Infallible cannoli
We’ve been hearing something lately about the expertise and, how shall I say, the best-mindedness (in the sense of being among the greatest minds of the past thousand years) of theologians. I’m not convinced. Actually I could put it more strongly than that, but I’ll just say I’m not convinced. No one has ever accused me of not being tactful. Okay lots of people have accused me of exactly that, but it was always a misunderstanding.
There are several reasons I’m not convinced; this article in the Times illustrates one or two.
The Pope will cast aside centuries of Catholic belief later this week by abolishing formally the concept of limbo…This week a 30-strong Vatican international commission of theologians, which has been examining limbo, began its final deliberations. Vatican sources said it had concluded that all children who die do so in the expectation of “the universal salvation of God” and the “mediation of Christ”, whether baptised or not. The theologians’ finding is that God wishes all souls to be saved, and that the souls of unbaptised children are entrusted to a “merciful God” whose ways of ensuring salvation cannot be known. “In effect, this means that all children who die go to Heaven,” one source said.
Okay – you’ve got your Vatican commission of theologians, thirty of them, and they have been ‘examining’ limbo. They’ve been what? What does that mean? How have they been examining limbo? They’ve been looking at it through a telescope? Through a microscope? Both at once? Both in alternation? Fifteen theologians on the tele and fifteen on the micro, and they combine their findings? Or they X-ray it? Run it through an MRI scan? Shave off bits of it for radio-carbon dating? Or is it that they sit limbo down and ask it a lot of questions? Or do they give it a written exam, with two hours to complete it and proctors walking up and down to prevent cheating? Or what?
Well, apparently none of those, since the pope is going to abolish the concept itself, which would seem to hint that there’s nothing physical or material to examine. But then what? What does it mean for theologians to examine limbo? To talk about it, apparently, and decide whether they feel like believing in it or not.
In propelling limbo out of its own uncertain state, the Pope is merely acknowledging the distress its half-existence causes to millions…One of the reasons Baptists and some other Protestant denominations resist infant baptism is because they believe the souls of babies are innocent and that it is for adults to choose a life in Christ or otherwise.
In other words, all this stuff is about what people want or don’t want to believe. That’s understandable. But it’s not some sort of body of specialist knowledge that only panels of theologians are qualified to pronounce on, because real knowledge isn’t in play here. What is in play here is how people want things to be arranged. The ‘Vatican international commission of theologians’ looks remarkably like a bit of hocus-pocus designed to disguise the fact that the pope is just making a political move, giving people what they want. It’s another one of those ‘ignore that man behind the curtain’ scenarios. Maybe the theologians just got together to eat cannoli and chat, and after enough time had passed for dignity, emerged to announce what they’d been going to announce all along. Or maybe they talked seriously about ‘limbo’, but the effect is the same. It’s all cannoli and chat, if you ask me.
Note, especially, the somewhat riotous non sequitur: ‘The theologians’ finding is that God wishes all souls to be saved, and that the souls of unbaptised children are entrusted to a “merciful God” whose ways of ensuring salvation cannot be known. “In effect, this means that all children who die go to Heaven.”‘ That ‘finding’ is rich. But the non sequitur is even better: God’s ways of ensuring salvation cannot be known, therefore all children who die go to Heaven. But if God’s ways of ensuring salvation cannot be known, how can it be known that all children who die go to Heaven? If one thing cannot be known, how can another, related thing be known? Isn’t it all or nothing in this department? To put it another way, why can’t God’s ways of ensuring salvation be known? Because…well, because there’s no one to ask, and nothing to examine, and no publication to peer review, and no experiment to replicate, and no claim to falsify. But if the Vatters admits that about one aspect of god, why do they get to make flat assertions about other aspects? What magical powers do theologians have to make all this kind of thing authoritative? Especially when they don’t even have the papal perk of infallibility.
While they’re chewing over this, does it leaving Limbo in ….. for the moment, now that sounds a rather more meaty discussion.
The Catholic Church never ceases to amaze me. It’s nice to know that all children go to heaven though.
It makes me wonder how they would view it if I were to kill a child. Would this be a good thing because I had ensured the soul would end up in heaven (which might not have been the case if the child had lived into adulthood), or a bad thing because I shouldn’t kill anybody at all? And since I was guaranteeing the child a place in heaven without thought for my own soul, isn’t that the kind of charity without self-interest that the church approves of?
