I see that the spat over David Cameron's remarks about Britain being a Christian country continues to roll on today, two senior Conservative MPs have supported Cameron by saying that anyone who thinks Britain isn't a Christian country is deluded (I imagine they're all sniggering behind their hands on the back pew about the choice of words on that one - see above) The article invokes images in my mind of Monty Python sketches, those guys captured the true absurdity between the divisive, blood thirsty and primitive underpinnings of three desert dogmas and the meek, jam and scone munching church of England establishment, one cross each, first on the right and definitely no stone throwing until I blow this whistle!
The article in the Telegraph missed the point of the secular protest against Cameron's comments by a country mile in several places, not only is it factually incorrect it's also a big straw man, Dominic Grieve said,
"Atheists who claim that Britain is no longer a Christian nation are “deluding themselves” and must accept that faith has shaped this country’s laws and ethics."
And here is a quote from Richard Dawkins the author of the God delusion which as we know is the holy text of all "new atheists" (that's sarcasm for all you evangelical literalists out there)
"he would consider going into a church, and would miss ‘aesthetic elements’ such as church bells if they were gone. And he said he was “grateful” to Anglicanism which he claims has a “benign tolerance” - enabling people to enjoy its traditions without necessarily believing in them."
This sounds pretty much like "acceptance" that Britain has a Christian heritage if you ask me, I hope that in his day job Grieve takes more care to actually read legal case notes before passing judgement than this. He also claims that Atheism isn't making any progress in the UK, the data would suggest otherwise. There has been a well documented and dramatic decline in church attendance and general religiosity over the last 50 years in this country, if Mr Grieve is denying this then clearly his perspective begs the question, who is really deluded here?
2 comments:
A question that I have often asked of Priests is
"That if Mr Jesus returned today. Would he recognise The Church as being an organisation that represented his views?"
This normally met by silence and a shaking of heads.
AHV, good question! I can quite easily see how a person can be Christian or an Atheist or whatever, but a country? Looking at even the diversity of Christianity itself I'd be hard pressed to recognise some Christian churches as "Christian" even..
Governments should focus on what we have in common, not elevating one particular group over another IMO.
Post a Comment