In Which I Make at Least One Concession
Now to ponder Norm’s answer, or parts of it.
But I fear that she’s lost sight of what this discussion is about. It’s not about whether we accept religion, nor even about whether we give it an all-round good report, in which the positive aspects outweigh the negative ones…The issue was about seeing only the bad in religion as opposed to taking a more balanced view. To justify the former approach Ophelia needs the ‘Hegelian’, contaminating move – and I suggest that that is why you find it in her original post, even though it wasn’t her intention. For if you stick with what she intended, then all you’ve got is that for her the bad in religion is more important than the good, overshadows it, and therefore is too high a price to pay. Nonetheless the good is still there, and it can be identified as such and given its due, with everything said that needs to be said about the other darker side. But you have no basis, now, for just leaving out the good aspects as if they were nothing.
I’m still not convinced that the Hegelian, contaminating move is what I need – unless I misunderstand what the Hegelian, contaminating move is, which is quite possible, since my understanding of Hegel is exiguous. But as far as I do understand, contamination isn’t what I’m talking about. I’m talking about the fact that if a particular good of religion depends on a supernatural truth-claim (as, for instance, surely the consolation of religion does), then it is not contaminated but weak, vulnerable, fragile. It still functions as a good in some sense, but at the price of being deluded. Now…there is something to be said for being deluded. (I wrestled with this during the writing of that pesky book. In fact the first thing the book says is that we don’t always want the truth.) But even though there is something to be said for it, it is still being deluded. I take being in a state of delusion to be a high price. Possibly worth it, in some circumstances, but still high. If that boils down to a ‘contamination’ argument – then okay, that’s what I’m arguing.
But that, surely, is how an analogy works. I’m inviting people to think about how we manage to distinguish good and bad in other matters without allowing the bad simply to ‘disappear’ the good.
Yes…But we distinguish good and bad in other matters in different ways for different kinds of good and bad, don’t we? I do, anyway! Bad food is one kind, bad movies are another, bad health is another, bad people are another, bad ideas are another, bad institutions are another. Socrates would probably whack me over the head at this point, but I don’t seem to be able to extract some sort of abstract non-particular essence of good and bad and talk about it indpendent of the kind of thing we’re talking about. I do think a bad person is one kind of thing, and – whatever religion is, is another. Just for one thing, a person has intentionality, so in talking about the good and bad of one person we have to think about how the person herself sorts out good and bad. As Tom Freeman said in comments – consider the patriot who does good things, but does them for white supremacist reasons. Is that a good person? Highly debatable! Or Norm’s Joe. If Joe’s ‘ferocious temper’ causes him to beat up women on a regular basis, do we think he’s a good person all the same? I don’t. I can agree he does good things, but that he’s a good person? No. (I know, I know, determinism – never mind that now!) But religion doesn’t have intentionality. That by itself makes it difficult for me to think about the good and bad of religion in the same kind of way I think about the good and bad of a person. So even if that is how an analogy is supposed to work, if it doesn’t, it doesn’t! That is, it doesn’t seem to help me think about how we manage to distinguish good and bad in other matters.
Finally, in reply to my story of the Polish Catholic who risked her life to save a Jew in danger, Ophelia questions whether the religious belief was a necessary condition of rescue: couldn’t the woman have done the same just through being a good or courageous person, or from a different set of beliefs?…Ophelia ends here by questioning the efficacy of religious belief in moving people to act in heroic ways on behalf of others – and she is now joined in that by some commenters in her comments box. Not only does it fly in the face of evidence collected about the motivations of actual rescuers, and not only does it contradict more general historical evidence about the motivating power of religious belief; there is, as well, a certain (prejudicial) selectivity in only recognizing the power of religious belief to influence people when you perceive that influence to be harmful, but where on the face of things it appears to be for the good, denying that it is what it seems. Isn’t this exactly the sort of fast and loose way with evidence that rationalist atheists criticize in people of faith? There is an air of complete unreality about the notion that religion has never motivated anyone towards the good.