I’ve no doubt that they’ve invested a lot of thought into these questions.
Still, recognising that the “hypothesis” of limbo is not really tenable is a positive start by the church. Maybe they’ll recognise at some time that “God” is a similar hypothesis?
Good for the child, bad for you, I suppose. (I think they call that “double effect.”)
Anyway, it’s interesting that Catholics seem to want to at least pay tribute to rationality by calling what these guys are doing “examining” and “thinking.” In the pope’s recent talk, he made a big thing of theological faculties having a respected place in universities. I really wonder what most universities’ faculties, if allowed to speak privately, would really say about this kind of “thinking.”
It’s really frustrating that religion gets to have this kind of prestige in so many folks’ minds, isn’t it?
None comes to the Father but through me
Fate of the unbaptized?
Ummm er, ummm er, ?!?, Limbo!
Whose ways of ensuring salvation cannot be known
?!?
_____
Careful OB, you are sounding a bit like one of those nasty ‘F’ word people, you know, not all respectful and careful. Just as well it wasn’t an Ayatollah who decided to consign limbo to.. to.. because if it had been an Ayatollah; this piece would be INTEMPERATE.
So do they get out of Limbo, or did Limbo never exist? Is there a moment, a pen-scratch, at which point Limbo stops having been?
Apparently it was never dogma, which sounds terribly liberal, until you consider that it was as catholic to be certain that limbo was real as it was to be certain that it wasn’t. Holy truth is slippery stuff.
Perhaps it is just the consequence of a bottle of vin rouge, but I am beginning to edge towards comprehension of this opinion.. “Apparently it was never dogma, which sounds terribly liberal, until you consider that it was as catholic to be certain that limbo was real as it was to be certain that it wasn’t.”
I feel like Alice.
“it was as catholic to be certain that limbo was real as it was to be certain that it wasn’t.”
And as heretical not to – which suggests a tiny problem with the whole notion of papal infallibility, especially if he’s going to go around changing his mind (or rather changing his predecessors’ minds) in this frivolous way. People have received some sharp slaps on the wrist over the years, for not agreeing with the pope in every detail; now if the pope himself is going to do the same thing, what about all those wrist-slaps? Is this one of those ‘Oh thorry I made a mithtake’ deals? Just – oh, oops? And if Limbo is optional, what else is optional? How about the condom thing? Is that optional? Apparently it’s allowed now for faithful wives whose husbands are HIV positive – oh how kind – but not for anyone else. Will that be getting a rethink any time soon? What about sin? What about the mass? The trinity? Prayer? The bubble car?
Isn’t it (or wasn’t it) dogma that baptism is a necessary condition for admission into Heaven?
The examining and thinking the Church goes through in situations like this is in figuring out how they’re going to change their minds without admitting that they were wrong before. The answer usually involves calling some key point a mystery (such as “[God’s] ways of salvation [which] can’t be known”).
I enjoyed the suggestion in the article that this decision was made to bring the Catholic Church into line with Islams’ policy on what happens to children when they die.
It’s nice to see such a market-based, competitive approach starting to take off, although I do wonder how the Church will compete with all those virgins that the other side are offering for services rendered.
My daughter is pissed. I showed her this (she wondered what I was guffawing at). She has just done her RE exam at school. There was a question on limbo and she now finds she will lose marks for giving the wrong answer. No laughing matter as far as she is concerned.
In my limited knowledge of Catholic theology, “limbo” and “purgatory” have always been on very dodgy doctrinal ground, and there’s always been a sizeable body of theological opinion that they were political creations of the 15th century designed to shore up the sale of indulgences. Ophelia is basically right that this is a political decision on the part of today’s Pope to try and clear up some of the messier bits of Catholic doctrine, although I don’t see why that would be a bad thing and obviously the sneery remarks don’t add anything to this case.
(a useful comparison might be the way in which a leading secular state has recently decided that there is no human right not to be tortured after all, that aggression is not a war crime and that nation states do have the right to interfere in one another’s internal politics, overturning a set of doctrines at least as old as those of limbo and purgatory).
