Church Fathers in art

Google cannot find a single web page containing the phrase "Church Fathers in art". This seems very strange. There are probably pages on all the saints in art but whatever.

It's fun to recognise things and people in old paintings so I'm going to share some simple pointers to SS. Jerome and Augustine.

Saint Jerome

I was at the National Gallery in London this weekend, and I swear Jerome must be the third most depicted figure there after Jesus and Mary. Very popular subject indeed: you will spot him loads.

Saint Jerome translated the Bible into Latin, so you often see him with a book, as here. He is often depicted in a cardinal's uniform, including the cool "galero" hat, but this is anachronistic. No cardinals existed in his time, but he was an important cleric in Rome, so that's why he gets it. He also usually has a lion in the picture, because the classical story of "Androcles and the Lion" about the guy who pulls a thorn from a lion's paw, and then is later saved by that lion, was transferred to the Jerome legend.

Jerome was also an ascetic hermit, so he's often shown living in a cave, sometimes beating his breast with a stone. Look, his galero is on the ground next to him.

Can you spot his galero in this picture? :)

Saint Augustine (of Hippo)

I was looking out for Augustine at the end of my visit, but didn't spot him. Obviously not nearly such a popular subject, but I'm sure I've seen him in a few paintings somewhere.

Augustine usually has his bishop's attire and likes to hold a model church in his hand, like in this El Greco. I think some others like him (e.g. Ambrose) also have the model church sometimes though. He's often holding or writing a book because he wrote some (well, parchments, or whatever). Bit boring.

Pictures of Augustine also sometimes show a heart burning and/or with arrows through it. This is because he wrote that his heart burned when he read about the Christian faith, and he felt its truth like an arrow through the heart, blah blah. Sometimes there's a little child there with him, because he wrote that his conversion was inspired by a child's voice saying "take up and read" which he interpreted as a divine communication (days before email).

I don't recall any burning hearts or revelatory kids in the NG, but maybe you will find some.

"Persona" (Bergman, 1966)

I don't consider myself a great art-house fan, but there is something about Persona that draws me in. (Watch on YouTube.) It's a mysterious film about two women (at least, these are the two major characters): Elisabet, an actress who can't or won't speak, and Alma, the nurse assigned to look after her.

I want to talk about one theme which people seem to be missing in the online discussions, although for all I know this theme has been hashed out for years in more rarefied conversation. The theme people jump to is the idea of playing a role. The film is called "Persona". Elisabet is an actress and the doctor suggests her problem, which she refuses to tell, has to do with her being unable to support playing a role in her life off the stage. Pretending to be a person she is not, putting on a false persona. Elisabet, then, unable to express her inner self, has withdrawn into silence in order not to have to live a lie.

The theme which is not given its due is "motherliness", or care more broadly. If you think back over the film, the references to motherhood and motherliness are legion. Here are some reminders, in no great order:

• In the double-scene, Alma reveals to Elisabet the latter's secret past: Elisabet was hurt to be told at a party that she had everything, except she lacked "motherliness". So Elisabet deliberately got pregnant by her husband, but then feared and hated the developing baby, trying but failing to abort it. She wanted it to die. She is unable to love and care for her little boy. She tears up his photo, although she later looks longingly at it.
• Alma expects to marry and have children with her long-time boyfriend, although she seems to look forward more with resignation than enthusiasm to this settling down.
• Alma had an abortion after the day of the event with the boys at the beach.
• In the scene where Alma plays Elisabet to Elisabet's husband, she says she is coming home soon to look after her little boy.
• Almost the first thing Alma tells Elisabet is about her parents: her mother was also a nurse until she got married.
• Elisabet was struck dumb while performing Electra, in which Electra takes revenge on her own mother for killing her father and colluding in the sacrifice of her sister.
• The first time Elisabet speaks, and the only time she speaks spontaneously, is to express care for Alma, telling her to go to bed so she doesn't fall asleep at the table. When asked the next day, she denies speaking. Given the context, we might interpret this caring as akin to motherliness; she seems to care for Alma as for a child. Given Elisabet's letter to the doctor*, however, it is unclear whether Elisabet really cares for Alma.

