I don’t know what makes me put stuff like this on Facebook.
Passion is overrated. It is cheap and common. Any jackass can get worked up about what is obviously true and good and want to fight for what they know is right.
Respect is more difficult and admirable. To negotiate for what you believe in while recognizing that your opponent is doing the same, committing whole-heartedly to your position while reserving your deepest loyalty for the mysteries of diplomacy — that constant possibility of breakthrough insight that pierces horizons, transfigures questions, sublates either-ors, and creates new intellectual space ex nihilo — this demands a kind of faith entirely unknown to “religious” fanatics who always manage to be on the wrong side of the stories they misappropriate.
If you see religion as opposed to liberal democracy and science, you might want to consider rethinking your most basic schemas. Religion, liberalism and science do not tolerate each other: they require and entail one another. In fact, they are inseparable — more like facets or dimensions than discrete entities.
(And of course, I had to mention Leviathan and the Air-Pump and The Metaphysical Club.)