But if Catholic doctrine includes messy bits that can be cleared up by today’s Pope, that raises all sorts of questions about the rest of Catholic doctrine, and why yesterday’s popes did not clear up the messier bits, and what is the difference between the messy bits and the tidy bits, and how anyone knows, and what about the idea that doctrine is doctrine, and what about papal infallibility, and so on. In other words, to spell it out, if church doctrine can be changed by human opinion, then it’s not divinely ordained, so – what does the church think it’s doing then? That’s the thing about religious dogma: it’s an all or nothing proposition in a way that secular thought isn’t. The deity reveals the truth, and that’s that. There aren’t supposed to be gaps that can be filled in by more up to date popes later on.
And the comparison with the leading secular state is not useful, precisely because it is a secular state, and the reasons given are secular reasons, not ecclesiastical doctrine or dogma.
Also, come to think of it, because the secular state is explicitly, designedly revisable. It has a legislative branch, whose only function is to revise by creating new laws. It also has a written constitution and a judiciary that make revision slower and more difficult, but only slower and more difficult – not impossible. The constitution includes rules for revising the constitution.
And the revisions are at least partly democratic and hence accountable: there is a record of who did what when.
None of that is like the Catholic church or the Vatican.
Oh, I am sooo awaiting a response to that.. yawn… well???
Spot on, OB. At least for today you are my role model thingy.
Why do we expect sense and consistency to emerge from delusion and fictitious entities?
The last sensible comments on limbo were uttered by Chubby Checker 40 years ago:
First you spread your limbo feet
Then you move to limbo beat
Limbo ankolimboneee,
Bend back like a limbo tree
Jack be limbo, Jack be quick
Jack go unda limbo stick
All around the limbo clock
Hey, let’s do the limbo rock
“How about the condom thing? Is that optional? Apparently it’s allowed now for faithful wives whose husbands are HIV positive – oh how kind – but not for anyone else.”
Yes, but didn’t you get that from the Johann Hari piece where he also says “In the past year, I have sat in two Catholic churches thousands of miles apart and listened while a Catholic priest told illiterate people with no alternative sources of information that condoms come pre-infected with AIDS and are the reason people die of it.”?
So, condoms don’t prevent AIDS, they actively give it to you, so/but we’ll let you use them if you’re faithful and one of you already has AIDS. I suppose they’re banking on nobody noticing the teeny contradiction.
[That’s the thing about religious dogma: it’s an all or nothing proposition in a way that secular thought isn’t. ]
No it isn’t. That’s why the Catholic Church of today doesn’t have exactly the same doctrine that it had in 1514. There has always been room for discussion and debate. In general it is very unusual in Christian traditions for doctrine to be considered “all or nothing” – the Plymouth Brethren do beleive this, which is why they end up splitting into sub-sects so often, but this is very unusual.
[Also, come to think of it, because the secular state is explicitly, designedly revisable.]
Not in any particularly different way from most churches; there is a Vatican Council, a General Synod, etc etc etc for most of them. There is a core of beleifs in every church that would be very difficult to change in any short time, but on the other hand, the same is true of the US Constitution.
In general, Christian churches (and Jewish ones, and most Muslim ones most of the time) interpret their religious beliefs as their understanding develops of the meaning of their religion. Which is a social, political and historical process exactly similar to that way by which non-religious polities adjust, adopt and refine their own doctrines and dogmas. This isn’t rocket science.
I would be happy to look up some references in the philosophy and sociology of religion for you (in return I would expect some kind of promise for you to knock it off with these sneering little references to my points). But the idea that religious belief can’t change over time while maintaining its integrity is an extremist position, not the mainstream.
But the problem, dsquared, is that religious doctrines are supposed to be THE TRUTH absolutely and irreovacably. “I will build this church upon a rock” does not, to me, imply a shifting, political foundation changed through political debate and “discussions” (see also OB’s point about the nature of said “discussions”-conclusions from which are often based solely on who is the best orator and political expediency.)
Your description of how things change in doctrine is certainly true in reality, but the reality contradicts the ideology.
finally, I think that the Catholic Church is fundamentally “different” from the 16th Century church primarily because secular kings and States got tired of being bossed around and because the flock began straying. You can bet that if they had the degree of authority they had in 1546, the excommunications and worse would be continuing.
“Limbo” is not a trivial point of theology-the concept is supposed to “explain” what happens to your eternal soul if you die prior to
Alright, I’ll be the idiot: what does happen to your eternal soul if you die prior to Brian Miller?