It seems like Elisabet is unable to bear having human feelings towards the people who are close to her. When Alma reads to her from the letter from Elisabet's husband, Elisabet stops the reading just as her husband starts to tell of a moment when Elisabet was seized by her feelings towards him: "We went for a walk in the woods, and you stopped and grabbed the belt of my coat." Elisabet spontaneously shows care for Alma, but only when Alma is dozing. She later denies speaking her words of care. She undermines her appearance of care for Alma, communicated in her face and body language, by writing a letter to the doctor, which she deliberately leaves open for Alma to read, in which she tells of looking on Alma as a sort of interesting character study and reveals Alma's secret about the boys and the abortion.

Why would Elisabet do this to hurt Alma's feelings so much? She seems to hate her own impulse to care for and attach to people.

Elisabeth is also apparently some sort of nihilist or existentialist, agreeing with the text Alma reads to her: "The cries of our faith and doubt against the darkness and the silence are terrible proof of our loneliness and fear."

Putting all the above together, we might extrapolate that Elisabet's decision, to have a baby after being told of her lack of motherliness, is one she afterwards regarded as weak in at least three ways: (i) she is playing a motherly role that is not really her; (ii) she has landed herself in a caring relationship which she cannot abide; (iii) she has invested emotionally in the sort of "bad faith" moral and social institution (Motherhood) that offends her nihilist or existentialist ethos.

What frightens Elisabet most are her emotions. The only time we see her genuinely frightened, and one of only three occasions when she speaks, is when Alma seems to threaten her with the saucepan of boiling water. Alma says: "That scared you, didn't it? For a second, you were really scared, right? A real fear of death, huh? 'Alma has gone crazy,' you thought." At that point, it seems that Alma is in the grip of her passions and about to try to kill Elisabet.

The only other reference to Elisabet's death in the film, is when the doctor tells Elisabet that she would not countenance suicide. Is suicide too emotional and dramatic, too passionate for Elisabet? It is her passions and emotions that frighten her most. But her emotions at least she can try to silence and deny. What she could not stop or deny was the baby growing inside her. Attempts at abortion failed. She could not stop it developing inside her. Similarly, she could not stop the development of her feelings and care for Alma, although she could deny and ruin them by hurting Alma. Or, worse, maybe she just played up that appearance of care all along, happy in her power to will and play with such feelings, all the while intending to destroy them and hurt Alma.

To sum up Elisabet, she seems like a calculating mind refusing all emotion and attachment, afraid of them, afraid of real feelings, afraid of admitting her need for emotional investment, and hating herself whenever she does feel or succumb to emotions. Why is she struck dumb, or why does she suddenly decide to go mute, at a moment during Electra? Is it because she realised that she was acting out in the play the very feelings and desires that she really felt: the desire to kill and thereby destroy the bond of motherhood? The circle was complete: instead of hiding herself behind acting roles and personas, her on-stage persona was in fact her real self; she was acting out the kind of role that really expressed her secret self and secret desires. Thenceforth she was not even able to find relief from her tormenting feelings in acting and pretending: there was nowhere to turn but into silence.

Alternatively, perhaps, the Electra epiphany is this: playing Electra, Elisabet plays a woman hating her mother who colluded in the killing of her own daughter, Iphigenia. Perhaps Elisabet feels this hatred herself for the idea of a woman wanting her own child dead: Elisabet realises the hate she has for herself. Rather than just her calculating, philosophical mind hating her emotions, her emotions hate her philosophical mind in turn. Unable to resolve the contradiction, the mutual hate within herself, she is unable to speak at all. Neither her calculating mind nor her emotions can wrestle free enough of the other to articulate itself.

The film then, is a portrait of Elisabet's mental dualism, two parts of her mind in tension. It is not possible to know at any moment in the film which is ascendant or whether neither is.

What, then, of Alma, and of the climactic scenes where Alma seems to become one with Elisabet?

Alma is in important ways the opposite of Elisabet. Against Elisabet's nihilism or existentialism, Alma believes the best life is one lived according to a vocation. Against Elizabet's fear of feeling and caring, Alma is a carer, a professional nurse. Alma admires the lifelong nurses who even when retired keep wearing their uniforms. She expects to marry, settle down and have children: "All of this is predestined. It's inside me. It's nothing to think about. It's a safe feeling."

Elisabet listens to Alma. Eventually Alma tells her about her secret sexual encounter and abortion. The sexual events that led to Alma's pregnancy were wild and abandoned, her abortion successful. Elisabet's were sad and deliberate, her abortion unsuccessful.

