Technology: Innovation Wishlist 2011

It has been awhile since I've posted a wishlist for new inventions. So here's a short list of technological advances that I would welcome. I've been sick lately (just a cold), so a lot of these are health-related:

• A little ear-scope with a micro-camera where you could put the scope in your ear and get an image on-screen on your computer, see what you're dealing with there.
• A little microscope with a computer hook-up where you could put in a drop of blood, have it analyze all the images that it finds at the cellular level, match it with images of known germs in a database, and tell you what exactly you've got -- a real diagnosis instead of a best-guess from the symptoms.
• Ok, I really want a home-computer compatible little medical diagnostic lab. Then you could get decent recommendations for treatment from a home computer for non-serious things. Who wants to be around a lot of other sick people in a medical office when your computer can make house calls?
• Moving away from the medical end, how about a forensic application: give the computer a DNA sample from a suspect or unidentified person, have it create an image of the person's face. Maybe it could also give probable ranges for height and weight.

Dreaming ...

On the 10th anniversary of 9/11

Lord, have mercy.

2996 crosses

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A mother's prayer for teenagers: worship

Lord, thank you for (name). May he know joy in worship; may he desire to praise you and know the gladness of rejoicing in your goodness. May he know the satisfaction of finding wisdom and insight in your word. May he desire always to find or build a fellowship of believers throughout his life, wherever he may go. May he seek your word and seek your people, and be at home there. May he love and follow you all his days.

Torah: Ahead of its time?

The Torah has had its critics since ancient times. But there are still some provisions in the Torah that were ahead of its time. Sometimes it was only ahead of some other cultures of its day; in other places the Torah has laws that are arguably more practical and just than even those we have today. In the past I've mentioned laws on stealing and laws on economic sustainability. Here are some other areas where the Torah seems ahead of its time:

• Environmental laws: The Torah provided for sustainable farming by establishing regular Sabbath years where farmland could lie fallow and regain its fertility. (Leviticus 25:2-5)
  
• Welfare/workfare laws: striking a balance between responsibility and compassion, the poor and destitute were given the opportunity to work and provide for themselves by gleaning from another field, so that they could sustain themselves even without "employment" or land, and without losing the obligation to be responsible for themselves. (Leviticus 19:9-10, 23:22; Deuteronomy 24:21)
  
• Infection control: The Torah established ways to recognize and prevent the spread of infectious diseases. It had procedures for inspecting and evaluating infections, for quarantine of suspected infection, and washing / cleansing. It called for the destruction of contaminated cloth. (Leviticus 13; the other hygiene and washing provisions in the Torah could also be included here)
  
• A day of rest: On the bumper stickers, labor unions like to claim credit for weekends. But the Torah had regular weekly rest built into the laws thousands of years earlier. A day of rest is a humane and sensible provision, one that many people still see fit to observe today. It is one of the few provisions of the Biblical law that even many atheists willingly adopt. (Exodus 20:8)
  
• Humane treatment of animals: The law makes provision for an animal to enjoy plenty of food, and to share a day of rest just like the people. (Deuteronomy 25:4; Exodus 20:10)

St Augustine, the Torah, and the critics of Christ

Our age likes to congratulate itself on our supposed superiority to other times. We like to imagine that we alone have raised questions -- such bold and daring questions that no one in ages past dared to ask. We might be more open-minded if we read some older books.

Christians have a long history of mixed reactions to the Old Testament in general, and to the Torah in particular. Here we see St Augustine, before his conversion, puzzling over questions leveled by critics of Christianity. The question is roughly about whether it was healthy to regard the Old Testament patriarchs as role models:

Are they to be esteemed righteous who had many wives at once, and did kill men, and sacrifice living creatures? (Confessions III:VII)

His objections were, perhaps, never answered in any historical or literal sense. As Augustine listened to one of the renowned Christian scholars of his day, St Ambrose, he found himself listening particularly to answers for questions like these. He gradually came to accept the practice of dealing with such passages figuratively ("in a figure"):

For first, these things also had now begun to appear to me capable of defence; and the Catholic faith, for which I had thought nothing could be said against the Manichees' objections, I now thought might be maintained without shamelessness; especially after I had heard one or two places of the Old Testament resolved, and ofttimes "in a figure," which when I understood literally, I was slain spiritually. Very many places then of those books having been explained, I now blamed my despair, in believing that no answer could be given to such as hated and scoffed at the Law and the Prophets. (Confessions V:XIV)

When Augustine says of the Old Testament that when he understood it literally he was slain spiritually, it comes down to this: the plain sense of the Old Testament was a deal-breaker for him.

