The notable ‘new atheist‘ Sam Harris has instigated an fMRI brain-study of belief and disbelief. On his website he’s calling for volunteers to fill out four surveys.

We especially need Christians to respond, as one of the goals of these surveys is to design stimuli that a majority of Christians will find doctrinally sound.

Every time scientists want to get a grasp of belief or believers, they fall into the same pits: uninformed, hideously unclear questions about the fuzziest of concepts, that altogether betray an unhealthy familiarity with only the most vocal, most literal and most primitive forms of the belief studied and desperately trying to force believers to speak their language.

My prediction: Mr. Harris is going to find significant differences in brain structure and brain activity between querulant atheists like himself and people with a rigid personality, narcissism and/or an anxiety disorder and whose beliefs are very inspired by, seriously influenced by or an expression of one, two or three of those three.

Given the fact that most people are religious and Mr. Harris is expressing a dwindling minority view, his research is going to backfire. Before we know it atheism is going to be labelled a brain-defect. That’s not what I want to happen (I gave the reason before, and I’ll give it again: Genesis 1:27)

See for yourself. Here are some questions from Sam Harris’ Survey A with my nasty remarks:

1. Please indicate your degree of belief in the God of the Bible.
Which Bible? People have worked on the text of the Bible for about a thousand years and ideas about God, they are various and changing. There are Samaritan, Jewish, Lutheran, Protestant, Orthodox and Catholic versions of the Bible. Muslims profess to believe in ‘the God of the Bible’ too, some Hindu’s as well… Then the concept of ‘belief’ seems to be a bit fuzzy. Do you mean ‘believe to be literally true’ or ‘believe to be inspired but not necessarily without faults’ or ‘believe to hold fundamental truths about mankind’?
2. Please indicate your degree of belief that the Bible is the word of God.
Again: which Bible? And what is it exactly that you mean by ‘Word of God’? Orthodox Christianity holds that the Bible is the inspired word of people about God, not ‘the Word of God’, that’s more a Muslim thing. Does the maxim “poets lie the truth” count as ‘belief’?
12. The idea of a Personal God is a product of ancient superstition.
Among others. And why not modern? Surely, you’ve been told about ‘context of discovery’ and ‘context of justification’? Where this idea came from is fairly independent of why people believe it. Incidentally: when talking about God, what does ‘personal’ mean exactly?
14. It is reasonable to believe in an omniscient God.
‘Omniscient’, ‘God’, really. Santa Claus is a less unclear concept. Do you mean ‘true’ or just ‘reasonable’? ‘Cause there used to be a lot of untrue ideas that were perfectly reasonable.
19. It is always best to do one’s work for the glory of God.
Please clarify? What is that? (and I do not mean ‘work’)
20. There is no sign of God in my experience.
If this is a way of finding out ‘doctrinally sound’ Christians (according to what doctrine, I might add), you’ll probably end up with very few Christians and a lot of nutheads…
22. Humans are a product of the natural world, just like all other animals.
Fairly unintelligible reference to evolution. I know quite a few creationists who would easily answer ‎‎’yes’ to this question, thinking that ‘product of the natural world’ refers to creation. Personally, I think it refers to both.
26. Angels really exist.
What ‘angels’? Do you mean the מלאכים from the Thora? Those are messengers, nothing more. You mean Satan, as in Num 22:22? You mean the mythical winged creatures in Christian folklore? And what is meant by ‘exist’? As far as I know only the (created, if you want) universe ‘exists’.
30. Faith in scripture tends to make people compassionate and insightful.
Yes it definitely does. Unfortunately, the reverse is just as true.
31. Belief in Biblical “prophecy” is based on poor scholarship, wishful-thinking, or both.
That depends entirely on what you think ‘prophesy’ is. If you mean ‘predicting the future’, you’re right (against which the Bible warns), but if you mean biblical prophesy, you’re wrong. Quite a few biblical prophets said things we could all take at heart, regardless whether you believe they were inspired by God or not.
32. There is no God to answer our prayers.
That would be a pagan God, a useful God, God that makes rain when the harvest is under way, a God that does what people want Him to do. That has very little to do with Christianity (or Judaism for that matter). God does not make rain!
38. Man fell from a blessed state when he yielded to the temptation of Satan.
Does this refer to the story in Genesis? Then what satan? Do you mean the snake? Then why say ’satan’ instead of ’snake’? Oh: and why the past tense?
39. Christian teaching is filled with obvious misconceptions about the world.
