The powerlessness of prayer

A correspondent in a letter to the National Secular Society’s Newsline relates the following:

In a small Texas town, Mt. Vernon, Drummond’s Bar began construction on a new building to increase their business. The local Baptist church started a campaign of petitions and prayers to block the bar from opening.

Work progressed right up till the week before opening, when lightning struck the bar and it burned to the ground. The church folks were rather smug in their outlook after that - until the bar owner sued the church on the grounds that the church was ultimately responsible for the demise of his building, either through direct or indirect actions or means. The church vehemently denied all responsibility or any connection to the building's demise in its reply to the court.

As the case made its way into court, the judge looked over the paperwork. At the hearing he commented, “I don’t know how I’m going to decide this, as it appears from the paperwork that we have a bar owner who believes in the power of prayer, and an entire church congregation that does not!”

Religion and politics

Speaking in a mosque in Amman yesterday, Pope Benedict XVI said:

"Some assert that religion is necessarily a cause of division in our world and so they argue that the lesser attention given to religion in the public sphere the better,"

"Certainly, the contradiction of tensions and divisions between the followers of different religious traditions, sadly, cannot be denied.

"However, is it not also the case that often it is the ideological manipulation of religion, sometimes for political ends, that is the real catalyst for tension and division, and at times even violence in society?"

This is an extraordinarily naïve thing for the Supreme Pontiff of the Roman Catholic Church to say. Throughout its history that Church has been one of the most sophisticated players in the game of politics. Indeed, for many centuries it was a sovereign territorial power, and even today the Vatican City is a sovereign state.

Catholic politics are bloodily enmeshed in the history of Europe. During the Christian era, Catholics have murdered hundreds of thousands of people in the name of 'faith'. No pronouncement which the Pope or any other Catholic priest makes does not have a political subtext. The business of the Catholic Church is to mould society nearer to its concept of a Christian state, even though it doesn’t go to the lengths of Islam in completely fusing religion and government in a pure theocracy.

In Britain, Catholic bishops meddle ceaselessly with key issues such as education and particularly with social policies concerning sexuality: sex education, abortion, divorce, adoption, and tolerance – in their case, lack of - towards homosexuals. They are the enemies of liberalism (anathematised by Pope Pius IX and all his successors, including the present pope, as the spawn of the devil), toleration, diversity, and scientific free thought. Catholicism has always been a conservative, reactionary force.

Protestant churches, too, are inherently political, as is evidenced by the history of the 19^th and early 20^th century battles over the control of education. Islam is an even more fundamentally political religion, and the politics of Israel and of Jewry worldwide are shaped and inspired by Judaism.

There is no such thing as non-political religion. Either the pope is utterly stupid in asserting otherwise, or else he is cynically devious.

Atheist thought for the day

"Most atheists probably wouldn't give a flying teapot what anyone else believed were those beliefs not used as spurious justification for assuming positions of privilege, manipulating politics, obstructing science, discriminating against others, commandeering community schools, proselytising to the young and the vulnerable, lying about scientific theory, and generally trying to manipulate the lives of the willing and unwilling alike."

- MIKE LIM, writing in the National Secular Society's Newsline

Religion gone rotten

Commenting on my previous post, Billy says: "I just dont get this singling out of homosexuals business".


It's quite simple, really. Homosexuals are, by and large, a peaceable, inoffensive lot who just wish to get on with their own lives as they choose and who are unlikely to get militantly aggressive even when viciously attacked.


An ideal target, in fact, for the pharisaical holier-than-thou "thank God/Allah we are not like THESE people" bigots of all religious stripes who seek a public platform on which to strut their superiority to the common herd.


I have been a lifelong campaigner for gay rights. Bitter experience has taught me that the "godly" are my mortal enemies. Not that I wish to have enemies, but all too often there is no choice.


In the 1950s and '60s, the most vocal opponents of decriminalising homosexual behaviour were religious. To be fair, we also received valuable support from some church people who had a more realistic sense of justice than most of their contemporaries. But they were in a minority.


In the 1970s and '80s there was a vicious backlash against gay people spearheaded by the odious Moral Re-Armament bigot Mary Whitehouse and her assorted allies. They were not in the least concerned with the truth - only with smearing those of us who worked for a more humane society with every lie they could concoct.


