It seems that the Vatican is more responsive and timely than I had anticipated. In response to my question in this article asking when the Church would involve itself the answer can only now be “Pretty damn quickly.”

Now I doubt the editor of their affiliate accelerated the Pope, or perhaps worked at his instruction, but it is pleasing that the Italian government has found an enemy in the Church. The Vatican wields considerably more clout when dealing with the Italian right than our own Anglican bishops could ever hope to hold over the Labour party.

The news that Famiglia Cristiana’s editor is to be sued by a leader of the far-right coalition who hold power over Italy suggests that they feel especially vulnerable. We must hope that this measure is doomed to the failure which is richly deserves, but regardless it demonstrates that the instinctive authoritarian instinct to close down debate is in evidence here.

The article contains a worrying aside, however:

So far, church leaders have been far more outspoken in their criticism of the government’s policies than Italy’s main, centre-left opposition party.

Which simply pleads for the question: if the Italian left can’t even muster the guts to call finger-printing innocent children for being gypsies “Indecent” then what the hell are they for?

Less than half weddings are now religious there. And so the importance of religion diminishes yet further.

Oh no, another toss-up between my virulent anti-theism and desire to allow free expression to flourish is required. How irksome.

Complicating this matter there is the whole “Multi-Cultural” angle, with this one calling herself “A proud Welsh and Punjabi Sikh girl.” Why exactly she would be proud of being Welsh or, more seriously, feel the need to distinguish herself from others who share the affliction is beyond me. Regardless, the model I have always admired for integration is that offered by the Zorastrians while seeking entry to India. They assured their potential hosts that they would dissolve “As honey into milk” when entering their new home. I suppose that a few bangles are modest enough to be deemed appropriate remnants of such a solution.

But this ruling still troubles me. It claims that the school was guilty of “Indirect discrimination” and in breach of race laws. Exactly how does it constitute discrimination to enforce rules equally upon Sikhs to upon those of other or no faith? Surely this is the total reverse of discrimination?

Perhaps the optimum solution would be the school simply taking a less hard-line stance and relaxing uniform policy. That she was suspended for so minor an offence is the root cause of this nonsense. I see no reason, though, that the school should honour irrational leaps of assumption and their sartorial implications over any other piece of reasoning. Where precisely is the distinction between somebody who has a “Lucky” bracelet and one that thinks it is representative of some fictional creature lasting for infinity?

I have no doubt that Singh is sincere in her conviction but there is no cause to imagine that her choice in garb is any better supported besides theology. It was an immensely petty to have her so severely punished over, but the same is true of any student.

Obviously enough the Church has declared itself “Wounded” over the recent split. Meanwhile the Catholic Church has finally taken the long required step of apologising to the child victims of sexual abuse systematically protected by the Church.

Both of these crises provide potential to maim the institutions which they have engulfed. In addition to providing a severe drain upon the Church’s temporal resources (now with legal bills and compensation payments running into the billions) it has severely undermined any claim which the Church may have once been perceived to have over matters of morality. If this organisation is truly the epitome of ethical conduct then why were its own affairs so badly out of order? Doubtless this will weaken the Church’s clout (indeed it already has) and the potentially crippling loss of members joining the priesthood is doubtless at least in part caused by the fallout from the scandal.

Meanwhile the obvious problems caused to the two splintered fragments of the Church in terms of stretch of authority are perhaps matched by the issue of logistics. The results of a schism in terms of Church property alone are a legal nightmare and potential quagmire. Untangling the mess left by a sudden division could be a formidable feat for even the most skilled lawyer.

Consequentially it is likely that both of these Churches will suffer immensely over the coming years. Their recovery should be deemed unlikely to occur. At least in their present form both seem entirely unsustainable. This is a pleasing development as instutitionalised religion are an inevitable blocade against progress towards singularity.

Grim though their death throes may seem we must hope that internal divisions lead towards insignificance for all factions and sects in the Anglican Church (much as with the left) and the additional, fatal strain placed upon the already overstretched top-down structure of the Catholic one results in their collapse and pursuit by greater unity across the globe in the absence of divisive and irreconcilable interpretations of ancient tracts.