That depends on what you mean by ‘teaching’. Are you referring to the official teachings of Christianity? There’s no such thing, unless you refer to a particular church. Are you referring to what various people teach nowadays in the name of Christianity? Then you’re quite right.
40. Jesus Christ was born like an ordinary person, not sent by an invisible God.
Compound question to which answers may differ. Everyone believes He was born like any other human. But ‘sent’ is not quite right: orthodoxy has it Jesus was (the Son of) God, not some Jewish boy on an errand.
42. The Biblical story of creation is basically true.
Literally? Metaphorically? Allegorically? Morally?
45. Jesus Christ was sent by his Father as a sacrifice for the redemption of humankind.
Please clarify ‘Jesus’, ‘Christ’, ‘sent’, ‘father’, ‘sacrifice’ and ‘redemption’.
46. Schools should teach their students to value Christianity as a path to truth.
And every other major religion.
49. Satan exists as a personal, malevolent being.
Please clarify ‘satan’, ‘exist’, ‘personal’, ‘malevolent’ and ‘being’.
53. Christianity does not describe the universe as it is.
Hansl and Gretl doesn’t either, but who cares? Christianity isn’t about describing the universe.
54. The Christian idea of the Holy Spirit is likely fictional, misleading, or empty.
Which Christian idea of the ‘Holy Spirit? On which side of the filioque-controversy are we supposed to be? Please clarify ‘fictional’, ‘misleading’ and ‘empty’. (And what is the word ‘likely’ doing there?)
56. Man emerged through a gradual process of evolution like every other species.
I know quite a few evolutionists who would argue strongly about the ‘gradual’-part. How are they supposed to answer this question?
61. God sometimes influences my decisions directly.
See question 20 above.
62. The Holy Spirit has ensured that the Bible is free from significant error.
Ok, I won’t ask you to clarify ‘Holy Spirit’ this time, but what is ‘significant’?
66. People who think they are communicating with God are wrong.
Mr. Harris, by now you really must have read enough about Christianity to know that the answer to this question will vary wildly among ‘doctrinally sound’ Christians. Personally, I do not pretend to know how God communicates with people, so I’d never use the word ‘wrong’, but if anyone claimed to be in direct contact with God, I’d suggest he’d take his medication.
68. Christ’s death provides atonement for the sins of humanity.
See question 45 above.
69. Humans are by nature sinful and inherently in need of Christian salvation.
Again: if this is a way to filter out ‘doctrinally sound’ Christians, you’re neglecting the majority of them. This idea is held by the –large- minority of post-reformation Christians. The majority (Orthodox and Catholics) hold that humans are by nature inclined to do good (i.e. to not sin), but unfortunately they are also imperfect.
70. God’s presence can be directly felt.
See questions 20 and 61 above.
71. Human beings were created by God.
As in: God used evolution to create us?
75. The universe is governed by an all-powerful, all-knowing God.
Ok, by now, you’ll probably guess what’s coming up: define ‘govern’. Furthermore: how can we humans judge what ‘all-powerful’ and ‘all-knowing’ means?
78. The widespread belief in a Personal God suggests that God actually exists.
It suggests a lot of people believe in a personal God. Maybe it’s good to repeat this in other words: there are more than enough Christians to be found who do not believe God ‘exists’ (only creation does), and for whom that word is nothing more than a figure of speech.
81. Christian teaching is the most important system of beliefs we have.
It’s the largest, but ‘most important’ is a fuzzier concept.
82. If Jesus existed, he was mortal, like every other human being.
Hello? Have we been paying attention recently? According to a massively large majority of Christians, Jesus died, so He must have been mortal…
85. People should relinquish their religious faith wherever it conflicts with science.
Why relinquish? Loads of other options available.
86. Believing in the Christian God is essential for true happiness.
Believing in the Christian God (or any other God) is not about happiness.
90. Religion should have more of an influence on public policy, not less.
Which religion?
91. God is clearly working in my life.
See questions 20, 61 and 70 above.
94. The Bible is filled with accurate prophecies that we should take seriously.
The Bible also mentions not to pay attention to ‘prophets’. Anyway, see question 31 above.
96. Jesus Christ probably did not rise from the dead.
I’m puzzled by the ‘probably’-part.
97. When tragedy strikes, it has nothing to do with the will of God.
Among ‘doctrinally sound’ Christians the answer to this problem varies widely, even within single churches that consider themselves ‘doctrinally sound’.
100. The Bible is the best guide to morality and personal fulfilment that we have.
The Bible is not about personal fulfilment, in fact it’s a totally alien concept to the Bible.

