Religion

Two years ago this week, my stepson came home wearing an Arabic black thawb. He walked into the sitting-room, smiled defiantly at me and at his father, and asked us how he looked. We were a little shocked, but being English of course we said he looked very nice. Our boy had never shown any interest in religion before he found Islam at 16. We’re atheists, and we raised him to be tolerant of all faiths but wary of anyone selling easy answers. It all began after he left school. He was feeling slightly isolated, depressed and vulnerable after breaking up with his first girlfriend, so we were pleased when he began college and some new friends appeared. They were all young Muslim men.

Anglicans aren’t the sort of church-goers who set much store by miracles, signs and wonders. Yet their own church is one of the greatest miracles of our society: it has managed to hang together, in spite of raging differences, for centuries. Since 14 July, that miracle has been under threat. For most, it was a great leap forward when the General Synod finally approved the ordination of women bishops. A delighted Archbishop of Canterbury was ‘grateful to God and to answered prayers’. David Cameron called it a ‘great day for the church and for equality’. But one section of the church didn’t feel it was a great day. Members of the conservative evangelical movement, represented by a pressure group called Reform, had resisted this change for years.

[audioplayer src="http://traffic.libsyn.com/spectator/TheViewFrom22_21_August_2014_v4.mp3" title="Julie Burchill and Louise Mensch discuss whether 'The One' exists" startat=1773] Listen [/audioplayer]Pity the modern starlet. Be she steaming-hot pop-tart or reality-show show-off, her range of emotional experiences will, thanks mostly to the gentlemen of the press, be strictly limited. She will have ‘lonely hells’ (often but not always linked to ‘drug hells’), ‘sex romps’ (sometimes ‘three-in-a-bed’) and watch her life ‘spiralling out of control’.

The Church of England has written to David Cameron accusing him of lacking ‘a coherent or comprehensive approach to Islamic extremism as it is developing across the globe’. The letter, signed by the the Bishop of Leeds, Nick Baines, and approved by the Archbishop of Canterbury, Justin Welby, also reportedly accuses the PM of turning his back on Christians slaughtered or made homeless in northern Iraq – and wonders why Cameron has chosen to concentrate on the plight of the Yazidis instead. These criticisms are spot on. But I’m surprised that the C of E has had the brass neck to make them. For decades, the Anglican and Catholic Churches have ignored the growth of the domestic Islamic extremism that has seen British Muslims travel to Syria and Iraq to fight for Isis.

Rationality doesn't come cheap -- not if you're buying Richard Dawkins' brand. In this week's Spectator, Andrew Brown examines the costly cult of personality that has grown up around the professor; and the stratospheric cost of supporting his work. But your money doesn't just aid Dawkins' monstering of tithe-bloated religion -- there are discounts and money-can-buy treats for non-believers too. So, what do you get? For $85 a month or $1,000 a year - Reason Circle membership Invitation to member-only event with personalities from Dawkin's foundation A discount for all purchases in the richarddawkins.

Where to start with Prof Dawkins’ latest observations about religion and fundamentalism? In response to questions from an audience in Edinburgh where he was promoting his autobiography this week he observed that ‘nice’ religious people give credence to suicide bombers. It’s remarkable, really, that after a good eight years of debate and dialogue with people like Rowan Williams and Jonathan Sacks — viz, perfectly rational believers — he can still say the following: ‘...there is a sense in which the moderate, nice religious people – nice Christians, nice Muslims – make the world safe for extremists. ‘Because the moderates are so nice we all are brought up with the idea that there's something good about religious faith.

[audioplayer src="http://traffic.libsyn.com/spectator/TheViewFrom22_14_August_2014_v4.mp3" title="Andrew Brown and Daniel Trilling discuss the cult of Richard Dawkins" startat=788] Listen [/audioplayer]The other day I wrote something to upset the followers of Richard Dawkins and one of them tracked me down to a pub. I had been asked to give a talk to a group of ‘Skeptics in the Pub’ about whether there are any atheist babies — clearly not, in any interesting sense — and at the end a bearded bloke, bulging in a white T-shirt, asked very angrily where Dawkins had said there were any. I quoted a couple of his recent tweets on the subject: When you say X is the fastest growing religion, all you mean is that X people have babies at the fastest rate.

‘Richard Dawkins, what on earth happened to you?’ asks Eleanor Robertson in the Guardian today. Ms Robertson is a ‘feminist and writer living in Sydney’. She follows to the letter the Guardian’s revised style guide for writing about Prof Dawkins: wring your hands until your fingers are raw, while muttering ‘Oh, what a noble mind is here o’erthrown’. For some time now Dawkins has been saying rude things about Muslims and feminists. This makes him a bigot in the eyes of the Left — and especially the Guardian, which is extraordinarily and mysteriously protective of Islam. As Robertson puts it: ‘Sure, he wrote some pop science books back in the day, but why do we keep having him on TV and in the newspapers?