There’s been more bad news for God (or should that be Gods?) this week? The kidnapping of 90 Syrian christians, explosions in Nigeria, a man to be beheaded for apostasy in Saudi Arabia and then the Church of England blasting exploitative employers who rip off their employees by paying poverty wages, only to be exposed as exploitative employers themselves. Oh how the Sun, Mail, Times and Telegraph celebrated the last bit. There’s not much to celebrate with the rest.
I go by the adage that you should live and let live and that if someone has a God, then good luck to them, so long as they don’t let their beliefs interfere with my world. For example, if you don’t believe in abortion, then don’t have one. If the laws of the land don’t fit in with your religious views, then it’s just too bad. There are plenty of countries around the world that have different belief systems and if, for example, you would prefer to live in a country which prevents women from driving cars, then the choice is yours. And if you hate democracy, well, you are really spoiled for choice as to where to go, so why not try them all out?
Saudi Arabia is of course a great friend of ours. And why not? We sell it arms, which keeps our people in work, and we buy their oil, which keeps them insanely rich. And everyone’s happy! I certainly wouldn’t last five minutes in Riyadh, what with my non belief in a supernatural creator, particularly the one they believe in and I suppose my view that women should be equal and that alcohol can be very enjoyable don’t exactly fit in with their way of life (if you can call it that). But hang on, maybe they can make an exception for me? They certainly have for their best mate Prince Charles, the adulteress heir to the British throne. Well, he helps with bringing business and jobs to our country and arms and money to theirs. ‘Anyway’, the Saudis might be thinking. ‘He’s an unelected royal like us, so he can’t be all bad.’
The one thing we don’t do about God is challenge him. Well, we can’t challenge ‘Him’ because the odds suggest he probably does’t exist, but we surely need to challenge religion. Not to ban it – that would be wrong – but explain through reason and science that there might not be anything in it. Teach it, of course, but not by proselytisation, but as part of the rich tapestry of our history. And, it goes without saying, encouragement for societies to embrace secularism, where religion has no special place at the top table or anywhere else. The devout rely upon the next generation to be proselytised as quickly as possible because once children have grown up, barring the odd ‘born again’ moment, adults take the reasoned view that there is nothing in it.
Right now, we have religions pitted against each other, although usually it is only one – islam – that has an unhealthy number of believers who want to kill everyone else.
In other religious news, how sad to read about the three London schoolgirls who are trying to reach, and maybe have already reached, Syria. Whatever they have been told, their lives will be hell on earth. They will probably end up as sex slaves for Viagara-fuelled men and as occasional husbands for the ISIS fighters, living in squalor, surrounded by rubble, with no running water, no electricity and absolutely nothing to do apart from be forced to have sex and have babies. If they live long enough.
I despair of God who isn’t great. In fact, he’s probably the most unpleasant character in all of fiction.