Now we have the African Anglican bishops who are so obsessed with fear and loathing of same-sex love that they threaten to split the Church of England over the issue, while the increasingly intimidated 'liberals' such as the pathetically casuistic Archbishop Rowan Williams bend over backwards to placate them instead of telling them to go take a running jump.


The Roman Catholics, as always, spout ignorant rubbish on the topic - see my previous post - while studiously ignoring the glaring fact that a great many of their priests are homosexual by temperament if not by practice. The Polish prime minister - presumably a devout Catholic - has said "if a person tries to infect others with homosexuality the state must intervene". Here in Britain, Catholics strive for exemption from equality legislation protecting people of homosexual temperament from discrimination.


In the United States, the paranoid, growingly strident "born again" cultural conservatives - for whom one birth was too many - use frantic opposition to gay rights to rally ignorantly pious voters in support of what they term "traditional American values". The recent success of California's 'Proposition Eight' banning gay marriage in that State was carried thanks largely to black Christians who turned out in force to vote for Obama, after a virulent campaign bankrolled by Mormons - who are dubiously Christian and most of whom don't live in California, anyway.


Homosexuality is, alas, also a burning issue - sometimes literally - in some Caribbean communities where 'rappers' incite their audiences to murderous action against "batty boys".


And now we have amongst us the Muslims, whose preachers and government ministers in Islamic countries such as Iran and Saudi Arabia think nothing of advocating hanging, stoning, and torture for homosexuals, who are fiercely persecuted throughout the Arab world. The hypocrisy of all this is staggering, as in addition to their sexism and male chauvinism Arab men are notorious for their widepread indulgence in homosexual activity. In Britain, gay Muslims live in fear and are mostly unwilling to speak out about their predicament.


It is a strange paradox that a government which has passed several commendably liberalising measures favouring gay people - including the introduction of Civil Partnerships - is unwilling to stand up robustly against these various forms of anti-gay religious bigotry because of a spurious and increasingly discredited doctrine of 'multiculturalism' and 'respect' for beliefs paraded as "religious" regardless of their content and the social harm they do.


In the current uneasy climate of clashing values - a climate largely created by religious bigotry - the besetting sin of the British is a lazy toleration of intolerance.


It is time for us all to wake up and to start tackling this poison resolutely before it is too late.

The need to be right

Debating with religious people, and irreligious ones, on Stephen Law’s philosophy blog and elsewhere is convincing me that the one propensity which unites almost all human beings is the compulsive need to be ‘Right’ – to reassure themselves that their world-view is the only correct one, and that their opponents are not only sadly misguided, but in many cases positively wicked.

What I think I am right about is that this egocentric attitude is a major cause – if not THE main one – of most of the strife and conflict in the world. It is also extremely boring: I do my best, when communicating, to convey my views as clearly as possible – sometimes combatively but never, I hope, aggressively - and to learn from the insights and opinions of others. Unlike many bloggers and other controversialists, I do not seek to beat my interlocutors into abject submission.

I first came across this repugnant debating style as a student, when I remember an earnest young lady saying with great vehemence: “Nothing is absolute! Everything is relative!.“ I am inclined to think she may be right, but I would never assert it with such finality. Nor am I able to bring the dogmatic attitude which many do to the ‘Big Questions’ of whether or not there is a God, or gods; which religion [if any] is the true one; whether the universe was created and, if so, how; the nature of reality; and the mechanisms by which we know [or think we know] anything.

Many of the squabbles around these issues seem to me to be mere verbal hair-splitting. They involve disputes about the meaning and significance of words. They recall the medieval controversies between ‘nominalists’, who said that ‘universals’ such as the abstract concepts of perfect archetypes posited by Plato were simply thoughts inside human minds, and ‘realists’, who maintained that such concepts denoted actual realities which did exist independently of the persons thinking about them.

In that sense, theists who maintain that there is a Creator, and other supernatural beings, are realists, while those who dispute the actual existence of such unverifiable beings outside the minds of those who believe in them are ‘nominalists’.

Taking one of the most profound of these enigmas – where did the universe come from, and why is there something rather than nothing – I am increasingly of the opinion that this is a non-question, because time, space, and existence are all concepts which shed no light on the indisputable fact that we are each aware that we are here. So there is now something, and the question is, was there ever a time when there was nothing? What was there before the Creator God or the Big Bang? Put in these terms, the question is unanswerable for certain. So why not simply conclude that there may never have been a time or space where there was nothing, and that existence is and always has been, eternal – as we are told by theists to believe God is?