What can Elisabet be thinking as she listens to Alma? Perhaps how blissfully un-existentialist Alma is. How happy and satisfied Alma is. Maybe how stupid Alma is for her unphilosophical submersion in convention. Alma has dabbled once in letting her passions have sway, but was able to avoid the consequences without derailing her vocation and her future.

Does Elisabet perhaps want to be like Alma? She shows her tenderness through her body language, but ends up sabotaging their relationship. She is unable and unwilling to be like Alma.

In the scene where Alma accepts Elisabet's husband, Alma, after initial reluctance, plays Elisabet renewing her relationship with her husband and son. Elisabet looks on. Is this perhaps Elisabet's fantasy of how she would be if she were Alma, if she could get better: capable of straightforward feelings and care? She both wants to be like Alma and at the same time cannot be, or refuses to be. There is no resolution possible for Elisabet; her inability to reconcile her mind leaves her with nothing. She ends the film dependent on Alma, who is capable of caring for her.

Is the message of the film finally a warning about nihilism and existentialism? Saying that they are ultimately unlivable; perhaps true, but impossible for a human being to live out?

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* Is Elizabet's letter really for the doctor? It starts, "My dear". It sounds more like a letter she might write to her husband, but Alma describes it as a letter to the doctor.

The same ideas expressed differently on IMDb.

A voting system for a single-member constituency, superior to both FPTP and AV

I call it Condorcet-FPTP. Probably not original with me.

The process, which has no chance of being adopted:


i) Voters rank candidates.

ii) Is there a Condorcet Winner*? -> Elected.

iii) Is there a Condorcet Loser*? -> Eliminated. If yes, go to (iv); if no, go to (v).

iv) Among only the remaining candidates, is there a Condorcet Loser? -> Eliminated. If yes, repeat; if no, go to (v).

v) Which candidate has the most first-preference votes? -> Elected.


* Condorcet Winner = a candidate who is preferred by a majority to any other in a two-way vote.

* Condorcet Loser = a candidate who is dispreferred (?) by a majority to any other in a two-way vote.


This voting system never selects a Condorcet Loser (unlike FPTP) nor does it select a Condorcet Loser from among the remaining members of a set of candidates from which the previous Condorcet Loser has been eliminated. And it always selects a Condorcet Winner (unlike AV). Whether is it always monotonic, I'm not sure.


Let's run a model election under Condorcet-FPTP.

i) Here are the ranked ballots, with the quantity of each:

11x BNP>UKIP>Con
31x Con>Lib
29x Lab>Lib
9x Green>Lab>Lib
20x Lib>Lab

Under FPTP, the winner is Con. Under AV, the winner is Lab from Con.

Let's do my procedure...

ii) Is there a Condorcet Winner? The only possibility is Lib, so let's check:

Lib is preferred to Lab by 51 out of 100, and to Con by 58 out of 100, so Lib is elected. (You might have to look carefully at the ballots to see where these numbers come from.)

Interesting that FPTP selected Con, which (once the minor parties which lose to all the major parties are excluded) is a Condorcet Loser; and also that AV selected Lab, which is not the Condorcet Winner. Only my procedure, of the three, selected the candidate who will beat all the others in a two-way vote.

Would AV generate absurd results in practice?

In this post I showed how easily AV can lead in theory to absurd election results, whereby a candidate can do worse in the results by winning more support, and do better by winning less support.

But would such situations exist in reality in a UK general election?

In a quick scan, I have found three constituencies where there is definite potential for absurdity (in technical terms, a violation of monotonicity):

In Hampstead & Kilburn, the 2010 results (.xls file) by party and vote percentage were:

Lab 32.8
Con 32.7
Lib 31.2
Green 1.4
UKIP 0.8
BNP 0.6
Two others 0.2 each.

Assuming that these are sincere first preferences as between the top three parties*, AV would give the seat to Lab (since more Lib voters would split to Lab than to Con). For the data I am using to calculate second-preference splits, see here.

But if Lab were to win over just 1.6% of the votes from Con (i.e. from Con>Lib>Lab to Lab>Lib>Con), then Con would fall to third place, the final round would be between Lab and Lib, and Lib would win by gaining the majority of Con second preferences.

So, in this seat Lab could fail to win by gaining too many converts from Con.