“Christian churches (and Jewish ones, and most Muslim ones most of the time) interpret their religious beliefs as their understanding develops of the meaning of their religion. Which is a social, political and historical process exactly similar to that way by which non-religious polities adjust, adopt and refine their own doctrines and dogmas.”
But it isn’t exactly similar. That’s just it. It’s exactly different. Religious dogmas are supposed to be eternal and absolute, not temporary and contingent. If they’re changeable as human ideas change, then what authority do they have in the first place? They’re not supposed to be just another human institution.
As for the sneering references to your points – well, the point itself was pretty sneering, after all. And since I don’t name names, it takes a pretty dedicated follower of the discussion to have a clue what I’m referring to. In short, I don’t think I’m being unfair.
“a useful comparison might be the way in which a leading secular state has recently decided that there is no human right not to be tortured after all,”
Bush and his handlers are deviating from international law in and any sense of decency with these laws. This is immoral and frankly disgusting but is within the sphere of human activity.
The Pope and his theologians are changing their description of what God’s plan for the afterlife is. Or claiming that God has changed His plan for the afterlife. This is fundamentally different.
You are correct that Ratty et al have made a political decision in retiring Limbo. How much of the rest of theology is also politics rather than a correct reflection of God’s plan?
And how does this make theology something that should be taken seriously as any kind of knowledge either of God or for Humanity?
dirigible: sine mr Tingey is not chiming in, I’ll answer your rhetorical question: “Absolutely not at all.”
Stewart: I do need to use the “preview” function more frequently. :)
“Religious dogmas are supposed to be”
supposed, as I keep pointing out, by people who don’t understand them very well. This is introductory philosophy of religion (by which I mean, it was covered in the eight week undergraduate course I took twelve years ago). It’s just not true that every single piece of doctrine has to be unchangeable. There’s no support for this idea (or at least, very little support; the Plymouth Brethren are a religion) in actual religions as they’re practised, or in the concept of a religion. Doctrinal development *is* possible.
[If they’re changeable as human ideas change, then what authority do they have in the first place? ]
The same authority as universities, parliaments and the councils of tribal elders from which they’re historically descended; no intrinsic authority (authority comes from God, not the church), but in practice, the fact that they embody the traditions of the religion and its assembled knowledge of the years, means that what they say should count quite heavily in one’s interpretation of the religion that one is part of. Just as scientists don’t have any intrinsic authority to tell us about their fields, other than the fact that they have probably studied it more closely than we have. This is not a problem for those of us who don’t run a mile at the sociology of scientific knowledge; it’s only because you’ve got an incorrect theory of the philosophy of science that you assume, wrongly, that religion has to be the same wrong way.
[They’re not supposed to be just another human institution]
I’m not sure what work the word “just” is doing there. Since a church is run by humans, it’s a human institution. One would hope (in most Christian traditions, not necessarily in Jewish ones and not at all in some other religions) that the church would have some degree of divine inspiration, but this doesn’t mean that any particular point of doctrine (by the way, “dogma” is an imprecise term which makes your argument less clear, not more. Unless you’re making a particular point in Catholic theology, which I doubt).
I don’t think you’re being unfair; just rather irritating. Just say the word and I’ll consider myself banned from responding, albeit that this will leave you with nothing but strawman opponents, since I see that Merlijn has also apparently given up the thankless task.
“I will build this church upon a rock” does not, to me, imply a shifting, political foundation changed through political debate and “discussions”….
Actually it’s: “Thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will build my church….” The poor saps who were entrusted with my religious instruction gave me to understand that Christ was appointing Peter as head of the Church and that the authority of his successors, the popes, derives from this appointment. So the crucial idea here is that the Church will endure as an institution. But it is authorised to rewrite the rules: “whatsoever thou shalt bind on earth shall be bound in heaven: and whatsoever thou shalt loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven.” Think of it as something like the MCC. (As Voltaire noted you can grasp the idea of eternity pretty well by watching cricket.) Rules can be revised but the game lives on.
Religious dogmas are supposed to be eternal and absolute, not temporary and contingent.
Before the Apostles’ Creed was written, were the statements it contains dogma? Presumably the idea is that they were true, but their truth had not yet been proclaimed. Since the existence of Limbo isn’t one of them I’m not sure what the problem is here. Of course if the Pope were to announce that Christ wasn’t crucified, but died in a battle with the Romans, then one would have to consider the Catholic church a dead institution. In that sense, yes, there is a dogmatic core of beliefs that can’t be revised.