I didn’t intend to question that efficacy in general, but only in particular. I wasn’t making a flat denial that that was what motivated the Polish Catholic, but only asking how one would know. I do think religion can motivate people to be good in general, and I’ve said that in other N&Cs. Still, Norm may have a point. It may be that I do think of religion as more powerful in inspiring domination, anger, hatred, vindictiveness, exclusion, punishment, than in inspiring the opposites – and he may be right that that’s prejudicial selectivity. I’ll have to think about that. (Not that I never have before. But I’ll have to think harder.) I suppose the truth is that I suspect it does. Because of – the evidence of human history; the numbers; the world around us at present. The prevalence of religion compared to the rarity of kindness and good governance. The searching thoroughness of certain kinds of religious sadism and cruelty. I suppose it’s the same with the Polish Catholic. If it really was her religion that made her do what she did, why were there so few people like her and so many people unlike her?
I think that you’re missing Norm’s point on the analogy of religion to people/ideologies again. His most basic point (I think) is that all things can be judged on a spectrum of goodness/badness, including people, ideologies, and religions, but that you seem to want to make a binary judgment on religion: either good or bad.
Now, I don’t claim to know the first thing about Hegelian contaminating moves — sounds like a lovely cricket tactic — but I think he’s saying that you’re looking at a gray picture trying to decide if it’s black or white because you’ve decided it mustn’t be gray. That’s your choice but it’s a silly one.
“but we might claim in response that they are choosing to frame their human impulses of compassion through the medium of a religion which, if seen less fuzzily, would criticise, prohibit or condemn many of those impulses.”
Well, that’s pretty much what I am saying – or, rather, I’m saying that we don’t really have any way to know which it is. I think people think they get their compassion from their religion, and so report it that way, but they can be misattributing.
“that all things can be judged on a spectrum of goodness/badness”
Yes but I don’t think that’s true, because I don’t think ‘all things’ can be judged in the same way.
“you seem to want to make a binary judgment on religion: either good or bad”
No, that’s wrong.
Dave,
I’m struggling to comprehend your whole comment (my failing, not yours), but let me toss this idea out there:
– All of us are the result of evolution that has generally selected in favor of instincts to take care of one’s self and one’s family.
– Humans are capable of forming moral and philosophical beliefs that favor helping others
– As with all characteristics, there is a spectrum of people’s receptiveness to altruism — some people are drawn to it immediately and intensely, while in others, it will never click
Now, considering that, for most people, church is the primary or only philosophical teaching that they receive in their life, and that New Testement Christianity, for example, focuses on caring for others, why is it so difficult to believe that you’d get more kindness to others in a world with regular sunday churchgoing than in a world without it? Even if it doesn’t convince everyone, a weekly philosophy lesson emphasizing altruism seems like a good thing.
“‘you seem to want to make a binary judgment on religion: either good or bad’
No, that’s wrong.”
That was either mean or funny. I choose funny.
I still think that’s what Norm’s point is. Maybe if you could elucidate what would make a religion better or worse, you could disabuse him (and me) of that notion.
It was mean. Tit for tat, for the ‘silly’ comment.
I’ve been elucidating my meaning, in some detail. Another reason for the meanness is that you seem to have ignored the elucidation, and be starting over from the beginning. I felt a certain weariness, when I started to explain why I wasn’t arguing that ‘it mustn’t be gray’ and realized I would just be saying over again what I’ve already said. Saying the good things depend on the bad things in order to be good things at all, is not the same as saying there are no good things.
Maybe I’m a dimwit.
However, I have been following from the beginning, and I was trying to help advance the discussion (which I think is a good one) between you and Norm.
As I understand it, your first post said:
– Religion depends on an untruth
– Endorsing untruths is bad
– Therefore, we should not say anything good about religion
In your second and third posts, I understood you message to essentially be:
– Religion depends on an untruth
– Untruths are bad
– Therefore, religion is bad
You’re saying that anything that relies on a bad thing must be bad. Norm is saying that all things, including religion, fall on a spectrum from good to bad, but your analysis of religion doesn’t allow that.
You say that you can analyze two religions against one another, but not against anything else. I’m trying to follow that.
So …
– two religions posit the existence of God
– Religion A teaches its followers that God instructs them to perform acts of charity
– Religion B teaches its followers that God instructs them to conquer and oppress their neighbors.
– I think that both you and Norm agree that Religion A is better than Religion B.
– Now, ideology C sweeps a country and convinces countrymen to conquer and oppress their neighbors.
– I think that religion A is better than ideology C. Even though it depends on an untruth, it does good things. Ideology C has no redeeming value.
