denounce certain sins as greater than others, and the actions of various Christians in regards to homosexuality has done much to hurt the cause of the Gospel. What caused Christians to take such offense at homosexuality was not the perceived abhorrence of the sin itself, but the desire to normalize it, to say that there's nothing wrong with it, that there is in fact something wrong with you for thinking there is something wrong with it. The homosexual movement has been quite successful in this effort, so that in Canada a pastor can be charged with a hate crime for publishing an ad saying that homosexuality is sinful.

But homosexuality is hardly the first or the last sin to be normalized. Certainly extramarital sex has long been so, and only "prudes" in "fundamentalist" churches say otherwise. And what of greed, envy, and pride, are we not so inured to the appeal to them in each television commercial that we rarely recognize the sin anymore? The Church has almost always functioned in a society that doesn't believe in the wrongness of the things the Church says are sinful, and in some ways I think it is better that way. In a society which agrees too closely with the Church, we're less likely to recognize those sins our society fails to recognize.

New Post: More above.

A Small Victory and Dean's World have begun a blogwar to see who can raise the most money for Spirit of America, which funds projects by troops to help Iraqis. The specific project they're supporting is one that helps Iraqis start up TV news stations to counter the prevalence of Al Jazeera. I think this is a great idea, and I'd gladly help out, although neither is courting me to become a part of either alliance. Hey, I may only get 1% of their traffic, but I'm sure I can contribute something. And frankly, I come cheap.

Old Post: I mentioned Gerard Alexander's article below.

Gerard Alexander, the author of this article on the GOP in the South, is coming to speak at Rochester. Does anyone have suggestions for questions I should ask him?

Update: For anyone near or around the Rochester area, the talk is in Hoyt Hall at the University of Rochester, at 8 pm on Thursday, April 22nd. It's sponsored by the College Republicans, with whom I'm not associated.

New Post: I blog Gerard Alexander's talk above.

John Hawkins from Right Wing News put a link in his sidebar to my post about Bush visiting wounded soldiers at Walter Reed Hospital. I'm surprised he linked to that rather than the original Kausfile I got it from, but that's the advantage of Permalinks, I guess. This has been responsible for about 2/3rds of my traffic today. Thanks for the link, John! I guess my strategy of shamelessly promoting myself in other people's comments is still working. (I do try not to overdo it, though.)

The Christian Carnival is up at the GodBlog. This is the first time I've had a post included, the one on Heliocentrism and the Church. Check out what other Christian bloggers are saying.

Old Post: I live-blogged Bush's press conference last night in the post below.

Well, I live blogged it, but that was mostly just the facts. What did I think of it? I wasn't as impressed as I wanted to be. As much as I might wish it, Bush is just never going to be very articulate. (Fortunately for him, Kerry comes across as worse. He doesn't mangle his words, but he can't give a straight answer to save his life.) The President's opening speech was good, emphasizing that the June 30th date will hold firm and that our commitment to Iraq remains strong and will remain strong well past the turnover date (we'll probably continue operations for a year or so, and keep bases there for on the order of a decade). When it came to answering questions, I wish he had done better. In the immediate aftermath I was disappointed with his answers, but having had a day to think about it, I think I was more disappointed with the reporters. That sort of passive-agressive "Why won't you just admit you're a miserable failure?" questioning made them look much worse than it did Bush, even if I don't think he came off so well either. The answer to why Bush won't admit to his mistakes can be found here. Bush's ideas, and mine, about his mistakes are not the same as the press's. They want him to admit he shouldn't have gone to Iraq, while I think his only mistake was basing his reasoning on WMDs to win over Tony Blair and the UN. You don't need WMDs to make the argument, as I (and many others) have shown. Yet that answer would surely just infuriate the press, so why bother? On the other hand, maybe that's plenty of reason to do so. Enough with what the press thinks, or the Democrats, he should just say what he's thinking.

Since my live blogging of Nader's speech didn't work out, I'll try it again, this time with Bush's press conference. This time I'm in my living room with my home wireless network, so there are no connectivity worries.

8:31 PM -- President starts opening statement.

8:32 PM -- Three groups: Ba'athists in Fallujah, outside terrorists, and al-Sadr. Long condemnation of Sadr. He's calling the violence a power grab by these extreme faction.

8:33 PM -- He's making the case that most Iraqis don't support the uprising. True enough, but it would be better if they weren't so dedicated to neutrality in the present situation.

8:35 PM -- Bush is praising the troops and saying we will push for success. He will send more troops and resources if needed.

8:36 PM -- He's saying we have to keep the June 30th turnover. Now he's saying that the Iraqis will have to manage their own affairs, and that that's what will happen in Fallujah. [I guess that's why we pulled back, to try to give the Iraqis the ability to do their job.] Part of the demand [to the Fallujah militants] is that they turn over those responsible for killing and mutilating the contractors.

8:39 PM -- He's saying we will use force necessary to maintain order and protect troops.

8:40 PM -- He's discussing how the transition will proceed, both for the turnover, the constitution, and the election (January). [While there's a timetable, a lot of the details are still being worked out, with help from the UN special envoy.]

8:41 PM -- He's sending Armitage to talk to Iraq's neighbors. It's stated positively, but I wonder if it's to "dialogue" or "threaten." He also accidentally called Rumsfeld Secretary of State.

8:43 PM -- He's saying that we must hold firm in Iraq, since it is a meeting place of the civilized world (us) and terrorism, and that we cannot back down.

8:45 PM -- Bush is reviewing terrorist attacks, starting from the Beirut bombing, to the World Trade Center.

8:47 PM -- Any concession will only embolden them. Now, we're fighting against them at full force. They're desperate, and the work may get harder as we go on, but to give up will make things much worse.

8:50 PM -- First question: Is Iraq vietnam? Answer: No. But this is hard work. We've been there a year, but it's a relatively short time and we've made progress.

8:51 PM -- Next question: How long will troops be there? Are we sending more? Answer: We'll send troops if Abizaid asks for them, and it looks like he wants them now. Troops will be there as long as necessary. They'll be there after turnover, and we'll need to train Iraqis better.

