A niggling thought on godhood in general and Christianity in particular

EDIT: Eva has reminded me that the various branches that make up Christianity have no set, universal definition of "God." The point is well taken; please do not take my use of the word "Christianity" in this post to mean "every single Christian denomination ever to exist." I use it to mean "the faith of conservative-leaning practicing Christians within the United States" (and the Vatican, I suppose).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Personal_god#Christianity

“Christian theologian Alister McGrath writes that there are good reasons to suggest that a ‘personal god’ is integral to the Christian outlook, but one has to understand that this is an analogy: ‘to say that God is like a person is to affirm the divine ability and willingness to relate to others. This does not imply that God is human, or located at a specific point in the universe.’”

So on the one hand, omnipresence, omnipotence, and omniscience, yet on the other, He is both willing and able to relate to beings which could charitably be described as ants before Him. I mean, of course, humans, as within the Christian framework there are no other gods and the Bible makes no mention of intelligent non-human mortals.* How to put this…it seems very fantastical and far-fetched, the idea that a single being can be both all-knowing, all-powerful, and ever-present, and yet also be able to genuinely relate to such puny things as humans. "God loves you"--really, when He's got an entire universe to run?

The natural reply is that such is God and we can never hope to understand Him—there are realms of existence, ways of thinking, logic beyond logic, that we could never hope to grasp, one of which explains this apparent contradiction. So, to my complaint that “this is inconceivable,” the devout smile and reply “you couldn’t be more right.” I can respect this sort of thinking--that there are concepts so disconnected from the human experience as to be impossible for human brains to understand. Enshrining the idea at the center of one's belief system, however, requires an awful lot of...well, faith. Must the Lord always and invariably “work in mysterious ways”?

This is by no means my primary beef with traditional concepts of a higher power, but it struck me very clearly and strongly while I was browsing that Wikipedia article. Besides, I find the idea of the literally inconceivable--for our brains, anyway--rather intriguing.

By the way, pneumatology is the study of "spiritual beings and phenomena," or within Christian contexts the study of the Holy Spirit. Pneuma meaning "breath" or "air" in Greek (pneumatic, anyone?), which in this case "metaphorically describes a non-material being or influence."

*All right, nitpickers, the nephilim qualify, but anyone who knows what a nephilim was will also understand why they're a meaningless outlier.

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On a totally unrelated note, the John Birch Society’s web site is surprisingly slick. (Found it through a fascinating New York Times piece on the group, which makes the same observation).

More on Iran

The previous post was heavy on background and short on current events, so I'll address more current issues in this one. All articles linked are courtesy of the Dish unless otherwise noted.

First, further analysis and news of the situation in Iran. It goes without saying that, considering the frustratingly murky nature of everything surrounding this election and its aftermath, most of the following should be taken with a grain of salt.

--Except for this: a statistical analysis of the official vote counts as reported by the Iranian Ministry of the Interior.

--Continuing in that vein, here's a good summary by the CS Monitor of the case that the election was rigged.

--Some have argued that rural Iranians, more traditionalist and conservative than their urban counterparts, went strongly for Ahmadinejad. However, one analysis of Iran's rural vote shows economic worries trumping everything else, to the incumbent's detriment. The report also emphasizes, though, that rural Iranian antipathy towards Ahmadinejad does not extend to the idea of the Islamic Republic, though certain reforms may be welcomed.

--Regardless of which side an Iranian may have initially taken in the election, polls indicate that respect for free speech and free and fair elections transcends party lines in Iran. As such, tactics like blatant vote rigging, using violence to suppress peaceful demonstrations, photoshopping pictures of his own rallies, etc. may backfire badly on Ahmadinejad, drawing comparisons with the suppression and unrest that preceded the 1979 revolution.

--Speaking of suppression and violence, never forget Moral High Ground Rule #1: do not be [seen as] the aggressor.* In the current unrest, restraint is key to legitimacy, a fact not lost on either side:

What we are witnessing, from afar and through contrasting methods of information control (the regime by filtering the flow of information, the opposition by not filtering it), is a struggle for power, where both sides' legitimacy depends upon not being the aggressor in the event of violence. That's why, notwithstanding the opposition's dramatic demonstrations and the regime's brutal but relatively limited repressive measures, both sides have essentially been playing for time. It's as if two armies were maneuvering in close proximity, knowing that the first one to open fire loses.

