Goodbye Occupy London

There was an amusing Channel 4 News last night in which the increasingly tongue tied anchor Jon Snow fumbled through an attempt to raise the Occupy London movement from the slurry of its own failure.

The night before the protestors had, at long last, been removed from the increasingly fetid steps of St Paul’s. A few arrests, a few photographs, and very few regrets. The posturing poltroons and their pantomime protest have scattered and the sanitation workers have move in. What has been achieved?

Less than nothing.

Any Ideas How We are Going To Achieve That?

The protesters have only succeeded in setting back the anti-capitalist movement to what it was before the banks went bust. The efforts of the campers have been counterproductive, degenerating politically irrelevant street theatre for late winter tourists.

Consciousness raised? Everyone knew about the banks and the inequities of the economic system long before self-important hippies who have forgotten that the sixties were a long time ago decided to educate us. Those of us in the real world have to grapple with negative equity, university fees, unemployment and a health system which is falling apart, we don’t need middle class revolutionaries to tells the system is inherently unfair.

The people energised? At first, with the uncritical backing of the mass media the support amongst non-participants was considerable. But as time went on people began looking to the Occupy movement for answers or a way out of this economic morass, and solutions came there none.

Would You Trust These People To Supply Answers To Complex Problems?

A new way forward was shown? Only if you want to live in a drug riddled commune with no sanitation and open to random violence, all wrapped around with endless ‘right on’ committee meetings and earnest discussion about saving civilisation through hand knitted yoghurt. Never mind the smell feel the sincerity.

At least they made an impact, didn’t they? The only actual impact they made was to help cripple the chapter of St Paul’s, the very people who were on their side and challenging the ethics of our banking system in the first place. Give the Occupy movement a revolver and show them their foot and all they see is a target. But never mind, at least Giles Fraser got a job with the Guardian.

Occupy London found that their encampment had become a magnet for down and outs, alcoholics, drug addicts and those with mental health problems. Wisely the inhabitants of the camp advertised for mental health professionals to help them cope with this situation. They were presented with a very real human problem in their midst and realised that it was beyond them so they brought in people who knew what they were doing. All very sensible.

However, presented with the complexities of international finance, meta-economic principles and global political infrastructures they retreated into slogans, silly masks and face paint and thinking sincerely good thoughts.

There are very real problems in society, political, economic and social. Treating these problems as the launching pad for self-indulgent theatrics is counter productive. Any dyed in the wool capitalist would support the Occupy movement. Despite the fawning support of the Jon Snows of the media world all they have achieved is to convince Joe Public that there is no credible alternative to the guys who screwed up the system in the first place. They even make our politicians look vaguely sensible.

To effect change it is necessary to eschew the attractions of posturing and get down to the hard work of grappling with economic systems and trying to understand the complexities of inter-reacting political motivations and the complexities of effecting widespread cultural change. But then, I don’t suppose that makes good television.

“I Wish To Extend My Deep Regret”

The one good thing with regard to the abject apology made by the president of the United States to Karzai is that it was, as usual with Obama, intensely personal. “I wish to express my deep regret for the reported incident. . . . I extend to you and the Afghani people my sincere apologies.” It is doubtful that the American people are quite so willing to make a wretched act of contrition over what was at most an administrative error.

I Just Want To Apologise - Again

What we in Britain do not get on the BBC is the story behind the burning. This was not the deliberate destruction by the US military of enemy religious artifacts.

The Korans in question were the property of the US military having been supplied by them to imprisoned jihaidis. The soldiers ordered to burn refuse from the jail were not the officials who had confiscated the books, they had no idea they were burning Korans, and tried desperately to retrieve them when the situation was brought to their attention.

The United States military is under no obligation to provide any reading material to its enemy prisoners, the people who are continually trying to murder them.  It is difficult to imagine many armies supplying their violent prisoners with the very written material they employ as a pretext for murder and atrocity. Importantly the military exercised its right to remove the books from its library after finding that were being used as a means of passing messages between prisoners.

