Kick out all religion

HOW would it be if all religions were banned from taking any part in public life – if religion was limited to something done in private between consenting adults?
Don’t get me wrong; I would not want to tell people what to believe or not to believe. Whether you want to put your faith in crystals or Christ, Mohammed or the moon goddess, Wicca or Wesley, Moses or the Moonies, should always be a matter between you and your particular level of gullibility.
What faith should never be able to do is influence public policy, because as soon as that happens decisions cease to be taken that deal with the proven needs of real people and they are, instead, based on the beliefs of those in power.
At its most frightening this is seen in America where a President can say that God told him to invade another country and not only does he escape being certified, he is allowed to remain in power, despite 650,000 civilian casualties in Iraq
Other religious fanatics were equally sure that God told them to fly aircraft into the Twin Towers and those caught up in that particular set of superstitions felt it acceptable to kill more innocents on London and Madrid’s public transport systems.
And all based on nothing more than belief, faith without fact, the breeding ground of the bigot and the bully.
Belief without any proof - other than a wide range of ‘holy’ books and scriptures that also lack any scientific credibility – is what has given us the Christian support of slavery, the Muslim jihads and the Inquisition.
Today we can list other crimes; the Vatican assisting the spread of AIDs in Africa and elsewhere by insisting that condoms did not act to prevent transmission of the disease and the persecution of Muslims in Palestine by a religious government in Israel.
Yet we still allow religion to play a part in public life. Does anyone doubt that even the modest reform of insisting that new faith schools should take a quarter of their intake from no faith members was abandoned because of the private religious beliefs of Tony Blair and his cabinet ministers like the arch Catholic Opus Dei member Ruth Kelly?
Blair puts his faith in faith schools when all the evidence is that they perpetuate division and lack of understanding – and that applies to the all-white rural Church of England primary and the Muslim ghetto secondary.
Why does he do it? Because he is a man with the ability to have faith and apparently keeps a bible by his bed. That is another way of saying he can believe in things that are not proven or provable by science – ranging from Christianity to weapons of mass destruction, apparently.
What would we lose if religion and superstition were banned from public bodies? No faith schools would mean the taxpayer forking out bit more, but the end of religious assemblies and religious education would give more time for real subjects.
It would mean dumping all that ‘defender of the faith(s)’ stuff from the titles of monarchy and probably the loss of Songs of Praise.
There would be no need for blasphemy laws, we would all be able to be as rude about each other’s religions as we liked, and our lawmakers and judges would be able to make and enforce laws without the intrusion of religious belief.
Of course, we might have to get the politicians, teachers and judges to swear an oath that they would not allow their personal belief system to affect their work – and the efficacy of that oath would depend on their level of personal belief and honesty.
On the plus side every cleric or believer who complained about insults to their faith, be it Jerry Springer The Opera, a play set in a mosque, the wearing of religious symbols or clothes or the lack of broadcast time for witches, could all be told the same thing – none of our business.
Squabbles between believers and non-believers should be relegated to those arenas attended by those interested in such superstitions, not given the gravitas of public policies.
In this country the superstitious have even gained a foothold in the science of medicine, where so-called alternative therapies are getting credence in the NHS without the same strict testing that proper medical procedures and drugs have to undergo.
Why? I suspect it is because the politicians are afraid of alienating the crystal gazers and acupuncturists just as they are of upsetting believers in other spheres.
The sad fact for such people is that believing in something doesn’t make it so. In our public life we ought to have a simple motto to deal with such beliefs – Prove it or we will ignore it.