You need an argument, and the nature of any argument is that its validity doesn't depend on who <i>you</i> are. [...] When talking about violence, again, <i>the facts are whatever they are</i> – how many people got shot, how many died, what was the color of their skin, who shot them, what was the color of their skin. Getting a handle on these facts does not require one to say, 'As a black man, I know <i>x</i>, <i>y</i>, and <i>z</i> .' The color of your skin simply isn't relevant information.

When talking about the data – that is, what is happening throughout a whole society – your life experience isn't relevant information. And the fact that you think it might be is a problem. [...] Now this isn't to say that a person's life experience is never relevant to a conversation [...] it can be used to establish certain kinds of facts. I mean, if someone says to you, 'Catholics don't believe in hell', it's perfectly valid to resort, 'Actually my mom is a Catholic, and she believes in hell'. Of course there's a larger question of what the Catholic doctrine actually is – but if a person is making a statement about a certain group of people and you are a member of the group, you might very well be in a position to falsify his claim on the basis of your experience.

But a person's identity and life experience <b>often aren't relevant</b> when talking about facts. And they're usually invoked in ways that are clearly fallacious.

Here we come upon a terrible facet of ethically asymmetric warfare: when your enemy has no scruples, your own scruples become another weapon in his hand.

What is the meaning of life? What is our purpose on earth? These are some of the great, false questions of religion. We need not answer them, for they are badly posed, but we can live our answers all the same. At a minimum, we can create the conditions for human flourishing in this life — the only life of which any of us can be certain. That means we should not terrify our children with thoughts of hell or poison them with hatred for infidels. We should not teach our sons to consider women their future property or convince our daughters that they are property even now. And we must decline to tell our children that human history began with bloody magic and will end with bloody magic in a glorious war between the righteous and the rest.