This of course is of no interest whatsoever to the BBC. On the Sunday programme yesterday Edward Stourton, during an interview on the subject, gave the impression that the riots and murders in Afghanistan were down to the fact that the American military were not given enough ‘sensitivity’ training. It would seem for some the lack of ‘sensitivity’ by the American military towards those trying to murder them is far more worthy of attention than a religion which sees nationwide riot and murder as a proper and proportionate response to an honest mistake.

Mainstream Muslims Protest

We should remember that those rioting and killing because of the inadvertent burning of the books are not Taliban or Al Qaeda, rather they are what are termed ordinary ‘mainstream’ Muslims .The ‘religion of peace’ seems to operate on a system of proportionality which says, “You burn books, we kill people.”

If Afghan Muslims are unhappy with what happened maybe they should channel their anger toward the individual prisoners who “defiled” the Korans by writing in them.  It is unreasonable to expect that the U.S. military should be compliant with sharia religious law when the most fundamentalist of Muslims are apparently exempt from it.

The unintentional burning would not have occurred if these “fiercely protective of their Islamic faith” Afghans had not defiled the Korans in the first place. But it seems that we are supposed to keep quiet about intentional Muslim defilement of the Koran but make grovelling apologies for unintentional Kafir defilement of the Koran.

So far more than thirty people have been killed in the riots and hundreds injured. This is a normal reaction from within the religion of peace. Most Muslim violence, however,  is deployed against other Muslims. Sunnis and Shiites are constantly at loggerheads and no-one has any time for the Ahmadis. Often these Muslim on Muslim incidents are full blown atrocities involving not only murder but the deliberate torching of homes and ‘heretical’ mosques.

By necessity this means that Muslims are destroying Korans by burning. But this is OK for those who are “fiercely protective of their Islamic faith.”

We should also understand that it is all too common in Muslim countries for articles associated with other faiths to be burned, not in error but as a matter of deliberate policy. In our ally Saudi Arabia it is against the law for Jews and Christians to bring Bibles, crucifixes, or a Star of David into the country. If discovered such articles will be confiscated and destroyed. This is shameful and deliberate abuse of Non-Muslims and their religions.

Don’t hold your breath waiting for an apology, either from the sharia controlled governments responsible or their willing apologists in the West. According to the logic of Obama, apology is the acceptable reaction to this incident because we must accept that Muslims have such an extraordinary ardour for their religion that barbaric reactions to trivial slights are inevitable and wholly understandable.

Meanwhile, in Iran, a Christian pastor sits in the condemned cell awaiting death for the crime of questioning the “Muslim monopoly on the religious instruction of children in Iran.” Despite threats and treatment which is barely human Youcef Nadarkhani, arrested in 2009, continues to refuse to renounce Jesus Christ, repent, and embrace Islam. As a result his death by hanging appears imminent.  The original charge of “protesting” was later changed to “apostasy” or abandoning Islam,- and “evangelising Muslims,” both of which carry the death sentence.

Obama should reflect that after his open profession of conversion to Christ, if he were in Iran in Nadarkhani’s place, he too would be facing the same fate for rejecting the faith of his Muslim ancestors.

Obama obviously cares deeply that some Korans were mistakenly incinerated. Perhaps he should also care deeply that Youcef Nadarkhani might hang.

The Drunk Or The Dictator?

As you are aware I am a simple sort of chap. I am content with this. Not knowing what a Higgs Boson is or being unable to discern the subtle brilliance of Damien Hurst’s aesthetic causes me no sense of disappointment. I have simpler pleasures. The high point of yesterday was the news that my broad beans are sprouting.

Unfortunately yesterday also brought the strong possibility that I will be denied another simple pleasure. It seems all too possible that we may be seeing the end our local MP’s career. Now that he faces three charges of assault it seems unlikely Eric Joyce will be standing again.

Eric "There are too many Tories in this bar" Joyce

“Drunken Scotsman headbutts Tory” is hardly newsworthy, that it occurred in the palace of Westminster is. Eric seemingly headbutted a Tory MP and launched a fusillade of punches at a few others. That at the time he was surrounded, rather ineffectually it would seem, by eight policemen raises questions concerning not only Eric’s sobriety but also his sanity.