And so Augustine found, as many Christians have found, that the most adamant critics of Christianity spend much of their time arguing about the Torah or the earliest history of Israel. For my own part, I suspect this is because they cannot justly say much against Christ, and so try to turn people away from him by other means.

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I hope it does not leave the wrong impression to leave it here; the next post is closely related. I'm trying to keep the posts to reasonable lengths.

Jubilee: Financial "reset" in the Torah

How often have we heard critics say that the Torah contains an antiquated and barbaric legal system? And yet it has some features that are more just than our own. The ancient system provided that the people should have family lands that were enough to support themselves. It also foresaw that some would prove better managers than others, and made provisions so that the misfortune -- or even bad judgment -- of the parents would not doom generations of their descendants to poverty. Every fifty years* there was a "Jubilee" -- a great financial "reset" -- where property was returned to the original owner or his family. So again every family had lands that were enough to support themselves. If the family land was lost through the carelessness of one generation, it was returned within the lifetime of the next. Debts, too, were canceled, and those who were in forced labor to pay off their bankruptcy were set free again.

Our system is very different today. There is no long-term thought given to each family having both the means and the responsibility to provide for themselves. There is no serious expectation that a debt should be repaid even if someone has to be compelled to do the honest thing and work to repay it; neither is it built into our laws that there should be a limit to the length of time that a debt can be held over the head of someone who has honestly and for years done everything in their power to repay it. There is no provision that the misfortune (or bad judgment) of one generation should be righted at some point for the sake of future generations.

Any nation's set of laws is, in some sense, the set of rules to an economic game. Our system provides a good number of honest ways to succeed, and a few dishonest ones. But it has no "reset". This is not the fault of those who have succeeded honestly. All the same, the long-term effect is to create a growing underclass who do not start life with the means to support themselves (particularly since many middle-skill jobs have left our shores), and a shrinking upper class with more and more dependents. Neither group really likes the arrangement. Some in each group are more gracious about the arrangement than others, but graciousness should not be confused with the question of whether the rules are workable.

So the question remains: Can a system work in the long term unless each family has both the means and the responsibility to provide for themselves? And if we want -- or need -- a system in which each family has both the means and the responsibility to provide for themselves, that does mean there has to be a "reset" now and then. Unless the "reset" is to mean "chaos and revolution", then we might want to give thought to having laws that take a long-term view and provide a peaceful and orderly way to reset.

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* Some say the Jubilee was every forty-nine years, rather than every fifty.

Paul's challenge to our complacency

St Paul, as a writer, knew how to make a point. Writing to Jesus' followers in Ephesus, he gave instructions on how we should live as new creations. Watch how he draws attention to some pairs of opposite things, to make the difference plainer to us. Pardon the extra numbers added into the text here; it helps separate out his points:

And put on the new self, created to be like God in true righteousness and holiness. Therefore each of you must:

1. put off falsehood ... and speak truthfully to his neighbor, for we are all members of one body.
2. In your anger do not sin ... do not let the sun go down while you are still angry, and do not give the devil a foothold.
3. He who has been stealing must steal no longer ... but work, doing something with his own hands, that he may have something to share with those in need.
4. Do not let any unwholesome talk come out of your mouths ... but only what is helpful for building up others according to their own needs, that it may benefit those who listen.

(Ephesians 4:24-29)

Paul challenges me there. Sure, it's easy to feel good about not stealing and having one command easily accomplished. But then Paul puts stealing as part of a spectrum, a continuum, where on the low end we have stealing, in the middle ground we have self-supporting, and in the higher goals we have helping the needy. All the sudden "not stealing" is the lowest bar, not the highest.

Paul challenges again on "unwholesome talk" -- if I leave off slander and gossip, and skip character assassination and arrogant talk, and reject the use of insults and put-downs, and shun all cussing, that is now the low end. Saying things according to my needs instead of the other person's needs is challenged next; some self-promotion is (possibly) not as offensive as gossip or slander or character assassination, but self-promotion and even self-centered talk are challenged because it does nothing to build up the other person.

That whole section of Ephesians continues in the same way for awhile. Paul shows that it is one thing to avoid being bad, but after that we still have a long way to go where we can pursue being good, for the sake of others and to be like God in true righteousness and holiness.