writer's moll

Cliff's post on the atheist bus has reminded me of how often I’ve wanted to write about religion.

I don’t like saying I’m an atheist because it implies that I’m actively engaged in something, but I haven’t philosophised my way there, I just can’t believe God exists and I don’t remember a time when I ever could. There’s someone who sees and hears each and every one of us? I just think about that number, 6.7 billion, divided into the number of seconds in a month say, and that gives 0.0004 of a second each - that's if we all get equal shares, and well…. But not believing in God doesn’t stop me loving hymns, carol services or nativity plays. Only my over-emotional blubbing does that.

I always hoped for a Damascene moment, but it didn’t come and so I was never able to see the Church in spiritual terms - just as a powerful organisation with a bloody history, clergy who seemed anything but holy, preaching the wrath of God for our sins, especially ones of the flesh, which always seemed to take up a lot more of the clergy’s time than the others.

But perversely, I don’t really enjoy meeting fellow non-believers. I often find them irritatingly smug, as though they’ve discovered a truth that the other poor suckers have yet to.

And strangely, I’m not a fan of Richard Dawkins either. He may have made a convincing case that God doesn’t exist, but that’s the easy bit. Now let him explain the more interesting questions of why so many people desperately need to believe he does; how God has inspired so many great works of art, acts of kindness, sacrifice and compassion; why people find it so difficult to accept that this life could be all they get and that death is the end, or why little old ladies in Italy get up at some ungodly hour to sit on a hard pew in a church every day (I’m not sure if there is an ungodly hour in church?)

Philosophers argue that people have only to look at science and nature to find all the wonder, beauty and spirituality they could need. So why don’t they? Why don’t they find the same sense of security and indestructibility, sanctuary, sense of community or rallying point in times of national joy and tragedy that they find in the church?

So, whilst I never got a sudden, blinding flash of light type conversion, a slow and gradual process has converted me to the idea that on balance, religion has shaped society for the better.

There are people who can never be prevailed upon to act decently and it was religion, or the Church at least, that kept their most ignoble urges in check in a way that the Law never could. They could imagine what a spell in jail would be like and make a judgement on whether to risk it, but God’s punishment was an unknown and therefore to be feared much more.

And whilst it may not have been difficult to persuade people that murder or robbery was wrong, the sexual urge is so strong and instinctive, that it needed God's disapproval of unmarried sex to encourage abstinence, or at least caution, but in doing so it went a long way towards protecting young women from sexual predators and other miseries.

So it seems I was wrong, the Church is a good guy after all.

But that doesn’t mean I’m going to let go of all my grudges. If the Pope weren’t quite so eager for more little Catholics, he might be persuaded to promote birth control and save a few million children from being born into poverty every year. He could lift the requirement for celibacy for priests, and allow them the option of a wholesome married life instead of lusting after choir boys. And he might even rethink the idea that homosexuals are perverts that can be cured and allow them to enjoy a life without guilt and secrecy. And I’m sorry, but I can never, ever, forgive them for Joan of Arc.