Many enjoy seeing a self-serving careerist brought low. Especially so when he is known mainly for his ability early in his career to parrot the party line however ludicrous the position taken by that mendacious mountebank Tony Blair. Eric also has achieved fame for the extraordinary level of his expenses claims, at over £200,000 last year, by far the highest in Parliament.

When we moved to Airth I imagined that one of the simple pleasures in store was being able to vote against Eric.  In my daydreams about this it didn’t really matter who I ended up voting for; SNP, Monster Raving Loony, Tory, it didn’t matter as long as they stood a chance of unseating Eric.

But then I began to ask myself, would I vote for just ‘anybody’?

No, there are a few parties which because of the rank nature of their public pronouncements and stated aims are beyond the pale. Obviously the Lib Dems would have to be excluded.

I am not so simple that I could vote for the party of whom Austin Mitchel MP said, “The Lib Dems aren’t a grown-up party but a collection of middle-class deviants, odds  and sods and those too squeamish, silly or selfish to join one of the two great alternatives.” Who can say fairer than that?

We see just how illiberal and undemocratic the grotesquely misnamed Lib Dems are with the latest plea by Equalities Minister Lynne Featherstone. Ms Featherstone thinks that the Church should stop putting its oar in during discussions about the possibility of legalising homosexual marriage in England and Wales.

Featherstone claims that “This is not a battle between gay rights and religious beliefs. This is about the underlying principles of family, society, and personal freedoms.” Restricting how those with religious belief articulate their views in discussions about the underlying principles of family, society and personal freedom is deeply totalitarian.

Lynne Knows Best

In today’s Telegraph Featherstone talks of ‘debate’ concerning homosexual marriage yet ends her article with’ “That is why you will not find us watering down this commitment.” It is quite clear that she has already made a commitment about how this ‘debate’ must end. Any ‘consultation’ she conducts is clearly about how to implement her desire for homosexual marriage rather than about whether it should happen at all. Scratch a Lib Dem find a bully.

‘Marriage’ is to be redefined, whether we like it or not. The progressive urge to redefine the actual content of words is reminiscent of Orwell’s Newspeak, a characteristic of both totalitarian dictatorships and modern progressives. If words are redefined our thoughts are reshaped, and we eventually become new people by governmental action.

The progressive desire to restructure society involves an assault on individual freedom of conscience. To demand that the majority show ‘equal respect’ towards a minority, whatever the nature of that minority, is to weaken the freedom of expression of the majority.

None have a supposed right to respect or a right not to be offended which can be guaranteed by legislation. It is absurd for one person to claim a right not to be offended by another, if only because the latter person is likely to be equally offended by the opinions of the former. The only way out of this impasse is to elevate one group above another. For the progressive this means privileging homosexuals over biblical Christians and all who hold to traditional values emanating from Scripture.

If we designate one group as privileged over another we not only violate the principle of equality before the law, but the state becomes the arbiter of which beliefs are more fundamental and worthy of protection.

The question is: Would I vote for a drunken failed careerist or a representative of the bunch who wish to dismantle our society and remake it in their own “deviant,” and “selfish” image?

The drunks have it.

Freedom of Religion

It would take the imagination of a Hans Christian Andersen, or a Stephen King, to describe me as an ardent royalist. Nevertheless, I feel constrained to call for three cheers for the monarch.

Recently, at the first public event to celebrate her Diamond Jubilee, Betty Windsor emphasised the importance of Christianity for the fabric of our nations.

The Church has “created an environment for other faith communities and indeed people of no faith to live freely”

Unlike France and the USA, in none of the nations which make up the United Kingdom do we have a written constitution, especially not one which demands the separation of church and state. Nevertheless, in a case of judicial activism a single High Court judge in England has recently effectively banned the centuries old tradition of beginning Council meetings with prayer.

The Queen was arguing in favour of preserving the foundational basis of our value system, whether we acknowledge God or not. In arguing for the retention of the place of Christianity in British public life the Queen was arguing for more than a privileged place for the Church of England. She was arguing for the retention of a coherent value system in the face of fashionable morality and subjective ethics.

