A Series Of Unfortunate Events

Shorter Ross Douthat: Since I have the moral development of a little bitty child, I need someone to punish me or else I will be bad.

Longer Ross Douthat:

A Case for Hell

By ROSS "Hellboy" DOUTHAT

Here’s a revealing snapshot of religion in America. On Easter Sunday, two of the top three books on Amazon.com’s Religion and Spirituality best-seller list mapped the geography of the afterlife. One was “Heaven Is for Real: A Little Boy’s Astounding Story of His Trip to Heaven and Back,” an account of a 4-year-old’s near-death experience as dictated to his pastor father. The other was “Love Wins: A Book About Heaven, Hell, and the Fate of Every Person Who Ever Lived,” in which the evangelical preacher Rob Bell argues that hell might not exist.

The publishing industry knows its audience. Even in our supposedly disenchanted age, large majorities of Americans believe in God and heaven, miracles and prayer.

And if everybody's doing it it has to be right. Either way, it's not surprising that people choose to believe in eternal life and happiness, a Fatherly, omnipotent creator who will always care for them, and that they have a hot-line to this Heavenly Father. Why not? Most people would rather live in a state of hope than a state of fear. If there really is a god, they'll be rewarded for their (supposed) belief and if there isn't a heaven they'll be dead and never know.

But belief in hell lags well behind, and the fear of damnation seems to have evaporated. Near-death stories are reliable sellers: There’s another book about a child’s return from paradise, “The Boy Who Came Back From Heaven,” just a little further down the Amazon rankings. But you’ll search the best-seller list in vain for “The Investment Banker Who Came Back From Hell.”

Ross has a sad. People no longer live in an imaginary, unnecessary state of guilt and fear, and just roll their eyes every time he tells them they're going to hell in a handbasket.

In part, hell’s weakening grip on the religious imagination is a consequence of growing pluralism. Bell’s book begins with a provocative question: Are Christians required to believe that Gandhi is in hell for being Hindu? The mahatma is a distinctive case, but swap in “my Hindu/Jewish/Buddhist neighbor” for Gandhi, and you can see why many religious Americans find the idea of eternal punishment for wrong belief increasingly unpalatable.

I think he's looking for the word "unbelievable," not "unpalatable."

But the more important factor in hell’s eclipse, perhaps, is a peculiar paradox of modernity. As our lives have grown longer and more comfortable, our sense of outrage at human suffering — its scope, and its apparent randomness — has grown sharper as well. The argument that a good deity couldn’t have made a world so rife with cruelty is a staple of atheist polemic, and every natural disaster inspires a round of soul-searching over how to reconcile God’s omnipotence with human anguish.

Oh, for the good old days, when everyone was as callous about death as the god of the Old Testament.

Atheist polemic states that there are no deities, so we really don't wonder how a good deity could be cruel. We just like to remind fundamentalists that their loving god is really mean.

These debates ensure that earthly infernos get all the press. Hell means the Holocaust, the suffering in Haiti, and all the ordinary “hellmouths” (in the novelist Norman Rush’s resonant phrase) that can open up beneath our feet. And if it’s hard for the modern mind to understand why a good God would allow such misery on a temporal scale, imagining one who allows eternal suffering seems not only offensive but absurd.

I think of "hellmouth" as Joss Whedon's resonant phrase.

Yes, Ross Douthat is complaining that the media doesn't discuss his personal and unpopular religious beliefs enough. That kind of self-centeredness is also the attribute of a little bitty child. Douthat doesn't want to let the absurdity and offensiveness of a kind, loving god who sees the sparrow fall but missed out on the earthquake, tsunami and nuclear meltdown to stop anyone from believing. That would be bad because then people wouldn't be afraid of eternal damnation and might have gay sex.

Doing away with hell, then, is a natural way for pastors and theologians to make their God seem more humane.

And less homicidal.

The problem is that this move also threatens to make human life less fully human.

Atheists have license to scoff at damnation, but to believe in God and not in hell is ultimately to disbelieve in the reality of human choices. If there’s no possibility of saying no to paradise then none of our no’s have any real meaning either. They’re like home runs or strikeouts in a children’s game where nobody’s keeping score.

That's right. You do the right thing because you choose to be good. You choose to be good because doing good makes you feel good about yourself and eases the pain almost all of us carry inside; self-doubt, loneliness, frustration, guilt, hunger for love and acceptance. Because we let ourselves feel this pain, we need to ease that pain in ourselves and others. What could be more human than that?