That would dispose of the Creator vs. Big Bang conundrum, and we could all of us – theists and non-theists alike - agree to stop disputing over speculative abstractions, and get on with solving the human-made dire messes which abound in this imperfect world that we find ourselves living in.

But I fear it isn’t going to happen. Too many people have a too big self-important investment in being ‘right’. As the historian A.L. Rowse once said, “those who believe nonsense must expect awkward consequences”. Trouble is, the awkward consequences are all too often visited upon those who don’t believe the nonsense.

Does God's existence matter?

Another resurrection from the Anticant Archive:

I am becoming increasingly convinced that it doesn’t. The truth or otherwise of the existence of a supernatural being or beings will never be conclusively decided in the absence of proof that convinces non-believers, and arguments around the topic merely cause bad feelings between people of good will who would be better employed bending their energies in co-operating to solve the practical problems bedevilling the world.

What really does matter is the consequences of religious belief, particularly as manifested in the actions of those who are self-professed disciples of the competing faiths of Jehovah, Jesus, or Allah. The insane hatreds and conflicts generated by these people rend the fragile fabric of peace into shreds, and endanger everyone all over the world, whether believers or not.

It only takes one person or group to make a quarrel; it takes both sides to make peace. It is futile to talk of peace when one side, or both, have no genuine wish for it. This is clearly the present position in the Israel-Palestine conflict and in the disputes between Islamic jihadists and crusaders for Christ. Both sides are stuck firmly in blaming mode, each protesting like Tweedledum and Tweedledee that their battles are the fault of the other. There are well-tried conflict resolution techniques aplenty, but these are not likely to get a look in until both parties to these and other world antagonisms are ready to put the past behind them and to consider the present and future realistically.

While religious myths retain their grip, this seems a remote possibility. And time is fast running out. Whether a Supreme Being - Jehovah, the God of Jesus, or Allah – actually exists or not, His all too numerous fanatical, frightful, hate-filled devotees most certainly do, alas!

Does reason matter?

In view of the fascinating ongoing debate over at Stephen Law's blog with Ibrahim Lawson, headmaster of an Islamic school, on the nature of education and the conflict between faith and reason, I am reprinting an earlier post of mine which bears on the issues:

Reason, we believe – it’s a matter of faith, of course – is what distinguishes the human species from all others. Or, rather, articulate reason: it’s quite clear from observation that some animals possess and use intelligence, and work things out for themselves by a process if reasoning, but they cannot exchange thoughts with each other or with us about it or anything else in a meaningful way, as adult human beings can do.

For centuries there has been an ongoing battle between reason and faith. Religious faith, being grounded in the supernatural – itself a speculative concept – claims human reason as its handmaiden, and always seeks to trump it in any argument. One sometimes feels, in arguing with religious people, that they are convinced they know all the answers: they know them right or they know them wrong, but they KNOW them. Their faith is invincible, so why bother to argue? Does it really matter whether the Earth is flat or globular, or whether prayer actually works? Yes it does; because if people base their actions on false assumptions, awkward consequences are bound to follow - not only for the perpetrators, but also for millions of others who don’t share their beliefs.

Logical reasoning, which is the basis of scientific method, proceeds by testing the probability of various hypotheses against the available evidence to obtain the best ‘fit’. Reasonable people are prepared to abandon even a cherished hypothesis if this is overtaken by a more convincing one. The upholders of faith are not; they know what they know because they BELIEVE it, sometimes against all the evidence. Evidence is not important to them - only faith is. The faith of many believers is grounded in a Holy Book which they are convinced was written by, or at any rate dictated by, a God. The trouble is, there are many Holy Books to choose from, and how do you know which is the “right” one? Jews have the Torah; Christians have the Bible; Muslims have the Koran; Mormons have the Book of Mormon; Christian Scientists have Mrs Eddy’s outpourings, and Scientologists have the works of L Ron Hubbard. A rich smorgasbord of faith! But according to each, theirs is the only “true” Word of God and the others are all fakes. A good beginning for harmonious inter-faith relations!