When we reject this biblically based value system we take a huge step towards rejection of freedom of conscience. This is clearly seen in the latest pronouncements of Trevor Phillips, Chairman of the Equality and Human Rights Commission.

Religious rules should stop “at the door of the temple."

Mr Phillips has argued that religious rules should stop “at the door of the temple” and give way to the “public law” as enacted by parliament. He cited the example of Roman Catholic adoption agencies which argued that they should not be forced to facilitate adoptions by homosexual couples. Phillips insists that religious groups offering public services have to chose between their faith and the law whenever their beliefs conflict with the expressed will of the state.

Referring to the closure of Roman Catholic adoption agencies which closed rather than be forced to go against their conscience and facilitate homosexual adoption the Thomas Moore Legal Centre said that the Equality and Human rights Commission “would prefer people not to do good, rather than do good on their own terms.”

Phillips said, “To me there’s nothing different in principle with a Catholic adoption agency, or indeed Methodist adoption agency, saying the rules in our community are different and therefore the law shouldn’t apply to us. Why not then say sharia can be applied to different parts of the country? It doesn’t work.”

There are two differing ideas behind what has been propounded by Trevor Phillips which should cause even the most rabid secularist to pause.

Despite arguing previously that Christian conscience should be respected in the public square, in his latest pronouncement Phillips appears to be arguing that the state is a totalitarian authority before which a believer’s conscience must always bow. As with Obama, Phillips appears to want the Christian faith to be something which takes place only behind closed doors, in the public square conscience must kneel before the state. Like many progressives Phillips confuses freedom to worship with freedom of religion.

In his deeply illiberal remarks Phillips has lost sight of freedom of conscience. Already there are issues where the believer has to pay the price for following his or her conscience when it conflicts with the will of the state. Conscientious Roman Catholics will find themselves excluded from employment in health specialities which demand they perform or facilitate abortions. Evangelical Christians will be excluded from employment which requires them to perform or facilitate homosexual civil partnerships.

Phillips has also rejected the notion that the legal  and moral culture of our countries are built on Christian principles. There is a world of difference between Christian morality and sharia law. The basic principles of sharia law contradict Western Christian based public law. Between sharia and Western public law there is and always will be inevitable conflict, they are eventually incompatible as they are founded on vastly differing premises.

Christians are not asking that the state bow before the church. We ask for our voice to be heard in the social argument and that our consciences be respected.

It is very doubtful that Britain’s secularists will recognise how dangerous Phillip’s position is for them. We Christians shouldn’t be surprised by this. Wasn’t it a Christian, Pastor Martin Niemoller who wrote, “First they came for the communists and I didn’t speak out because I wasn’t a communist. Then they came for…”

This isn’t only a religious issue, it is a freedom issue.

Appeasing Intolerance

It is always interesting when governmental bodies entrusted with defending the inherent values of our societies such as free speech remain silent when free speech is threatened. But when the threat comes from Saudi Arabia the reasons are obvious.

Saudi Arabia has two principal exports, oil and Wahabi Islam with its attendant terrorism. The latter our governments ignore as the price we have to pay for the former.

If the archbishop of Canterbury wants to see how Sharia works in practice he need look no further than our ally the desert kingdom. Beheading, amputation, flogging and stoning are all public spectacles in Saudi Arabia. Crimes such as murder, rape and theft are treated with unrelenting severity; as are ‘crimes’ such as blasphemy, apostasy, homosexuality and being a woman out alone without permission or a male escort.

The corrupt family dictatorship running Saudi Arabia have obtained the return from Malaysia of Hamza Kashgari, a 23 year old Saudi journalist. Kashgari had fled to Malaysia after he had posted three tweets, as though written to Muhammad, on Muhammad’s birthday. The tweets were quickly removed and Kashgari apologised, but the campaign against him had gained too much momentum.

