The God of the Old Testament has got to be the most unpleasant character in all fiction: jealous, and proud of it, petty, vindictive, unjust, unforgiving, racist. — Richard Dawkins, The Root of All Evil?

I’ve long maintained that atheists don’t need to convert theists, in fact atheism offers nothing to convert theists to. Atheism is a conclusion. It’s the point a skeptic arrives at once they’ve explored religions, studied their teachings and observed their followers. Atheism is the conclusion a thinking, questioning person arrives at after learning about the gods.

My goal on this site isn’t to convince anyone that gods are nonsensical. I have every confidence they’ll arrive at that conclusion themselves. All I wish to do is provide points to ponder, illustrations from the Bible and religious teachings that should provide a skeptical person with something to think about, ask their pastor, ponder in the freedom of their own mind. Everyone should enjoy the opportunity to think for themselves. I encourage you to re-read your Bible, check out the context of the following passages, then ask yourself, “Is this a god I really believe in? Is this a god I can honestly worship? Is this a god I can truly love unconditionally?” I would hope, too, at some point you could ask yourself if this god even makes sense, because to a lot of people, he doesn’t.

The following is taken from a wonderful website, The Skeptic’s Annotated Bible. The references are from the Bible; some of the comments are the SAB’s own.

Genesis

1. Because God liked Abel’s animal sacrifice more than Cain’s vegetables, Cain kills his brother Abel in a fit of religious jealousy. 4:8
2. God is angry. He decides to destroy all humans, beasts, creeping things, fowls, and “all flesh wherein there is breath of life.” He plans to drown them all. 6:7, 17
3. God repeats his intention to kill “every living substance … from off the face of the earth.” But why does God kill all the innocent animals? What had they done to deserve his wrath? It seems God never gets his fill of tormenting animals. 7:4
4. God drowns everything that breathes air. From newborn babies to koala bears — all creatures great and small, the Lord God drowned them all. 7:21-23
5. God tells Abram to kill some animals for him. The needless slaughter makes God feel better. 15:9-10
6. Hagar conceives, making Sarai jealous. Abram tells Sarai to do to Hagar whatever she wants. “And when Sarai dealt hardly with her, she fled.” 16:6
7. Lot refuses to give up his angels to the perverted mob, offering his two “virgin daughters” instead. He tells the bunch of angel rapers to “do unto them [his daughters] as is good in your eyes.” This is the same man that is called “just” and “righteous” in 2 Peter 2:7-8. 19:7-8
8. God kills everyone (men, women, children, infants, newborns) in Sodom and Gomorrah by raining “fire and brimstone from the Lord out of heaven.” Well, almost everyone — he spares the “just and righteous” Lot and his family. 19:24
9. Lot’s nameless wife looks back, and God turns her into a pillar of salt. 19:26
10. God threatens to kill Abimelech and his people for believing Abe’s lie. 20:3-7
11. Sarai tells Abraham to “cast out this bondwoman and her son.” God commands him to “hearken unto her voice.” So Abraham abandons Hagar and Ishmael, casting them out into the wilderness to die. 21:10-14
12. God orders Abraham to kill Isaac as a burnt offering. Abraham shows his love for God by his willingness to murder his son. But finally, just before Isaac’s throat is slit, God provides a goat to kill instead. 22:2-13
13. Abraham shows his willingness to kill his son for God. Only an evil God would ask a father to do that; only a bad father would be willing to do it. 22:10
14. Dinah, the daughter of Jacob, is “defiled” by a man who seems to love her dearly. Her brothers trick all of the men of the town and kill them (after first having them all circumcised), and then take their wives and children captive. 34:1-31
15. “The terror of God was upon the cities that were round about them.” 35:5
16. “And Er, Judah’s firstborn, was wicked in the sight of the Lord; and the Lord slew him.” What did Er do to elicit God’s wrath? The Bible doesn’t say. Maybe he picked up some sticks on Saturday. 38:7
17. After God killed Er, Judah tells Onan to “go in unto they brother’s wife.” But “Onan knew that the seed should not be his; and … when he went in unto his brother’s wife … he spilled it on the ground…. And the thing which he did displeased the Lord; wherefore he slew him also.” This lovely Bible story is seldom read in Sunday School, but it is the basis of many Christian doctrines, including the condemnation of both masturbation and birth control. 38:8-10
18. After Judah pays Tamar for her services, he is told that she “played the harlot” and “is with child by whoredom.” When Judah hears this, he says, “Bring her forth, and let her be burnt.” 38:24
19. Joseph interprets the baker’s dream. He says that the pharaoh will cut off the baker’s head, and hang his headless body on a tree for the birds to eat. 40:19