I do not know quite what to make of Richard Dawkins. He knows a lot about that field of science which explains how organisms develop over time, which was born with Darwin’s study and publication of On The Origin of Species. Dawkins has made it his life’s work to persuade people of the “facts” of science, not the “fiction” of faith. In so doing, he has strayed well into physics, psychology, astrology, philosophy, and, of course, theology. I do not know what to make of him, because I do not know quite what he wants to be. I do not criticise his field of work: to the contrary, as I hope to explain, it is extremely valuable for atheist, theist and agnostic alike. I am all in favour of a multi-disciplined approach to science, and am far more likely to read a science book that is about religion than one just about science – I am interested in religion over science. It is perhaps a surprise, then, that I have only just read a book by Richard Dawkins.

Good Writing, Poor Argument: Richard Dawkins

From the excerpts of this and other works, I had formed the opinion that Dawkins is a very good writer, but that his argument is flaky. I will admit to being wary of reading The God Delusion, especially because its aim is to “disprove” religion as a concept in a way that religion cannot “prove” itself. I know Christians who are divided on the issue of whether we should ignore the likes of Dawkins, or should fight fire with fire. My view has been that it is impossible to fight fire with fire, because religion is in a field of study so divorced from science that scientific process and argument cannot possibly be used to defend or promote it. In this, I think Dawkins and I agree – Christianity, or any of the other religions he despises, cannot advance a coherent scientific proof of the existance of God (or the resurrection of Christ, or the indwelling of the Holy Spirit, etc.) in the same way that Dawkins can prove the age of the universe and theorise on its conception. We agree, too, on the utter nonsence of the so-called “Intelligent Design” theories that attempt, by word games and feebly inaccurate logic puzzles that scientific evidence of a “creator” exists, and can be proven. I suspect that “Intelligent Design” theory is like a particularly good dream for Richard Dawkins, as Christians attempt with woefully misplaced confidence that they have found scientific proof of God. They try to fight fire with fire, and fail. They try to out-science the scientists, and fail. Quelle surprise.

On occasions where I have heard Christians discussing Richard Dawkins, I felt myself getting annoyed at their approach. He was a threat – the “militant atheist” monster trying to destroy religion. Why couldn’t he just understand faith? We must guard ourselves against him. If you read The God Delusion, make sure to take an antidote. (Several theologians and religious theorists have produced mass-market editions directly questioning The God Delusion.) These books are very useful entries to the debate*, but they have been poorly deployed by Christians. Church bookstalls and Christian bookshops proudly display multiple copies, but Dawkins’ original is conspicuously absent. It is not for me to suggest what people sell, but I would like to see The God Delusion met as a challenge of ideas, and a genuine debate to take place in the minds of the pew-fodder rolling through Churches each week. For anyone to take anything Dawkins writes at face value is a huge mistake, but it is equally stupid to foster prejudiced views of Richard Dawkins. Yes, Dawkins delights in the quasi-argument, the semi-assertion, and the half-truth, but there is no excuse for taking his rebutters at face value either! If Dawkins’ chief argument is that religion blinds by complacency in ignorance, one can only prove his point by harbouring false views about his books! I see “organised religion” as a necessary (and biblical) part of Christianity, but I firmly believe that nobody should ever take what is said from the pulpit at face value. We should all be theologians in our own ways, arriving at biblical interpretation or personal commitments because of an independent thought process that delivers that interpretation. In other words, fully-formed beliefs should not be parachuted into our minds by professional religious leaders: they should challlenge us and equip us to genuinely seek the answers for ourselves. In this, then, I think Christians should be encouraged to examine Richard Dawkins and his theory of delusion as well as being encouraged to read those who have challenged him in print.

