Politics, Art, Religion : Page 281

That truth and error are serious matters becomes apparent when we relate them to religion. This is often held to be so sacred and "touchy" a subject as to be shunned as a topic of conversation. Americans who on the one hand pride themselves on their tolerance, on the other place a sort of conversational taboo on religion. To cap matters, they then complain that conversation in our time does not flourish as it is supposed to have done in the ancient Greek symposia, or in the Johnson-Goldsmith era, or in the French salons. They fear to discuss religion, but they want the kind of conversation that sparkled in the salons of Madame Rambouillet, Voltaire, and Madame de Sevigne!