1. Numbers

2. God shows his hospitality with the admonition: “The stranger that cometh nigh shall be put to death.” 1:51, 3:10, 3:38
3. Two of Aaron’s sons are killed by God for “offering strange fire before the Lord.” 3:4
4. Don’t touch or “go in to see when the holy things are covered.” God kills people who touch or look at covered holy things. 4:15, 20
5. God tells the people to expel from camp “every leper, every one that hath an issue, and whoever is defiled by the dead.” So by God’s instructions, the sick are abandoned and left to suffer and die alone. 5:1-4
6. “And when the people complained, it displeased the Lord: and the Lord heard it.” (He had his hearing aid on.) He then burned the complainers alive. That’ll teach them. 11:1
7. “And wile the flesh [of the quails] was yet between their teeth, ere it was chewed, the wrath of the Lord was kindled against the people, and the Lord smote the people with a very great plague. “The Bible isn’t too clear about what these poor folks did to upset God so much; all it says is that they had “lusted.” 11:33
8. Miriam and Aaron (Moses’ brother and sister) criticize Moses for marrying an Ethiopian woman and thus breaking the law of God. But God makes it clear that his rules don’t apply to his favorites, and he strikes Miriam with leprosy. Notice that only Miriam is punished, though both she and Aaron complained. 12:1, 9-10
9. More plagues and pestilence sent by God. God repeats one of his favorite promises: “your carcasses shall fall in this wilderness.” 14:12, 29, 14:32-37
10. God punishes the children for the failings of their great-great grandfathers. 14:18
11. God killed those that murmured against him with a plague. 14:36-37
12. God gives more instructions for the ritualistic killing of animals. The smell of burning flesh is “a sweet savour unto the Lord.” 15:3, 13-14, 24
13. The Israelites find a man picking up sticks on the sabbath. God commands them to kill him by throwing rocks at him. 15:32-36
14. Because of a dispute between Korah and Moses, God has the ground open up and swallow Korah, Dathan, and Abiram “and their wives, and their sons, and their little children.” Then, just for the hell of it, God has a fire burn to death 250 “men that offered incense.” 16:20-35
15. After God killed Korah, his family, and 250 innocent bystanders, the people complained saying, “ye have killed the people of the Lord.” So God, who doesn’t take kindly to criticism, sends a plague on the people. And “they that died in the plague were 14,700.” 16:41-50
16. God threatens to kill those who murmur. To which the people reply, “Behold, we die, we perish, we all perish …. Shall we be consumed with dying?” 17:12-13
17. Stay away from holy things and places — like churches. God might have to kill you if you get too close.18:3, 22, 32
18. God shows us how to make new friends by saying : “The stranger that cometh nigh shall be put to death.” 18:7
19. God describes once again the procedure for ritualistic animal sacrifices. such rituals must be extremely important to God, since he makes their performance a “statute” and “covenant” forever. 18:17-19
20. The purification of the unclean. These absurd rituals, cruel sacrifices, and unjust punishments are vitally important to God. They are to be “a perpetual statute” for all humankind. 19:1-22
21. “And the Lord hearkened to the voice of Israel, and delivered up the Canaanites; and they utterly destroyed them and their cities.” This verse demonstrates the power of prayer: If you ask God, he will destroy entire cities for you. 21:3
22. God sends “fiery serpents” to bite his chosen people, and many of them die. 21:6
23. God delivers the Amorites into Moses’ hands. (You’re in God hands with Moses.) So Moses does the usual thing, killing everyone “until their was none left alive.” 21:34-35
24. God’s people will kill like a lion and then “drink the blood of the slain.” 23:24
25. God, who is as strong as a unicorn, will eat up the nations, break their bones, and then pierce them through with his arrows. What a guy! 24:8
26. After the people “commit whoredom with the daughters of Moab,” Moses has them all killed. Then God tells Moses to hang their dead bodies up in front of him; God says that this will satisfy him. 25:1-5
27. When one of the Israelite men brings home a foreign woman, “Phinehas (Aaron’s grandson) sees them and throws a spear “through the man .. and the woman through her belly.” This act pleases God so much that “the plague was stayed from the children of Israel.” But not before 24,000 had died. 25:6-9
28. For impaling the interracial couple, God rewards Phinehas and his sons with the everlasting priesthood. 25:10-13
29. God tells Moses how to care for his neighbors by saying: “Vex the Midianites, and smite them.” 25:16-17
30. The ground swallow Korah and his companions and a fire consumes 250 men. 26:10
31. “And Nadab and Abihu died when they offered strange fire before the Lord.” When you go camping avoid making any unusual fires. 26:61
32. In these chapters, God provides ridiculously detailed instructions for the ritualistic sacrifice of animals. The burning of their dead bodies smells great to God. Eleven times in these two chapters God says that they are to him a “sweet savour.” 28 - 29
33. Under God’s direction, Moses’ army defeats the Midianites. They kill all the adult males, but take the women and children captive. When Moses learns that they left some live, he angrily says: “Have you saved all the women alive? Kill every male among the little ones, and kill every woman that hath known man by lying with him. But all the women children, that have not known a man by lying with him, keep alive for yourselves.” So they went back and did as Moses (and presumably God) instructed, killing everyone except for the virgins. In this way they got 32,000 virgins — Wow! (Even God gets some of the booty — including the virgins.) 31:1-54
34. God killed all the Egyptian firstborn. 33:4
35. God tells Moses to exterminate the residents of Canaan and destroy all of their religious symbols and possessions. 33:50-52
36. But if the Israelites don’t kill them all, then God will make them pricks in their eyes and thorns in their sides. And he will do unto the Israelites as he planned to do to the inhabitants of Canaan. 33:55-56
37. “The revenger of blood” must murder the murderer just as soon as he sees him. 35:19, 21
38. When a murder is committed the blood pollutes the land. The only way to cleanse it is to spill more blood by killing the killer. 35:30, 33