I’ve left out some questions that are not about belief, like ‘this is how it should be’-statements. (“It is good for doctors to avoid all direct communication with their patients”), the blatantly obvious and the ludicrously ridiculous (“It is very important to marry someone who shares your exact birthday”, “Bill Gates is one of the founders of Microsoft”), and a few statements about ‘I’, probably psychological check-questions to see whether the respondent is likely to give socially acceptable answers instead of true ones (“I like to be complimented”, “I am a very analytical person”)

Over at the ever-readable Café Philos -the only things missing there are the three ‘B’s: Bar, Barmaid and Beer- Paul Sunstone asks his readers: “Is Belief in Gods an Accident of Human Evolution?” Don’t ask me why it’s always humanists who come up with the most interesting questions, but it’s one reason to cherish them. As Paul says:

In order to make a row of arches, you must make a row of spandrels. The spandrels are a sort of unintended side effect of making a row of arches. In much the same way that you must make a row of spandrels when making a row of arches, some people — notably Scott Atran — have argued the notion of god is an evolutionary spandrel.

This sparked a whole herd of thoughts. Too many to post a comment, so I’m dedicating a post to the notion of God as an evolutionary by-product.

First, I always thought that evolution was a collection of ‘accidents’, some of which turned out to be actually useful, while others didn’t. But if the belief in God is categorised as an ‘accident’, it looks like evolution is divided into ‘useful’ adaptations and ‘accidental’ garbage. This gives evolution a goal -which it doesn’t have- and maybe even a moral content (”bad things come with good ones”), whereas evolution is utterly devoid of morals.

Second, if everything is an accident, the distinction between ‘arches’ and ’spandrels’ is useless: it says more about the speaker, than about evolution. Sure, bad things come with good ones, but it’s the observer who decides what’s good and what’s bad, not evolution. It’s generally known among psychiatrists for example that people suffering from depression are much better at estimating their chances of success than ‘normal’ people. In this respect, it’s the ‘normals’ who are suffering from unfounded optimism. It’s the realists that are depressed. It is also known that the average person has a 10% chance of becoming clinically depressed. That chance however increases to 25% when the person is a writer, and no less than 75% when it’s a poet. It is also known that depressed people have more sex (it’s one of the explanations for the question: if depression is so bad, why hasn’t evolution taken care of it?). Now what is the arch and what is the spandrel? Poetry? Literature? Depression? Optimism? Less sex? Realism? ‘Normalcy’? Pick your preferred combination!

Third. It is assumed that the notion of God is a by-product of our ability to see ‘agency’ or assume causation in the world around us. That is a very large step, as the ’spandrel’ to agency/causation is more likely to be paranoia than the notion of a God. If religious notions are a by-product of the capability to assume causation for example, it is much more likely that humans started developing idea’s about jinns, ghosts, the spirits of their forefathers, leprechauns, fairies and genies. Beings that are much ‘closer to home’ than notions of gods or a God, which bring about a load of theological contradictions and problems. Things that have to be discussed and consciously thought about.

This brings me to a sub-point (point π): secular people tend to see religion as one and the same issue, without distinguishing between Aberglaube and Glaube. The first is what comes naturally to humans, the second is much more cerebral, is usually hotly debated and often counter-intuitive. It’s not rare for Glaube to be an antithesis to Aberglaube. What Abraham does to God in Genesis 19:23 for example is unparallelled in religious history (hm, sorry, it’s not: Exodus 32:13, Mat 15:27) and runs counter to most ‘notions of God’. What Buddha thought out about suffering is totally counter-intuitive. Even when secular people can be excused for not noticing the difference, this doesn’t mean it’s not there.

Fourth, one may very well wonder if colors are a by-product of rods and cones (well, cones actually), or if piano music isn’t the beneficial by-product of the invention of copper wire, felt, woodworking techniques and elephant hunting. In a sense it is exactly that. But answering that question doesn’t tell you anything about Chopin or Rachmaninov. The question assumes that the notion of God is a relatively simple thing like the ability to assume causation. It is much more conscious and cerebral than that. Having said that: sure, if we weren’t hard-wired to be religious, we couldn’t be. Just as we couldn’t see colors without cones.