8:54 PM -- Next question: How'd you get so much wrong? WMDs, greeted as liberators. Answer: WMD: The calculus had changed. We're less tolerant than we were then. Liberators: Iraqis are afraid, reluctant to step up.

[If you look at the old news reports, we were greeted as liberators when we first arrived. Gratitude doesn't last very long, does it?]

8:58 PM -- Next question: Do you feel personal responsibility for 9/11? Answer: In hindsight, of course there are things I would have done different, but hindsight is 20/20. Country was not on war footing.

9:00 PM -- Next question: Why won't you ever admit a mistake? Answer: [Not on point, but he thinks he overall did the right thing.]

[The point is that what he views as mistakes is very different from what the press views as mistakes. The only way he can "admit mistakes" to their satisfaction is to say "you were right and I was wrong," and I don't think he's going to do that, because he doesn't believe that.]

9:02 PM -- Next question: PDB warned of hijackings. Answer: Warning about bin Laden--nothing new. Report on FBI conducting field investigations--looked like good news.

I think it's kind of weak response.

9:07 PM -- Next question: Was PDB valid? [Some question as to whether the information on 70 FBI investigations was accurate.] Answer: I have no more information than you do, but I intend to find out.

9:08 PM -- Question: Will you be giving an apology like Clarke's? Answer: Osama bin Laden is the one responsible. We will bring them to justice.

9:10 PM -- Question: Is the coalition real? The other countries make a much smaller contribution than we do. Answer: There are people from other countries sacrificing their lives, why should we demean our allies?

9:12 PM -- He keeps bringing it back to making the case for the importance of freedom in Iraq, and the importance to pursuing the war on terror.

9:15 PM -- Question: You are being accused of waiting too long on al Qaeda, but not long enough on Iraq. Answer: Country was not on a war footing, and moving against Afghanistan would have been difficult before 9/11. After 9/11, our threshold is much lower now. We've had some success because of this: Libya, A.Q. Khan.

9:17 PM -- Question: If you lose your job, will it be worth it? Answer: I don't think I'll lose. I think the American people understand that, and will stay with me. They may decide to vote against me, but I don't think that will happen.

9:22 PM -- The soldiers are very motivated, very high morale.

9:22 PM -- Question: What's your biggest mistake since 9/11? Answer: Still would have gone into Iraq. Don't know what my biggest mistake is, only know that in retrospect. [Personally, I think how he made the case on Iraq was the biggest mistake. It should have been stated as the completion of the 1991 Gulf War.]

9:25 PM -- Question: Do you intend to split FBI's two divisions? Answer: I'm looking for input, it hasn't been decided yet.

[Probably not, from the looks of it.]

9:30 PM -- Question: Have you failed as a communicator? Answer: That will be decided in November. I don't fine-tune [the message] according to polls.

Update: Glenn Reynolds gives a much more detailed blow-by-blow of the press conference. I'm jealous, but I guess that's why he's the Instapundit and I'm just a low-level blogger.

Update: I did some cleaning up, with substantive additions put in brackets [like this]. I think the effort of juggling Blogger's interface took a lot out of the writing. I did better pseudo-live-blogging Ralph Nader, where connection problems kept me from posting during the talk, but I could type continuously and post it afterwards.

New Post: My personal thoughts above.

I wasn't going to say anything about the Democratic advertisement that says "we" should put Rumsfeld "up against a wall and say 'This is one of our bad days' and pull the trigger." However, Best of the Web had a longer quote than I'd seen before which said the following:

We have Marines and soldiers being killed by the dozens with many more wounded. How many have to be killed before the Bush Bunch is satisfied? How many burial services of our Iraq dead has Bush attended? Any? How many military hospitals has Bush visited to talk to our wounded who have lost arms, or legs, or their eye sight, or combinations of these--how many?

For the first, I'm not sure the president should go to the funerals. Funerals are for the grieving, not for the President to make some sort of spectacle out of. He has met regularly with the families of those who've died, and I have much more respect for that than going to soldiers' funerals--something which I don't recall any other President doing in time of war. As for visiting the wounded in hospitals--that he has done, and apparently quite frequently, according to Mickey Kaus (March 25th, 8:36 pm entry):

The soldier sitting closest to me clearly liked Bush, perhaps because he had just seen the president, in person, for the third time. Apparently, Bush pays regular visits to wounded soldiers at Walter Reed. Did you know that? I didn't. Admittedly, it's easier to visit the wounded than to go to funerals, which Bush has been accused of not doing enough of. Still ...

That's another reason I admire Bush. He doesn't call attention to his good deeds.

I've posted a lot of stuff about religion recently. How come? There are several reasons, I suppose. The first is that it was just Easter, and that meant I had the occasion to post a few things I'd been thinking about for a while. The second is I started reading Letters from Babylon, a group blog which includes a friend of mine from MIT, and their thoughts on faith and science inspired some of my posting (especially read their posts about chemistry leprechauns). Finally, I just got tired of talking about politics. I had a number of things I'd been wanting to say on the subject for a while, and I've mostly said them, and after that all the major players are just repeating themselves, and there's not much to say without repeating myself. I still do it when a particularly egregious example of stupidity rears its ugly head again, and I'm sure that sooner or later something new will come along and I'll talk about it, but for right now I'm finding other topics of conversation.

Cynthia, a good friend of mine from MIT (we co-led the Hardcore Bible Study at one point), has started a discussion with the Study on Liberal Christianity. In the process, she's e-mailed me this fisking of the 8 points of the progressive church (she didn't include the points themselves in her e-mail, but I've put them in for this post, and cleaned up things a bit without altering the content).

Last night I realized how little I really know about liberal Christianity. Who are these people, and which denominations typically identify themselves as liberal?

[A friend] showed me this website on progressive Christianity. Here are their 8 points of belief.

As a fairly conservative evangelical, let me go through each of the 8 points, starting from the last one and moving up:

8. Recognize that being followers of Jesus is costly, and entails selfless love, conscientious resistance to evil, and renunciation of privilege.

Sounds okay from a first glance. However, "evil" is probably going to be a part of our lives no matter what in this fallen world. "Evil one", as in Satan, is probably more appropriate. Also, what do they mean by "renunciation of privilege"? Aren't we privileged to be God's children?

