Anthony Grayling replies to the archbishops.

In the foreword to the confused document produced by the religious thinktank Theos this week the Archbishops of Canterbury and Westminster…iterate the claim that “atheism is itself a faith position”. This is a weary old canard to be set alongside the efforts of the faithful to characterise those who robustly express their attitude towards religious belief as “fundamentalist atheists”…We understand that the faithful live in an inspissated gloaming of incense and obfuscation, through the swirls of which it is hard to see anything clearly, so a simple lesson in semantics might help to clear the air for them on the meanings of “secular”, “humanist” and “atheist”. Once they have succeeded in understanding these

Listening to the World Service on the gay pride rally in Jerusalem very early this morning, I heard one peculiarly silly remark, to the effect that the conservative religious ‘communities’ that were making such a fuss about the rally are part of the ‘richness and diversity’ of Jerusalem. That was immediately followed by a ‘but,’ because the person who said it was defending gay rights against religious opposition, and yet – the starting point was richness and diversity. Well – you can call it richness and diversity, of course; you can call it jelly beans and dancing and flowers and anything you like. It’s always possible to dress things up in pretty language to make everyone feel cheerful. But all … Read the rest

One comment I heard more than once in election analysis yesterday was that corruption was a big factor, and that what are (somewhat sickeningly) called ‘values voters’ here had somewhat shifted their concerns from abortion and gay marriage to corruption. Thank you Jack Abramoff. Well about damn well time, is what I thought. That’s been bugging me for years – why are people who consider themselves concerned about ‘values’ so worked up about such comparatively trivial matters (even if you accept their attributions of wickedness) and unconcerned about, you know, massive bribery? Why is gay marriage such a big whopping deal while retail government is just fine? That’s what I was always asking. So I was very pleased … Read the rest