– As I understand your position, you can’t make that judgment because religion is all bad since it depends on something bad. (the “Hegelian contaminating move”)
Maybe I’m a dimwit and am mischaracterizing your views. Maybe I’m helping. I don’t know. I’ll follow up in a subsequent post
As I understand it, your positon that religion is bad and we should not speak well of it depends on these two assumptions:
– that endorsing an untruth is so bad that no amount of good can outweigh it
– that (a) religion must be looked in its totality
In combination, these mean that all religions are bad, but I’m not sure that either would stand up on its own.
Norm (and Hegel?) seems to be focusing his attention on the second — that you should be able to parse out, and praise, the good in religion, while still objecting to the objectionable parts
I think that the first assumption is also shaky, but I’ve given you enough trouble for today.
The reasons for talking about any good aspects of relgion at a particular time are not philosophical but rhetorical. If it helps, you may want to mention it. If someone else mentions it you may want to pin down exactly what point they can make by doing so. Otherwise you may not want to talk about it at all, except perhaps just enough to keep from painting religion one-dimensionally.
Hmm. None of that is quite what I’m saying. The boiling down process makes it simpler and much more definite than what I’m saying. I need more room than that to say what I’m saying.
To reiterate a point made elsewhere; if the Polish lady helps Jews because she believes God has told her to – how is that good? Presumably if God had told her to hand them over to the SS she would have done that instead. Doing something because God tells us to is an abdication of moral responsibility, not a demonstration of it.
How about a different analogy? Jack is an alcoholic and a great poet. When he’s in rehab, he stops writing poetry. When he’s drunk, as well as writing great poetry, he is occasionally violent. Question: Can we see good in his alcoholism?
My present position is that I don’t know an obviously right answer to this question!
Surely the point is not that a person does something because of religious conviction, but whether that conviction is the only possible precursor to the act.
If we can behave in certain ways regardless of religious belief than that belief can offer no special insight or enlightenment and cannot be a precondition for a given action. If the full spectrum of moral behaviour is available to believer and non-believer alike what does religion actually do?
“If it really was her religion that made her do what she did, why were there so few people like her and so many people unlike her?”
I think the above last comment OB made is a vital point to keep in mind. I’m trying to think of other analogies. In his faith-guided-missile article after 9/11, Dawkins said something about religion being like a loaded gun that is left lying around. Such weapons can be used for offence and defence, for sowing chaos or keeping the peace. Suppose there was no really reliable way to construct a vacuum cleaner. Some of them would actually suck up dust and help keep your home clean, while others would kill you by electrocution the moment you touched them. It’s obvious what the difference between those two is (which is good and which bad), but what they have in common is that unless you plug them into a socket supplying electricity, neither will happen. I’m sure it’s a far from perfect analogy, but electricity would then represent religious faith. The important difference then is the undoubted truth that electricity exists, as opposed to the lack of evidence for the truth of religion. Supposing there’s no doubt of religion’s truth and we have 90% of Polish Catholics turning in Jewish children to the SS and 10% risking their lives to save them. Under those circumstances, even a true religion looks pretty shitty. And when (unlike electricity’s proven existence) there’s nothing to back it up and someone still says “look at the people motivated to do good by it” and they’re such a piddling minority?
“When he’s drunk, as well as writing great poetry, he is occasionally violent. Question: Can we see good in his alcoholism?”
Interesting question!
I suppose we could, in the terms in which Norm intends seeing good – that is, noting its existence, without claiming that therefore the alcoholism is worth preserving. Where I have a problem is if the poetry itself in some way depends on the violence – if, say, the great poetry is inspired by the violence. If the two are inextricable. Then I would dig in my heels about calling the poetry a good. At least I think I would.
Rather than talking about “religion” in general, let’s narrow it down to Christianity, which is presumably what this discussion is mostly about. (Although it could fit some other religions, to some extent.)
I think that Christianity is both religion A and religion B, in Whaa?’s terms; it tells its followers to be charitable and also oppressive. A lot of its followers seem to think that being oppressive *is* being charitable.
I think OB’s original point was that, whatever its followers are moved to do under its influence, which is a mixture of good and bad, its basic world view has no evidence or rational argument in its favor, which in her eyes is a fatal flaw. The Polish woman, in other words, would have been better off doing good based on a world view that did have some evidence for it.
At least, that’s my view. One would hope that a reality-based world view would result in more charity and less oppression.