It was impossible to begin reading The God Delusion without reminding myself of my faith. I did not read the book seeking conversion to atheism, and nor did I begin it determined to finish with my religion more firmly entrenched than before. I read it as a genuine attempt to understand why Richard Dawkins thinks relgion is bad – which is, after all, what the book is about. I am a firm believer that religious faith is meaningless if one is too scared to approach a book that seeks to undermine it, and also that religious people do the world a great disservice if they fail to engage in a genuine debate on such subjects as the psychology of religion. As I have tried to explain, I think fighting Dawkins-esque science with an embarrasingly childish pseudo-scientific response is a flawed plan. Dawkins loves to dwell on evidence, and a favourite maxim is that we should be taught how to think, not what to think. It is unclear whether he would have people taught the possibility of psychological or philisophical thought, but one can only speculate.

Given his love of fact and evidence, then, it is amazing to see the regularity with which Dawkins gives his reader semi-facts. It does not take an Oxford professor to see why courts of law ensure witnesses give “the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth”. Half-truths can be pursuasive, but they are no way to win an argument. Very rarely in The God Delusion does Dawkins outline differences in opinion in the theological field. He expects his readers to take his understanding of theology at face value: sure, some theologians would agree with him on each individual point, but it is no way to present an argument. One comical example is his argument that, to paraphrase, nobody understands the Trinity. Another, clearly inserted for laughs but actually revealing much about Dawkins’ attitude to the Bible, is that Adam and Eve were banished from Eden and mankind cursed for all subsequent generations because they were caught “scrumping”. In the same section, he elaborates that they had been told about the danger of eating from the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, stating simply that the Knowledge turned out to be that they were naked. Such flagrant disregard of scholarly debate on theological matters is commonplace.

Where The God Delusion makes reference to theological debate, Dawkins tends to rubbish one position, then praise a “more sophisticated” or “more advanced” argument. It is Dawkins’ prerogative to decide what is more or less advanced, but I reason it intolerably arrogant to make such distinctions in what remains a thoroughly theoretical field. Dawkins bases his academic study on the fact that religion has no “evidence”, but deals with philosophy and theology as if it is transparent which side of each debate is reasonable. I wonder what a more “advanced” theory of theology actually is to Dawkins – is it one which is closer to his point of view, or one which has more theoretical evidence behind it, or one which more people agree with? I have come to conclusions on many theological issues, have decided to remain actively seized of other matters, and have yet to encounter more. In each case, I do not demean the opposing positions – they may turn out to be right after all. Dawkins cannot get over his belief that a scientific approach can be taken towards every academic field: theoretical fields simply cannot be ransacked with declarations of “more sophisticated” like that!

Many examples can also be cited where Dawkins deliberately reduces some Biblical issue to a comical nonsense, and then bats it aside with the reader in full agreement. When he portrays the story of Abraham sacrificing Isaac, he conscieously turns the tale into parody in order to make moral judgements of God. Abraham was variously “cooking” and “barbequing” his son. From Dawkins’ point of view, a sacrifice has no significant difference in practice to a murder, but to the religious mind there is a very big difference. To Dawkins, God was engaging in some elaborate comic-book jape in asking for Isaac’s charcoaled flesh, and then turning around to say “only joking!”. If Dawkins’ interpretation of events was accurate, God is to be decried in sing-song playground tone as a great big meanie. If the story is taken seriously by someone of religious conviction (all three major monotheistic religious do, as Dawkins hurries to point out, take it seriously) then it is a thoroughly revealing test of faith. God, let’s not forget, never intended Abraham to butcher his own son, but did intend to have him believe that he would. Again, we can all sympathise with Dawkins if we take his worldview. He could sympathise with Abraham there if he wanted to, by taking a religious worldview. This divide between Dawkins’ mind and that of the religious reader is striking – and, I think, has nothing to do with science.

