Scalia is right to observe that what a person believes happens after death determines his view of it-and therefore, his ethics. It is remarkable that we are the last civilized nation that still puts 'evildoers' to death, and Justice Scalia rightly attributes this to our style of religiosity...Scalia supports the use of capital punishment even in cases where the defendant is acknowledged to be mentally retarded. He also upholds state sodomy laws (in this case, even when they are applied in an exclusive and discriminating way to homosexuals.) Needless to say, Scalia has found legal reasons to insist that the Supreme Court not leaven the religious dogmatism of the states, but he leaves little doubt that he looks to Saint Paul, and perhaps to the barbarous authors of Leviticus for guidance on these matters.

What It Means

This is a placeholder explanation generated by the low-overhead model. It interprets "Scalia is right to observe that what a person believes happens after death determines his view of it-and therefore, his ethics. It is remarkable that we are the last civilized nation that still puts 'evildoers' to death, and Justice Scalia rightly attributes this to our style of religiosity...Scalia supports the use of capital punishment even in cases where the defendant is acknowledged to be mentally retarded. He also upholds state sodomy laws (in this case, even when they are applied in an exclusive and discriminating way to homosexuals.) Needless to say, Scalia has found legal reasons to insist that the Supreme Court not leaven the religious dogmatism of the states, but he leaves little doubt that he looks to Saint Paul, and perhaps to the barbarous authors of Leviticus for guidance on these matters." in the context of "Sam Harris, The End of Faith (2004), Chapter 5, "West of Eden" (p. 157-158 in the trade paperback edition, )" to mean that wisdom is timeless.