Belief is a motivator for actions. Religion is a relatively complex case (because it’s a belief system, not just one belief). I can decide to click on an internet link that promises me my click will cause a sponsor to donate food to homeless animals. It might be complicated, but I could probably find a way of verifying whether or not my click actually did that. I could decide to join an army fighting a group of people about whom I have been told some very bad things. In this case, too, one could verify whether or not these things were true. If they were, there might be a case for me to risk my life trying to defeat or even destroy them. And if not? Surely it’s transparent how vital the truth is in such a case. And if I’m a Polish Catholic either saving a Jewish child or turning him in on the strength of something I believe, is the truth of that belief not of paramount importance in the morality of my decision? One could (in theory, at least) do independent research to discover whether what the Nazis were saying about the Jews to justify their actions held water or not, but one has no way of verifying whether the religious beliefs that put you either in the Nazi camp or in opposition to it are based on anything at all (with the likelihood against, because of the absence of evidence).
“I’m taking my umbrella because I believe it’s raining. It’s not raining? Oh, I’ll leave my umbrella at home.”
“I’m going to save this child from certain death because I have a belief system which makes it a virtuous act. There’s no factual basis for my belief system?…”
Shaky…
It’s not that none of them would do the right thing without the faith. I just don’t feel safe around the ones for whom faith is the reason.
“To reiterate a point made elsewhere; if the Polish lady helps Jews because she believes God has told her to – how is that good? Presumably if God had told her to hand them over to the SS she would have done that instead. Doing something because God tells us to is an abdication of moral responsibility, not a demonstration of it.”
The “Polish lady” is actually an interesting example; Poland was –and arguably still is- both overwhelmingly catholic and anti-Semite. We could argue for hours about the relation between the two – in my view this Polish woman didn’t “abdicate” her moral responsibility, on the contrary she fought against the grain of society and convention, and maybe her faith gave her, not the incentive, but the strength to do so – but the point is, in a society as religious as pre-war Poland, all debates will be conducted in religious terms. I think that’s where all the tenants of “look also at all the good religion did in our history” fail: there was no other choice at the time when debating of any problem (be it anti-Semitism or the abolition of slavery) but to argue along religious lines.
I guess that what really bother me about what Chris said is that he falls, by thinking so, into a typical theist plot: surely a person should be judged by his/her actions. All the rest is what we French call “un procès d’intentions”. Shielding Jews in war-time Poland was a lot more dangerous than handing them over to the SS, the two actions are not equivalent. It always angers me when religious types try to claim for their faith individual acts of bravery or charity as cardinal Cormack Murphy O’Connor did in his Observer piece claiming as his, in one wide sweep, Abigail Witchalls, all of London after the bombing, and the victim of both Katrina and the Boxing day tsunami! So, in regard to this Polish woman, maybe we should avoid that pitfall, leave it at that and simply give respect to what must have been an extraordinary courageous act.
Chris Whiley says:
“if the Polish lady helps Jews because she believes God has told her to – how is that good?”
If you can’t see how saving others lives is a good thing, then I don’t think we can establish a common ground from which to discuss this question. I’m sorry.
Nicholas Lawrence says:
“When he’s drunk, as well as writing great poetry, he is occasionally violent. Question: Can we see good in his alcoholism?”
I like this analogy, except I don’t follow how belief without evidence is analogous to violence against another person (I assume that’s what you mean by violent). I’m not clear on how this hurts other people. Could you please clarify?
Whaa, if we can’t establish a common ground from which to discuss this question, then you’re the one who will have to abandon it, not Chris Whiley. He’s been establishing common ground from which to discuss things here for several years.
Arnaud,
“So, in regard to this Polish woman, maybe we should avoid that pitfall, leave it at that and simply give respect to what must have been an extraordinary courageous act.”
