BoPL

There’s an interesting discussion at The Dawn Treader about the idea that freedom requires religion (and vice versa), as suggested by Mitt Romney recently. To paraphrase my argument and that of others, at first blush it’s a statement that makes you think ‘yes!’ or ‘no!’ depending on your leanings. But a little more thought shows that it’s an empty, vacuous statement, because it assumes a definition of freedom without providing one. While it’s easy to think you know what freedom is, when you try to pin it down sufficiently to discuss it you find there’s no consistent ‘there’ there.