The irony of it is that, while denigrating reason, the religious use ingenious displays of it to bolster their irrational creeds. Their persistent casuistry is quite remarkable. The Pope, for instance, loses no opportunity to denounce the insolent hubris of the Enlightenment, an intellectual project which forms the foundation-stone of Western democracy and technological progress.

And of course, religious people are the first to avail themselves of the wondrous creations of modern science such as the internet, the jet airliner, and life-saving medical drugs. With few exceptions, such as Jehovah’s Witnesses, they do not refuse to benefit from the very thought-process which they are constantly denouncing as impious. But where would we be, I wonder, if religion had succeeded in stifling independent scientific thought? Still convinced that the earth is flat and the centre of the universe? [There was, and maybe still is, a Flat Earth Society presided over, I believe - ah, there we go again…- by a Mr Huttle-Glank.] Still travelling by foot, or on horse, camel or mule? [“That person who invented the wheel, impious they were, knew better than God, they did; good thing we put a stop to that by crucifying them. If God had meant us to travel on wheels, He would have built them into the human frame.”] Still relying on witch-doctors and herbal remedies to treat cancer, tuberculosis and malaria? Still burning harmless old women as witches?

Which reminds me, apropos of nothing, of the tale about the hell-fire preacher haranguing his subdued audience about the dismal prospects awaiting them in the nether regions. “And there will be weeping, wailing, and gnashing of teeth” he yelled. A little old lady in the front row quaveringly piped up: ”But I haven’t got any teeth.” “Make no mistake, Madam”, the preacher retorted, “TEETH WILL BE PROVIDED!”

Creationism is now the religionists’ favourite wheeze for attacking scientific method. It is a hypothesis based entirely upon faith, not evidence, but they want it to be taught in schools as a possible alternative to evolution – a hypothesis with a great deal of evidence to support it which has stood up for 150 years. I have no objection to Creationism being taught in schools, but not as “science”. It should be taught, if at all, as part of religious studies, or to illustrate the crucial differences between faith-based and scientific thinking.

The more religionists succeed in their attack on reason and its proper use, the more the world will descend into a chaotic, strife-ridden mess. It’s time to call a halt to the religious revolt against reason.

Reason, religion, and reality

Here is another post which first appeared about a year ago and has topical and seasonal relevance:

Discussion of religion is becoming more and more hazardous in the 21^st Century as believers of various stripes all over the world engage in increasingly irrational, aggressive, and violent antics in the name of their faiths. Apologists for the creeds in question, or for religion in general, are fond of saying “Ah! But you see, what these misguided people are doing isn’t the TRUE Christianity, Islam, etc. They woefully misunderstand the lofty teachings of their faiths.” On the contrary - it is abundantly clear that religion makes otherwise good people do bad things.

What, in fact, IS religion? And how “real” is it? I am increasingly coming to realise that religion, like all other constructs of the human mind, has no objective reality outside the imaginings of those who profess it. Of course, the actions religious belief generates impinge, often horrendously and disastrously, upon millions of non-believers; but the reality of religiously motivated behaviour does not make religion itself any more real.

To clarify: unless one believes in Platonic universals, there is no “perfect” archetypal Judaism, Roman Catholicism, or Islam “out there” in the abstract, any more than there is a perfect archetypal Platonic table or chair. Institutionalised religions have history, traditions, possessions, priests and other functionaries, but these do not make the religion any more “real” than it is in its individual living believers’ brains.

Religions are based upon faith, not reason. At some point – however sophisticated their self-regarding arguments – all religions demand the suspension of reason and a crucial leap of faith. They have no room for sceptical doubting Thomases. That being so, they will always attempt to ring-fence their “sacred” doctrines from reasoned criticism, which they denounce as blasphemy or - in the case of lapsed believers - apostasy, and regard as heinous crimes, sometimes even punishable by death.

So even if we confine this discussion to the three monotheistic religions, we are confronted with the spectacle of a myriad of conflicting sects each claiming that they are the “true” brand of the religion in question, and that those who disagree with them are wicked heretics: “My doxy is orthodoxy; your doxy is heterodoxy.”