Sure, in real life, if she’s a real person (I’m not sure if Norm meant her as a hypothetical or had an actual person in mind). But as an example in an argument, no. I do have immense respect for what she did (let’s assume she is real for now), as I do for what the Danes did. But I do still want to think about the questions I have – how anyone knows it was her religion that motivated her, and how one deals with the fact that it didn’t motivate a lot of other people. The Pope, for example, wasn’t conspicuous for his good work in rescuing Jews, or making a fuss about their fate…
But I do still want to think about the questions I have – how anyone knows it was her religion that motivated her
Yes but that’s my point, sorry if I am not that clear. Real or not, we should judge the action and not the motivation. When we get drawn to debate about good and bad, we are already accepting a theistic point of view. (The idea that there is an “evil” stalking the world is a very christian one.) The only things we can and should judge are actions and their consequences. Otherwise we are just seeing people as embodiments of ideologies and we are taking away all notions of moral responsibility. There are no bad or good people, just good or bad actions. By focusing on motivations, we are denying the richness of human experience. Beside, as I said, for a very long time, every moral and ethical problem was posed in religious terms and both sides had no choice but to argue different positions from the same set of texts and opinions. Whatever the message of Christianity was in the origin, it has been lost in the centuries of wrangling and debating (the notion of “just war” is a good example). I would go even further: in my opinion, because of the plurality of views that christian doctrine had to accommodate over the years, christianity is no longer a sound and proper base in which to ground our ethical choices.
But, to come back to this example, let’s try from another angle: we cannot insist that people who do bad thing for religious reasons are still responsible and see, as Chris did, the actions of this “Polish woman” as morally worthless because they are motivated by her Christian upbringing. I know that Whaa’s comment (“If you can’t see how saving others lives is a good thing, then I don’t think we can establish a common ground from which to discuss this question.”) was made in bad faith (no pun intended) but you must admit that Chris invited it. In a public discussion, he would have looked silly and unconvincing.
“Good” and “bad” are slippery terms and there are times when we should refuse a debate or insist on truly neutral grounds. And that means bringing with us our own definitions.
“The only things we can and should judge are actions and their consequences.”
Well, I hope I don’t seem to be missing the point again. But I don’t really agree with that in real life, at least not when the subject is morality, and I definitely don’t for this discussion, where the only point of the Polish woman is to argue that religion motivates people to do good. If that’s the argument, it would be a little bizarre to decide to judge her purely on the consequences – because then how could we draw any conclusions about why she did what she did, and what that says about religion? We couldn’t. We’d just have a bit of behavior. Behaviorist morality won’t make Norm’s case for him.
“By focusing on motivations, we are denying the richness of human experience.”
Really? You think so? I think motivation is an immensely rich subject. And a big part of human experience. Think how impoverished our experience would be if motivation were removed!
OB –
I’m sorry. I should have been more clear. By we, I meant Chris Wiley and I. He asked a question, and I was unable to answer it. I certainly don’t presume to exclude him from the discussion or the site.
Is it a good or a bad thing if an unbelieving but churchgoing Christian saves a Jew from the Holocaust?
The Christian goes to church for the songs and the camaraderie and the moral lessons, but she can’t bring herself to believe. However, the teachings of Jesus ring true to her as moral philosophy, even if his claims to be the son of God seem to outrageous to believe. The rest of the facts are the same as Norm’s example …
She saves the life because she thinks it’s the right thing to do. She came to think that way because of her attendance at church, which, as I’ve mentioned before, is the only philosophical teaching most people receive. Does the baby (widespread teaching of moral philosophy) get thrown out with the bathwater (organized religion) in the posito-materialist world?
‘”When he’s drunk, as well as writing great poetry, he is occasionally violent.” I [Whaa] like this analogy, except I don’t follow how belief without evidence is analogous to violence against another person.’
You’re right. It isn’t. If (probably a big if!) the analogy is any use, then Jack’s alcoholism is analogous to the belief without evidence, and the violence is analogous to the oppression that often accompanies religion. And, in Jack’s case, although neither the alcohol nor the violence actually inspire the great poetry, the poetry comes in a package with the alcoholism.
Pushing that further (and probably too far) Whaa’s interesting example of the unbelieving but churchgoing Christian would equate to Jane, who likes an occasional glass of Chardonnay, after such a glass writes great poetry, and isn’t violent.
My belief (largely without evidence!) is that in real life such Janes also write great poetry after lots of other stimuli – gorgeous sunrises, unexpected acts of love, storms over stagheaded oaks, whatever. If that’s right, then maybe Whaa’s unbelieving Christian would also have been moral if she had read (say) Plato and never entered a church.
And don’t ‘the teachings of Jesus’ come in a rather odd bundle? Eg ‘turn the other cheek’ (agreed) and ‘blast a fig tree if it hasn’t got figs when you need them’ (eh?) and ‘live on air, like lilies’ (mad). Don’t all Christians, except unreasoning fundies, but certainly including norm’s Polish lady, make their own choices?