In this sense, a doctrine of universal salvation turns out to be as deterministic as the more strident forms of scientific materialism. Instead of making us prisoners of our glands and genes, it makes us prisoners of God himself. We can check out any time we want, but we can never really leave.

Unlike Douthat's belief system, which sees God as judge, jury, executioner, and jailer.

The doctrine of hell, by contrast, assumes that our choices are real, and, indeed, that we are the choices that we make. The miser can become his greed, the murderer can lose himself inside his violence, and their freedom to turn and be forgiven is inseparable from their freedom not to do so.

As Anthony Esolen writes, in the introduction to his translation of Dante’s “Inferno,” the idea of hell is crucial to Western humanism. It’s a way of asserting that “things have meaning” — that earthly life is more than just a series of unimportant events, and that “the use of one man’s free will, at one moment, can mean life or death ... salvation or damnation.”

We realize that every action is a choice and that we are the sum total of our choices and actions. If we are only good because we fear hell, we will make the choices that we think will make our gods and goddesses happy, instead of making choices that will make ourselves and other people happy. Notice what is missing here? The effect of people's actions on other people. Douthat has neatly cut out everyone else on the entire planet, and reduced all of creation to one thing--whether or not he gets the Official Hebrew God Stamp Of Godly Approval. Once you take other human beings out of the moral equation they become roadkill on your quest for eternal life. That is why it is so easy for good religious people to do bad things.

We could say the same thing about heaven as hell. It gives our life meaning (that is, a goal); our salvation is determined by our belief in heaven (and God) and by our actions on earth. That's not good enough for Douthat. He has to know that others will be punished in the fiery pits of hell, forever. Somebody has to suffer, or else Douthat's life has no meaning. And since Douthat won't be around to see them suffer in hell (or so he presumes), he needs to see people suffer for their sins right here and right now. That will prove that God exists and that He is exactly what Douthat believes him to be. If we could only see more people suffer, everyone will believe and everyone will be afraid of God and everyone will obey God and we will have proof for once and for all that God exists and loves us--as long as they believe in Hell.

And that is why Ross Douthat is proselytizing from the pages of The New York Times, although we are not sure why the Times is eager to pay him for his little sermons.

If there’s a modern-day analogue to the “Inferno,” a work of art that illustrates the humanist case for hell, it’s David Chase’s “The Sopranos.” The HBO hit is a portrait of damnation freely chosen: Chase made audiences love Tony Soprano, and then made us watch as the mob boss traveled so deep into iniquity — refusing every opportunity to turn back — that it was hard to imagine him ever coming out. “The Sopranos” never suggested that Tony was beyond forgiveness. But, by the end, it suggested that he was beyond ever genuinely asking for it.

Is Gandhi in hell? It’s a question that should puncture religious chauvinism and unsettle fundamentalists of every stripe. But there’s a question that should be asked in turn: Is Tony Soprano really in heaven?

No, because he's fictional, much like Heaven. But aside from the self-affirmation, the need for what some people see as Justice is very strong; people who feel they have suffered injustices all their life are overwhelmingly eager to inflict justice on others. Atlas Shrugged is filled with Ayn Rand's cries for justice, her pleas for understanding and appreciation, although with Rand, cries and pleas take the form of arrogant ranting. Those needs don't just go away because we are grown up and seemingly rational.

K-Lo Goes To Confession: K-Lo Go Boom!

Father: Kathryn Jean, what's the emergency? Is it another one of your little abortion protests? Do you need bail money?

K-Lo: No, no, Father. Mama said if I got arrested and shamed her before that Gay-American couple who live down the street just one more time she would refuse to pay for my wedding. She's been in a snit ever since their daughter got married and had a baby. She just doesn't think it's fair that---.

Father: Kathryn Jean, what is the problem?

K-Lo: Sorry, Father, but this is an emergency confession. If I don't confess right away I just know I'll get hit by a bus before I have the chance and then God will send me to Hell because He loves me so much and wants me to be good. Bless me Father for I have sinned. Oh, Father! (breaks down into sobs)

Father: Kathryn Jean, you're starting to alarm me.

K-Lo: Father, I'm having a "crises of faith" just like they talked about in my confirmation classes. (blows nose) Sorry, Father, but I never thought it would happen to me. Mary Catherine Lombardi got to third base with half the boys in the class and I just knew she would turn her back on Jesus, but me? Never!