What is the non-believer to make of all this? In the first place, we should be very wary indeed of taking sides with any religion, creed, or sect against its self-designated enemies of the same or other religious traditions. “A plague on all your houses” is the only rational response. We should seek to confine the propagation of religious dogmas to those which do not incite hatred of other faiths, or of non-believers, and which are privately funded. The state should give no public countenance to, and much less subsidise, any religious education. On the contrary, the state should ensure that all children, whatever their religious or community background, are educated in a cohesive system of national education which treats all religious beliefs even-handedly and encourages children to think about them, and everything else, in an open-minded way.

Above all, we must recognise that what religion means to those who count themselves as believers is the only “real” aspect of the whole business. If Catholics are brought up to believe that theirs is the only “true” faith, and that Protestants are wicked heretics, and vice versa, the results will be as we have seen in Northern Ireland for the past couple of centuries and more. If Muslim youths continue to be indoctrinated with the notion that Allah commands them to prevail over “infidels” by whatever means necessary, all we can expect in the foreseeable future is far worse threats of terrorism and sporadic violence than we have yet experienced. If “twice-born” Christians in the USA and elsewhere believe that a nuclear Armageddon in the Middle East will result in their being wafted up to heaven in Rapture, it behoves all who do not share that delusion to do everything possible to disabuse them of it and to abort any possibility of such a scenario occurring.

It has been said that people who believe nonsense will experience awkward consequences. Unfortunately, it is not only the believers in the nonsense who suffer because of it. Indeed, it is those of us who simply want to be left alone in peace to think what we choose and to live as we wish who have most to fear from religion. As a society, we cannot afford to extend tolerance to the intolerant, or to pay respect to the disreputable.

Does reason matter?

From time to time, I shall reproduce posts which have appeared previously in Anticant's Arena and Anticant's Burrow because I believe that they still have topical relevance.

Because of the fascinating dialogue currently taking place with Ibrahim Lawson, headmaster of a UK Islamic school, on Stephen Law's blog, I have decided to reprint this which first appeared in the Burrow a year ago.

Reason, we believe – it’s a matter of faith, of course – is what distinguishes the human species from all others. Or, rather, articulate reason: it’s quite clear from observation that some animals possess and use intelligence, and work things out for themselves by a process if reasoning, but they cannot exchange thoughts with us about it or anything else in a meaningful way, as adult human beings can do.

For centuries there has been an ongoing battle between reason and faith. Religious faith, being grounded in the supernatural – itself a speculative concept – claims human reason as its handmaiden, and always seeks to trump it in any argument. One sometimes feels, in arguing with religious people, that they are convinced they know all the answers: they know them right or they know them wrong, but they KNOW them. Their faith is invincible, so why bother to argue? Does it really matter whether the Earth is flat or globular, or whether prayer actually works? Yes it does; because if people base their actions on false assumptions, awkward consequences are bound to follow - not only for the perpetrators, but also for many others who don’t share their beliefs.

Logical reasoning, which is the basis of scientific method, proceeds by testing the probability of various hypotheses against the available evidence to obtain the best ‘fit’. Reasonable people are prepared to abandon even a cherished hypothesis if this is overtaken by a more convincing one. The upholders of faith are not; they know what they know because they BELIEVE it, sometimes against all the evidence. Evidence is not important to them; only faith is. The faith of many believers is grounded in a Holy Book which they are convinced was written by, or at any rate dictated by, a God. The trouble is, there are many Holy Books to choose from, and how do you know which is the “right” one? Jews have the Torah; Christians have the Bible; Muslims have the Koran; Mormons have the Book of Mormon; Christian Scientists have Mrs Eddy’s outpourings, and Scientologists have the works of L Ron Hubbard. A rich smorgasbord of faith! But according to each, theirs is the only true Word of God and the others are all fakes. A good beginning for harmonious inter-faith relations!

The irony of it is that, while denigrating reason, the religious use ingenious displays of it to bolster their irrational creeds. Their persistent casuistry is quite remarkable. The Pope, for instance, loses no opportunity to denounce the insolent hubris of the Enlightenment, an intellectual project which forms the foundation-stone of Western democracy and technological progress.