Fifth, the question seems to put people in the position of a victim: evolution, their genes made them do it. To turn the argument around: before we know it, atheism is classified as a genetic defect, and where will that leave us? Not where we want ot be. Even if atheists would be so, not as the result of choice, but as a by-product of genetic hard-wiring, it would be nothing less than blasphemy to assume a defect. Why? Genesis 1:27.

Sixth, I’ve blogged about this before: religion is a language. With that idea in mind, we might just as well ask: are metaphors ’spandrels’ of language? To the literal-minded, metaphors make about as much sense as religion does. On the other hand: metaphors make for good jokes, literature and poetry (and depression). Why bother about spandrels at all? What problem is solved by categorising the metaphors, depression, poetry or notion of God for that matter as a spandrel? Sure, it serves to alleviate ‘Atheists Anxiety’: it’s just evolution, it’s only natural, we needn’t worry! But if you ask me, Glaube was invented to be disquieting.

Once when in Iran I wanted a beer with my food. Contrary to what most people would expect, you can legally drink beer there, it’s just that it’s beer without alcohol. If you’re ever there: avoid the lemonade-with-beer-taste made in the Netherlands, but go for the Iranian beers. The Iranians don’t desperately try to make it taste like real beer, and come up with remarkably buvables drinks. Iranian beers are called “Islamic beer” in English. But this time I wanted to practice my Persian, so I asked for ab-ju, not knowing that this refers to the alcoholic kind.

“Oh no, we don’t serve that!” the girls behind the counter answered, and they looked genuinely shocked. Since my Persian was not good enough to resolve this situation, I reverted to English. That move was a bit to quick. I confused “non-alcoholic beer” and “Islamic beer” and said: “No no, I mean non-Islamic beer!” Fortunately, they realised I was confused and everyone laughed.

Now there’s even more confusion in the Islamic world, and they didn’t even need me for it. Yusuf al-Qaradawi, an Egyptian working for al-Jazeera in Qatar, has issued a fatwa that seems to allow Muslims to drink alcohol, albeit in very, very small quantities. His reasoning makes sense by all standards: natural fermentation takes place in any beverage, resulting in tiny quantities of alcohol. An absolute ban on drinking even one molecule of it, would make nearly every drink (except tea or coffee maybe) haram. Considering that natural fermentation results in a tiny amount -say 0,5%- that would be a reasonable standard for Muslims.

It seems reactions are mixed. Some Muslims are glad, like this guy from Pakistan, who gives a nice comparison to Muslim practice in the past and nowadays. But controversy is rife and abundant. It’s a classic debate between two kinds of people. First there are the legally-minded people, whose primary interest is in unequivocal rules, rules that can be formulated in such a way that they can be checked anytime anywhere and that never lead to confusion. ‘Clarity’ seems to be the magic word and loss of control their primary fear. The second group are goal-oriented people, who’d first ask “Why is there a ban on alcohol anyway?” start from there and come up with a rule that serves that goal. Loss of meaning is their main anxiety and ‘intention’ their magic word.

Most of Shari’a law isn’t based on the qur’an, but on hadith: anecdotes about the life and times of the prophet and his closest companions (I blogged about them before). These were collected in the first three centuries of Islam and came to serve as a second source of revelation: if the qur’an couldn’t settle an issue, maybe the example of the prophet could. It seems the goal-oriented people have the best papers. The most often quoted hadith when it comes to drinking alcohol doesn’t refer to controllable quantities, but to its effect: inebriation:

“Every intoxicant is prohibited.” (Sahih al-Bukhari, vol 9, book 89 no 284)

Seems the prophet himself was a goal-oriented man, very much on Qaradawi’s side…

If you are a Muslim you’ll probably be shocked, but really: even according to perfectly sound Islamic teachings there are twenty versions of the qur’an. This is -or should be- common knowledge among Muslims. Everything written below, can be found on reliable Muslim websites.

I blogged before on the Arabic writing system and about the first script in which the qur’ an was written: a defective script that noted no vowels and made no distinction between a lot of consonants. It used only 15 signs to write 28 consonants, whilst the vowels had to be guessed by the reader. I explained these texts were nothing more than a helpful reminder for the qurra’, people who already knew the qur’ an by heart. Written qur’ ans were not intended to be complete and reliable codifications of the exact text.

I also explained that eventually disagreements broke out and that these were partly solved by adding extra signs to the qur’ anic text. About a century after the first codification of the qur’an, so called ‘diacritical dots’ were added to distinguish different consonants and after another two centuries there was a generally accepted system for noting the vowels.