Father: What happened?

K-Lo: It was the pope, Father. You know, Pope Benedict.

Father: (dryly) Yes, I remember his name, Kathryn Jean.

K-Lo: I read today that he said all countries should have universal health care. He chose Obamacare over the Free Market and Democracy, Father! How could that be? How could the pope choose Obama over us real Americans, Father? How? (sobs) Doesn't he love us anymore?

Father: Now, Kath---.

K-Lo: We're on the same side, Father! We're the good people! Obama is the bad people! He wants to destroy America with his elitist socialism! Mrs. Governor Sarah Palin said that he wanted to kill my grandmother! My grandmother loves the pope! Why does the scary Black man want to hurt my Nana? (starts to hyperventilate)

Father: Kathryn Jean, are you alright? Breathe! Do you have a paper bag?

Kathryn Jean shakes her head and breathes into her purse.

K-Lo: (muffled) I'll be okay Father if you just tell me that this is one of the those horrible "lamestream" media lies. It's all a lie, right?

Father: Kath--

K-lo: Oh, God, will this nightmare never end?

Father: Kathryn Jean, what did the pope say?

k-Lo: He said health care was a fundamental right and the government should provide it. It has to be a lie, Father. Where could the pope have gotten that idea? What's next, give the rich's money to the poor? Feed the poor?

Father: Now that you mention it, Kathryn Jean, yes. Remember that it's easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter Heaven. Jesus wants us to help and take care of each other, and that includes health care.

k-Lo: I--I feel dizzy, Father. Obama--the pope--Obama--the pope---. (begins rocking)

Father: Poor thing. Well, it was only a matter of time. (briskly) They say God works in mysterious ways, Kathryn Jean. Perhaps a little rest in a Catholic institution will do you a world of good. The hurly-burly of politics is such a bad influence on a sensitive soul.

k-Lo: They need me, Father! The boys at work need a member of the gentler sex to support them and take care of them and remind them of their moral responsibilities and be a civilizing influence!

Father: Yes, yes, Kathryn Jean. But a little vacation would do you a world of good. Ah, I hear your mother's voice. Why don't you go with her like a good girl?

K-Lo: Yes, Father. I--I just need to sleep. That's it. Some rest. And then I'll wake up and this will all be a bad, bad dream and I'll laugh and Fluffy will jump up and beg me to take him for a walk, just like every other morning. Good bye, Father! I mean good night!

K-Lo Tweets

Why do I hear f-u within seconds of stepping onto nyc ground nearly everytime? It's not the welcome home I yearn for.
about 1 hour ago via mobile web

Because New Yorkers don't like it when you hold them up so you can bless the turnstile.

Back Away Very Slowly

I just spent a bit of time reading Rod Dreher, and I think I am finally beginning to understand. You know that guy on the bus, the thin one with the shiny, too-formal suit and rounded shoulders? He looks everyone in the eye and has a soft voice and whispers warnings of apocalypse and hellfire. He's carrying a couple of books stuffed with bits of paper for bookmarks. He's desperate to warn everyone before it's too late, and he's creepy as hell. That's Rod.

They're hunting us Christians, he whispers. His soft hands stroke his cheap Bible. The world is collapsing and we're all going to starve. Grow food, he hisses, looking around him furtively. The men in white coats think they're God. They're after me, too.

Please, someone put him out of his misery before he's found curled up into a ball in the corner of his basement, like a pillbug.

The Truth Shall Set You Free

Okay, let's go over this again.

People raise their kids with callousness and cruelty because that is all they know. The kids grow up feeling afraid and unloved.

That makes them feel bad, so they try to find someone to give them what they want--security and love. They turn to parent-substitutes; authority figures. God is a parent substitute. So is the president. This is where the trouble starts, for nobody can go back in time and get the love they never received as a child. They can never go back to childhood and develop the self-esteem and self-confidence that comes from being loved and learning how to love others.

Therefore their search for a parent substitute is doomed to failure, an unacceptable situation that people fight tooth and nail to deny. Admit that your parents didn't or couldn't love you enough to teach you to love yourself and others? Forget that, they'd sooner kill you than admit it. So they try even harder to force their authority to give them what they need. The result is disaster.

