Culture envy is a neat term. Thank you.

I pose a few obstructions to Brian being
crowned "king of all reality." No hard feelings...Hi Brian
Brian said several things designed to plug the
leaks in the logic of Biblical literalism.
It would be more Christ-like simply to bear
witness to the truth, even if it meant risking
the ire of some smug Pharisee who guards your
treasure, buddy.

Brian:
"... I think the defining attribute of western culture is that it was born out of the Judeo-Christian religious philosophy."

Why is there only one defining attribute?
Alternately, who are you to be the one
who defines it for all of us?

Brian:
"The US is the pinnacle of western civilization, in just about every category you can think of. This, like it or not, is an affirmation of the Judeo/Christian brand of the relgious thought."

Okay, I like the praise for the United States.
How it came to be so good is still a subject of
some reasonable debate.
"Like it or not" is no substitute for a well-reasoned argument supporting your claim. Seems to me that Judeo-Christianity has many different versions and that yours is a form of fundamentalism -- whose resisters included Thomas Jefferson, Thomas Paine, Benjamin Franklin and several other persons important to founding our country.
Europe is, it seems, in the eastern hemisphere. What is the definition of western civilization to you? What country is the pinnacle of eastern civilization?

Brian:
"One of the reasons so many of the pillars of western culture have been attacked from within by the political left, is that they too, are uncomfortable with the implicit affirmation the American experiment has provided for Judeo-Christendom."

What do you think the Pillars of western culture are? Are you saying our "culture" is composed of our "religion?" Then it would seem you are saying, the reason they attack religious culture is that they think someone is implying the 2,000
-year experiment finally fulfilled its promise
-- with help, of course, from a few agnostics and atheists such as Thomas Edison.

Brian:
"The sanctity of human life wasn't conjured up by some agnostic secularist, it was ordained by GOD and written into the founding documents."

I would say Ha ha ha ha ha ha except it's too sad. The Bible is full of rules whose breakage
can be rewarded by stoning your fellow human to death.

Brian:
"We owe the modern concept of freedom and human rights not to Islam, not to the secularists, the modern "philosophers" [Hume etc], not to the ACLU, but to GOD Himself. And the men who had the wisdom to apply it."

So you're saying God, who is unchanging, required
more than 1600 years to incubate the concept of freedom and human rights? Because until then your precious "Christendom" was one of the big
purveyors of suppression. The authors of freedom
and human rights have had supporters within the
church, but at the same time, their chief opposition was the leadership of the church which
abused its governing authority and led with a superstitious iron hand.

Odd that the plagues swept across Europe just after a wave of cathedral building. Didn't God know about "modern" medicine yet?

I don't want to put any dent in faith, but to
point up the difficulties in faith without skeptical science.