This was only a partial solution. Because in those three centuries that saw the perfection of the Arabic writing system, transmission of the qur’ an was mainly oral. The Islamic reign expanded over half the planet in about one century. The Muslim elite became massively diluted: not all conquered people became Muslim and not all those who did become Muslim immediately put themselves to the task of memorising the qur’ an. In a time when travelling from one place to another was slow and dangerous, it wasn’t easy for individual qurra’ to check their memory with colleagues, unless they lived in the same place. This resulted in slightly different schools of reciting the qur’an, located in various cities like Mecca, Basra, Kufa, Medina or Damascus.

One of the Islamic dogma’s on the qur’an maintains that there is only one qur’an and that it has been preserved unadulterated. So Islamic scholars devised a system where various versions were tracked down to various famous qurra’, ten in total, who could each claim a chain of teachers going back to the prophet. These ten “ways of reciting” -as Muslims prefer to call them- are called qira’at. They are all considered canonical. Besides these ten, other readings are known but these are not considered canonical: they are not to be recited, but it’s ok to use them to explain the meaning of a particular verse. The ten canonical qira’at each had exactly two students (riwa) whose so called riwayat are all different. (an extensive -albeit very apologetic- version can be found here)

Westerners would call this ‘20 versions’, Muslims call it ‘20 ways of reciting’. That sounds like a euphemism to cover up different transmissions of a text, but Muslims are not entirely wrong on this. The majority of differences deal with typically oral things like how long a pause or a vowel lasts, which letters assimilate and which don’t, which consonants need a nasal pronunciation, what glottal stops are omitted, things that aren’t typically written down in any language. A smaller percentage are actual differences in the vowels, that were added latest to the written texts of the qur’an. A slightly smaller part than that consists of differences in diacritical dots, that were added earlier than the vowels. Only a very small percentage are differences in the original Arabic lettering that was first used for the text.

Some of these differences result in different meanings. In the opening chapter of the qur’an God is called “the owner of judgement day”. The word for “owner” is in some riwayat, but in some other riwayat it is “king”, a difference of one added vowel. Things like this can be found on the Internet (like in question B). As this example makes clear: these differences in meaning are nothing to loose a night’s sleep over. They are also not very frequent, which can be expected in a text that only took three centuries to be written down in an apt -or rather: made apt- writing system. Differences in meaning are easily explained: there is only one qur’an, but in different recitations. All recitations together form the entire revelation and the differences that are there are not contradictory but supplementary to each other.

In 1923 the al-Azhar University in Cairo took riwayat Hafs, named after the man who transmitted it, as the standard text. Its use is actively promoted all over the Muslim world. There’s not even a difference between sunni and shi’a in this respect. As a result, most qur’ans that can be bought are in this standard text. Of all twenty canonical versions only four are still in print. I have three: Hafs (naturally), Warsh and Qalun. The first two I could buy in my own country, where only 3% of the population is Muslim. Fortunately, a lot of those are Moroccan and riwayat Warsh was mainly used in the Maghreb until the Egyptian standard-text took over. Qalun I had to order on the Internet. The only one remaining is riwayat ad-Duri. I am told it’s still in use in Sudan. Not much chance I’m going there soon…

It seems all there is to blog about is Muslims, or anti-Muslims for that matter: sometimes you can’t see the difference. This time it’s another Dutch politician: Ehsan Jami (an Iranian by birth). Until a few days ago he maintained he was going to produce yet another anti-Islamic movie, one that he predicted would stirr as much unrest as the Danish cartoon controversy. It would if you depicted the prophet of Islam with an erection, about to consumate his marriage to a nine year old in a mosque (why in a mosque????).

The movie -a cartoon- was planned for April 20th, better known to Germans as Führergeburtstag. Pressure from the Dutch government has caused Jami to decide not to make the movie. If any muslims from the Middle East are reading this: the Dutch government does try to prevent unnecessary insults to Muslims, sometimes that works, sometimes it doesn’t. That’s an unfortunate side effect of having a system of government where nobody, not even the government is above the law (but by far not as unfortunate as having a system of government where some people are). But I digress.