7. Form ourselves into communities dedicated to equipping one another for the work we feel called to do: striving for peace and justice among all people, protecting and restoring the integrity of all God's creation, and bringing hope to those Jesus called the least of his sisters and brothers;

On its own, it's not so bad.

6. Find more grace in the search for understanding than we do in dogmatic certainty - more value in questioning than in absolutes;

Here we go with postmodern thought. I believe God does set absolute standards, and some parts of doctrine are firm (Jesus as the son of God,
fully human and fully divine, savior of the world, etc.) Other things (infant/adult baptism, wine/grape juice, etc.) are not as firm.

5. Know that the way we behave toward one another and toward other people is the fullest expression of what we believe;

Mmm, maybe. This is a tough one. Should we expect to act like Jesus did and just expect people to ask us questions? Or should we actively try to share our faith with nonbelievers?

4. Invite all people to participate in our community and worship life without insisting that they become like us in order to be acceptable (including but not limited to):
believers and agnostics,
conventional Christians and questioning skeptics,
women and men,
those of all sexual orientations and gender identities,
those of all races and cultures,
those of all classes and abilities,
those who hope for a better world and those who have lost hope;

Well, sure, we welcome all people to church and to worship. But clearly, in terms of who we marry or serve in ministry with, we need to find those who have made a profession of faith in Jesus Christ. At some point, even the agnostic needs to make a decision.

3. Understand the sharing of bread and wine in Jesus's name to be a representation of an ancient vision of God's feast for all peoples;

Um, all peoples, as in all believers? Why would a nonbeliever be allowed to partake in the Lord's supper? What would it mean to a nonbeliever?

2. Recognize the faithfulness of other people who have other names for the way to God's realm, and acknowledge that their ways are true for them, as our ways are true for us;

Does that mean Allah and Buddha are okay?

1. Have found an approach to God through the life and teachings of Jesus;

Sure, but Jesus is more than just a "gate". He is God too.

Am I totally off base? Please share your thoughts.

I'd also like to hear your thoughts. Before I do so, I want to point out what this organization (The Center for Progressive Christianity) says on its front page, which goes a long way towards putting their eight points in context:

Religion doesn't have to be irrelevant, ineffectual, repressive...

Do you find more grace in the search for meaning than in absolute certainty, in the questions rather than in the answers?

Do you have religious interests and longings but cannot accept the beliefs and dogmas you associate with Christianity?

Are you repelled by claims that Christianity is the "only way"?

For comparison, this is the MIT Graduate Christian Fellowship's Statement of Faith (adapted from Intervarsity's, it's also in 8 points--hmm, it seems longer than it was in my day):

We affirm the historic Christian faith as expressed in the Apostles' and Nicene Creeds, and we worship Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, one God. We also hold to the Doctrinal Basis of InterVarsity Christian Fellowship:

• The only true God, the almighty Creator of all things, existing eternally in three persons -- Father, Son, and Holy Spirit -- full of love and glory.


• The unique divine inspiration, entire trustworthiness, and authority of the Bible.


• The value and dignity of all people: created in God's image to live in love and holiness, but alienated from God and each other because of our sin and guilt, and justly subject to God's wrath.


• Jesus Christ, fully human and fully divine, who lived as a perfect example, who assumed the judgment due sinners by dying in our place, and who was bodily raised from the dead and ascended as Savior and Lord.


• Justification by God's grace to all who repent and put their faith in Jesus Christ alone for salvation.


• The indwelling presence and transforming power of the Holy Spirit, who gives to all believers a new life and a new calling to obedient service.


• The unity of all believers in Jesus Christ, manifest in worshiping and witnessing churches, making disciples throughout the world.


• The victorious reign and future personal return of Jesus Christ, who will judge all people with justice and mercy, giving over the unrepentant to eternal condemnation but receiving the redeemed into eternal life.

Update: John Zimmer at Letters from Babylon has comments.

New Post: More above.

Jonah Goldberg has a good article criticizing Ted Kennedy for calling Iraq Bush's Vietnam:

So when you declare "Iraq is George Bush's Vietnam and we need a new president," that undoubtedly strikes a chord with our enemies and those susceptible to their message. Indeed, the day after Kennedy's speech, Muqtada al-Sadr — the fascistic militia leader who's fomenting rebellion against America and calling himself an ally of various terrorist groups — declared, "Iraq will be another Vietnam for America and the occupiers."

It's not hard to imagine that Sadr got this talking point after seeing a clip of Kennedy on the BBC, Al-Jazeera, or CNN.

The Arab street doesn't know that Kennedy's a partisan hatchet man. All it knows is what it is told — which in this case is that one of America's most revered senators and the brother of JFK has declared that Iraq is the equivalent of Vietnam and that the violence in Iraq means Bush should go. If that's not a signal to our enemies that America is losing its resolve and that continued violence is worthwhile, I'm not sure what is.

Iraq is not George Bush's Vietnam, and it won't be his Vietnam, but it could end up being John Kerry's Vietnam. George Bush is not going to give up, and as long as he's determined, we can win. Public opinion waxes and wanes, but it's not going to hit rock bottom any time soon, and even if it did, I think Bush would push forward as long as he was able--until Congress forced him to withdraw, and I don't see that happening. If Kerry is elected, however, there's every chance he will bolt when the going gets tough and public opinion droops, and that will make it another Vietnam, with our enemies victorious because we didn't have the will to carry through. That's why I'm determined to do what I can to make sure that Kerry doesn't get elected.

A new carnival is up at Blogs for Bush. Check it out. It references this article of mine about Kerry's Catholicism. Unfortunately, the link appears to be broken.

The short version: there's nothing to see here. Read it for yourself.

The long version: there's still nothing to see here. The media thinks they can convince people that there is, but it will take some hard spinning to do that.

The only part that even hints that something like 9/11 might be possible is the following:

We have not been able to corroborate some of the more sensational threat reporting, such as that from a [deleted text] service in 1998 saying that Bin Ladin wanted to hijack a US aircraft to gain the release of "Blind Shaykh" 'Umar' Abd aI-Rahman and other US-held extremists.

Nevertheless, FBI information since that time indicates patterns of suspicious activity in this country consistent with preparations for hijackings or other types of attacks, including recent surveillance of federal buildings in New York.

