What the Hell are you talking about, Dennis?

Someone please translate this for me. I don't speak jackass.

It seems Dennis is mad because Christopher Hitchens' new book tells an unflattering story about a stupid hypothetical Dennis once used on him to try to get him to admit that deep down, even dirty atheists intuitively know that religious people tend to be ethical:

This is how the story appears in Hitchens's book:

"A week before the events of Sept. 11, 2001, I was on a panel with Dennis Prager, who is one of America's better-known religious broadcasters. He challenged me in public to answer what he called a 'straight yes/no question,' and I happily agreed. 'Very well,' he said. I was to imagine myself in a strange city as the evening was coming on. Toward me I was to imagine that I saw a large group of men approaching. Now – would I feel safer, or less safe, if I was to learn that they were just coming from a prayer meeting? As the reader will see, this is not a question to which a yes/no answer can be given. But I was able to answer as if it were not hypothetical. 'Just to stay within the letter B, I have actually had that experience in Belfast, Beirut, Bombay, Belgrade, Bethlehem and Baghdad. In each case I can say absolutely, and can give my reasons, why I would feel immediately threatened if I thought that the group of men approaching me in the dusk were coming from a religious observance.'"

As it happens, Hitchens did not relate my question entirely accurately, as hundreds of thousands of my listeners can attest to and as many written sources can attest to. I have always asked the question about 10 men in a dark alley coming out of a "Bible class." I wrote a piece for National Review in 1999 in which I posed this question and wrote "Bible class," not "prayer meeting." And Father Richard Neuhaus, in his journal, First Things, quoted me asking this question about men leaving a "Bible class" in 1992. (I have always posed this question to Americans and therefore assumed the question related only to America, but I did not specify "America" in my question to Hitchens as I did "Bible class.")

I have always specified "Bible class" because I assume that in America, anyone with common sense would in fact be very relieved if they knew that the 10 strangers, all men, approaching them in a dark alley were committed to either Judaism or Christianity and studying the Bible. I never stated "prayer class" because, unlike a Bible class, which more or less confines us to normative Judeo-Christian religions, "prayer meeting" can signify anyone in any religion or even in some dangerous cult.

Yeah! In your face, Hitchens! I mean, "prayer meeting", that could be anything! Quakers, Hare Krishnas, even Santeria. Get serious, Chris. Other religions could be dangerous, but Judeo-Christians are always safe.

Oh wait, a bunch of Hitchens' examples could pertain to Christians. Belfast, Belgrade, Beirut... Hmm.

But wait, Dennis did say AMERICA, and we all know that no American Christians are violent.

Unless we're talking about the KKK... or fundamentalist gay-bashers... or people that blow up abortion clinics.

Can we get clarification on the example? Are any of them dressed in military fatigues? Or holding pipe bombs? Or Chick tracts?

Even atheists would have to admit that in America today, they would be very grateful to learn that those 10 men had just been studying Genesis or Isaiah. One does not hear of many Bible classes with students mugging passersby.

"Grateful?" I don't think so. Cautiously relieved, maybe, unless they were a black guy in the South in the 1930s, or a gay guy in, oh, now. Frankly, I get freaked out by roving minyans of any denomination.

I therefore pose this question to make the rather obvious point that nearly all of us instinctively assume some positive things about normative Judaism and Christianity in America.

A- What if we don't?

B- Even if we do, so what? Some of us assume SOME positive traits about priests and policemen, too. Does that mean that those traits are sacrosanct? Does it preclude priests or policemen from having faults? What does this supposed test demonstrate?

From here, Dennis gets bogged down in more bizarre details.

The most common [secular response] is that any of us would also be relieved if we learned that the 10 men walking toward us in a dark alley had just come from a secular humanism seminar or one on photosynthesis. I fully acknowledge that I would be relieved in such cases as well. The problem with this response, however, is that in the real world, in bad parts of our cities, 10 men are rather more likely to be studying the Bible than photosynthesis or secular humanism or any other subject that would bring us relief in that dark alley.

And plenty of others are more likely to be studying the finer details of Glock repair! What the hell are you talking about, Dennis?

Every response I have seen to this question is an attempt to evade the only honest response. We would all be relieved because when push comes to shove – when we have to make real-life decisions and not theoretical ones – we know that at least in America, the dominant Judeo-Christian values and the religions that adhere to them have generally made better people.

Real-life decisions? When have you EVER made a real-life decision based on whether or not someone goes to Bible study? And, again, so what? Plenty of other belief systems do this too, theistic and otherwise. Is there an actual argument here?

This does not mean that all religious Jews and Christians in America have been, or are today, good people, and it certainly does not mean all irreligious people are bad. It means simply that if our lives were hanging in the balance, we would be inexpressively happy to know that 10 men we did not know, walking toward us in a bad neighborhood, had just come out of a Bible class.

But that is no small thing. And nothing has ever replaced that book and the American religious expressions based on it to make good people in the same numbers that it has.

THAT'S NOT AN ARGUMENT! There's no point here! You've just led us back to your original hypothetical: "Most people (according to me, anyway) would agree that the Bible makes people good, based on the fact that we intuitively trust Bible-readers more than gang-bangers. Furthermore, while other things MAY make people good, they aren't as popular. Therefore, Bible good." What kind of logic is that?

And if you're arguing that Judeo-Christianity is so great, why are you just limiting it to America? After all, there's that whole Northern Ireland/Orthodox Serbs, Catholic Croats/Christian Phalangists thing. Ask some people there about your Bible study example and see what they say.

If this hypothetical only really works (to the degree it does at all) in the U.S., exactly what have you demonstrated? American Christianity's Number One?