And of course, religious people are the first to avail themselves of the wondrous creations of modern science such as the internet, the jet airliner, and life-saving medical drugs. With few exceptions, such as Jehovah’s Witnesses, they do not refuse to benefit from the very thought-process which they are constantly denouncing as impious. But where would we be, I wonder, if religion had succeeded in stifling independent scientific thought? Still convinced that the earth is flat and the centre of the universe? [There was, and maybe still is, a Flat Earth Society presided over, I believe - ah, there we go again…- by a Mr Huttle-Glank.] Still travelling by foot, or on horse, camel or mule? [“That person who invented the wheel, impious they were, knew better than God, they did; good thing we put a stop to that by crucifying them. If God had meant us to travel on wheels, He would have built them into the human frame.”] Still relying on witch-doctors and herbal remedies to treat cancer, tuberculosis and malaria? Still burning harmless old women as witches?

Which reminds me, apropos of nothing, of the tale about the hell-fire preacher haranguing his subdued audience about the dismal prospects awaiting them in the nether regions. “And there will be weeping, wailing, and gnashing of teeth” he yelled. A little old lady in the front row quaveringly piped up: ”But I haven’t got any teeth.” “Make no mistake, Madam”, the preacher retorted, “TEETH WILL BE PROVIDED!”

Creationism is now the religionists’ favourite wheeze for attacking scientific method. It is a hypothesis based entirely upon faith, not evidence, but they want it to be taught in schools as a possible alternative to evolution – a hypothesis with a great deal of evidence to support it which has stood up for 150 years. I have no objection to Creationism being taught in schools, but not as “science”. It should be taught, if at all, as part of religious studies, or to illustrate the crucial differences between faith-based and scientific thinking.

The more religionists succeed in their attack on reason and its proper use, the more the world will descend into a chaotic, strife-ridden mess. It’s time to call a halt to the revolt against reason.

Blessings of religion

Another example of religious idiocy here.

Nutty, and flaky at the edges

Tony Blair complains that as prime minister he didn't feel able to talk openly about his religious beliefs, in case people thought he was a nutter. What escapes him is that millions of us think he is a nutter regardless of his religious beliefs.

Meanwhile, the Archbishop of Canterbury moans [to a Muslim magazine!] that Americans are deluded by their “chosen national myth...that what happens in America is very much at the heart of God’s purpose for humanity”, and doesn't draw the obvious conclusion. But then he wouldn't, would he?

Religion has nothing to do with it?

Will those who persist in their purblind insistence that religion has nothing to do with US global political and military actions please read this article and reconsider!

Evangelical crackup

In-depth New York Times analysis of the heartsearchings preoccupying the US 'Religious Right' in the run-up to the 2008 election.

A farrago of prejudice

The Chief Rabbi, Dr Jonathan Sacks, has written a book – The Home We Build Together: Recreating Society – which, to judge from the extracts printed in today’s Times, is calculated to raise the hackles of a good many people.

Dr Sacks’s targets are many, and he adopts the scattergun approach. Multiculturalism, he tells us, is a dead duck; it was a fine, even noble idea, but has led to segregation rather than the hoped-for integration. Whose fault this is, Dr Sacks doesn’t pause to inquire – there is scarcely a reference to Islam in the article.

Liberal democracy, says Dr Sacks, is in danger. “Britain is becoming a place where free speech is at risk, non-political institutions are becoming politicised, and a combination of political correctness and ethnic-religious separatism is eroding the graciousness of civil society…..The politics of freedom risks descending into the politics of fear.”

Again, Dr Sacks doesn’t point a finger at the obvious culprit – strident religious bigotry – but discerns a quite different and, for him, a much more convenient target – that tired old whipping-horse of reactionary right-wingers, “the permissive society”. All our social ills, he moans, stem from the wicked 1960s, when traditional Christian morality “conceived as the moral bond linking individuals in the shared project of society” was jettisoned overboard. The first crack came when suicide ceased to be a crime in 1961. This was “the beginning of the end of England as a Christian country, that is, one in which Christian ethics was reflected in law.” It was swiftly followed in 1967 by the legalisation of abortion and of homosexuality.

“Collectively these changes represented a decisive move away from the idea that society had, or was entitled to have, a moral code at its base….Society was no longer conceived of in terms of a moral consensus. The law would intervene only to prevent individuals from harming one another.” The notion that this latter principle is itself a moral code more suited to modern times than inhumane antique biblical injunctions doesn’t seem to have occurred to Dr Sacks.