“It’s just not true that every single piece of doctrine has to be unchangeable.”
But does that matter, in practice? If the priest or vicar (let alone the pope) says It Is So, doesn’t that carry a certain weight? And isn’t it intended to carry a certain weight? Doesn’t Authority dawdle in the background? Isn’t that the point of the whole exercise?
If not, why did all those millions of grieving parents believe in limbo all these years? Why is there concern about them now?
In practice, the church has a lot of authority, and it uses it; that raises questions (at least I think it does) as to how it knew about limbo before and how it knows about it now. Did it discover new evidence? Or what?
“Doctrinal development *is* possible.”
I’m not saying it’s not possible. I’m saying it raises questions, indeed suspicions.
“The same authority as universities, parliaments and the councils of tribal elders from which they’re historically descended”
Oh come on. Surely the vast majority of believers think it’s not the same authority but a quite different one, and surely that’s what the Vatican wants them to think. Otherwise (again) why would they believe all that stuff about limbo?
I don’t ‘run a mile at the sociology of scientific knowledge’; there’s a whole chapter of recent book that says as much.
“Since a church is run by humans, it’s a human institution.”
Well in fact, of course, yes, but that’s not the issue, is it. It’s supposed to be a divine institution, not a human one, and the issue is what it’s supposed to be. Either it gets its knowledge of things like limbo from god, or it doesn’t. If it goes changing its story after a few hundred years, it kind of gives the game away that it’s been making it all up all this time.
Not unfair, but rather irritating. Hmm. It seems to me irritation depends on at least a slight sense of unfairness – that sneering, mockery, etc are irritating because undeserved. Anyway, I won’t say the word (at least for now). I would have said it in a New York minute, a couple of weeks or so ago, but you’ve dialed back your own sneering lately, and you’re right, dissenters are needed. Merlijn hasn’t given up, though; he comes and goes; he’s a longstanding reader and contributor; and besides he said more than once he thought my replies were thought-provoking etc; he wasn’t annoyed by them.
“In that sense, yes, there is a dogmatic core of beliefs that can’t be revised.”
But all the others are revisable? Does that mean they’re optional for members of the church? No excommunication for non-believers? (That seems unlikely, when some priests were threatening to excommunicate members who voted for Kerry in 2004. I don’t know if any of those threats were carried out.) Or does it mean only that it’s optional for the pope, but not for anyone else? If that’s what it means, what difference does that make to anyone other than the pope?
Surely the most fundamental of the “dogmatic core of beliefs” is that there is supposed to be a supernatural being, it was responsible for the process of universal creation, intervenes when the mood takes it, and is currently keeping score in some manner regarding everyone’s dirty laundry?
Evidence for any or all of the above being sorely lacking doesn’t seem to alter the irrational adherence of the faithful much…but why should the rest of us really care that one particular leader of supernaturalists (certified infallible since July 1870) has changed some of the window-dressing?
Slightly different nonsense is still nonsense, isn’t it?
But all the others are revisable?
Well, my recollection is that the core beliefs are called the Articles of Faith. If you sign up to those you can call yourself a Catholic. But if I was going to blog about it I’d search the web for a Catechism, rather than rely on my memories of what the clergy had to say decades ago; though even my hazy memories are probably a better basis to work from than a report in The Times.
Surely it’s reasonable to have a list of beliefs which define a particular denomination? You seem bothered by this. I’m guessing that if any brand of Christianity ran in your family, it was some form of Protestantism. As they would say in Belfast, you are a Protestant Atheist rather than a Catholic Atheist.
Incidentally if mere priests were threatening to excommunicate anyone in 2004, I’m pretty sure they were out of line. I reckon you need to be at least a bishop to have that power. Even a bishop would probably need to clear it with the Vatican.
“Surely it’s reasonable to have a list of beliefs which define a particular denomination?”
Well, it depends what you mean by reasonable. It’s understandable, in a way, but I wouldn’t exactly call it reasonable. A list of beliefs is an odd thing, too, especially one decided on by a hierarchy and plucked pretty much out of nothing.
You’re right that I’m a Protestant atheist though. (My great-great grandfather, I always love to say, was a Mennonite bishop. Of course I had seven other great-great grandfathers who weren’t Mennonite bishops.) Fleeting thoughts of Luther and the church fathers and the bible and ladedadeda have occurred to me while pondering this.