There are those who will try to tell you that Jesus fulfilled the Old Testament, that you are no longer under it’s laws. But as I said in my last post, they cannot deny that the god mentioned in the O.T. is the same god as the one in the New Testament. Does the N.T. suggest anywhere that god has undergone a complete change of character from the O.T. to the N.T.?

I urge you to visit The Skeptic’s Annotated Bible and read more Biblical passages like these. We are often advised to question closely those are trying to sell us a product. Religion is trying to sell you a product, belief in their particular god. You should be as skeptical of religious salespeople as you would be if what they were selling you was a used car.

Jim Rudd, Director of the Christian Street Preachers Alliance, is calling for the execution of gays by civil authorities. I almost hate to call attention to such mindless drivel, but Jim’s stance is so awful, so ignorant (of even a high school level understanding of what constitutes sodomy), so disgusting to see coming from a citizen of America I can’t help but expose his crap for what it is.

After confronting people out on the street with what the Word of God says and then reading what is happening in the news, I have to ask the question, “Why are the pro-family groups having such a hard time discussing the crime of sodomy?” What has become evident to me is the fact that most of these groups do not publicly address sodomy as a crime and then demand that our civil authorities arrest, prosecute, and punish the sodomites.

Christians need to understand that this is the same mistake that the pro-life groups made years ago by not addressing the criminal activity of murder — by abortion. In the 60’s and 70’s when criminals began to proclaim a right to commit murder (abortion right), pro-life groups capitulated to the false notion that a “right” to murder innocent people by abortion, in fact, existed, which led them to erroneously conclude that a particular method of murdering people could then be regulated legislatively (abortion regulations). Many Christians who bought into that tragic mind-set now find themselves entangled in endless debate over medical procedures, licensing regulations, etc., while criminals are allowed to murder children with impunity.

