OK

I had assumed Hugh's post about demeaning others was in reference to my story about the goats, and if you had read it that way then I was ready to resign, but perhaps it was not so and I will respond to this more recent one.

Mr. Drennan has described himself as "cagey," which I take to mean one who loves an argument for its own sake without ever putting himself in danger of an altered opinion. This is served by all manner of rhetorical tricks—the straw man, the facile categorization of all statements, rote denunciation based on false pretenses or partial analyses, and so on and on. I don't describe this in order to demean him, but to show an example of the work of "professional (heavily invested, whether retired or not) believers," whose aim is actually to tie those goats to that imaginary post.

The "imaginary post" of which I write is nothing other than that prized "individuality" that was the topic of previous entries. Because if that proves to be unreal, then the whole theological structure built upon it (the hillock of droppings I mentioned), evaporates.

But the reverend does not seriously want to dig into that question and falls back habitually on "this I believe." All right, then, but there can be no useful investigation on that basis.

~TK