Mousavi, especially, benefits from this, as violence is a far riskier option for his side than Ahmadinejad's, which enjoys the backing of the Basij and probably most of the Revolutionary Guard. He appears to be milking this benefit for everything he can.

--An Iran expert writing for the New Republic agrees with the general analysis of that New York Times AEI op-ed, if not its conclusions. In his eagerness to take down Mousavi, Khamenei may be unleashing forces beyond his control.

--An abortive olive branch bid for time in the form of a recount proposal appears to be DOA. At this point, Mousavi stands to gain more by rebuffing and delegitimizing it than he would by agreeing. Aaaaaand it looks like he wasn't wrong to reject the 'limited recount':

According to the New York Times, Fars News Agency reports a partial “recounting” of votes has begun in Iran. But they are not being counted. They were not even counted the first time. Fars says the “recount” in the Kurdish province of Kermanshah shows “no irregularity.”

Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has almost no support among Kurds whatsoever. Claiming he “won” 70 percent in Kermanshah is as outlandish as Dick Cheney winning San Francisco and Berkeley in a landslide.

This is followed by a quote from a Kurdish separatist commander "just on the Iraq side of the Iran-Iraq border near Kermanshah," saying that there was zero if any Iranian Kurdish participation in the elections.

Kurdish-inhabited regions, for reference:



I'll deal with the less time-sensitive American side of the equation in my next post.

One final note: for those of you receiving my posts by email, I edited my previous Iran post somewhat after I published it for the first time (which triggers the email). It's not substantially different, though I certainly hope it's an improvement over the emailed version.

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*This has held true throughout history. Tellingly, aggressors have occasionally gone to some lengths to play the role of innocent victim, even if only to muddy the waters and play for time until battle is joined. On the other end of the spectrum, some forewarned defenders have deliberately forsaken a preemptive strike in order to retain the moral high ground--generally for quite concrete reasons, of course.

The Yom Kippur War makes for a great case study of this phenomenon. Israeli Prime Minister Golda Meir, made aware at the last minute of Arab plans for a surprise attack, intentionally allowed them to strike first. The thinking was that maintaining good international standing and ensuring an uninterrupted supply of American aid in the ensuing conflict was more valuable than any advantage gained by a preemptive strike. In Meir's words, "'If we strike first, we won't get help from anybody.'" [Do note, however, that this was by no means the optimal situation: "It was assumed that Israel's intelligence services would give, at the worst case, about 48 hours notice prior to an Arab attack," in which case Israeli strategy did call for a preemptive strike. Meir had barely 6 hours, an intelligence failure largely responsible for the postwar collapse of her government.]

Though initially costly, the war did end in an Israeli victory, a victory probably impossible without American aid--early on, the situation looked so grim that Meir actually authorized the crash construction of nuclear weapons. Additionally, for what it's worth, then-Secretary of State Henry Kissinger later remarked that "had Israel struck first, they would not have received 'so much as a nail.'"

Iran

Islamic Republic of Iran

جمهوری اسلامی ايران
Jomhuri-ye Islāmi-ye Irān

Official language: Farsi (Persian)

As anyone who has managed to reach this blog will already know, things are shaking up in Iran right now. For background, check Andrew Sullivan; he's done a sterling job of covering the whole thing since the initial results were announced on Friday.

I've been watching the situation unfold with a mixture of joy, hope, and worry. On the one hand, it's always wonderful to see people, the people, standing up for themselves and their rights in the face of oppression, no matter what country. Iran's critical position in the Middle East vis a vis our own further appeals to my inner von Bismarck. Most powerful of all, however, is seeing this through the lens of our tortured history with Iran and its people.

***** (background follows)
The linked Wikipedia article will have more details, but to summarize, the Islamic Republic in its current incarnation is a result of Cold War meddling on our part during the early 1950s. At that time, Iran was a more or less healthy secular democracy, headed by Prime Minister Mohammed Mossadegh (also spelled Mossadeq). Unfortunately for him, Prime Minister Mossadegh got it into his head that the wealth flowing from Iran's rich oil fields, then exclusively controlled by the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company, should instead go to the state and people of Iran. So he nationalized the oil fields (boo! hiss! dirty marxist!). Unhappy with this development, Britain and the United States colluded in Operation Ajax to correct Mossadegh's little misstep and replace him with someone more pliable. National security, can't let the Reds worm their way in, that sort of thing. It went off without a hitch and we installed the Shah, a nice (to non-Iranians, anyway) man named Reza Pahlavi who cut a dashing figure in uniform and did exactly as we said.

