Ross Douthat: belief

Transcript context

…If Bernie Sanders wins, that helps one set of ideas, and all the other complicated second-order effects will dwindle. Exactly, and you don’t know . . . The pundit’s mistake is sometimes to try and think 14 steps ahead, and the partisan mind may have a certain advantage, where it just says, “No, we have to win this election and let the future take care of itself.” That still hasn’t brought me around to supporting Trump, but I think my arguments against supporting him are weaker than they were, again, pending the outcome of whatever happens with the coronavirus. We live in an America that supposedly respects religions. Yet, if you were to try to argue in public that, say, a child were possessed by demons, you would be mocked and called insane, whether or not it were true. Where do you personally draw the line? You respect religions, but are there claims you hear that, when you hear them, you think, “That’s so implausible. It couldn’t possibly be true”? You file it in the insane category the way most people, when they would hear you talk of a child being possessed by demons, would think that’s insane and not required by their supposed respective religions. Do you see what I’m asking?…

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