It may be good that one cartoon has been cancelled, but meanwhile this whole ‘Muhammad did a nine year old’-thing keeps buzzing around in the west. It’s an unfortunate side effect of two developments. Ideas about at what age, and under what circumstances men can have sex with children have vastly changed since the 7th century and Muslims in the west -in an attempt to fight prejudices about Islam- have insisted people should get better acquainted with Islam, and a lot of westerners have.

The problem is hadiths, anecdotes about the life and times of the prophet, collected in the three centuries after his death with a legal purpose: if the qur’an couldn’t decide on an issue, maybe the example of the prophet could. A few hadiths from the most reputable collectors tell in unequivocal terms about the age of Aisha -the girl in question- at the time she was married to Muhammad. The Uzbek Bukhari collected no less than five hadiths on the subject: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5. The Persian Muslim has three: 1, 2, 3 and the Afghan abu Da’ud two: 1, 2. The question seems settled then: a prophet and a nine year old. Well, so it seems…

Because the very same collections of hadiths were also used to collect data on biographies of the prophet, history-books on islam and to compile commentaries on the qur’an, so called tafsirs. If you read those carefully enough to pry out any chronological information, a whole new image appears.

The islamic historian Tabari has two tales that are unrelated to the issue, but still have significance. According to the first tale Aisha was first betrothed to another man in the year 614/615, but she married Muhammad in 622. She can’t have been six or seven in 622 when she was already there -and betrothed- in 614/615. According to the second tale, Aisha and her three siblings were all born in the pre-islamic period. That’s before 610, the year Muhammad started preaching. In 622 she must have been at least 12.

According to the earliest biography we have of Muhammad, Aisha accepted islam before Umar, who was one of the first men to do so. This means she must have converted in 610 or 611. If that is true, in 622 she must have been 11 or 12 plus the age a child needs to have to be able to become a Muslim (when does a child speak?).

Then there’s the story of the battle of Badr in 624, to which no one was allowed to go below the age of 15. Since Aisha went, she must have been born before 609 and at least 13 at marriage. To conclude there’s Asma, her sister who was ten years older. She died in 692 at the age of one hundred. This would mean she was born in 592 and Aisha in 602, making her no less than 20 at her marriage in 622.

There’s but one conclusion we can draw: about the age of Aisha at her marriage to the founder of Islam we know absolutely nothing. I doubt if the pressure the Dutch government put on Jami was about hadith, but it’s still a good reason for not bringing out the film.

After a long series of postponements Geert Wilders -the infamous Dutch member of parliament- has now finally issued his anti-qur’an movie Fitna. A few weeks ago I predicted he would win, no matter what. I was convinced his approach was as fail safe as it was loathsome. Well, I was wrong. He screwed up big time.

First he used Kurt Westergaard’s ‘Muhammad with bomb in his turban’-cartoon without permission. He’s being sued about it by the Danish Union of Journalists. Then he erroneously used the portrait of a Dutch rapper from Moroccan descent in lieu of the portrait of Theo van Gogh’s murderer Muhammad B. The rapper is going to sue him too. And finally Dutch television-maker Rob Muntz is going to take him to court over the unauthorised use of one of his interviews. Wilders is getting into trouble for lots of things, but not because of Muslims reacting violently.

As planned Moroccan mosques in the Netherlands opened their doors to visitors. No church was burned, no window even smashed. Muslims all over the Netherlands expressed their relief: Fitna was old news, badly done cut-and-paste work, not at all shocking. Nevertheless, some Muslims filed complaints. That’s something you do without bricks or Molotov cocktails.

To top it all off, Wilders -who has consistently refused to discuss his views with Muslims over the past years- has now announced he wants to open discussions with them. It seems Muslims -at least in the Netherlands- are now totally uninterested in discussing anything with him.

Rightly so, if you ask me. If you manage to screw up even this -pardon my French- why should anyone take you seriously?

Back in the eighties when I was a student I worked part time at a company that did consumer research by phone. We phoned -obviously- random people and asked them questions about what newspapers and magazines they read, what peanut-butter they ate, what detergent they used and what they voted for. Questions varied as contracts varied, because this was a commercial company. As a result the time it took to complete an interview varied.

Sometimes we were asked how long an interview would last before people would agree to participate. Human psychology being what it is, any indication of time that seemed to exceed ten minutes would result in people declining to cooperate. So we said ‘about ten minutes’. Which was true if you never read anything, never ate anything and never washed your clothes. But if you did, it could run up to forty minutes easily, especially if you read a lot.