I suppose someone might have made a leap of logic here and connected surveillance of federal buildings with hijacking, but they would have been wrong. The WTC was not a federal building, it was not surveyed, and the surveyors turned out to be Yemeni tourists anyway. I would be interested in what "suspicious activity in this country consistent with preparations for hijackings" had been observed. From what Condoleeza Rice said, however, none of that "suspicious activity" aside from the "surveillance" was recent, and the memo gave the indication that the FBI had the situation well in hand in the next paragraph:

The FBI is conducting approximately 70 full field investigations throughout the US that it considers Bin Ladin-related. CIA and the FBI are investigating a call to our Embassy in the UAE in May saying that a group of Bin Ladin supporters was in the US planning attacks with explosives.

We can always speculate that if only we had pursued just the right angle, we might have stopped things. It wasn't for lack of alerts: the Bush administration gave five of them to US airlines over the summer based on non-specific threats. In the end, it is not possible to fully secure the US, and we have to take the fight to the enemy.

In case you're wondering how the writing's going, I'm 54% of the way through the first revision of my as-yet unnamed short story (actually, I do have a name for it, but I'm not sure I like it).

I've passed 3000 visitors today. Cool. It took me 996 days to do it on my pre-blog webpage. It hasn't even been 60 days yet for this blog. Thanks for coming to visit.

Old Post: This is a continuation of the discussion here.

Jeremy Pierce at Parablemania was interested in other sources concerning Galileo's relationship with the Church, preferably online sources. My source was Sampson's 6 Modern Myths, and all his references were ink-and-paper, so I had to look. I'll admit I haven't done a lot of research, but I did find a website called The Galileo Project.

It's not entirely friendly to the Church, as you can see:

Freedom of thought and written and oral expression is historically a relatively recent development. For those who were the shepherds of Christian souls and whose function it was to get those souls to heaven, the idea that anyone could think and say or write what he/she wanted was an absurdity. Moreover, it was dangerous because it might lead others into error. As early as 170 CE, the Church promulgated a list of genuine books of the New Testament and excluded others from use in religious practice.

The gall of that early church! How dare they try to make a list of which books were reliable accounts of the Christian faith!

But it does contain this useful information (from the same page):

In the cases of the Copernican System, the Church was slow to act because it did not see immediate danger to the faithful in De Revolutionibus (1543)...In 1616, after 73 years, it placed De Revolutionibus on the Index [of forbidden books] subject to revision, along with several other books that defended the Copernican System. It is interesting to note that the revisions required in Copernicus's book were, in terms of the total work, actually very minor. Copies of De Revolutionibus that were in Italy at this time show the revisions: a few deleted passages and a few changes of individual words. None of Galileo's books were placed on the Index at this time.

[Emphasis added.]

There's also this, from the same site (different page):

Maffeo Barberini [later Pope Urban VIII] was an accomplished man of letters, who published several volumes of verse. Upon Galileo' s return to Florence, in 1610, Barberini came to admire Galileo' s intelligence and sharp wit. During a court dinner, in 1611, at which Galileo defended his view on floating bodies, Barberini supported Galileo against Cardinal Gonzaga. From this point, their patron-client relationship flourished until it was undone in 1633. Upon Barberini' s ascendance of the papal throne, in 1623, Galileo came to Rome and had six interviews with the new Pope. It was at these meetings that Galileo was given permission to write about the Copernican theory, as long as he treated it as a hypothesis. After the publication of Galileo' s Dialogue Concerning the Two Chief Systems of the World, in 1632, the patronage relationship was broken. It appears that the Pope never forgave Galileo for putting the argument of God's omnipotence (the argument he himelf had put to Galileo in 1623) in the mouth of Simplicio, the staunch Aristotelian whose arguments had been systematically destroyed in the previous 400-odd pages. At any rate, the Pope resisted all efforts to have Galileo pardoned.

[Emphasis added]

So while it doesn't cover all the details (there's much more on the site, but I haven't gone through it all), it confirms many of the points that Sampson made in the passage I quoted.

Update: Slight editing for better sarcasm.

Old Post: In the post below, I quote all four gospels to recount the Resurrection story.

You'll note that there are differences between the gospel accounts. In my younger days, this troubled me a lot. I've had twenty years now to think on this, but while I won't claim to have fully figured it out (although I do have some thoughts I'll share in a moment), I have learned that the weight of the evidence is convincing, even if my belief in the Gospels' inerrancy remains troubled. Before I discuss some possible interpretations, it's fair to ask whether it's worth the effort. Lee Strobel in The Case for Christ rightly points out that there is enough agreement that the essential story is clear, and enough differences to indicate that the four accounts came from different sources. C.S. Lewis in Miracles (Chapter 16) points out that there's more to the Resurrection than the first morning:

When modern writers talk about the Resurrection they usually mean one particular moment--the discovery of the Empty Tomb and the appearance of Jesus a few yards away from it. The story of that moment is what Christian apologists now chiefly try to support and sceptics chiefly try to impugn. But this almost exclusive concentration on the first five minutes or so of the Resurrection would have astonished the earliest Christian teachers. In claiming to have seen the Resurrection they were not necessarily claiming to have seen that. Some of them had, some of them had not. It had no more importance than any of the other appearances of the risen Jesus--apart from the poetic and dramatic importance which the beginnings of things must always have. What they were claiming was that they had all, at one time or another, met Jesus during the six or seven weeks that had followed His death. Sometimes they seem to have been alone when they did so, but on one occasion twelve of them saw Him together [by twelve here C.S. Lewis (and Paul) means the Twelve, who in fact were only eleven by that point], and on another occasion about five hundred of them. St. Paul says that the majority of the five hundred were still alive when he wrote the First Letter to the Corinthians, i.e. about 55 A.D.

The "Resurrection" to which they bore witness was, in fact, not the action of rising from the dead but the state of being risen; a state, as they held, attested by intermittent meetings during a limited period (except for the special, and in some ways different, meeting vouchsafed to St. Paul).