Hamza Kashgari Faces Death Penalty

Kashgari wrote, “I have loved the rebel in you, that you’ve always been a source of inspiration to me.” In ultra authoritarian Islam the description of Muhammad as being a rebel was a bit risky but overall the tweet was acceptably fawning. Unfortunately he then wrote, “I do not like the halos of divinity around you. I shall not pray for you.” He further wrote “I shall not bow to you. I shall not kiss your hand. Rather I shall shake it as equals do, and smile at you as you smile at me. I shall speaks to you as a friend, no more.”

In yet another tweet, probably as offensive to the Saudi authorities, Kashgari wrote, “No Saudi women will go to hell, because it’s impossible to go there twice.”

Within 24 hours there had been more than 30,000 tweets calling for his death and in a YouTube video Nasser al Omar, a Saudi cleric, can be seen in tears as he too calls for Kashgari’s death. He claims he is weeping because Muslims are not doing enough to defend their faith.

The Saudi government contacted Interpol who issued a ‘red notice’ declaring Kashgari a wanted man. He is at present being returned to Saudi.

In response to criticisms of the red notice system, Interpol has said: “There are safeguards in place. The subject of a red notice can challenge it through an independent body, the commission for the control of Interpol’s files (CCF).”

Don’t place any bets on the chances of Kashgari making a ‘challenge through an independent body’ from a Saudi torture chamber.

Not only have there been calls throughout Saudi society for Kashgari’s immediate trial, there have also been calls for the arrest and trial of those who have tweeted support for him. “Those who supported the contents of Kashgari’s tweets are considered criminal exactly like him,” said Khaled Abu Rashid, a lawyer and legal consultant. He called for any sentence passed on Khashgari to be imposed on his supporters too. The sentence for ‘blasphemy’ in Saudi Arabia is death.

From the UN, silence. From the EU, silence. From the Obama administration, silence. From British Foreign Secretary William Hague, silence.

Every time we ignore or excuse 7^th century Wahabism we make it more difficult for moderate Muslims to effect change. By accepting radical Islam as mainstream we weaken those who would be our allies and store up trouble for ourselves.

In 1939 the world had to pay a huge price for appeasement, yet it is still in fashion. The one lesson we learn from history is that we never learn.

Taking a Sledgehammer To Crush a Nut

I have a soft spot for Bideford.

Many years ago every Friday evening I would leave the front gate of a RAF base near Nottingham to hitch-hike down to Bideford. Then on Sunday afternoon I would make the return trip. My then girl-friend, later my wife, lived in the town, her first job after leaving college being in the office of the Town Clerk of Bideford.

Bideford is basically a quiet country town, with an interesting bridge, a sleepy harbour, several rather pleasant pubs and some of the friendliest people you could meet outside Glasgow. The sort of people who quietly go about their business and are happy to allow others to go about theirs. It is a rather understated sort of place. Bideford is the kind of town which makes outsiders like me admire England.

Bideford, An Understated Sort of Place

Unfortunately Bideford has become the latest focal point of interest with an ex-councillor and member of the National Secular Society claiming that having prayers before Council meetings disadvantaged him and made him feel bad.

The judge in the case ruled that his human rights had not been trampled upon but did rule that under the Local Government Act local councils in England and Wales had no right to have prayers as part of the agenda for Council meetings.

I am glad that Clive Bone the ex-councillor whose sensitive feelings had been trampled by those seemingly unfeeling Christians has won his case, even if only on a technicality.

I am glad because this is not a case about the actions of Bideford Council. It is not even about prayer. This case may wake up some Christians to the fact that there is a concentrated drive by progressive secularists to drive Christianity from the public square, and especially the body politic.

There is an attitude amongst secularist activists which is crushingly illiberal. That Bideford Council had twice voted to have prayers is of no consequence to the atheists who insist on ramming their lack of belief down our throats.

Forced conformity to the dictates of any worldview, even if only outwardly, is a mark of the constitutionally intolerant.

Those who cannot stand the thought of religion never actually campaign for a level playing field. Rather they wish to steamroller the predominance of their particular moral viewpoint. The concept of ‘live and let live’ is utterly alien to their mindset. There is something deeply un-Bideford like in this furore.