Right: the Shah on a particularly dashing day

Unfortunately, the bothersome Iranian people weren't altogether happy with their new Shah--some silly rot about being ruled by an unaccountable dictator installed by foreigners--and in all honesty he didn't really help matters, setting up a secret police complete with cool acronym (SAVAK) to properly crush dissent. Add in the fact that he was completely tone-deaf to his own country's culture--he constantly played up the pre-Islamic Persian aspects while the Iranian people were and remain pretty solidly Shi'ite Muslim--and after 25 years of Shah Pahlavi, the Iranian people had had enough.

The Shah was overthrown and exiled in 1979, and the Islamic Republic of Iran was born, headed by the stern Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini. Unfortunately (see how often that word seems to pop up in this post?) for the Iranian people, the good Ayatollah decided that Western corruption was entirely to blame for that nasty business with Pahlavi, so why not ban it all straightaway and stick with [Khomeini's interpretation of] the Koran. What was good enough for the Prophet is good enough for us, and so forth. Right, Imam Khomeini?

"Absolutely! Oh, and while the Shah, cursed be his name, truly was a royal jerk, he had the right idea not to trust the people, though for the wrong reasons. He wanted to enrich himself and impose his personal vision of 'Persia' on all of us, dastardly fellow. We're merely concerned with moral purity, as laid out by the Prophet and, naturally, interpreted by us. Allah knows the common folk will fall into decadence at the first opportunity; they simply cry out for moral guidance--I can almost hear them now, poor things! Who to rule, then...well, since the Koran is the final word on everything, why not give power to those most familiar with it? That's right, the clerics! Headed by wise old me, of course, Grand Ayatollah Khomeini. Oh FINE, quit whining, we'll give them a directly elected president and some other trappings of democracy, all candidates pre-approved by our learned selves, of course. Someone's got to lay down the law around here--remember, 'Allah did not create man so that he could have fun.'*"

So there you have it. Straight from authoritarian dictatorship to authoritarian theocracy with some democratic aspects. Since then we've had one hostage crisis, the good Iranians not forgetting our role in installing and propping up the Shah; funded one war against those ungrateful bastards, prosecuted by the ever so helpful and secular Saddam Hussein; and, more recently, we've been trading mean words and threats, interspersed every so often by that wonderful international expletive nuclear. Hmm, I suppose that was a hell of a lot more than a summary, but no matter.
*****

So now we have, at a glance, challenger Mir-Hossein Mousavi in the reformist corner vs. everyone's favorite, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, in the...Ahmadinejad corner. Come to think of it, I have heard, note the emphasis, that Iranians seem to like Mousavi more by virtue of his not being Ahmadinejad than much else, so perhaps he's more in the...anti-Ahmadinejad corner? Mousavi served as Prime Minister from 1981-1987, and according to Wikipedia, "Mousavi refused to run for President in the 1997 elections, which caused the reformists to turn to his former Cabinet Minister, then a little-known cleric, Mohammad Khatami, who was elected by a landslide. During Khatami's administration, Mousavi served as the Senior Adviser to the President." Khatami served as a generally moderating force, softening restrictions and perhaps even some of the Great Satan rhetoric, though my memory is foggy on the particulars. Sane, intelligent people generally seemed to think he was a Good Guy, so I'll go with that. With that in mind, it's a fair bet that Mousavi probably wouldn't be too different, though I've heard things about his involvement in the founding of the Lebanese Islamist militia Hezbollah (apparently now deployed against Mousavi's own supporters in Iran; I'm sure Mousavi has some very choice words acknowledging this little irony) which might ordinarily give one pause, except, well, he's not Ahmadinejad.

