I am posting this link as a public service, as certain of my f-list might be interested in it. I am thinking in particular of the one person who recently said something along the lines that she was more comfortable "admitting to being bisexual than being atheist".



* stops *

* reads the above paragraph again *

Hmm. I'm doing it too, aren't I? I'm being apologetic and cagey about my lack of religion. OK, so I self define as agnostic for semantic reasons (if someone gives me hard evidence for the existence of God, I'll not argue and change my mind about it, I am therefore technically undecided on the matter), but by lay definitions I probably class as atheist. I'm certainly very much against organised religion and it's pernicious influence on everything from the school my daughter goes to, to whether or not my friends can have a partnership with the same legal status as marriage. So why do I hesitate to add that logo to my blog?

I suspect it's to do with social embarrassment. A wish to not offend my religious friends. A wish to not shove my lack of religion in their faces, in gratitude for them not shoving their religion in mine. Which is a very English attitude, isn't it?

Oh well, I've never shirked from being offensive before, so now is not the time to start. I don't believe in God. I believe that most religion has a mostly divisive and destructive influence on society, notwithstanding the fact that there are good religious people, and they do do good works. I believe that, although I am bang alongside the idea that people should be allowed to believe whatever they like in the comfort of their own brains, things like laws and justice should be decided on the basis of empirical evidence and not on the words in one or other Holy text.

Also, I believe that none of this is incompatible with occasionally liking to break out into song with something from Hymns Ancient And Modern as aural comfort food.

What? I'm a human being! I'm allowed to be self-contradictory ;)