A chapter of The God Delusion claims that we do not get our morals from religious texts. Here, a two-fold process of argument is at work. First, that Yahweh, Jesus et al are evil and generally pretty poor moral teachers. Second, that the argument “yes, but we don’t think like that any more” is evidence that we have taken our morals from somewhere else. Atheists have moral codes too, don’t you know, but they are not grounded in the Bible. The trouble with the first part of the argument is that Dawkins is attempting to judge morality from his point of view, which is surely a mistake? A couple of tweaks to his thinking would fundamentally change his view of the relative morality of God. He decries God for being “jealous and proud of it”, but if Dawkins had made the world one might expect a touch of gloating! Here, morality is relativised because God’s jealousy is squared with his supremacy. To God, it is immoral to attribute glory to things which he made, not to the maker. As such, idols are prohibited and we should instead love the Lord our God with all of our hearts, minds, souls, etc. God’s violent jealosy is misplaced and immoral if he is not God, but is perfectly justified if he is. Thus Dawkins’ argument is redundant before he begins because he begins with the (I believe false) belief that God is not, in fact, God. If you judge God’s morality from a position which rejects God, you will find the character of the Bible unpleasant at times. If you see him as God, though, he is the purest picture of morality because, after all, he invented it. (For what it’s worth, Dawkins fails to understand that few people believe we should take God’s view of the world as our own: he is only moral because he is God, and we would be acting very immorally if we were to behave like God.) The second part of the argument – that the “we don’t think like that any more” argument is evidence that our morals come from elsewhere – is illogical in light of the dissection of the first. What Dawkins sees as the “picking and choosing” of what Biblical morals we now follow, another would see as distinguishing between the sort of thing God should be dealing with and the sort of thing we should be worried about.

The chapter of The God Delusion that I found most interesting dealt with the reasons why atheism does not automatically make amoral people. Hitler and Stalin are often cited as examples of atheism gone wrong, but as Dawkins rightly says their religious conviction is irrelevant to the deeds they committed. It matters not whether Stalin was an atheist – lots of Christians are bad people, too, and lots of atheists are good. Quite why, then, Dawkins felt the need to explain, in several pages, that Hitler was probably a confessing Catholic at least into the War is beyond me. This red-herring aside, Dawkins must be credited with providing a very good answer to the problem of religious belief in dictators. Many have professed their desire to do God’s will, but many have not. The common theme here is dictatorship, not religion or lack thereof. When Dawkins argues that a lack of faith does not lead people to do evil things, but greed might, he strikes gold. Morality in this sense is not the preserve of religion – right and wrong, on a sliding scale of evilness, is usually commonly accepted when we are looking at things from the same position. Thus we can call Hitler evil without expecting a huge backlash: evidence does rather support the assertion.

Antagonistic: The God Delusion

It becomes more difficult to reach agreement on relative morality when not looking at things from the same position. Dawkins uses the example of a survey of Israeli children, asking whether the actions of Joshua were justified. Overwhemingly, Joshua was vindicated in the eyes of the Israeli children. But if the passage of scripture is replaced with an identical story, just using a different name for the protagonist and cities ransacked, the actions are judged immoral. Dawkins argues that this is because Israeli children have been brainwashed into seeing Judaism and its teachings as perfect, while having an otherwise standard view of morality on examples outside the Bible. Once again, just one leap of faith separates this from being illogical nonsense to perfectly reasonable – if God exists. Dawkins says he doesn’t, so his argument holds. If one were to imagine God existing, the Israeli children have actually made the logical moral judgement. Everything Dawkins decries as nonsensical is, in fact, perfectly reasonable if only you believe in God. Asking “How can you believe in God when it is backed by this kind of broken thinking?” is a bit of a misnomer. If one believes in God, the thinking is very joined-up indeed.