For those who want to look at the results (.xls file) for themselves, Stockport constituency is in a very similar position: there, a small swing from Con to Lab could lead to Lab losing the seat to Lib under AV.

A similar, but in an interesting way inverted, case is Wrexham. In this constituency, it looks like Lab could go from a losing to a winning position under AV, by losing votes to Con:

Lab 36.9
Lib 25.8
Con 24.4
Plaid Cymru 6.2
BNP 6.2
UKIP 3.4

I don't know how the minor party votes would split on second preferences, but let's assume that the ranking of the top three parties would be preserved. In that case, Lib would just narrowly lose to Lab despite the majority of Con second preferences. Let's imagine though that there had been a tiny first preference swing from Lab to Lib, so that Lib went on to win on second preferences.

Now, if there were to be a swing of say 2% from Lab to Con, then Lab and Con (rather than Lab and Lib) would move into the final round, where Lab would win thanks to the majority of Lib second preferences.

So, in this seat Lab could win by losing votes to Con.

In sum, although we don't know how voters will act under AV, it is clear that there exist constituencies where absurd results and swings, violating monotonicity, would be at risk of occurring.

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* To deal with the issue of assuming what voters would do under AV in Hampstead & Kilburn:

• in this seat, we can reliably assume that the vast majority of voters for Lab, Con or Lib are sincerely expressing which one they prefer out of those three top parties; this is because the race between the top three is so tight, that very few voters would give up on their preferred party winning and vote tactically instead;

• it is likely that under AV, more voters would pick Green, UKIP or BNP above the main three parties, but once these three are knocked out, the votes for the main three parties will be in roughly similar proportion to what they were under FPTP.

Will AV lead to more or fewer marginal seats?

Simple question.

To expand it: would the margin of victory in more constituencies in the 2010 General Election have been greater or smaller under the Alternative Vote than it was under First-Past-The-Post?

I want to investigate this question because supporters of AV have been claiming that it will make more seats marginal, or fewer seats safe. Their argument is that a more marginal seat means a more effective and worthwhile vote. I won't comment on that part of the argument now though, but only on the claim that AV will lead to more marginal seats than exist at present under FPTP.

I have polling data on voters' second preferences, segregated by first preference for Lab, Lib or Con. See the first row of graphs here.

And I have the results of the 2010 General Election (.xls file).

Now, about 1/3 of constituencies were won with majorities (over 50% of votes), and AV will have no effect on the margins there. So we will only be looking at constituencies where the winning candidate did not have a majority.

The 2005 poll's second preference splits look to be:

Lab -> 73% Lib, 27% Con;
Lib -> 66% Lab, 34% Con;
Con -> 72% Lib, 28% Lab

(excluding second preferences for other parties or none).

So Con and Lab split mostly to Lib, and Lib splits mostly to Lab.

It is quite easy to work out what the effect of changing to AV would be on the size of the margin in a constituency, without actually doing the sums.

In each constituency, the three main parties can be ranked by their vote share in the 2010 General Election. E.g. in a constituency where the parties rank Lab>Con>Lib we can easily see that AV will increase the size of the margin, since Lib first-preference voters split mostly to Lab, so extending the Lab margin. But where the parties rank Con>Lab>Lib, AV would decrease the margin.

The exception is where the margin under FPTP was relatively narrow, because then second preferences under AV might push the second-placed party in 2010 into first place, with a greater margin than that enjoyed by the 2010 winner. In those rare cases where this looks likely, I have calculated the numbers properly.

In general, Lab>Con>Lib, Lib>Con>Lab and Lib>Lab>Con constituencies would see an increased margin under AV, while Lab>Lib>Con, Con>Lab>Lib and Con>Lib>Lab constituencies would see a decreased margin under AV. As I say, relatively small 2010 margins are the exceptions to the latter generalisation, but they are easy to spot.

I have looked at every English constituency beginning with the letter A or B, without a majority, and where no "other" party like Respect made the top three.

The results: out of 54 constituencies that fit my conditions, 30 would have a greater margin under AV, and 24 would have a smaller margin under AV. (Another 29 had majorities in 2010.)

Not scientific (!) but I think this is enough to indicate that there would not be a massive trend either way. Or, if any, a small overall trend towards greater margins.

