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Saturday, 20 June 2009

Imagine no religion? Easy!

Religion has contributed to education, politics and morality, reckons the Tory MP Paul Goodman. “It is completely impossible to imagine human life or social life without it.”

Oh no it isn’t.

He was talking about how one in four of the population of Wycombe will one day be Muslim. He seems to think that is a good thing.

In and of itself, there’s no argument. People should be free to practise their chosen superstition (much as they hate it when some people choose not to practise any at all). However, because Muslims tend to be shrill and demanding, it won’t be long before sharia law creeps ever further into Britain’s legal system. All it needs is a concession here and a concession there, and each one becomes a precedent, and on precedent new laws are made.

His talk of how religion has contributed to education, politics and morality is like saying fresh air has contributed to education, politics and morality because people breathe it. Things would have happened without religion, because it’s human beings who have set the agenda.

Some agendas have been set by religious people based on their religious beliefs, yes, and we have some of those hanging about like a bad smell nowadays, such as religion’s propensity for interfering in what people do in their bedrooms.

However, when human beings have thoughts and make laws, they do so as human beings, and call upon a whole raft of reference points and examples. It is not hard to imagine a world without religion, Mr Goodman.

Given that we have religion, however, it needs to be kept in its place: behind closed doors and between consenting adults – just as homosexuality had to be when it was “legalised” (I prefer to think it was still criminal, but with a few exceptions) in 1968.

Religion was happy that that should be the case. But it bleats when the so-called New Atheists dare to criticise it and the toxicity of its influence in so many areas of life.
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Related links:
Norman stormin’ against Islamic courts in UK
Sharia: creeping ever closer
Posted

1 comment:

  1. AnonymousSat Jun 20, 04:06:00 pm BST

    What chance the twit will see your so salutary comment? - that life without religion is absolutely possible. If it is unlikely, could you pass on a copy to him direct? His viewpoint is all too common, I believe.

    ReplyDelete

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