The book, therefore, rests on the presumption that God is a false idea. If he is real, every argument advanced becomes redundant. Dawkins’ whole theory in dissecting the myth of God rests on the understanding that he does not exist. If one believes he does exist, none of Dawkins’ arguments stand. God is not lessened, the extent of his reach not truncated, by any of Dawkins’ theory because his theory presumes that God does not exist at all. Any religious person can condifently read The God Delusion and know that if they are right – that God does exist – then Dawkins has done nothing to limit his scope. The whole book does not prove God’s non-existance, but rather presumes it and then tries to explain why. The religious person’s argument that “God exists, therefore…” is an unconvincing start to evangelism. Dawkins is guilty of the same. There remains a fundamental difference of vision between the theist and the atheist, and Richard Dawkins fails to transcend that. In this, the evangelist has a harder job than Dawkins: the evangelist attempts to break across this boundry of belief/unbelief, as we are all born in unbelief. Dawkins hates that children are taught religion from a young age, but no mature Christian faith is based on indoctrination. Instead, the believing Christian or Jew or Muslim or Hindu has crossed from unbelief into belief in a way Dawkins fails to reverse. If Dawkins aims to pursuade the religious of the error of their ways, he needs to combat the problem that they have the very faith Dawkins’ arguments require to be absent in order to work.

For what it is worth, I feel the need to raise what I think is the most glaring problem in Dawkins’ theory. He sees religion as “filling a necessary gap” - a neat phrase, but, of course, meaninless – as a sort of response to some earlier human emotion. He thinks religious belief is a manifestation of an in-built need to have psychological reassurance, using the example of a child’s imaginary friend. This must have had some use in times gone by, but is now “misfiring” to cause religious conviction: blind faith. It is, therefore, seen as a wholly irrational figment of the imagination. If religious conviction is genetic, and is useless, why does it continue to perpetuate? More fundamentally, though, if religion is built into genetics, why should we fight it? To put things in Dawkins’ own terms, to argue vociferously against religion is like the giraffe stretching its neck – worthwhile perhaps for the individual, but of no use to its children. Dawkins sees the harm caused by religion as affecting only those alive today, so there is no genetic reason for this gene/meme to mutate into non-existance. Genetic theory might explain why religion came into being, but is unable to envisage a reason how or when it might dissipate in the future. For Dawkins, then, our brains tell us to be religious but it is an irrational desire that we should fight. Each generation is cursed with a genetic code leading us into the psychological safety-net that Dawkins argues is dangerous! Dawkins’ decision to use the phrase “fills a necessary gap” is possibly the most notable thing he got perfectly right – he argues that religion is invented by genetics to do good, but it actually does harm, but genetics will not rid us of the desire to follow religion, so each generation should actively fight against their subconscious desire to believe in the unbelievable, which their brain tells them is for their own good, for their own good! In The God Delusion, Richard Dawkins believes he has found the source of religion, but cannot envisage a time where it will be no longer. We must, he effectively argues, fight against our own judgement to through out any faith that our brain might tell us is preferable because it is irrational. Our genetics are misleading us, pulling us into a cycle of religious nuttery. Dawkins believes that the Human brain has evolved to such a stage that it safeguards against psychological harm by causing it.

I’ll stick with God, thanks.

- - -
*I own a couple of these books. I like to see a genuine debate on these issues, and it is refreshing to see some adequate attempts to challenge Dawkins on issues where some balance is required. I thoroughly recommend reading The God Delusion and an antidote or two, if only for the sake of educated balance.

Excuse me while I gibber in bafflement for a moment. A homophobe doesn’t want to perform civil partnerships for gay couples on religious grounds - and an employment tribunal says that’s okay. Why? The whole point of civil partnerships is that they’re secular; religion doesn’t come into it.

But, apparently, it does now. The tribunal sets a dangerous precedent with their decision. It’s okay for the religious to discriminate against gays on the grounds of their sexuality, it says - even in secular situations. And it’s not okay to ensure secular functions are carried out if the religious functionary due to carry them out isn’t comfortable. Note that sexuality isn’t often considered a conscious choice. Religion very definitely is.

And, guess what? That’s how the fundies read it too. Quoth Lillian Ladele, the bigot concerned:

“I am delighted at this decision.

“It is a victory for religious liberty, not just for myself but for others in a similar position to mine.

“Gay rights should not be used as an excuse to bully and harass people over their religious beliefs.”

And, of course, selective, homophobic readings of an ancient text should be used as an excuse to bully and harrass people over their sexuality. Ladele claims to have won a victory for liberty; she hasn’t. She’s set a precedent where public servants - who exist to serve the whole public equally, on the basis of need - may discriminate against that public on the grounds of their own irrational prejudices. A victory, in short, for discrimination.