Naturally we were not the only company doing this. Our clients could choose between a number of competing companies that all tried to outdo each other in prices, response rates and accuracy. We could not afford too many people not participating. So we said ‘ten minutes’, kept people on the phone for twenty minutes on average and made a profit. Well, a salary at least for the ones doing the work. Us.

When several companies make it their task to phone people and ask them questions that seem hardly relevant to their lives, the number of times people are called is proportional to the number of companies needing and doing the research. The effects of that became very noticeable during the time I worked there. First, research among IT professionals suffered. There were relatively very few of them, but in IT you could make a formidable profit, so a lot of market research was done among these people. One of them once told me he was called three times a day on average for a questionnaire very much like the one I wanted to interview him with.

Naturally, response declined sharply. And then consumers followed: not as sharply as in IT, but they did. In order to counter this trend the introduction we read from our computer screens was changed. Instead of politely asking whether the consumer wanted to participate in our research, we had to simply start the questionnaire. If people didn’t want to go ahead, they had to interrupt us to say so. I never used the new introduction and always gave the person I called the opportunity to decline. My response rate declined as a result, following the national trend, whereas response for the company as a whole remained steady. After a few months I believe, I resigned and looked for another job. It was made easier by the fact that I had also finished my studies.

People needed to interrupt us when they did not want to participate, and most people were too polite to do so. Our company wanted to make use of that. Abuse really, because politeness only stays in place when it’s reciprocated. The short term effects were positive: profits. The long term effects weren’t. I think it was during the nineties that the first articles in newspapers started to appear describing the dire straits market research companies were in. The number of people who refused to answer questions on the phone had risen to such a level that the statistical integrity and accuracy of the collected data was in real danger. In my circle of friends stories about people who would simply slam the phone without even talking became commonplace. That never happened to me in three years.

These processes develop over long periods of time. More than twenty years in my case. Even if you see the problem coming -like I did halfway through the eighties- your criticism can be easily countered with more immediate arguments about profits, clients, better service, response rates and salaries. These are all short and middle-term interests. Exercising a response-retention policy not only deals with a long-term interest, it deals with an undercurrent. One that is perpetually hidden behind short and long-term interests.

Exercising a long-term response retention-policy means you have to reciprocate the politeness of the people who volunteer to answer your questions. There’s only so many calls people will be willing to answer, there’s only so much intrusion they’ll tolerate. In other words: there are restraints to the amount of work that can be done and hence to the amount of companies that can do that limited amount of work. That runs counter to our societal ideology, that subscribes to a market economy and competition. In order to function successfully, they need to be free from restraints as much as possible. The present decline in response and the resulting decrease in reliability of market information is a side-effect of our societal ideology that -with the passing of time- cannot be called ’side’ any more. Eventually our market-centered ideology will render market research useless.

Obama’s “speech on race” has made up my mind: Obama for president!

I don’t even have a vote on this, I’m not an American. On a side-note: the president of the most powerful nation on earth, the person that can change the lives of everyone on this planet with one simple stroke of a pen should and must be elected by all inhabitants of that same planet, not just by people living on one side of the red line in an atlas that some lunatic drew hundreds of years ago. But I digress.

Since I can’t vote, I’ll blog about it: Obama’s speech. It’s not as short as Lincoln’s Gettysburg address, it’s not as magnificently structured as Martin Luther King’s ‘I have a dream‘ even though it’s compared to both in the media. I doubt if it will still be regarded as ‘historical’ in say, one year’s time. It certainly won’t when he doesn’t get elected. I’ve always thought the first black or female president of the United States would be a republican. That’s difficult to explain without the Vulcan proverb: ‘Only Nixon could go to China’. But I digress.

There’s very little I know of Obama’s political convictions and ideas, my choice for him has nothing to do with his programme, just with one little detail: the reverend Jeremiah Wright. It’s the guy who married Obama and his wife and baptised his daughters. It’s the pastor of the church Obama used to frequent. Now the reverend has said quite controversial things in a speech that’s dubbed the ‘God damn America‘-speech. I haven’t been able to find a transcript, but apparently the Rev. Wright has claimed America is a racist and a terrorist nation that has only itself to blame for 9/11. Obama has a problem.