The actual events of Resurrection Sunday are, for the most part, skimmed over very briefly in the first three gospels. Why? One reason is pointed out by C.S. Lewis--those events were actually a very minor part of the Resurrection story. The apostles themselves didn't see any of it, and the story told by the women didn't convince them. Women, after all, were not considered reliable witnesses in first century Judea, which may be another reason that their involvement wasn't dwelt upon. There are a few other points to keep in mind, which have more to do with the nature of ancient histories and biographies than the gospels themselves. The first is that chronology was never considered terribly important in ancient histories: the point is to tell the events, not necessarily to get them in an exact order. The second is that quotes are not full quotes. Go ahead and read the Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 5-7). I doubt it will take you more than fifteen minutes. Yet Jesus usually taught for hours on end. None of the sermons we have are full transcripts; they are all highly abridged, and that likely applies to all quotes found in ancient writings. Some commentators argue that all the quotes are paraphrased; they are at the least translations, as Greek, the language in which the gospels were written, was not the spoken language of Judea at this time. There are some scholars who believe that no quotation used by ancient writers is even meant to be exact, simply what the writers think the speaker should have said. I don't subscribe to that theory myself. The third and final point is that when listing people present, writers usually just listed the important people, leaving an assumed "and others." If you want more on the nature of ancient histories and the reliability of the gospels, I recommend F.F. Bruce's The New Testament Documents: Are They Reliable?

Since John is the most clearly different, and the most detailed of the accounts, we'll start with his gospel account and build on that. Clearly, John was telling the story of Mary Magdalene, so the focus is on her, and the other women aren't even mentioned. According to Luke, there were at least five of them there: he lists three, and then says there were other women (plural). Of these, four are named in the Gospels: Mary Magdalene, Mary the mother of James, Salome, and Joanna (I suppose it's possible that Salome and Joanna are two names for the same woman--I don't really know). The exact time is around dawn. John says that it was still dark, Mark says that it was "when the sun had risen." I'll admit that this bothered me at one point, but I don't remember why. It can be pretty dark just as the sun is rising, and I imagine the episode--travelling to the tomb, arriving, witnessing, then leaving--took long enough that it was dark when it began and light when it was over. In any case, Mary Magdalene arrives, sees the tomb is empty, then runs to get Peter and the other disciple (John, who carefully avoided naming himself throughout the gospel). There's no account of angels or Jesus yet in John. Of course, there's no mention of the other women either, and I wonder what they were doing. Did they go with Mary, or did they remain there? One possibility, which is one I've never heard mentioned in any commentary I've read, is that they split up. When they found the tomb empty, Mary went back to find Peter and John--perhaps alone, perhaps with some of the others--while the others remained there. There they saw the angels. This, then, could be the main source of the discrepancy between the gospels. If the other women remained while Mary went to get Peter, then perhaps there are two encounters with the angels, one by these women and one by Mary Magdalene, and perhaps, although I'm less certain of this, two encounters with Jesus. Jesus and the angels were, after all, in the area. Jesus would be meeting with lots of people that day, including some of his disciples on the road to Emmaus (Luke 24:12-32), and the apostles that evening (Luke 24:33-49). 1 Corinthians 15:5 tells us that he met with Peter before the apostles, although we're not told exactly when (he may have been one of the disciples on the road to Emmaus).

This resolves most of the difficulties involved, except for a couple of details. First off, how many angels were there? At least two. There could have been a whole choir involved in this event (I imagine there wasn't any lack of volunteers). All the accounts except Matthew's mention two, but Matthew's is the only one which has an angel doing more than talking to the women. After doing all the hard work of subduing the guards and moving the stone, before the women arrived it appears, this angel gets top billing in doing the actual speaking. Where were the angels? While Matthew's active angel was sitting on the stone at one point, there's no reason to assume he was still there when the women arrived. Who reported to the disciples? All of the women, apparently, but it seems that it was Mary's report, when there were still very few facts, that got Peter to go and look, as recorded in Luke and John.

This is clearly not the only possible explanation for the differences, and I make no claim that it is the correct explanation. It's simply the one that makes the most sense to me, but I've been convinced that the weight of evidence is such that the exact details are less important than I once thought.

Update: I made some grammatical and stylistic changes, nothing substantive.

From Matthew:

Now after the Sabbath, as it began to dawn toward the first day of the week, Mary Magdalene and the other Mary came to look at the grave. And behold, a severe earthquake had occurred, for an angel of the Lord descended from heaven and came and rolled away the stone and sat upon it. And his appearance was like lightning, and his clothing as white as snow. The guards shook for fear of him and became like dead men. The angel said to the women, "Do not be afraid; for I know that you are looking for Jesus who has been crucified. He is not here, for He has risen, just as He said. Come, see the place where He was lying. Go quickly and tell His disciples that He has risen from the dead; and behold, He is going ahead of you into Galilee, there you will see Him; behold, I have told you."

And they left the tomb quickly with fear and great joy and ran to report it to His disciples. And behold, Jesus met them and greeted them. And they came up and took hold of His feet and worshiped Him. Then Jesus said to them, "Do not be afraid; go and take word to My brethren to leave for Galilee, and there they will see Me."

(Matthew 28:1-10)

From Mark:

When the Sabbath was over, Mary Magdalene, and Mary the mother of James, and Salome, bought spices, so that they might come and anoint Him. Very early on the first day of the week, they came to the tomb when the sun had risen. They were saying to one another, "Who will roll away the stone for us from the entrance of the tomb?" Looking up, they saw that the stone had been rolled away, although it was extremely large. Entering the tomb, they saw a young man sitting at the right, wearing a white robe; and they were amazed. And he said to them, "Do not be amazed; you are looking for Jesus the Nazarene, who has been crucified. He has risen; He is not here; behold, here is the place where they laid Him. But go, tell His disciples and Peter, 'He is going ahead of you to Galilee; there you will see Him, just as He told you.' " They went out and fled from the tomb, for trembling and astonishment had gripped them; and they said nothing to anyone, for they were afraid.

(Mark 16:1-8)

From Luke:

But on the first day of the week, at early dawn, they came to the tomb bringing the spices which they had prepared. And they found the stone rolled away from the tomb, but when they entered, they did not find the body of the Lord Jesus. While they were perplexed about this, behold, two men suddenly stood near them in dazzling clothing; and as the women were terrified and bowed their faces to the ground, the men said to them, "Why do you seek the living One among the dead? He is not here, but He has risen. Remember how He spoke to you while He was still in Galilee, saying that the Son of Man must be delivered into the hands of sinful men, and be crucified, and the third day rise again."