Hadn’t we got past all this?

(Or: For Solidarity’s sake, comrade, don’t mention Kronstadt)

On a day where the Prime Minister appointed by his party declared himself against a return to the 1970s, a time which the far-left (and perhaps only the far-left) consider with some nostalgia, at least in contrast to the decade which followed who better to see first thing than Tony Benn?

Watching him at Marxism 2008 had a particular joy; in that it was one of the immensely rare occasions during which his audience would leave him substantially to the right. If, even after all these years of attendence, this left him unsettled it did not show an inch. I showed up very mildly late and he was in full swing; clearly in his element while speaker. His speech roamed over a broad number of points and annecdotes, distinctively Bennite in nature, covering everything from his rather surprising advocacy of rationing (the average height of the working class man rose by two inches due to it) to his ethical vegetarianism (his forward-thinking son Hillary told him fifteen years ago that if all the grain fed to animals was fed to people this would end famine).

It was obvious that the SWP presence (heavy) was left bristling by his outright suggestions that Labour was worth struggling to save and although his suggestion that Labour would swing left after a heavy loss to Cameron (something which would effectively require New Labour to end) he did acknowledge that Labour was not socialist but had socialists in it “Just as the Church has Christians in it”.

Speaking of which, he did not adopt an anti-religious tone but was opposed to religious authority. It occured to me later on (as well as the day before, when I was talking about the importance of imams concerning Respect) that Marxism falters when it comes to understanding the power of religious leaders. Its understanding being limited to wealth results in the power of a poor man standing on an upturned box and raving about a being that loves as it condemns being somewhat alien to them. Preachers often lack fortunes but are able to marshall people through belief in matters beyond the material. Although I would challenge the genuine existence of such forces as firmly as would Marxists I fear that their focus upon the tangible leads them to underestimate the might of that which is elsewhere. Even if it is merely steroid-fed speculation it gives copious power to the undeserving.

Regardless, Benn stated that his internet research had led him to the conclusion that all religions taught much the same message; which was that you should treat others as you would expect to be treated. Perhaps a rather simpler formation than the Universal Ethic tirelessly sought by renegade Catholic Hans Kung but the method of his learning struck me as interesting. When he was taken up on this point by an American concerned about the media (worse in his own country than here, he said, but perhaps America is simply more right wing I would suggest) who stated that the internet was inherently “structured” to favour the bourgeois Benn stayed firm, stating that he was sometimes uncertain why he still watched television as he got all the news he wanted from the websites he followed. A man after my own heart, clearly.

(more…)

Rowan Williams yesterday struck out at the break-away faction in terms that were certainly a lot more vigorous than he is known for. Desperate times call for desperate men.

In his piece on the matter last month Douglas argued that the schism was a cause for joy amongst athiests. This is of course untrue and instead appropriate for anti-clericists and anti-theists, a largely inter-locking pair of factions who the Anglican Church have perhaps done more than any other Christian denomination to consider the criticisms of. I can think of no mainstream Christian Church closer to harmless.

This Church being torn in two and half of it being now utterly unrestrained in its bigotry {which is rather formidable in places} is perhaps not the most pleasing state of affairs imaginable. We can but hope that the importance of all religion fades and that the division within the Church weakens its resources and causes both sects to die away. Rather like happened to failed political project, Respect. Not to mention a plethora of other political parties.

Sadly a protracted demise does not tend to happen to Churches for a while longer. Or at least has a far lengthier duration. At least mild amusement is resulting from this one. For instance not the phrase “Protestant sect” being used against the Conservatives, with a claim that this is all that they amount to. As opposed to the Anglican Church, which…?

Worth a read is Ali’s response, which is, as ever on these matters, so well informed and heavily considered I feel like an amateurish ignorant when approaching this issue by comparison. In it he opines that a split was “Inevitable”. I imagine so but articles such as this were doubtless unhelpful. Rational analyses of the institution of marriage were doubtless highly provocative, although not least because it left the conservative case entirely in shreds.