The great danger, apart from that to their eternal souls, is that when a stable moral order is overthrown it does not leave a moral vacuum. It is replaced by another belief system with its own list of virtues and vices. All the evidence would indicate that the progressive secularism which is replacing Christianity in England (and also unfortunately Scotland) is going to be much more intolerant and intellectually stultifying than the rather gentle and tolerant Anglicanism it seeks to replace.

There is a unattractive, bullying vindictiveness in progressivism which frightens. Homosexuals deliberately seeking out Christian B&B owners in order to be offended. A bureaucratic  official and admirer of the psychotic mass-murderer Che Guevara getting a Christian van driver suspended for displaying a Palm Sunday cross. Of all the councils in England the National Secular Society just happens to pick out one of the smallest in order to further its progressive jihad.

This is why I am glad that the NSS had even a partial victory. It may awaken the rest of us to the rather unpleasant future which awaits us.

When Is Religion Not Religion?

At last week’s National Prayer Breakfast President Obama invoked Scripture in vindication of his taxation policy. “As a Christian,” he proclaimed, his policy “coincides with Jesus’ teaching that for unto whom much is given, much shall be required.’”

This has as much theological integrity as right wingers maintaining that Paul’s injunction in 2 Thessalonians 3:10 “If a man will not work, he shall not eat,” justifies reduction or abolition of unemployment benefit.

Left or right there appears to be a political propensity to take the words of Scripture and use them in a attempts to justify economic policies.

Let us be charitable and assume that Obama’s theological excursion was the expression of a deeply held faith commitment to a social gospel which sees state intervention on behalf of the poor as a core facet of Christian activism; and not the tactless duplicity of a politician in the midst of an election fund-raising cycle.

What, Me Duplicitious?

As far as I am aware Jesus was pretty neutral concerning the paying of taxes, seeing it neither as an imposition of the sate to be avoided or as an alternative to personal charity to be welcomed.

The Christian tradition commends generosity to the poor, but stresses the personal and not the governmental level. There is always a human connection between the donor and the recipient, a voluntary giving out of compassion which is completely absent from state imposed taxes. Christian charity and state taxes are differing actions with differing results. One promotes human interconnectedness and compassion, the other promotes indifference and resentment.

In the story of Ruth we find her gleaning after harvest. In accordance with Leviticus 19:10 the edges of the field were left unharvested for the sake of the poor who were free to come and recover any wheat left behind. This was personal charity and not state mandated garnishing of income in order to effect the redistribution of wealth.

Like all amateur theologians Obama gets himself in a muddle. On the one hand he claims religious sanction for his tax system; whilst he on the other hand, in his latest pronouncements on the proposed American health system, he specifically excludes religion as a motive for good works .

Obama wishes to force all employers to provide free contraception and abortion to their employees. This may cause a problem to some atheists who fail to see why Americans are unable to purchase their own contraceptives, but they are probably so brow-beaten by the government that they will stump up for tax-payer Trojans anyway.

Not so the Roman Catholic Church. They hold this view that contraception is morally wrong and that abortion is a sin, murder actually, and that they are pretty much against both on an institutional level.

America has this document called the Constitution which, in its First Amendment, has what is termed the Free Exercise Clause. Progressives busily trumpet the first part of the First Amendment which states that “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion,” and blithely ignore the rest of the sentence, “or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.”

It would drive a coach and horses through the First Amendment if the government were to require by law that Roman Catholic institutions were obliged to provide ‘health care services’ such as contraception or abortions.

The Obama White House recognises this difficulty and so has  found a way around this problem. What if the institutions which might object to the government’s policy were not religious? Then they could be forced to provide contraceptive or abortion services.

Thus they have decided that to be deemed ‘religious’ an institution must have “the inculcation of religious values as its purpose,” and that it must be one that “primarily employs” and “primarily serves persons who share its religious tenets.”

Gotcha!

The purpose of Roman Catholic hospitals and other charitable institutions is not to inculcate their religious values but to give succour to the sick and needy. Therefore, according to the Obama White House, they don’t qualify as ‘religious’ and can be forced to provide services which go against their deeply held beliefs.