“Don’t all Christians, except unreasoning fundies, but certainly including norm’s Polish lady, make their own choices?”
We cross-posted there, Nicholas, but on different threads. I was saying, on the other one, that even the people who draw circles around what they claim is beyond them (actually, what’s outside the circles) and, by implication, us, are still making their own decisions about the dimensions of the included/excluded area, even it’s only a decision about who else’s decision to accept. Which makes those of us who neither abdicate, nor decide there’s a point beyond which we must abdicate, tear our hair out because the points being missed are so bloody important.
Whaa, gotcha; sorry I was snappish.
I see what you mean about the churchgoer, but also still think what Nicholas and Stewart say – that the influence of (a selective version of) Jesus joins other influences.
But I will say this – I do think it’s possible that religion can stiffen resolve when things get difficult. I think it does work for motivation in that way – more than it does for initial motivation. Why? Because I think the initial motivation can come from a great many sources all together; but resolve (courage, persistence, acceptance of risk, self-sacrifice) maybe less so. That may be one place where the irrational comes into its own. But – of course – that also cuts the other way.
But all the same, in that sense I can agree with Norm. We agreed on this a long time ago, actually – a year or two ago.
I emailed Norm my comment on Ophelia’s previous comment on his comment on (no, I’m already lost)… and while of course I won’t divulge the contents, he was unconvinced. A handy rule of thumb in life is that if Norm disagrees with you on matters philosophical, stop and think again.
Reading the debate since then, it strikes me that maybe there’s an issue about prepositions here that would be good to flesh out – namely, the distinction between the good/bad in religion and the good/bad from religion. The first relates to the inherent merits of religion, and the second is entirely a matter of consequences.
So, I have no doubt at all that there are plenty of cases in which holding an irrational supernatural belief system has led to people doing more good, and less bad, than they otherwise would have. And I have no doubt that there are many cases of people doing more bad and less good as a result of religion. Whether one of these does in fact outweigh the other – across the board, or for a given religion in particular, or for an individual person’s religion – is of course fertile ground for debate. I suspect most of us posting here take the ‘more bad than good’ view.
There can well be good things that come from religion, as Norm maintains. And it’s in this sense that Whaa’s religion A trumps both religion B and ideology C. But I think we can sensibly consider separately the issue of whether the intrinsic features of religion are good or bad.
As a leap into the irrational is integral to believing in certain things without the support of either evidence or logic, taking that leap diminishes one’s capacity to think in areas pertinent to the belief system in question. As religion generally involves codes of compulsory and forbidden behaviour, such a leap will reduce one’s ability to reason morally (but it may have no effect on, say, one’s ability to plan a camping holiday).
Further, in the case of theistic religions (naming no names) with a set of behavioural rules and performance-related afterlives, the ordinary human sense of right and wrong can be polluted by the desire to obey the all-powerful master, to achieve reward and to avoid punishment. In many cases the rules may point in the same direction as common decency, but they are premised on obedience first and foremost, with whatever moral character they have being secondary – and, in many other cases, debatable.
So the combined effect is to reduce one’s ability to think clearly and reasonably about right and wrong, by putting such matters in the domain of the irrational, and also to reduce one’s motive to do so, by substituting obedience for conscience. Given this, the good and bad consequences of religion, as produced via the actions of believers, are entirely down to good or bad luck, depending on the incidental teachings of the religion in question and their interpretation by the person in question.
While the consequences of actions matter for assessing the good/bad from religion (or any secular ideology), as far as the good/bad in religion is concerned, it’s all about mindsets and intentions and personal virtues. As far as I can see, the essential features of (theistic) religion entail a diminution of one’s status as a moral agent. And that is entirely bad.
(Ophelia – your comment on religion stiffening resolve is dead right, but whether that’s a good or bad thing depends entirely on what the believer has resolved to do. If only Torquemada or bin Laden had been more half-hearted…)
Tom, I know – I entirely agree with your parenthesis. That’s what I meant by the quick throwaway proviso, “But – of course – that also cuts the other way.” That was partly a place-holder for a longer comment I want to make when I have time. Soon.
And by the way I’m pretty sure, in fact almost certain, Norm would agree with that. I think with all this chipping away we’ve chipped away the area of disagreement. To put it another way, if I re-word his point just a little, I agree with it. (How pompous that sounds. But that’s not what I mean. It’s not my personal agreement that matters, but this subject matters.)