And they remembered His words, and returned from the tomb and reported all these things to the eleven and to all the rest. Now they were Mary Magdalene and Joanna and Mary the mother of James; also the other women with them were telling these things to the apostles. But these words appeared to them as nonsense, and they would not believe them. But Peter got up and ran to the tomb; stooping and looking in, he saw the linen wrappings only; and he went away to his home, marveling at what had happened.

(Luke 24:1-12)

From John:

Now on the first day of the week Mary Magdalene came early to the tomb, while it was still dark, and saw the stone already taken away from the tomb. So she ran and came to Simon Peter and to the other disciple whom Jesus loved, and said to them, "They have taken away the Lord out of the tomb, and we do not know where they have laid Him." So Peter and the other disciple went forth, and they were going to the tomb. The two were running together; and the other disciple ran ahead faster than Peter and came to the tomb first; and stooping and looking in, he saw the linen wrappings lying there; but he did not go in. And so Simon Peter also came, following him, and entered the tomb; and he saw the linen wrappings lying there, and the face-cloth which had been on His head, not lying with the linen wrappings, but rolled up in a place by itself. So the other disciple who had first come to the tomb then also entered, and he saw and believed. For as yet they did not understand the Scripture, that He must rise again from the dead. So the disciples went away again to their own homes.

But Mary was standing outside the tomb weeping; and so, as she wept, she stooped and looked into the tomb; and she saw two angels in white sitting, one at the head and one at the feet, where the body of Jesus had been lying. And they said to her, "Woman, why are you weeping?" She said to them, "Because they have taken away my Lord, and I do not know where they have laid Him."

When she had said this, she turned around and saw Jesus standing there, and did not know that it was Jesus. Jesus said to her, "Woman, why are you weeping? Whom are you seeking?" Supposing Him to be the gardener, she said to Him, "Sir, if you have carried Him away, tell me where you have laid Him, and I will take Him away." Jesus said to her, "Mary!" She turned and said to Him in Hebrew, "Rabboni!" (which means, Teacher). Jesus said to her, "Stop clinging to Me, for I have not yet ascended to the Father; but go to My brethren and say to them, 'I ascend to My Father and your Father, and My God and your God.' "

Mary Magdalene came, announcing to the disciples, "I have seen the Lord," and that He had said these things to her.

(John 20:1-18)

More later.

New Post: My thoughts on the similarities and differences between the gospels above.

Blogger hasn't been letting me publish posts all day. Finally, I can post again. It's way too late to put up much tonight, but expect the Weekly Webcomic Update and the Week in Review tomorrow. They'll be posted in their rightful places when they come, the end of last week and the beginning of this one, respectively. Don't worry, I don't usually use incorrect time stamps on my posts, only for these two, since they aren't time critical anyway. (I probably should note that in the posts themselves.) I also have some thoughts on Easter and the differences between the gospel accounts that I may post tomorrow.

He is Risen indeed!

Happy Easter. There'll be more later, I promise.

Here are the things I wrote about the past week. Although this was written on Sunday afternoon, I've set the timestamp to Sunday morning so it shows up at the very beginning of the week in the archives.

Appeasement still doesn't work -- My thoughts on why Spain's attempts to give in to the terrorists didn't stop them from trying to attack.

Republicans and Judicial Activism -- Why the Republicans, though they aren't perfect in this respect, are still the most likely to oppose judicial activism.

The Fighting in Iraq -- The flare up in Iraq is no reason to panic. It won't be easy, but I don't think it will last too long either.

Kerry's Catholicism -- Kerry's response to those who criticize him for following politics rather than his faith doesn't impress me, or too many other people, for that matter.

Creative writing and the alarmist school -- School administrators really shouldn't be surprised when students in creative writing classes write graphic and shocking short stories. It's what young writers do, after all.

Heliocentrism and the Church -- In response to John Zimmer from Letters from Babylon, I talk a bit about Galileo's treatment by the Catholic church, and how the history differs from the myth.

Good Friday -- "What's so good about Good Friday?" That was actually the title of the sermon at the Good Friday service I went to last week, but it's also the topic of my post.

It's time to take a look at what's going on with our favorite online comics. Technically, this was written Sunday afternoon, but I'm setting the timestamp on Saturday night so it shows up at the end of the week in the archives.

Sluggy Freelance -- When Robot Vacuums Attack! It's a good thing that Gwynn sees the danger, because Torg sure doesn't.

Day by Day -- The Iraqi insurgents, Markos Zuniga, Richard Clarke, Ted Kennedy, and John Kerry all find themselves mocked this week.

It's Walky! -- Walky and Joyce talk. Walky has a surprise for her.

College Roomies from Hell! -- Mike is stuck in the machinery while the Doctor tries to make a clean escape. Unfortunately for him, Dave's not as gullible as he seems--either that or he's finally getting some good luck to balance out the bad.

General Protection Fault -- Ki's plans for Nick's birthday don't work out as she had planned.

Schlock Mercenary -- En route to meet their new employer, Breya's marines get some practice with Tagon's mercenaries' non-regulation goober-guns. If you don't know what that means, you ought to find out.

The link to the article on Kerry's misinterpretation of Church and State is broken. Go here.

I noticed that I've been added to La Shawn Barber's blogroll. This is quite an honor as she, like myself, keeps a very short blogroll. After all, it would be an honor to be added to Glenn Reynold's blogroll, but as he has 233 blogs on his roll, it would hardly be noticed, and couldn't be considered an actual endorsement. (Although considering that his roll is listed alphabetically, I would be near the top... Glenn, if you're reading this, no offense. Really. And if you ever need professional advice on quantum computation, just let me know.) I was also added to Letters from Babylon's blogroll earlier this week, which, like La Shawn's, is short. I knew one of the bloggers there before he was blogging, however, so I'll never be quite certain whether they liked my blog or they were concerned by the blackmail potential. I've also been added to Mostly Cajun's blogroll, which is longer than the others, but not too much longer. He hails from Southwest Louisiana. I don't consider myself from Louisiana, but my family lives in Southeast Louisiana these days (map here), so it's where I visit for holidays. He writes a lot about guns, but that's hardly surprising for a Louisianan. Even my parents have gotten into guns since they moved there, and my mother had always been pro-gun control.