There are no gods, no magic, no supernatural world. People would laugh at children for waving a stick and yelling, "Expelliarmus!" and expecting something to happen, yet they don't hesitate to wave a book or scroll and mutter Latin or Hebrew under their breath and expect a deity to listen and obey them. But they need a god, specifically a god who knows them personally (like a parent), loves them unconditionally (like a parent), is omniscient (like a parent in a child's eyes), and will always rescue them (like a parent is supposed to help their child). They will waste a huge chunk of their lives begging this parent substitute for proof of love and attention and never get it, because God is not their father or mother, he is an imaginary creature created out of need.

And people will do the same with the next parent substitute--their political and social leaders. Every president is a potential parent substitute, and we have come to speak of the presidency in parental terms. They must protect us and take care of us and tell us right from wrong. They must punish us when we're bad and reward us when we're good. But they aren't our parents, they are people with the same problems and issues that we have. They, too, are looking for safety and love. They, too, are damaged. But they are very, very rich, and can harm a lot of people while avoiding their own pain, by starting wars to feel safe and protecting their fellow elites to feel loved.

So here we are, debating whom the stimulus will help when we ought to know that the stimulus will help the elites feel safe and protected. We debate who created us, when we already know in our hearts. We fight and lie and deny, deny, deny--anything to avoid the simple truth. It's a tremendously painful truth that offers us nothing but more pain and hard work in the beginning, but it is the truth, and in the end that is the only thing that will set us free to love.

More K-Lo

Kathryn Jean Lopez on Mel Gibson on women: In a day when “Take Your Rosaries Off My Ovaries” is an often-heard chorus in mainstream abortion debates, Mel Gibson’s understanding of women and his articulation of their unique mission could have remarkable repercussions. This new—or old, inasmuch as it is natural and commonsensical—kind of feminism, a focus on the different contributions of men and women and the different ways they live their missions, should make us all rethink how we live and love."

Mel Gibson on women: "What are you looking at, sugar tits?"

The Scent of Stupid Is In The Ether

Since my brain is too sluggish today to finish my League of Extraordinary Bloggers, how about a little hit-and-run?

Andrew Sullivan loves him some Jesus.

What I meant by the lack of choice [in belief] is that there have been moments in my life when I have indeed sensed the loss of faith or its slackening or, at one moment, its inversion. But even in its inversion - fifteen interminable minutes when I didn't wonder if God existed, but if God really was evil - the despair was lifted by a force greater than my own.
What has kept me believing is not, as I have experienced it, a conscious act of will. It is more an acceptance of God's grace. My experience of Jesus will not let go of me, however much I would like to let go of it. This element of faith - its involuntary pull as well as its voluntary push - is how I have found it.
One can only describe here and say: this is what human life is like.
I mean no more than that, but the internal wrestling never ends. The search for truth must always be first; and religion is nothing if it is not true. Which is why doubt can never be a danger. Banishing doubt is the danger.

Sullivan believes that belief is not a choice because he chooses to believe that God is giving him belief. Sigh. No wonder he's been so wrong about so much.

But thanks to Sully I saw this by Kathryn Jean Lopez:

After a morning of “Obama!” chants, I would have loved to hear some of the crowd — or the president-to-be — join Warren in praying the Lord’s Prayer.

Alas.

The crowd got into the Rev. Joseph Lowery’s much more entertaining (and controversial) closing prayer, which invited affirmation rather than supplication from those gathered. That prayer went down easier than Warren’s. But we’re not always that into Him when we’re thinking about us.

In a town of doers, it’s easy to forget Him, especially when your daily schedule is all about you — your campaign, your vote, your speech, your award.

But we need to be. Washington ought to take to heart not only the unintentional act of humility we witnessed surrounding the oath of office during the inauguration of the 44th president of the United States, but some of the parting words of the 43rd.

During his final press conference, President George W. Bush, reflecting on his time in office said: “The phrase ‘burdens of the office’ is overstated.”

“Oh, the burdens,” he mocked. “Why did the financial collapse have to happen on my watch?” He dismissed the “Why me?” question. Bush dismissed that question as “self pity.” “It’s just — it’s pathetic, isn’t it?”

Such a manly statement of responsibility and gratitude — and if you heard the whole thing, you know that he knew it was a great privilege to serve — should be an admonishment and a warning to a city of people who stand proud, but should also be willing to drop to their knees asking for forgiveness and, always, humility.

Yes, it is patheic. She believes what she wants to believe, just like Sullivan. The only difference is Sullivan is a bit smarter than Lopez. But then, aren't we all.