But perhaps the more important finding is that Lib seats would probably increase their margins (since Lab or Con would split preferentially to Lib), as would Lab seats where Lib is third. Whereas Con seats would probably decrease their margins (Lib and Lab preferentially coming together), as would Lab seats with Con third... except where margins are currently small, in which case AV could overturn and enlarge them.

So both empirical data and logic seem to me to support the same findings.

My top 8 reasons why Christianity is false.

I just made this because I've been chatting with Christians, and wanted to start putting together my positive case for why Christianity is not credible.

I disclaim all originality for these: they're just my favourites that I've picked up.

1. God is silent. If God has a message for us, why doth he not make it loud and clear? Why send a revelatory vision to Paul and not to the rest of us? Why not get the stars to spell out "Jesus Rulez" in the sky? For those who regard the "good news" of the Gospels to be sufficient notice, see below.

2. The universe is God-less. The ancients believed God and his friends inhabited the highest heaven, which was the concentric sphere furthest from Earth, the last of a series of spheres going from the material to the ethereal. Paul knew a guy who visited the third one. Needless to say, the ethereal spheres are yet to be detected, even by the Voyager space probe.

3. God is cruel. I'm understating the case when I assert that a God who commands genocide is not equal with Love and Goodness, as Christians would have it.

4. God is inert. As earthquakes rock the earth and tsunamis roil the seas, God sits back and lets them rip. He has no apparent interest in rescuing babies and other such heroic activities as might be hoped for from an immaculate uber-being.

5. The Second Coming is not coming. The Gospels report Jesus as expecting to return soon. Even ancient Christians were getting tired of waiting and that was 1,800 years ago!

6. The Gospels are not reliable history. The sainted evangelists contradicted and copied each other, made up events that never happened, borrowed all manner of narrative elements wholesale from the Jewish Bible, and made their story to fit their theological needs and interests. Matthew and Luke couldn't even agree whether Jesus's family was from Nazareth or Bethlehem. We don't know who wrote the Gospels or where. We don't know when either, except that they were all produced well after the lifetime they attribute to Jesus. We are ignorant as to what purpose they were written for: was the earliest Gospel, that by the writer known as "Mark", even intended as narrative history? We don't know: it could be an extended metaphor for Christian spiritual beliefs. The earliest "Mark" manuscripts don't even include the last part of the story, i.e. the Resurrection Appearances, suggesting that this was tacked on to the original narrative at a later date.

7. Paul doesn't know the Gospel Jesus. Paul is the only early Christian writer whom we know and can reliably place (that's why I talk about him more than I do about the Gospels). He appears to know pretty much zilch regarding the earthly life of Jesus. Instead, he knows about his own spiritual revelation of the Christ, and that this Christ can be detected in arcane interpretations of Jewish scripture. What if Paul's spiritual Christ is the original, and the Gospels came along much later and confused us into believing a man called Jesus walked the Earth?

8. Jesus never existed. Don't worry about the Virgin Birth and all that craziness yet. We do not have a single piece of reliable eyewitness evidence, nor any other primary source, attesting to the existence of a man called Jesus of Nazareth in first-century Palestine. Strange for a man whose death occasioned an earthquake and zombie invasion .

Want absurd vote swings? Then vote Yes to AV!

In an AV election, having more voters support you can be harmful to your cause!

Absurd!

Imagine an election with 29 voters:

10 vote in the order Con, Lib, Lab.

9 vote in the order Lib, Con, Lab.

10 vote in the order Lab, Lib, Con.

In the first round, Lib is eliminated. The 9 Lib votes go to Con next, so Con wins 19-10 over Lab.

Plausible.

Now, imagine that during the next campaign, 2 voters switch from voting in the order Lab, Lib, Con to voting in the order Con, Lib, Lab.

In other words, they've turned their preferences right around.

With Con picking up these two ex-Lab voters, surely their re-election is safe?

Not under AV, it's not!

Count 'em...

12 now vote in the order Con, Lib, Lab.

9 vote in the order Lib, Con, Lab.

8 vote in the order Lab, Lib, Con.

In the first round, Lab is eliminated. The 8 Lab votes go to Lib next, so Lib wins 17-12 over Con.

Oops!

Con gained voters from Lab, and yet went from a winning to a losing position!

Want absurd vote swings that bear no relation to voters' intentions? Then vote Yes to AV on May 5th!