It also makes it pretty clear that considered thinkers such as Chane can not co-exist in a Church also including deranged reactionaries such as Akinola, especially not while both fill prominent positions. Of the two it would cause far more numerical damage to lose the latter, but intellectually I have little doubt as to which would be better to collaborate with.

So it was the position no leader of any organisation would want to place himself in: compromise quality and lose the masses or cede to fierceness and be forced to purge some of the finest thinkers the Church has? An unenviable position for any man, so perhaps for Williams, someone without a doubt a man with the air of the ditherer about him, the reactionary wing forcing his hand is something of a relief.

At any rate, we can only hope that the manner he has adopted in relation to this issue {if anything one too soft} is sustained. Whether I actually desire reconciliation between the two factions is somthing I am presently uncertain over.

Time for some “militant secularism”; another shredding of faith schools, I feel. Observe the latest obscurantist wail from their defenders:

Selective, divisive, a law unto themselves: faith schools have been depicted by Ed Balls, secretary of state for schools, families and children, as a danger to Britain’s 9.8 million school-age children. Balls made his allegations last March, and has commissioned Sir Philip Hunter, the chief schools adjudicator, to investigate the 7000 faith schools in England and Wales. Hunter’s report is scheduled to reach ministers in September – and will, once again, stir up the row over faith schools.

Ball’s charges against faith schools can be dismissed one by one.

Really? They seem justified to me. Faith schools ground pupils in a seperate religious community, and so are divisive; they virtually require pupils to hold that faith, and so are selective; and raise hell (hah…) whenever the state which funds them imposes the same controls as it does on other schools it funds. Selective, divisive and a law unto themselves? Just a bit.

But, let’s hear what Ms. Odone has to say:

The schools do not select middle-class pupils or reject troubled ones. The intake of Christian schools reflects a broader ethnic range than comprehensive schools in the same area.

Class and race are synonymous? Look, we all enjoy a decent non-sequitur now and then, but to cite one phenomena and cite evidence (strangely without validated statistics) from another defeats itself. Balls’ point isn’t even addressed, save with unsupported assertion - so it isn’t addressed.

Moving on:

The schools are not divisive. Fully 76 of the 77 British citizens convicted under the Terrorism Act of 2000 attended a secular state school; the exception was home-schooled.

And this is meant to be serious journalism? When an author manages two complete non-sequiturs in 6 sentences, they need to be denied the oxygen of publicity. It doesn’t matter how many citizens arrested under the Terrorism Act attended secular schools; that’s simply not the point.

Faith schools are inherently divisive. They encourage pupils to conform to the tenets of a certain religion and inculcate a sense of community with others of that religion; they thus perpetuate faith communities. These faith communities are seperate and frequently opposed to each other. In a word, they’re divided - and faith schools perpetuate this. So, actually, it’s got nothing to do with arrests under the Terrorism Act of 2000 and more to do with the socio-cultural implications of telling a child they’re different to other children because of what’s written in an ancient tome.

But there’s more:

Faith schools do not charge parents for places. Although some schools did ask for voluntary contributions from parents even before admission, these pay for extra teaching for religious studies and, in the case of Jewish schools, for protection.

So, what you’re saying is that they do charge parents money and so exclude low-income families? A “voluntary contribution” before admissions sounds suspiciously like one on which admission could hang. Nothing would need said; the very fact that the charge comes before admission would simply worry parents, who then pay out just in case something goes wrong with the application goes through.

Not that those charges would be necessary in a secular school anyway; surely, “protection” money is required because of the school’s very insularity? The group seperates itself off from the community; that community is left in ignorance of that group’s traditions and finds it harder to challenge prejudices; the prejudiced, meanwhile, have an easy target in the isolated group. They’re not asking for it - but they’re hardly making the problem better.

Ed Balls’s attack fed, and amplified, the strident secularist stereotyping of faith schools as ghettoes that teach a backward mentality.