Well, maybe not. Peggy Noonan:

And there's a broad feeling one detects, a kind of psychic sense, some sort of knowledge in the collective unconscious, that we lived through magic times the past half-century, and now the nonmagic time has begun, and it won't be over next summer. That's not the way it will work. It will last a while.

There's a sense among many, certainly here in New York, that we somehow had it too good too long, a feeling part Puritan, part mystic and obscurely guilty, that some bill is coming due.

It's just something in the ether, not Bush's policies and Bush's Fed and Bush's party. Who could have known?

Little Blessings

I'm not sure why (necrobuckleyphilia?), but the Corner publishes articles by Catholic priests occasionally. They are often about abortion or materialism, and this one's a twofer.

An honest analysis, in the end, will confirm that it is simplistic in the extreme to claim that the current financial meltdown in the United States was simply brought upon us by Wall Street greed. This crisis is, in large part, the result of something much more profuse: a collective chink in our American armor, a flaw in our fabric, a cultural deficit. In the end we have, all of us, built our houses, if not completely, at least partially, on the sand of a materialism, instant gratification, and over-consumption. I don’t believe most people seek money as their ultimate end in life; but the pursuit of comfort and status comes close to that at times and in many ways is even worse. Far too many Americans have built their houses on sand.


An economic crisis like the present means that millions of Americans will experience negative, discomforting and, in many cases, dire consequences. But no expert I know of is suggesting the crisis will reach bread-line proportions. And even it if did, the suffering of such consequences comes nowhere close to the moral gravity of human beings directly targeting and destroying the lives of 50 million unborn babies as has been the case under America’s abortion-on-demand regime.

What is your future and your children's future compared to saving unwanted babies? So what if you are suffering; you have too much anyway, and what about the unborn babies? You deserve to suffer because you're afraid of suffering discomfort which makes you forget about saving the suffering babies.

If I didn't know better I'd say the priests are jealous that God gave the ability to procreate to women and not men, and they will never know the joy and pride and deep connection to one's growing child. Suck it up, dudes. You may wear the skirts but we are God's Chosen.

Megan Quote

Liberals wonder why they are parodied as out-of-touch secularists who mix near-total ignorance of traditional Christianity with a seething, idiotic attempt.

One assumes she means contempt, but with Megan Mc Ardle it isn't easy to tell. Notice the passive-aggressive nature of the slur; Megan isn't calling them names, Megan isn't wondering why they are parodied, she's just "reporting" what others say. In her head. There are many religious and spiritual liberals. It takes a lazy smugness to label an entire group with the same old lies. But lazy smugness is Megan's modus operandi.

Not to mention the fact that "the liberals" aren't the ones who made a complete hash out of Catholic doctrine.

Nice Soul You Got There; Be a Shame To Lose It

From one of K-Lo's inept, leading interviews, this time with Fr. Thomas D. Williams:

God expects more of us than we think we are capable of. He demands selfless, faithful love. He demands that we pardon our enemies and those who have hurt us. He demands that we give from our want, and not only from our surplus. Why does he ask such difficult, such “unrealistic” things? Because he is calling us to greatness. He is calling us to realize our potential and to grow in resemblance to Jesus. Is this unrealistic? If we were left to our own devices, yes. With the assistance of his grace, no.
...

Part of God’s greatness, according to Christian theology, is his willingness to allow people to act without coercion. He assists us, but our lives and our world are truly in our hands. He made us free and respects our freedom. This means that things will go wrong.

Christian religious institutions have a problem: They feel the need to explain why bad things happen when God is supposedly good and loves us, cares for us, and is omniscient. Their response is Free Will; God is good but people are bad, so bad things happen but it's not God's fault. But they also say that God demands we follow his example (Jesus) and obey his laws at all times or we'll go to hell. So God demands we follow his laws which are so rigorous we can't follow them without his help, but he also gives us utter freedom.

You have to tie yourself up in knots to live with the contradiction. You also have to tell yourself that you are inherently sinful and bound for hell unless you hand your life over completely to God. Yet the Church also tells you to live in this life, marry and have children, get a job and tithe. The illogic of it all causes needless anxiety in people. I've seen people weep with distress that they aren't doing enough to worship God, despite their blameless lives. It's cruel.