Right off the bat he lets us know what sort of obnoxious person he is; he confronts people on the street with his religious nonsense. Jim ends his first paragraph with a demand he repeats at several points in his article, that civil authorities should enforce religious Christian law (because we know he’d never suggest that Muslim law be enforced in America). He then wanders into a minor rant on the topic of abortion, stopping just short of endorsing clinic bombings and the killing of doctors who perform abortions.

We see exactly the same thing happening with the false claim of gay rights. Many pro-family groups are capitulating to the false notion that “gay rights,” in fact, exist and therefore, are not maintaining their focus on addressing the truth that sodomy is a crime.

Consequently, these groups are now finding themselves in protracted, defensive strategies while criminals are allowed to sodomize each other and members of society with impunity.

When ministering to these people, one of the first things we let them know is that there is no such thing as a right to commit sodomy.

Note that he consistently and conveniently ignores the fact that sodomy is not solely a homosexual behavior. Yet he fails to call for equal punishment for heterosexual sodomites. I don’t know where Jim lives, but in my neighborhood homosexuals may sodomize each other but I sure haven’t witnessed anyone sodomizing “members of society with impunity“. I don’t even know any straight people who get that opportunity. But he’s right about one thing, there’s no right to commit sodomy. There’s actually no right to engage in any form of sexual activity. Wouldn’t that have made an interesting inclusion in the Constitution?

Sodomy is a crime, and for Christians to publicly refer to this criminal activity as “gay” or as a “life style” is an anti-Biblical presupposition that suggests to the public, and to our civil officials, that the laws against sodomy can be ignored. To ignore what God says is to mock God, and for Christians to suggest that it is permissible for civil officials to ignore the Commandments of God is iniquity — anomia — Greek for lawlessness (Matt. 7:23).

The legitimate American English word to describe these people is sodomite. The term sodomite describes the nature of their crime and the sin they must repent from. Just like adulterer, rapist, and murderer are all proper terms for people who commit these crimes, each also describes their sin. Sodomite is the correct term for people who commit the crime of sodomy — not homosexual or gay.

Sodomy is not universally illegal. “Today, consensual homosexual acts between adults are illegal in about 70 out of the 195 countries of the world. Sodomy laws in the United States were largely a matter of state rather than federal jurisdiction. By the last quarter of the 20th century, 47 out of 50 states had repealed any specifically anti-homosexual-conduct laws, and 37 had repealed all sodomy laws. The remaining anti-homosexual sodomy laws have been invalidated by the 2003 U.S. Supreme Court decision Lawrence v. Texas (see above). It is not clear whether or how sodomy laws that apply to both homosexual and heterosexual sex are affected by Lawrence. The United States Supreme Court also implied that the age of consent must be the same for heterosexuals and homosexuals when it ordered the Kansas courts to review the constitutionality of the state’s Romeo and Juliet Law.
However, under the Uniform Code of Military Justice, sodomy is illegal for all members of the United States armed forces.”
Source
To equate those who engage in anal sex with an “adulterer, rapist, and murderer”, is a disingenuous appeal to emotion. He is right about one thing, sodomite is the correct term for those who practice sodomy, not homosexual or gay. But he’s only right because of the one fact he won’t address, that sodomy is practiced by straight people as often as gays.

Now that Jim has established he poorly understands the topic he’s addressing, he sinks even lower with the rest of his rant:

Therefore, such lawmakers and judges are not only anti-Christian by approving of sodomy, they make the civil government a vile cesspool from which the abominations vomit out across the land. By displaying such a contempt for the administration of Justice, such civil officials are not only the source of the defilement (Lev.18:24-25), they are the criminals (Rom.1:32), and a hostile enemy authorizing the destruction of the society in which we live (Jude 7).

