One of the most important principles of civilized culture is that each group which subscribes to, participates in and benefits from the broader civilization— be it religious, cultural, ethnic— cleans up its own mess before it spills over into the larger populace and causes intracivilization conflicts between subgroups.
Islam fails on that count, and hence it does not have my respect. I think it is a juvenile form of anthropomorphism dreamt up by 14 year old boys trying to figure out how to get laid. The best that can be said about it is that it got the tribes of the Arabian peninsula beyond their various forms of nativist polytheism and into monotheism, at which point you have a basis for the rule of law and the beginning of civilization.
Now let’s look at little Danny from NutChaser Hill’s religious CV: “I’m Jewish by birth, agnostic by choice, and I have a strong interest in Jediism and Greek Mythology.”
Essentially Danny is saying: I was raised monotheistic but I’m not so sure anymore, and to the degree I do entertain metaphysical thoughts I prefer “Jediism” (pantheism) and Greek Mythology (polytheism).
Actually, Danny is a parasite. The benefits to the larger society of monotheism and nontheistic rationalism are well known. Danny embraces neither of these. He’s somewhere back around 4500 years ago, released from the responsibilities that come with being an adult in the modern world.
Entire books rarely impress me, but there are chapters within books that I read and reread. The opening chapters of Camille Paglia’s *Sexual Personae* are worth reading and rereading. And when you’re done, you’ll be able to explain to little Danny from NutChaser Hill that unless he (and a whole lot of other people) get their fecal matter together, Islam is Apollo cleaning up the mess he and his friend Dionysus left after the party.
What a woman!