Roman Catholic charities such as hospitals do not “primarily employ” Roman Catholic doctors and nurses, their soup kitchens do not demand that before you can hand out sandwiches to the homeless you must affirm papal infallability. Likewise they do not require that to be treated for an burst appendix or given a meal you must first convert to Catholicism. Therefore because it doesn’t primarily serve “persons who share its religious tenets” a Roman Catholic charity is not a ‘religious institution’ and is obliged to provide contraception and abortion.

To get his religious guests on side Obama proclaims his tax policies to be Christian good works. He then turns around and tells Roman Catholics who do engage in good works because of their faith that what they are doing is not religious at all. Religion happens on Sundays and if they want religion they should sit in pews.

Now, how could this be described as duplicitous?

The New Atheist Religion

We live in an age when atheism has assumed the trappings of religion of the worst kind. Cultural and intellectual life is overwhelmingly responsive to the preaching of the New Atheists, Dawkins has only to hiccough and it is proclaimed as a blow against the forces of darkness and obscurantism. The moral failings of old established verities are trumpeted as the inevitable faults of the deluded and their ill educated sycophants and willing accomplices. The prevailing cultural narrative depicts organised religion as the handmaiden to institutional abuse, moral corruption and intellectual dishonesty.

The enlightened outlook which alone holds the moral and intellectual high ground is supposedly the New Atheism. Once the dangerous and untrustworthy ranting of the deluded it is now the only credible game in town.

Once atheism was merely one philosophical position amongst many; atheists could be communists, democrats, fascists, liberals, monarchists or anarchists, today it assumes the position of an entire worldview. Where it held a position on one issue, the non-existence of God or gods, today it encompasses the foundation of a moral and philosophical crusade.

Like any crusade it is zealous in its assaults on heresy. Although demanding the primacy of reason its assaults on religion quickly become heated enough to be described as hysterical. Religion is demonised as either delusion or fanaticism and in simplistic manner anyone unapologetically holding to a Christian worldview is dogmatically denounced as a dogmatic fundamentalist. The New Atheism displays the close mindedness and rigidity of thought usually associated with preachers on satellite television. Just as Bob Jones viewed the world in terms of black and white so Richard Dawkins sees the world in Manichean terms.

In the view of Dawkins Sunday Schools are a form of child abuse which damages children for life. He says ‘we should work to free the children of the world from the religions which, with parental approval, damage minds too young to understand what is happening to them.’ He demands that the influence of dangerous believers in God should be wiped from the social body.

Rousseau, guiding light of the bloody French Revolution hated religion but nevertheless believed that religion was useful a useful tool for pacifying and manipulating the masses. Later in the nineteenth century, we find the French philosophers Henri de Saint-Simon and Auguste Comte saying that social stability required them to create a new religion. Every such attempt to pacify the populace with an ersatz political spirituality has failed.

Nevertheless the New Atheism seems determined to become a religion in the worst sense of that ugly word. It is very selective about its targets. It claims to fight against the irrational and un-scientific, yet confines itself to what it sees as the follies of the great mainstream religions. Rarely do we hear them fulminate about the unscientific inanities of environmentalist belief in Gaia theory or the blind commitment, despite the facts, to cultural Marxism. Double standards are one of the marks of an authoritarian religion.

Humanity is viewed as consisting of helpless victims of circumstance, powerless against the predestinating forces of society. We are no longer held to account individually before God for our gluttony, rather we are treated for our obesity. Lust is no longer a sin, but therapeutic intervention is required for our sex addiction. Greed and envy are not the responsibility of individuals but rather the psychological reaction of helpless masses to the manipulation of our addictive consumer society. The psychologist is the new priest, both confessor and healer.

It is inevitable that the New Atheism would grab the outward trappings of religion. Alain de Botton in his latest book Religion for Atheists: A Non-Believer’s Guide to the Uses of Religion proposes that atheists should build temples throughout Britain. ‘It’s time atheists had their own versions of the great churches and cathedrals’, he asserts.

Thankfully the usually sensible and interesting de Botton is nowhere near as strident or aggressive as Dawkins, yet his argument is indicative of the inherent need of the intellectual elite to control and rule. They decry the worst of religion and assume its trappings for their own ends.