Not only should Christian men fight for the safety of their families by demanding that these civil officials repent, or resign from office immediately, Christians should be demanding the strongest laws and punishments against sodomy be put into effect so as to cleanse the pestilence from our society. (Lev. 20:13)

Sodomy is an “abomination” (Lev.18:22), and those who engage in sodomy are so vile that their very presence defiles the land (Lev. 18:22,25). Through the administration of Justice, God gives the civil officials the authority to prevent society, the land, from being defiled. The civil officials swing the sword to “…execute wrath upon him that doeth evil” (Rom. 13:4) — and in this case sodomites — “…shall surely be put to death; their blood shall be upon them” (Lev. 20:13).

Notice where it says “…their blood shall be upon them”? By the administration of Justice the sodomites’ defilement is prevented from defiling society as a whole. (Lev. 18:24) The administration of Justice always protects the innocent people in society. And there is not a single text in all the New Testament to suggest that this penalty has been altered or removed, in fact, Romans 1:32 confirms it.

It should also be noted that because of the pro-active, intrinsic nature of God’s judgments upon any society defiled by these abominations (Lev. 18:25-30), it is impossible for Christians to passively coexist in such a vile society. Our demand that the civil officials administer Justice is based upon the concern for and protection of innocent people, and what iniquities will come upon us all should Justice not be upheld.

So judges who allow homosexuals to have equal rights with straights are criminals and hostile enemies of society. Instead, they should enforce religious law from the bench. Sodomites, at least all the gay ones, should be put to death (”and in this case sodomites — “…shall surely be put to death; their blood shall be upon them“). I’m sure he would also insist that disobedient children should suffer the same fate (If a man have a stubborn and rebellious son, which will not obey the voice of his father, or the voice of his mother…all the men of the city shall stone him with stones, that he die…. (Deut. 21:18, 21)) And all this should transpire not to protect society from these ravaging bum-prodding homosexuals but instead to protect us from the wrath of Jim’s god, who would punish guilty and innocent alike for failing to follow his rules (God’s judgments upon any society defiled by these abominations).

Insanity like that expressed by Rudd might be dismissed as the blathering of a fundamentalist-Christian idiot if it weren’t for the fact that attitudes like this are not limited to Christianity. Islam is equally intolerant of homosexuality. And both the Christian and Muslim believers are pushing ever harder to have civil authorities enforce their antiquated religious bigotries. The legalization of hate and intolerance in the guise of supporting religious morals is a threat to America as real and dangerous as any terrorist bomber.

Many Christians do not accept Mormons as fellows under the umbrella of Christianity. Cited as the primary reason, Mormons believe the Book of Mormon is an adjunct text to the Bible while mainstream Christians accept no other book as being equal to their sacred tome.

Yet Christians have done the same. They took a book already in existence and considered sacred by an extant religious group, the Jews, and tacked on their “New” Testament that they claimed was not only equal to the “Old” Testament but fulfilled the prophecies in it.

There’s no difference between what the Mormons have done to the Christian Bible and what Christians have done to the book of the Jewish faith. So I’d say the Mormons are as Christian as any other group, if we judge them by their tactics.

What exactly is atheism?

Atheism does not have a centralized organization, so there’s no creed or dogma that might state what atheism is for all people at all times. As a result, you’re likely to read many slightly or even wildly divergent definitions for atheism. If someone identifies themselves as a Baptist or Catholic, you know what they believe (generally) because those organizations have a commonly accepted creed that spells out what they think theologically. If someone calls themselves an atheist, you really don’t know from that what they do or don’t generally believe. All you know for sure is that they aren’t theists.

The word atheist is derived from the Greek, a-none, no or not and theos-god or gods, so in the strictly grammatical sense atheist means without god. That isn’t especially enlightening, so let’s examine the common perceptions of the term.

In general, an atheist is one who does not identify themselves with any theological concept. In politics, if I say I’m not Republican, that does not in itself imply I’m a Democrat or Libertarian, it simply means I’m not a Republican. It tells you what I’m not, but doesn’t indicate what I do consider myself. Perhaps I’m a socialistic anarchist, you can’t tell. In theology, all you know from someone calling themselves an atheist is that they don’t accept theism. You don’t know why, to what degree, or what they do believe.

