Because traditional Cherokee people taught me a profound insight that I’ve claimed for my own, “the spirit world takes care of its own business,” I understand arguments about religion to be for amusement only. I still like to win, and any advocate knows that anger is the enemy of clear thought.

So I come out of the chute describing what theologians call “the Abrahamic faiths” (Judaism, Christianity, Islam) as “monotheistic, patriarchal desert cults.” This serves nicely to place the burden of proof where it belongs, on anybody who maintains that the rich mythos of Mesopotamia and Northern Africa has anything to do with peoples who already own their rich indigenous mythos.

When they finish sputtering, my first question is “Which part of my definition do you dispute?”

So it is in the realm of politics with “domestic, dependent nations,” but we are the ones sputtering.