So a secularist is “just as dogmatic as the worst religious believer”, according to some prat called Vincent Nichols, the man in charge of the Catholic Church in England and Wales.
This man, who in May last year praised the “courage” of those who’d owned up to kiddy diddling, is quoted in the Guardian – having appeared on BBC Radio 4’s Sunday programme.
So the secularist who wants to see an end to religion’s undoubted privileged position in society is compared to, say, a Muslim who wants to throw gays off cliffs, and is no doubt dogmatic about why that should be a good idea? Sorry, old chum, but that’s what you’ve just said. You’ve just said that I as a secularist am just as dogmatic as the worst religious believer.
Yes, I’ve chosen the extremes, but that’s only what you’ve done with the words “the worst religious believer”.
What about the “worst religious believer” – who is to be found in Catholic circles, of course – who preaches to impressionable kids that they’ll burn in the fires of hell if they’re “sinners”? Isn't that from dogma, too?
I’m sure readers can come up with more comparisons.
Where, anyway, is the dogma in secularism? It’s its lack of dogma that marks secularism out as, well, nondogmatic. Dogma is something laid down by an authority as incontrovertible. Isn’t that what the church does?
All secularism wants to do is get you damnable people out of the public square, free to practise your quaint rituals to your hearts’ content without forcing them on the rest of us through a privileged position with our national broadcaster, the BBC, and with the government, which seems ever more willing to foist more and more “faith” schools on the nation.
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