What About Norway?

I have to say I increasingly admire and enjoy scientists like Professor Brian Cox, who bring out the wonder of how the world and universe really are – demonstrating that what we know brings with it a deep sense of wonder, which theists imply are missing without belief in their imaginary friend. We know how the world and solar system came into being – we don’t need an organised religion to answer these questions anymore. And Dawkins, for all his militancy, demonstrates the probability that we are genetically constructed to be altruistic – we don’t need a religious tome or evangelists telling us how to behave compassionately either – we just can’t help it.

Johann Hari adds:

For centuries, religion was insulated from criticism in Britain. First its opponents were burned, then jailed, then shunned. But once there was a free marketplace of ideas, once people could finally hear both the religious arguments and the rationalist criticisms of them, the religious lost the British people. Their case was too weak, their opposition to divorce and abortion and gay people too cruel, their evidence for their claims non-existent. Once they had to rely on persuasion rather than intimidation, the story of British Christianity came to an end.

Now [that] only six percent of British people regularly attend a religious service

What purpose does religion really serve any more? Hari has more to say:

As their dusty Churches crumble because nobody wants to go there, the few remaining Christians in Britain will only become more angry and uncomprehending. Let them. We can’t stop this hysterical toy-tossing stop us from turning our country into a secular democracy where everyone has the same rights, and nobody is granted special rights just because they claim their ideas come from an invisible supernatural being.

Does this apply to all practising Christians? Of course not, but the increasingly strident minority who would, as in the cartoon above, seek to turn the clock back, deny science, abuse children for being witches and attempt to force legal opt outs to discriminate purely on the grounds they have an imaginary friend, genuinely do need to be dismissed. They won’t be though – in the age where identity politics rules in the absence of ideology, all the major political parties are convinced there’s marginal advantage to be gained by appeasing this lobby. So watch the rise of evangelical Christianity in the UK, don’t expect police raids on African churches any time soon, and watch religious schools grow an grow, ever (needlessly) dividing people who would otherwise learn and grow up in harmony.

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