So he held his speech ad here’s what he has to say about the reverend:

(…) the remarks that have caused this recent firestorm weren’t simply controversial. They weren’t simply a religious leader’s effort to speak out against perceived injustice. Instead, they expressed a profoundly distorted view of this country – a view that sees white racism as endemic, and that elevates what is wrong with America above all that we know is right with America (…)

As such, Reverend Wright’s comments were not only wrong but divisive, divisive at a time when we need unity; racially charged at a time when we need to come together to solve a set of monumental problems – two wars, a terrorist threat, a falling economy, a chronic health care crisis and potentially devastating climate change; problems that are neither black or white or Latino or Asian, but rather problems that confront us all.

More than enough distance put between them for my comfort. But then he goes on:

Given my background, my politics, and my professed values and ideals, there will no doubt be those for whom my statements of condemnation are not enough. Why associate myself with Reverend Wright in the first place, they may ask?

Good point, and his answer is what swayed me:

(…) the truth is, that isn’t all that I know of the man. The man I met more than twenty years ago is a man who helped introduce me to my Christian faith, a man who spoke to me about our obligations to love one another; to care for the sick and lift up the poor. He is a man who served his country as a U.S. Marine; who has studied and lectured at some of the finest universities and seminaries in the country, and who for over thirty years led a church that serves the community by doing God’s work here on Earth – by housing the homeless, ministering to the needy, providing day care services and scholarships and prison ministries, and reaching out to those suffering from HIV/AIDS.

And this helps explain, perhaps, my relationship with Reverend Wright. As imperfect as he may be, he has been like family to me. He strengthened my faith, officiated my wedding, and baptized my children. Not once in my conversations with him have I heard him talk about any ethnic group in derogatory terms, or treat whites with whom he interacted with anything but courtesy and respect. He contains within him the contradictions – the good and the bad – of the community that he has served diligently for so many years.

That’s enough backbone for me: disagree, nay condemn the man’s words, but be truthful to the personal ties that have existed between them. Take on the sin, not the sinner. That’s a biblical value if you ask me.

חֶסֶד

In dictionaries it’s translated with ‘love’, ‘kindness’, ‘lovingkindness’, ‘goodness’, ‘grace’, ‘benevolence’. But its main connotation is ‘faithfulness’, even ‘faith’ in the Latin sense: fides. This pastor may have been horribly wrong about a few things, there’s at least one thing he taught Obama right. He’s got my vote (if I had one!).

A while ago I came across this post, that featured a few pictures of a boy who’s arm is crushed by a car as punishment for stealing, a punishment under sharia law in Iran, or at least: that was the claim. The pictures are prefaced by some comments in both English and Hebrew. From what I can understand of unvocalised modern Hebrew, the texts are more or less similar. Now, whenever negative comments on Islam are accompanied by anything that might come from Israel, I get suspicious, just like anything about Israel or Jews from the Arabic world arouses my suspicion.

Crushing a child’s arm is a weird way of applying sharia law, however barbaric the version you might want to adhere to. Then I thought: can you actually break an arm by running a car over it? The blanket under the arm seems to be an effective way to counter any damage. I’ve had a car drive over my foot without mishaps. Finally it occurred to me that the numbers on the numberplate, which read ‘2662′ are Arabic numbers. An Arabic ‘6′ looks like this: ٦ while a Persian ‘6′ looks slightly different: ۶. Iranian number-plates use Persian numbers -as I have seen myself over there- so this could not be Iran.

So I posted a comment and a while later the poster found a very amusing site that specialises in checking urban myths. According to this information, it’s a circus act performed by poor people on the streets.

Why do people do this? If you want to make critical or negative comments about Islam, Muslims or sharia law, there are plenty of perfectly accurate comments you can make. Nobody needs fiction!

I sometimes read Michelle Malay Carters blog Mission Minded Management. Half of the time I don’t even understand what she is talking about, but she sounds like someone with a very humane perspective on management. And she has mastered ManagementSpeak™. There is hope yet for the world.

Today I found a good quote in this:

Organizations that seek to enable will find engagement.
Organizations that seek engagement will find manipulation.

Organizations that seek to encourage will find development.
Organizations that seek development will find resistance.

Organizations that seek to question will find innovation.
Organizations that seek innovation will find elitism.

Organizations that seek to align will find communication.
Organizations that seek communication will find platitudes.

Organizations that seek to understand work levels will find leaders.
Organizations that seek leaders will find power mongers.

Organizations that seek to clarify will find accountability.
Organizations that seek accountability will find scapegoats.

Organizations that seek to be fair will find trust.
Organizations that seek trust will find teambuilding exercises.

~ Michelle Malay Carter

I know that company (the even lines that is) why have I never met her?