There have been attempts made to define more precisely the varying degrees of atheism. You may see terms like hard atheist, fundamental atheist or militant atheist. These terms refer to those who are engaged in open and sometimes hostile opposition to all religions. They tend to be aggressive and outspoken. They will maintain with apparent certainty that gods don’t exist. While they may be the most visible (and audible) atheists, they are not the majority, anymore than the average Christian is like Elmer Gantry.

The rest of us who espouse atheism but aren’t militant and don’t declare absolutely that gods don’t exist are often referred to as soft atheist or agnostic atheists. This may seem to infer that we aren’t as convinced of our atheism as hard atheists. That’s not necessarily true. If we truly reject the religious notion that some truths are absolutely true for all people at all times, we can hardly turn around and make absolute statements about the non-existence of gods.

What we can and do say is that for the gods thus far proposed by humans throughout the history of mankind, no credible evidence has ever been presented that can be examined and qualified outside the realm of faith. All religions require the acceptance of their teachings based on faith and hope. As skeptics, we ask for something more, some convincing evidence like that provided to explain how gravity works or why there’s lightening. The fantastic stories about the lives and activities of all the various gods men have believed in over the years are simply unconvincing. Every religion maintains that their god is the only true god without, as far as we can tell, any sensible reason to believe that. At the same time, we cannot in all honesty say that someday we may not encounter a being or beings that to us appear as gods. So to say with certainty that gods can’t exist is not something we think is supportable.

Just because we aren’t as militant as hard atheists doesn’t mean we aren’t aware of and don’t oppose the harm done to mankind by religion. Religious belief discourages questioning, doubting and skepticism. Some of the greatest harm done to believers by their leaders has been made possible by their conditioning not to question authority, not to think for themselves. Atheism encourages thinking without bias and undue influence and questioning those who try to tell you how to think, even atheists. I wouldn’t think of asking you to accept everything I say without question. I am not offering absolute truths.

Atheism doesn’t imply an anger toward the gods or their followers. No doubt there are those who have adopted an atheistic attitude based on their disappointment with religion on an emotional level. Perhaps they perceive an abandonment by god. They are still theists, as they accept the existence of gods, they just aren’t happy about it. To those of us who don’t give any credence to the notion that gods exist it makes no sense to hate something you don’t accept as real. It would be like hating the Joker because of all the grief he’s caused Batman.

If gods exist, either they or their followers ought to be able to provide us with evidence of that. We should not be required to take them at their word. If you were to buy a car from me without ever having seen it, based solely on my word that it exists and is worth what I say it’s worth, I might call you gullible. Why should the standard be lowered for something as important as a god?

AC Grayling, writing in The Guardian, is so eloquent on this topic that I’m just going to let you read his thoughts on this matter, knowing that I agree wholeheartedly with his opinion.

It is time to reverse the prevailing notion that religious commitment is intrinsically deserving of respect, and that it should be handled with kid gloves and protected by custom and in some cases law against criticism and ridicule.It is time to refuse to tip-toe around people who claim respect, consideration, special treatment, or any other kind of immunity, on the grounds that they have a religious faith, as if having faith were a privilege-endowing virtue, as if it were noble to believe in unsupported claims and ancient superstitions. It is neither. Faith is a commitment to belief contrary to evidence and reason, as between them Kierkegaard and the tale of Doubting Thomas are at pains to show; their example should lay to rest the endeavours of some (from the Pope to the Southern Baptists) who try to argue that faith is other than at least non-rational, given that for Kierkegaard its virtue precisely lies in its irrationality.

On the contrary: to believe something in the face of evidence and against reason - to believe something by faith - is ignoble, irresponsible and ignorant, and merits the opposite of respect. It is time to say so.

It is time to demand of believers that they take their personal choices and preferences in these non-rational and too often dangerous matters into the private sphere, like their sexual proclivities. Everyone is free to believe what they want, providing they do not bother (or coerce, or kill) others; but no-one is entitled to claim privileges merely on the grounds that they are votaries of one or another of the world’s many religions.

And as this last point implies, it is time to demand and apply a right for the rest of us to non-interference by religious persons and organisations - a right to be free of proselytisation and the efforts of self-selected minority groups to impose their own choice of morality and practice on those who do not share their outlook.