As you probably know, today is Good Friday. It is not a day of celebration, but of solemn remembrance of Jesus's suffering and death, so it is appropriate to ask why this day is called "Good." The first thing to remember is that Jesus's death was not an accident. He went to the cross willingly, knowing what was coming. As Jesus himself said:

"I am the good shepherd, and I know My own and My own know Me, even as the Father knows Me and I know the Father; and I lay down My life for the sheep. I have other sheep, which are not of this fold; I must bring them also, and they will hear My voice; and they will become one flock with one shepherd. For this reason the Father loves Me, because I lay down My life so that I may take it again. No one has taken it away from Me, but I lay it down on My own initiative. I have authority to lay it down, and I have authority to take it up again. This commandment I received from My Father."

(John 10:14-18)

Furthermore, his death has a purpose, and indeed had a purpose hundreds of years before it happened:

Who has believed our message? And to whom has the arm of the LORD been revealed? For He grew up before Him like a tender shoot, And like a root out of parched ground; He has no stately form or majesty That we should look upon Him, Nor appearance that we should be attracted to Him. He was despised and forsaken of men, A man of sorrows and acquainted with grief; And like one from whom men hide their face He was despised, and we did not esteem Him. Surely our griefs He Himself bore, And our sorrows He carried; Yet we ourselves esteemed Him stricken, Smitten of God, and afflicted. But He was pierced through for our transgressions, He was crushed for our iniquities; The chastening for our well-being fell upon Him, And by His scourging we are healed. All of us like sheep have gone astray, Each of us has turned to his own way; But the LORD has caused the iniquity of us all To fall on Him. He was oppressed and He was afflicted, Yet He did not open His mouth; Like a lamb that is led to slaughter, And like a sheep that is silent before its shearers, So He did not open His mouth. By oppression and judgment He was taken away; And as for His generation, who considered That He was cut off out of the land of the living For the transgression of my people, to whom the stroke was due? His grave was assigned with wicked men, Yet He was with a rich man in His death, Because He had done no violence, Nor was there any deceit in His mouth.

(Isaiah 53:1-9)

His death was not a meaningless tragedy, but a purposeful sacrifice on our behalf. There was more to his sacrifice than the physical sacrifice, however. He suffered our punishment, not just death, but abandonment by God.

About the ninth hour Jesus cried out with a loud voice, saying, "Eli, eli, lama sabachthani?" that is, "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?"

(Matthew 27:46)

Christians believe that these words are not merely a cry of desperation, quoting Psalm 22:1, but that it is the literal truth that Jesus was abandoned by God, who turned his face from his own Son when he became sin for our sake. In so doing he not only made forgiveness possible, he made it possible for us to be a part of the relationship he and the Father once shared and would share again:

But as many as received him, to them gave he power to become the sons of God, even to them that believe on his name. Which were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God.

(John 1:12-13)

So, while this is a day to mourn what Jesus suffered, to mourn that our condition made it necessary for him to suffer in this way, Good Friday is good because the greatest good came out of Jesus's death. This is what redemption is all about, when God makes what is bad, even evil, good, by buying it back and making it his own again. I'll conclude with Matthew's account of Jesus's death, part of which I've already quoted:

Now from the sixth hour darkness fell upon all the land until the ninth hour. About the ninth hour Jesus cried out with a loud voice, saying, "Eli, eli, lama sabachthani?" that is, "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?" And some of those who were standing there, when they heard it, began saying, "This man is calling for Elijah." Immediately one of them ran, and taking a sponge, he filled it with sour wine and put it on a reed, and gave Him a drink. But the rest of them said, "Let us see whether Elijah will come to save Him." And Jesus cried out again with a loud voice, and yielded up His spirit. And behold, the veil of the temple was torn in two from top to bottom; and the earth shook and the rocks were split. The tombs were opened, and many bodies of the saints who had fallen asleep were raised; and coming out of the tombs after His resurrection they entered the holy city and appeared to many. Now the centurion, and those who were with him keeping guard over Jesus, when they saw the earthquake and the things that were happening, became very frightened and said, "Truly this was the Son of God!"

(Matthew 27:45-54)

It is an occasion for solemnity, but also an occasion to remember that God brings good out of evil.

Old Post: My last post on the situation in Iraq is here.

You may be wondering how things are going in Iraq. If you go by the news, this is another Tet offensive, which is good, since we won the Tet offensive. Unfortunately, the news media never figured that out, and they managed to convince the rest of the United States that we lost, which in turn led to a loss of the popular will and the eventual ignominious end to the Vietnam War. I don't think that will happen this time for two reasons. First, the news media has nowhere near the respect it had during the Vietnam war; it's been going down since the seventies. Just within the last three years, their last two quagmire predictions, Afghanistan and Iraq respectively, demonstrated that they don't have a clue what's happening in a war. Second, there's no unpopular draft to lower public support this time. In fact, re-enlistment in our all volunteer miltary is running high.

Most likely, we are winning the battles there. Captain Ed thinks the recent kidnappings are a sign of desperation. In Fallujah, the marines are giving the enemy a chance to sue for peace, but returning fire if fired upon. James Taranto points to an article that indicates that our enemies are not as brave as they think they are. Still, it's going to be bloody, although I maintain my contention that it's not going to be long. About a month at the most, I think, maybe only a week for an end to the major fighting. It's still possible that the whole situation in Iraq could devolve into chaos, but I'm betting against it.

Update: Added link on military re-enlistment.

New Post: And where are we after (nearly) a month. It's lasted longer than I thought, but it's also been less bloody than I thought. More above.

Old Post: The previous post is here.

John Zimmer has commented on my post and put up a new post on letters from babylon. He notes in an e-mail that he didn't mean to imply that avoiding offense should be our motivation for accepting new scientific theories. He's not clear on what he believes is the proper motivation, but I suspect that we both agree that we are all engaged in a search for a better understanding of the Truth, and that includes both the spiritual and the physical. Our understanding is never perfect, and it's worthwhile to improve it. Many of the great scientists viewed it as an act of worship to study the nature of the universe, believing that in so doing, they could better understand the nature of God.

