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When people say that religion is only a crutch, I have to wonder what the only means, for I can’t imagine anyone would dispute that a crutch allows us to carry on the business of living, half hobbling but better than without it, while taking the weight off the wound to aid the process of healing. I know that it is invoked only as a metaphor, but it seems to me that metaphors are never only anything.

[...] calling things by their proper names is the beginning of wisdom. That’s a Chinese proverb and they invented writing. The wisdom [...] is that when you get names right, you narrow the gap between you and the thing. The most important tool is your hand and you’d be in serious trouble if there were a gap between you and your hand. So names are important. Unless you’re talking about roses, that is. But only roses.

To go from America’s founding belief that it can form an ever more perfect union to a belief that it can reconstruct another country in the image of its hopes for itself—to cover that distance—does not take long: A politician does it before he tells you that he approves this message. Yet this is not news. From pride to narcissism, the road was long ago marked out by corpses.

We take much for granted [...] and we’re told to do as we’re told, and we agree. [...] I haven’t the time [...] to work out that the earth is basically spherical, but when I see the curve of the horizon from a plane, I believe something [...] that is consistent with what I have been told is the truth [...] But how can we know that we’re accepting something that we ought not to accept, without knowledge of the why?