Doubtless the votaries of religion will claim that they have the moral (the immoral) choices of the general population thrust upon them in the form of suggestive advertising, bad language and explicit sex on television, and the like; they need to be reminded that their television sets have an off button. There are a number of religious TV channels available, one more emetic than the next, which I do not object to on the grounds of their existence; I just don’t watch them.

These remarks will of course inflame people of religious faith, who take themselves to have an unquestionable right to respect for the faith they adhere to, and a right to advance, if not indeed impose (because they claim to know the truth, remember) their views on others. In the light of history and the present, matters should perhaps be to the contrary; but stating that religious commitment is not by itself a reason for respect is not to claim that it is a reason for disrespect either. Rather, as it is somewhere written, “by their fruits ye shall know them”; it is this that far too often provides grounds for disrespect of religion and its votaries.

The point to make in opposition to the predictable response of religious believers is that human individuals merit respect first and foremost as human individuals. Shared humanity is the ultimate basis of all person-to-person and group-to-group relationships, and views which premise differences between human beings as the basis of moral consideration, most especially those that involve claims to possession by one group of greater truth, holiness, or the like, start in absolutely the wrong place.We might enhance the respect others accord us if we are kind, considerate, peace-loving, courageous, truthful, loyal to friends, affectionate to our families, aspirants to knowledge, lovers of art and nature, seekers after the good of humankind, and the like; or we might forfeit that respect by being unkind, ungenerous, greedy, selfish, wilfully stupid or ignorant, small-minded, narrowly moralistic, superstitious, violent, and the like. Neither set of characteristics has any essential connection with the presence or absence of specific belief systems, given that there are nice and nasty Christians, nice and nasty Muslims, nice and nasty atheists.

That is why the respect one should have for one’s fellow humans has to be founded on their humanity, irrespective of the things they have no choice over - ethnicity, age, sexuality, natural gifts, presence or absence of disability - and conditionally (ie. not for intrinsic reasons) upon the things they choose - political affiliation, belief system, lifestyle - according to the case that can be made for the choice and the defence that can be offered of the actions that follow from it.

It is because age, ethnicity and disability are not matters of choice that people should be protected from discrimination premised upon them. By contrast, nothing that people choose in the way of politics, lifestyle or religion should be immune from criticism and (when, as so often it does, it merits it) ridicule.

Those who claim to be “hurt” or “offended” by the criticisms or ridicule of people who do not share their views, yet who seek to silence others by law or by threats of violence, are trebly in the wrong: they undermine the central and fundamental value of free speech, without which no other civil liberties are possible; they claim, on no justifiable ground, a right to special status and special treatment on the sole ground that they have chosen to believe a set of propositions; and they demand that people who do not accept their beliefs and practices should treat these latter in ways that implicitly accept their holder’s evaluation of them.

A special case of the respect agenda run by religious believers concerns the public advertisement of their faith membership. When people enter the public domain wearing or sporting immediately obvious visual statements of their religious affiliation, one at least of their reasons for doing so is to be accorded the overriding identity of a votary of that religion, with the associated implied demand that they are therefore to be given some form of special treatment including respect.

But why should they be given automatic respect for that reason? That asserting a religious identity as one’s primary front to the world is divisive at least and provocative at worst is fast becoming the view of many, although eccentricities of dress and belief were once of little account in our society, when personal religious commitment was more reserved to the private sphere - where it properly belongs - than its politicisation of late has made it. From this thought large morals can be drawn for our present discontents.

But one part of a solution to those discontents must surely be to tell those who clamour for a greater slice of public indulgence, public money and public respect, that their personal religious beliefs and practices matter little to the rest of us, though sometimes they are a cause of disdain or amusement; and that the rest of us are as entitled not to be annoyed by them as their holders are entitled to hold them. But no organised religion, as an institution, has a greater claim to the attention of others in society than does a trade union, political party, voluntary organisation, or any other special interest group - for “special interest groups” are exactly what churches and organised religious bodies are.

No one could dream of demanding that political parties be respected merely because they are political parties, or of protecting them from the pens of cartoonists; nor that their members should be. On the contrary. And so it should be for all interest groups and their members, without exception.