K-Lo is stupid

Kathryn Jean Lopez believes demons roam the earth, looking for people to possess. (The article is about Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal's participation in an exorcism when in college.) They take over the person and make them do evil things. I understand the Catholic Church is on a first-name basis with demons. The Vatican even teaches a class on demon fighting, something that I would love to take, as a huge Buffy the Vampire Slayer fan. But I'm very curious, which demon possessed "Susan"? As a fellow Susan (more or less), I want to know what is circling the globe, looking for people to seduce.

[...T]he Catholic Church unequivocally teaches that angels and demons are real personal beings, not just symbolic devices of literature and myth (see Fr. John Corapi's article). The Catholic Church has a cadre of exorcists, who teach that demons attack humans and that Christ came to deliver us from Satan's evil rule by power in this fashion. According to the Catholic Church, demonically afflicted persons can be effectively healed and protected either by the formal rite of exorcism, authorized to be performed only by bishops and those they designate, or by prayers of deliverance which any Christian can offer for themselves or others.

Was it Agares, who teaches people to cuss? Vapula, a female demon who teaches philosophy? Yeter'el, who is half human? Furfur, who can be forced to tell the truth if in a magic triangle? Since we're on a first name basis with so many demons, it would be nice to know his or her name. Maybe Jindal can order the public schools to start teaching demonology along with intelligent design.

Although Lopez thinks Jindal needs more seasoning and time to clean up Louisiana from its demon onslaught, she does favor him for a high political office some day. I look forward to the establishment of a Cabinet post in Demon Fighting and Exorcism. If we have an enemy we won't have to go to war, we can just exorcise his demons instead, and he'll be Godly once again, even if he doesn't believe in God. Problems with La Nina? Pray to God and the angels for salvation. Crime? Nation-wide exorcism! In fact, there is no problem that can't be solved without God's help and prayer. Which is why the Christian nations have no problems--or they wouldn't, if it weren't for those meddling demons.

Morality--Reason versus Religion?

This study sounds very interesting, but I think there is a problem with its analysis. The subjects' brain activity was monitored to see if people made decisions based on emotion or reason.

This study, reported in the journal Science, suggests that emotion outweighs reason when fairness is at issue, said Michael Gill, an associate professor of philosophy at the University of Arizona.

In the study, most people's insula (a brain area "associated with emotions") lighted up when making a moral decision, but several people's insula did not.

``What this suggests is that when you see unfairness, it really bothers you, it makes you feel negative about it, and that reaction pushes you away from unfairness,'' said Quartz, an associate professor in the division of humanities and social sciences, in a telephone interview. ``Emotions seem to keep us in check, and some people don't get this response as strongly.''

But aren't they contradicting themselves? People make decisions based on emotion--except when they don't? Because another possibility is that those people have so thoroughly squashed their emotions that their insula doesn't react. People are not acting out of morality, they are acting out of empathy. And those whom the researchers say act out of reason are simply repressing their emotions to the point that they have none.

The Bloomberg article doesn't say if the scientists interviewed the non-responders to find out why they didn't respond; it seems the study might just establish the role of emotion in moral choices.

People often say we need religion to ensure morality, since moral decisions are based on teachings of God's Law. Instead, moral decisions seem to be based on emotion, and I suspect that is the case in all moral decisions, and that we use reason mostly to add authority to our decisions, just as religious people use God as the authority backing their moral decisions. It certainly explains how self-professed religious people manage to avoid actually following religious teachings about hate, money and humility.

Sir John Bull----

John Derbyshire ticks off his readers by dissing Expelled. To explain, he extols the virtues of the scientific method, that crowning achievement of Western Civilization. Take it away, Derb. We don't want to miss a single word.

In any case, I am not reviewing the movie. What I am doing is, heaping
well-justified abuse on the heads of people who, for "sentimental qualms" and
from a position of ignorance, trash scientific method, the greatest achievement
of our civilization.
And uniquely of our civilization. A mature scientific
theory is as much a glory of our civilization as is a cathedral or a university;
and it is uniquely of ours. Other civilizations had temples, universities,
systems of government, literature, philosophy; but only we of the West came up
with scientific method, and the whole world owes the innumerable fruits of that
method to us.
I am a huge fan of Western civilization. Thus, when
people — well-educated people, who ought to set an example for the
general — sneer at and spit on these majestic creations of the human
intellect, I get mad. They are taking sides with barbarism. They ought to be
ashamed of themselves.

Say, Derb, didn't an Arab, Ibn al-Haytham, invent the scientific method?

And he's the smart one.