Quartz: Trump’s foreign policy looks a lot like Rapture Christians’ plan to welcome the apocalypse

Bill Clinton, George Bush, and Barack Obama all faced pressure from wealthy potential campaign donors to recognize Jerusalem as the capital of Israel, but Trump is listening to a voice they were not: evangelical Christians who appear to believe in the “Rapture.” Some, like vice president Mike Pence and secretary of state Mike Pompeo, hold posts inside his cabinet. For Rapture Christians, returning Jerusalem to the Jewish people is a key to the second coming of Christ.

Robert Jeffress, a pastor who preaches the Rapture, was selected to delivered the new embassy’s opening prayer. Jeffress has previously said that Mormons are heretics, Jews fated to hell, Islam promotes pedophilia, and homosexuals are filthy. He prayed, “We thank you everyday that you have given us a president who boldly stands on the right side of history, and more importantly on the right side of you, oh God, when it comes to Israel.” [...]

Belief in the Rapture, also known as millenialism or eschatology, has multiple variations, but the core view is that there will an apocalyptic war, Jesus will return, and true Christians will be “raptured” or ascend to heaven, with the rest of the earth’s inhabitants punished. Rapture believers are split about the order of events, but they are united in the belief that only Christians will be saved. [...]

On May 8, Capitol Ministries put out its latest study, “The Bible on When War Is Justifiable,” rebutting pacifism. If Jesus calls us to be “peacemakers,” it asks, “then how could a Christian Cabinet Member or Congressman support the idea of going to war?” The answer, Drollinger, explains, is simple: Saint Peter instructs men to submit “to every human institution” and the Book of Revelations discusses the “righteousness” of a God who “judges and wages war.”

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The Atlantic: How the Enlightenment Ends

As I listened to the speaker celebrate this technical progress, my experience as a historian and occasional practicing statesman gave me pause. What would be the impact on history of self-learning machines—machines that acquired knowledge by processes particular to themselves, and applied that knowledge to ends for which there may be no category of human understanding? Would these machines learn to communicate with one another? How would choices be made among emerging options? Was it possible that human history might go the way of the Incas, faced with a Spanish culture incomprehensible and even awe-inspiring to them? Were we at the edge of a new phase of human history? [...]

This goes far beyond automation as we have known it. Automation deals with means; it achieves prescribed objectives by rationalizing or mechanizing instruments for reaching them. AI, by contrast, deals with ends; it establishes its own objectives. To the extent that its achievements are in part shaped by itself, AI is inherently unstable. AI systems, through their very operations, are in constant flux as they acquire and instantly analyze new data, then seek to improve themselves on the basis of that analysis. Through this process, artificial intelligence develops an ability previously thought to be reserved for human beings. It makes strategic judgments about the future, some based on data received as code (for example, the rules of a game), and some based on data it gathers itself (for example, by playing 1 million iterations of a game). [...]

First, that AI may achieve unintended results. Science fiction has imagined scenarios of AI turning on its creators. More likely is the danger that AI will misinterpret human instructions due to its inherent lack of context. A famous recent example was the AI chatbot called Tay, designed to generate friendly conversation in the language patterns of a 19-year-old girl. But the machine proved unable to define the imperatives of “friendly” and “reasonable” language installed by its instructors and instead became racist, sexist, and otherwise inflammatory in its responses. Some in the technology world claim that the experiment was ill-conceived and poorly executed, but it illustrates an underlying ambiguity: To what extent is it possible to enable AI to comprehend the context that informs its instructions? What medium could have helped Tay define for itself offensive, a word upon whose meaning humans do not universally agree? Can we, at an early stage, detect and correct an AI program that is acting outside our framework of expectation? Or will AI, left to its own devices, inevitably develop slight deviations that could, over time, cascade into catastrophic departures?

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Haaretz: How Israel Overcame Politics in Winning the Eurovision Song Contest

“I’m sorry to disappoint you,” the Israeli veterinarian wrote in Hebrew on Saturday. Netta Barzilai’s “excellent” song could not win Eurovision “because Europe is imbued with bicolored anti-Semitism: The classic Christian anti-Semitism of Holocaust’s perpetrators and Muslim anti-Semitism that’s striking root” there, he wrote, vowing to eat his own “hat” if he’s proven wrong.

Kishon, a political hawk and the son of the late humorist Ephraim Kishon, failed to predict the future: Barzilai’s unconventional song “Toy” in fact did win the contest, earning the fourth-highest score in the pan-European song competition’s 63-year history. But his prediction nonetheless illustrated how many Israelis apparently overestimate the politicization of Eurovision, the prevalence of anti-Israel sentiment in European societies — or both. [...]

At this year’s contest, Israel would have come in third Saturday if it were up solely to the official juries of the 43 countries that participated. But the juries, which gave Israel 212 points, determine only 50 percent of the scores. Callers gave Israel another 317 points to bring their total to 529 — nearly 100 points more than the next closest contestant, Cyprus. [...]

And the countries where callers gave the highest number of perfect scores to Israel included France, Azerbaijan — a Shi’ite Muslim nation — and Spain, where Catholic anti-Semitism for centuries has been rife and has more municipalities boycotting Israel than any other country in Europe.

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Politico: Hungary on new migration plan: It’s all been done for Germany

The Bulgarians suggested the country of entrance into the EU should have “responsibility” for asylum seekers for “5 years after the final decision [on their claim to remain].” That’s down from 10 years in an earlier proposal but higher than the two years Italy and others were asking for.

During discussions on the 10-year proposal, “a significant group of member states made it very clear that this period was too long and could not be the basis for an overall compromise, whereas others strongly supported this period,” the new draft says. EU diplomats said use of the words “final decision” were also open to interpretation as asylum legislation varies across the bloc. [...]

Hungarian diplomats declined to comment on the meeting but officials from other countries said the Bulgarians had tried their best to find a solution. In the Bulgarian plan, relocation would be mandatory only in very exceptional circumstances and countries could help out in different ways, including through resettlement (which means taking in refugees from outside the bloc, as opposed to relocation, which means taking them in from other EU members). [...]

If no unanimity can be reached on the plans, it’s likely that a deal on migration would be reached with a majority vote, which risks inflaming the east-west divide.

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Al Jazeera: Analysis: What's next for Iran?

In an effort to placate the Americans, Europe's leaders will be looking for concessions on Iran's ballistic missiles programme, and are likely to raise the issue of Tehran's support for President Bashar al-Assad in Syria, groups such as Hezbollah in Lebanon, and the Houthi rebels in Yemen. [...]

Iraq under Saddam Hussein invaded Iran shortly after the 1979 revolution. The US as well as many of Iran's Gulf Arab neighbours supported Hussein in the eight-year conflict.  [...]

Iranians say they still remember the sound of air raid sirens on the radio and on TV, whenever an Iraqi jet on a bombing run or an Iraqi ballistic missile would be spotted in the skies over an Iranian city. For eight long years, people here say they looked up at the skies in constant fear.

That conflict shaped the way Iran looks at national security issues. The country's collective trauma changed how civilian and military leaders make decisions about present-day defence policies. [...]

While the US pullout may have given Iran the moral high ground with regards to the nuclear deal, at home the Rouhani administration is in trouble. If Zarif's trip is unsuccessful in achieving even some minor measurable gain for Iran's economy, one MP predicts changes at the top.

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