I'm going to trample any remaining vestiges of impartiality here and side with Mousavi, just so you know where I stand. It's really not that hard, of course, especially after Ahmadinejad and his boss Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei (who directly succeeded Khomeini when he died) pretty clearly rigged the election in Ahmadinejad's favor.** Having a base firmly planted in the traditionalists and the Revolutionary Guard, an elite wing of the Iranian military with its own ministry, army, air force, navy, etc. (think the Nazi SS, only bigger and more elaborate), doesn't really help, either. Ahmadinejad is himself a veteran of the Basij, a fanatical paramilitary force that reports straight to the Revolutionary Guard and which is believed to be largely responsible for attempts to crush the current unrest.

So now what? Well, it's a developing story, but again, although it's immensely uplifting to see the people of Iran protest en masse against this apparent coup d'etat, without the support or at least neutrality of the army, as occurred in the 1979 revolution, there's not much they can do to actually change things. And even if the army flips, the protestors' main man Mousavi is himself a member of the clerical establishment, a moderate only in comparison with Ahmadinejad. As such, I don't hold out much hope that he'd demand the truly fundamental changes that, from what I've heard, many of the Iranians want. True self-determination, at least, seems unlikely.

President Obama has rightly noted that any U.S. attempts to weigh in on things would help Ahmadinejad more than anyone else, though it's clear who's side he's on. Of course, the...alternate view is also readily available. If you want me to go into detail to refute these last, let me know, I'll not clutter this post up with back and forth arguments.

Speaking of musings and predictions, the NYT has an intriguing little op-ed which grimly describes the the coup as a virtual fait accompli (let's see how much French I can squeeze in here!). It despairs that we are now seeing "the consolidation of power by a ruthless regime and the transformation of a theocracy to an ideological military dictatorship." Sullivan blasts it as "outright hoping for the coup to succeed," and he has a point, as it's authored by a couple of neocon AEI drones and is especially transparent in its conclusion:

What does this mean for President Obama and the policy of engagement he hopes to pursue? Some will argue that Mr. Ahmadinejad may be in a conciliatory mood because he needs talks with the United States to underscore his own legitimacy, but that can only be read as a self-serving Washington perspective...[The new] Iran neither needs nor wants accommodation with the West.

However, the overall analysis nonetheless seems depressingly plausible, as far as I can be the judge of plausibility in a country I've only experienced through books and articles.

If only, if only...to think that we are ultimately responsible for this whole mess, all due to [simple greed masquerading as] early Cold War paranoia. It's maddening! One would hope we would have learned to appreciate a lighter touch, and thankfully Obama does, but the size, influence, and unholy persistence of the hawks is still chilling. Every problem a Gordian Knot, every tool a sword.

Anyway, here's hoping that by some miracle the Iranian protestors do prevail and implement some real reform. At the very least, Americans now have a vivid image of them as fellow human beings rather than simply targets on a map.

A few interesting notes:
-[In]famous torrent site The Pirate Bay has changed their logo to reflect solidarity with the Iranian demonstrations
-As linked above, the State Department prevailed upon Twitter to postpone downtime originally scheduled for the middle of the day, Iran time (Iranian protestors have been making extensive use of the service, as the government has shut down most opposition websites and newspapers)
-Andy Samberg, gold as usual


*An actual quote. Longer form (source): "Allah did not create man so that he could have fun. The aim of creation was for mankind to be put to the test through hardship and prayer. An Islamic regime must be serious in every field. There are no jokes in Islam. There is no humor in Islam. There is no fun in Islam. There can be no fun and joy in whatever is serious. Islam does not allow swimming in the sea and is opposed to radio and television serials. Islam, however, allows marksmanship, horseback riding and competition..." :(

** Proof (again, Sullivan is a good place for details and sources): Ahmadinejad won landslides in solid Mousavi and Karoubi (another reformer) strongholds, including ethnic Azerbaijani ones (Mousavi is Azeri); Ahmadinejad's lead remained perfectly consistent throughout the night the results were tallied; the Iranian government's own election commission declared the results suspect; Mousavi and Mousavi-allied newspapers were told by the government to prepare for victory shortly before the final results were out, and even admonished not to be too exuberant in the interests of national unity; Khamenei rushed to congratulate Ahmadinejad on his victory, rather than waiting the traditional 3 days; and so on. Just to clarify, the vaunted "2 to 1 Ahmadinejad lead" poll from the waning days of the campaign, which the Washington Post irresponsibly ran an op-ed on, actually showed the incumbent with ~30% support compared to Mousavi's ~15%, with a huge chunk of voters undecided. Some lead.