There’s a tendency in polite society to be so respectful of a person’s religion that it begins to border on the type of indulgent sympathy one might give to the mad. ‘I don’t have religion myself, but I do think a person’s faith ought to be beyond reproach …’ What this actually does is stifle debate about how much a person’s faith ought to have to do with the rest of us at all; and why shouldn’t the individual be able to answer for the institution? These are ‘organised’ religions after all. When people discover that I’m vegetarian they don’t hesitate to ask why, often aggressively ridiculing my viewpoint. I seldom bring it up unless asked, for that reason, but it’s a fair point to debate (though they could be nicer, and I know I’m right). Where religious choice is concerned, people tread much more carefully, as if religion were comparable to race or sexual identity. It isn’t. It’s comparable to vegetarianism, to politics. It constitutes, or should, an informed and conscious choice by a mature, thinking person. A person’s politics can be tested daily, with no afterlife promised for the durability of such beliefs. That sounds much more like genuine faith to me.
If you’ve ever (guiltily) thought any or all of these things you’d do well to read Richard Dawkins’ The God Delusion. Contrary to what you may have heard, this isn’t a book designed to promote hate, though for atheists subject to religious indoctrination you might find hate exists anyway. It rather serves as an overdue rallying cry, dispelling the notion that atheism constitutes a lack of viewpoint, but actually is itself a considered opinion on the provenance of life, the universe and everything. In a world where religious influence in public, political and family life demonstrably damages individuals and communities there’s no bigotry in bringing such powers to task (and make no mistake that religion is powerful, and not an institution cowering beneath the unforgiving glare of SCIENCE). Dawkins has passionately argued that we have a right to intervene, protect communities and keep religion in all its forms out of our lives if we choose. This really is a book about liberation. Oh, and if you think you can bow out of the debate by pleading agnosticism, forget it. There is a particular place in dialectical hell just for you …