Ah – maybe it was bishops. Thanks. I should look it up.
It was an archbishop. (No, it didn’t take me that long; I was doing other things.) At the behest of a lawyer. Here’s the abstract from the NY Times:
“Canon lawyer Marc Balestrieri, who is seeking to have Sen John Kerry excommunicated by Roman Catholic Church because of his support for abortion rights, claims to have letter issued at request of senior Vatican official stating that Catholic’s support of civil right to abortion is ‘heresy’ and person is ‘automatically excommunicated’; Balestrieri says he will now seek to have four other Catholic politicians excommunicated…”
And the Vatican, according to something called Catholic News Service, says no he doesn’t. Apparently Balestrieri tried to pull a fast one – didn’t tell the Vatters what he was up to.
http://www.catholicnews.com/data/stories/cns/0405749.htm
I simply can’t believe there are individuals on this thread that are actually defending such obvious nonsense as limbo existing and then nonexisting.
Either it is real or it isn’t. Either the pope who thought it so is correct or this version of the same is.
It is all obviously BS from the masters of BS themselves. The real shame of it is millions follow this poppycock.
And this is amazing BS:
‘I don’t think you’re being unfair; just rather irritating. Just say the word and I’ll consider myself banned from responding, albeit that this will leave you with nothing but strawman opponents, since I see that Merlijn has also apparently given up the thankless task.’
What you are doing sir is seeking to make a irrational and actually very stupid concept make sense. You can’t. It’s not a strawman to take an argument to it’s base and proceed from there. People like you always pretend there is some grand misunderstanding of some doctrine when in fact it is understood quite well and only those inside the belief seem blind to it.
Go back – not to the beginning, but 1300/1306, and read Dante…..
(For the record, I haven’t given up, I was just on a small holiday)
Ditto – which is why I wasn’t chiming in…
And yes, it is (or was) tosh, and so is theology, and no, it wasn’t 15th Century, since “The Divine Comedy” was written between (about) 1306 and Dante’s death in 1320.
A fascinatin piece of SF-fantasy writing, which also gives a good insight into the MEdieval world-view,
And also puts the lie to the factoid that: “pre-Columbus (or whoever) the world was beleived to be flat.”
Since Mount Purgatory is at the antipodes of Jerusalem in Dante’s universe.
I recommend the Dorothy L. Sayers’ translation, since it has superb footnotes and explanations and diagrams (I first read Cantica I when I was 9, and it must have helped me realise that all this christianity was just made up.)
Incidentally, the account given by Ulysses’ of his last voyage to the travelling poets is the source for Tannysons’ amazing and still-disturbing poem ….
Besides – the BBC asks much the same question I asked:
‘But there are those who argue that it is not simply a “hypothesis” that can just be swept aside; that the notion that unbaptised children do not go to heaven has been a fundamental part of Church teaching for hundreds of years.
Then, of course, there is the argument that if this can be abolished, what else is disposable?’
So is dsquared telling off the BBC too? Or just me? If it’s the latter, I’m chuffed: I must be more important than the Beeb.
I will happily agree that in the limited field of “weblogs I read”, this one is more important than the BBC site, which I in general don’t read.
I’d love to think that my ordering were of more general importance, not least because you seem to now be more concerned with what I think than the answer to the actual question, which is discussed at length on that piece, and the implicit ordering of [the BBC, you, the Pope, me, God] *feels* so right. But I suspect this may be wishful thinking.
Cackle.
I’m interested in both though. And I note your careful phrasing – the answer to the actual question is discussed in that piece – yes, the answer is discussed; more cannoli and chat. A priest-theologian ‘argues that the clear “doctrine of the Catholic Church for two millennia has been that wherever the souls of such infants do go, they definitely don’t go to heaven”.’ It’s clear doctrine; wherever they go (where? don’t you know?), they definitely don’t go to heaven (how do you know?). Muddle upon muddle. It’s clear doctrine; it’s not known where the souls go; but they definitely don’t go to heaven. And of course no evidence is offered, it’s all just – well, words.
‘the coloured smoke’
Just so. As I said, just like the wizard of Oz.
Hence the need for rude people to point out that it’s just a guy behind a curtain. A guy blowing coloured smoke.