By working and living in New York, you are breathing Western civilization, continuously reminded of its benefits and its values.

Because of its exceptional capacity for self-criticism, the West took the initiative in abolishing slavery; the calls for abolition did not resonate even in black Africa, where rival African tribes took black prisoners to be sold as slaves in the West.

Western society is a society of ever richer, more varied, more productive, more self-defined, and more satisfying lives; it is a society of boundless private charity; it is a society that broke, on behalf of merit, the seemingly eternal chains of station by birth.

Monotheism is in its turn doomed to subtract one more God and become atheism

Not only is the West so successful economically, but it leads the world scientifically, and culturally.

Surprisingly one of the forces for secularisation was Christianity itself. As soon as it accepted the idea of a contrary opinion, the moment that European opinion decided for toleration, it decided for eventual free marketing opinion.

I have always felt that many Christians, deeply sincere Christians, support the idea of separation of State and Church and the secularist in that sense as well. They believe that religion should be very much a private affair and should not be given special treatment. The State should not fund churches for example.