A CLASH OF TOTALISMS

In reading Terry Sanderson's Guardian article on the original sin of religion, and in responding to it (Resisting the polarizing mindset), I was brought back to some comments by Catheine Madsen, who is neither Christian nor atheist, from what I gather. She is, however, a wise woman:

[O]ur obligation to our fellow humans is to make our own point of view not unassailable but intelligible. She goes on (in Learning to converse like adults): [P]ainstaking thinkers of all cultures know each other intuitively across the boundaries of opposition. Totalitarians do not like them; indeed they are always at risk from the totalitarians in their own culture as well as those in the enemy's. In spite of this - or because of it- they are determined to construct a trustworthy language, a language dense and durable enough to resist the corruptions of politics.