All this is stale, tired old stuff which was put far more eloquently and persuasively by the late Lord Devlin in his 1959 Maccabean Lecture The Enforcement of Morals, where he equated immorality with treason and asserted that “society cannot ignore the morality of the individual any more than it can his loyalty; it flourishes on both and without either it dies.” This led to a vigorous academic and public debate, and in view of Lord Devlin’s vigorous views it is all the more surprising that he ultimately came round to the view that the Wolfenden proposals for the limited decriminalisation of male homosexual behaviour were in the public interest.

According to Dr Sacks, we are living in an age in which people no longer have roles and duties within a stable social structure, morality is becoming a mere façade, and the only way to defeat opponents is to ridicule them – a favourite tactic, incidentally, of religious zealots these days, who are quite unscrupulous in their misrepresentation of the actual views of non-believers of other faiths or none. If there is no agreed moral truth, Dr Sacks continues, “we cannot reason together….On this account, Western civilisation is not truth but the hegemony of the ruling elite.” Who prevails will depend not on reason but on power. Again, it doesn’t dawn on Dr Sacks that to enforce private morality through the criminal law is a tactic based on power - not reason.

I agree with Dr Sacks in deploring the intolerance of ‘political correctness’ which, “created to avoid stigmatising speech, becomes the supreme example of stigmatising speech”. And I agree also that it was wrong that a Catholic nominee for the EC justice commission felt obliged to resign after saying that his faith compelled him to believe that homosexuality was a sin, although he did not believe it should be a crime.

Identity politics is deeply and inexorably divisive, wails Dr Sacks. I find this a richly comic remark, emanating from the Chief Rabbi of a faith which tirelessly asserts its exclusivity and superiority to non-Jews. While many Jews [unlike Muslims] are ardent practitioners of integration, if not assimilation, by no means all are. I wonder whether Dr Sacks has taken a stroll round Stamford Hill lately? Dr Sacks rightly says that “a culture of victimhood sets group against group, each claiming that its pain, injury, oppression, humiliation, is greater than that of others” – but he fails to add that the Victim card is a favourite ploy of today’s increasingly intolerant religious minorities, each complaining that they are the innocent targets of imaginary legions of rabid atheists thirsting for their blood. All we non-believers are in fact asking for is that the religious should confine their observances and faith-based beliefs to their private lives, and not aspire to inflict them upon the rest of society as Dr Sacks is doing in this polemic.

And I find it especially odd that the Chief Rabbi should ‘come out’ as such an ardent defender of Christian values – which, when all is said and done, differ considerably from those of the Torah. It’s also comic that, like so many backward-looking social conservatives, Dr Sacks dislikes the internet and the “tendentiousness” of blogs intensely. He resorts to the futile old ploy of blaming the technology – not the message - when he questions whether the new culture of instant global communication will weaken the nation-state. I find this a pathetic argument. Myself, I strongly believe that humanity would be far more peaceful and less crime-ridden if the art of kindling fire had never been discovered and the wheel and never been invented. Then, we would all be far too busy keeping ourselves and each other warm with our body heat, and trudging slowly and painfully a few miles a day, to get up to all the immorality, crime, and other mayhem which so appals Godbotherers like Dr Sacks.

Celestial figleaf

The following comment on yet another of CiF's interminable threads lambasting Richard Dawkins neatly encapsulates my own view of the Deity:

"I had a friend who prayed all night and in the morning told me that God had told her it was okay to seduce another friend's fiance, because he was destined for her. God serves man, as one would expect of a deity brewed in the depths of our minds: a figleaf for all seasons, a justification for every act."

The Gospel according to St. Dubya

Read this and be afraid. Be very, very afraid. Because this is the most powerful man in the world.....

Was Hitler an atheist?

The claim that Hitler and Stalin were atheists, and committed their crimes against humanity because of their lack of belief in a Deity, is not borne out by Hitler's own writings and speeches, which are peppered with references to God and His divine plans for the German people. Unless Hitler was a completely cynical hypocrite, he must have believed at least some of this. He had been, after all, brought up as a Catholic.

For instance, after the Reichstag fire Hitler, with Goering, Goebbels and von Papen, inspected the smouldering ruins and said to Sefton Delmer, the Daily Express correspondent who was also present, "This is a God-given signal, and if this fire, as I believe, turns out to be the handiwork of Communists, then there is nothing that shall stop us now crushing out this murder pest with an iron fist. You are witnessing the beginning of a great new epoch in German history."