Let’s check a popular definition of the term, “Ghetto”: “a part of a city, especially a slum area, occupied by a minority group.” Substitute, “education system,” for, “city, especially a slum area,” and, actually, that’s about right. A faith school sets itself up as a seperate entity within the state education system justifying its existence by its religious status - an educational ghetto.

In fact, Labour’s own Commission on Integration and Cohesion found that faith schools support local communities in terms of sharing their resources, and generating social capital.

Note the strange jargon to confuse the uninitiated; “social capital,” is an evasive non-phrase straight out of a sociology textbook. The author again misses the point; the schools might support their own, local communities, but their perpetuation of an insular, religious mentality seperates them from the national community (such as it is) and so is divisive.

Moreover, faith schools are crucial in the emancipation of Muslim girls: those who attend Muslim schools are more than twice as likely to go on to higher education than those who attend secular state or independent schools.

Perhaps more importantly, they’re more than twice as likely to have the doctrines of a religion elements of which treat women as second-class citizens forced on them. As they would do with a Christian or Jewish school; the patriarchal elements of Abrahamic faiths are inescapable.

Very emancipating.

As for the urban myth that faith schools teach creationism in science classes, this is precisely indeed a myth.

Now this just needs editting; “precisely indeed”? Ugh…

Faith schools have an excellent academic record, serve their local communities, and ground their students in a religious as well as national identity. Why squander this force for good?

Because they ground their students in a religious identity, and because that grounding is tax-funded. Parents have the right to educate their children as they wish, so long as that doesn’t harm the child; but they don’t have the right to do so on other taxpayers. All parents fund the education system. That system should thus be open to the children of any parent at any point, regardless of faith. That requires universally secular state schools; that requires an end to state funding for faith schools. Simple, really.

Oh - and since when was a religious and national identity a force for good? Division is the word she’s looking for.

For Ed Balls – and Gordon Brown – the answer is obvious: to woo the “old Labour” rump of the party, equally committed to secularism and comprehensive education.

Or maybe it’s because they believe in an open and fair education for all children?

With an eye to the No 10 succession, Balls is setting himself up as the old Labour candidate by bashing faith schools.

This is just laughable. Balls is setting himself up as Old Labour - by bashing faith schools? Odone could at least do the scaremongering properly and realise that the Labour left aren’t very well disposed to Balls because of City Academies and more. They care about socialism as well as secularism.

He deserves to fail.

Oh, look, another unsubstantiated point. Typical, no?

Ali will no doubt come and remonstrate with me about this soon for numerous doctrinal errors. But - say goodbye to half of the Anglican Church, comrades. Observe:

The Anglican Church faces what is in effect a schism this weekend after the declaration last night of conservative evangelicals to create a “church within a church”. The new body, called the Fellowship of Confessing Anglicans, will have its own bishops, clergy and theological colleges.

The conservatives enjoy irrelevance, it seems. They don’t understand that erecting a wall around themselves will simply further cut them off from reality. Their ideas are rooted in a dogmatic, hardline interpretation of an ancient socio-cultural text not known for its consistent practical relevance. That ancient culture no longer exists; and so its stranger emanations simply don’t wash anymore.

“Modernising” Christians (hah…) get this. They realise that the bigoted fury of a vicious desert-society rests at odds with modern civilisations (such as they are) - but argue a relevant message rests beneath. Very debatable; but a more pragmatic approach to doctrine does allow them slightly more leeway in fighting the losing battle that is attempting to convince the public of a scientific age to believe in the sky-god. They can drop they hair-shirted adulterer-stoning no-wearing-clothes-of-two-materials bit and try and address the issues relevant to modern life.

So - part of the Anglican church drops away and seals itself off to new converts. The rest, meanwhile, goes on as usual - but looks weaker. Humanity looks on puzzled at a sectarian squabbling which for many outside the church equates to a dispute over whether God is a sky-fairy or a cosmic-pixie. And then decides religion is clearly barmy. Just so long as nobody dies for it…