As a result of a tweet, I was asked by @thesamosa to write a response to this article.
Here is my response:
“Faith” and the election
Religion has been sidelined in the current UK general election in a way that Americans, for example, could probably never understand. In the USA the idea that someone running for President could, publicly at least, be an atheist is just not conceivable to many and yet, at this election, we do have one party leader who is openly non-religious. This is a major breakthrough and has, perhaps, been one of many reasons for the sidelining of religion in political matters in recent months.
Personally I find it scary that the most powerful man in the world, a man who has his finger on the nuclear button and who controls the biggest economy in the world, also believes in a superbeing for which there is absolutely no evidence. Shouldn’t he be offered help, guidance and psychotherapy instead of being given the ability to blow up the world? Isn’t this putting the crazy man in charge? Isn’t “faith” in such matters simply a lunacy?
And yet the religions, despite their blatant lack of sense, fact and evidence, want to be taken seriously and want to hold sway at election time. To me this is wrong and dangerous for a number of reasons.
It seems, many people of “faith” abandon their “faith” when it gets to an election. We’ve all seen those little bracelets with WWJD on them – “What Would Jesus Do?” – well, let’s be honest, Jesus, had he existed (and there’s no contemporaneous evidence – but that’s another whole article!), would not be voting for any right-wing/capitalist party and yet few in the Tory ranks would say they are atheist or agnostic – most would say they are Christian. Jesus WOULD have voted for some sort of socialist party – the communists even.
The most religious parties are often the most bigoted and extremist parties. Take a look at parties like the British National Party (BNP_ and the English Defence League (EDL); these are both parties who many consider to be fundamentally racist, xenophobic and highly bigoted. Does this fit with the “love your neighbour” message of Christianity? Of course it doesn’t. And yet it is these extremist parties who, as well as the national flag, often proclaim their support and defence for the national religion. Why? Is it because religion is also fundamentally bigoted and divisive? I would say yes.
So why do people of “faith” struggle to see the contradiction that so often exists between their belief and their politics? This is harder to explain but, in my opinion, it is because they are confused, ignorant of the facts, brainwashed or simply lunatics. Take your pick!
Faith may have been justifiable in the 14th century when society as a whole was ignorant of so much about the universe but today, in the 21st century, it has no place.
It is right that, in this election, “faith” has been sidelined. We need to grab politics back from the mad men, the ignorant, the bigoted and the confused, and bring it into the modern world – a rational world of fact and the principle of genuinely loving your neighbour.