The point Zimmer was making is that we should never assume that our understanding has no need of revision, especially our understanding of the natural world, where we must rely on observation rather than revelation. Even scientific theories which work do not necessarily explain the true nature of things. To quote John Derbyshire from The Corner (you find all sorts of interesting stuff in The Corner):

The General Theory of Relativity, on which all modern ideas about gravitation are based, has been verified to a very high degree of precision. That makes it a respectable and useful scientific theory. Think of Newton's mechanics, which was likewise verified to a very high degree of precision over 200 years. That was also a respectable and useful scientific theory. And in fact it still is, notwithstanding the fact that Einstein showed that, at an even HIGHER degree of precision, it fell apart. Over a wide range of physical applications -- oh, building a tree house, for example -- Newtonian mechanics works just fine. The last time you flew to visit your aunt in Florida, you were flying on a plane designed and operated according to Newtonian principles.

It's just that, in more esoteric applications -- designing Global Positioning Systems, for instance, Newton isn't quite good enough, and you need the extra refinement of Einstein. Now, what the Gravity B experiment will seek to discover is whether Einstein's equations continue to hold true at EVEN HIGHER degrees of precision. If they don't, I guess you could say that the experiment has "disproved" Einstein; but just as engineers are stull designing planes on Newtonian principles 90 years after Einstein "disproved" Newton, so the General Theory of Relativity will go on being a darn good theory across a wide range of physics, even if Gravity B "disproves" Einstein.

A scientific theory is "good" not by being infallibly, hermetically, eternally true. It is "good" if it explains a good range of observable phenomena, is not flatly contradicted by those phenomena it cannot explain, and is fruitful in verifiable predictions. Newtonian mechanics is a very good theory indeed, in spite of the fact that (for example) it cannot explain the precession of Mercury's orbit. I personally would vote it the best scientific theory ever, even though we know it's not true at high levels of precision.

As our understanding of the Truth, both physical and spiritual, is (hopefully) always approaching but never achieving perfection in this world, and it is always in need of examination and revision.

John Zimmer at letters from babylon has some advice for those seeking to reconcile the Bible and science:

I would suggest that we can best love God with our mind in this situation by allowing what we think we have learned from the book of nature to inform our interpretation of the book of revealed Truth in Scripture. We are modifying our interpretation of the Truth to change based on current science. But note carefully that we are not changing the Truth itself, only our interpretation of it. And we only do even that after we have found no reason from Scripture itself not to, and no reason from science itself not to.

I think this is generally sound advice, although his reason for it, "Can we bear the thought of having made it more difficult for an unbeliever to come to know the richness of God’s grace toward us by our pride and stiff-neck? The idea flushes me with shame and regret," may be a bit overstated, as I don't believe accomodating modern thinking just because others will take offense otherwise is a sound practice. I doubt any dispute over doctrine or science is more of a turn off for people than the Gospel message itself.

Zimmer uses heliocentrism as his example, perhaps because of the Church's well-known failure to deal with it properly in the early 17th century. Ironically, a closer, more historically accurate look at how the Church actually did deal with heliocentrism and Galileo shows that their approach was identical to Zimmer's. To quote Philip J. Sampson in 6 Modern Myths about Christianity & Western Civilization, pp. 36-38,

The fact is that during Galileo's lifetime there was insufficient evidence to show that the earth revolves. This is now widely accepted by scholars, some even suggesting that the then-known facts weighed heavily against Galileo.
...
Far from being constantly harried by obscurantist priests , he was feted by cardinals, received by Pope Paul V and befriended by the future Pope Urban VIII who, in 1620, wrote an ode in his honor. The historian Georgio de Santillana observed in 1958 that "it has been known for a long time that a major part of the Church intellectuals were on the side of Galileo, while the clearest opposition to him came from secular circles." Although scholars may long have known this, the orthodox story assumes the opposite. When it is said that Galileo became "too advanced for the church," the case is rather overstated.

Robert Cardinal Bellarmine was appointed [by the Church] to examine Galileo's teachings. A distinguished scholar, he was far from ill-informed and he was told that Galileo needed to produce more evidence to establish his case; this, as we have seen, was precisely what he could not do because at the time it did not exist. Galileo was not condemned, but the church did take a harder look at Copernicus's book. It was suspended for four years in 1616 "pending correction" and reissued with several changes, largely to make it clear that the heliocentric model is only a hypothesis. Galileo was not mentioned. How, then, did things go so wrong for him?

The Church's response to Galileo is often put down to "a fear of discussion and debate," but that is not so. Alternative astronomical hypotheses were freely discussed, including Copernicus's astronomy, which, as Bellarmine remarked (in a letter to Paolo Foscarini, April 12, 1615), made "excellent good sense" as a hypothesis.

Galileo was not content with this. In order to show that the earth revolves, he advanced an ingenious but erroneous theory of the tides, and in order to defend the Copernican picture of heavenly spheres, he argued that comets were a form of optical illusion. These views put Galileo out on a limb.

He went further than this, however. He sought to reinterpret certain disputed biblical passages in the light of Copernican reasoning and in contradiction of earlier authorities. This was contrary to the Council of Trent's admonition (which had been intended for the Reformers) forbidding the interpretation of Scripture against the authority of tradition. But perhaps just as significantly, Galileo alienated his friend Pope Urban VIII.

The dispute between the Church and Galileo was due to his increasingly rude denunciations of anyone who disagreed with him rather than any doctrinal dispute over his new theories. His strongest opponents were not the Church leadership, but his fellow natural philosophers, who had a low view of his theories.

In other words, despite the Church's accomodation to this new theory, in the face of ridicule from the natural philosophers, the history we now learn in school accuses the Church of foolish pride and a stiff-neck. Accomodating sciences will do little to make the Church more acceptable to those who regard the Gospel as foolishness.

Update: I fixed some transcription errors in the quote from Sampson's book, and also put in the page numbers.

New Posts: More on Faith and Science above. More on Galileo, including some quotes from another source, here.