My lack of faith in Cameron and the Church of the Tories

I must admit to being a little dumbfounded by the PM's latest obsequious brown-nosing to the Church of England. He's penned an appalling, one-sided refutation of secular values in a stunning regression to religious apology.  Such a thing issued by a British PM is almost unheard of. Luckily, his article is about as logical as a solar-powered torch, and about as coherent as a boiling chocolate kettle. Of course, the Anglicans are lapping it up.

This is part of a wider narrative of religion-friendly ministers openly discriminating against atheism and secularism. We have Michael Gove and his faith schools getting preferences and privileges; the mere existence of Baroness Warsi as a "Faith Minister" of all things; and Eric Pickles proclaiming (despite data throwing doubt on this, as the BHA would affirm) that "this is a Christian nation" where it's OK to mandate prayer before council meetings.

Cameron seems to value the integration of Church and State. Bishops in the House of Lords, Faith Schools, mandated prayers, it's all good to him. Shame this doesn't stand up to scrutiny. Interestingly, our pet integration of Church and State was once so "tolerant" that about 240 years ago, a whole group of great and radical thinkers broke away from it and its oppressive little regime to forge a country you may have heard of, it's called the USA.

According to Cameron's logic of course, in the meantime, all the progress that was made which means we no longer have this sort of thing happening, comes from the internal reform of the Church itself and not from the firm and fair external hand of the enlightenment values of secularism.

No. It has only been constant exposure to secular ideas, that will not accept metaphysical answers, that the Church has been dragged kicking and screaming into the modern world. Any chance it gets, it tries to re-establish its dominant position and start oppressing people. This brute fact is so blindingly obvious to anyone not lulled into religious frivolity like Cameron. Just about the only benefit of having a state religion is that you have a monopoly on the native belief system and don't have a marketplace of Churches springing up, with 1000's of denominations abounding like in the US. With more denominations comes more out-groups and more exclusion and sectarianism.

As I've said before, this happens because religious thought is not based in evidence, so anything goes as far as interpretation is concerned. If a group takes a passage to mean this, and another takes it to mean that, how do we tell who's right? We can't, because, there's no way to prove it in objective reality.  One metaphysical opinion is as good as any other. There are as many interpretations as there are Christians, or Theologians. So I'm afraid, Mr. Cameron, that education and secularism are absolutely vital to keep the base desires of religious thought at bay. 

"This Country's Interests"

People like Archbishops and Mullahs may make nice with each other, but the reality of their group's intentions is less benevolent. Many of their believing followers want to convert the other side to their own belief, because they have it right and the other side are wrong of course. The thing is, many of these people are so indoctrinated into their faiths that they'll never convert. When you can't see reason, it's all too easy to start exacting vengeance on people who won't see your particular God as the one-and-only. Crusades, Jihads anyone?

Cameron himself admits to not being a fervently religious man, thus not following the Church's doctrines according to their own wishes. If he was not Prime Minister, a few hundred years ago there would have been severe consequences for that. But thanks to secularism and enlightenment values, we're OK to distance ourselves from the state religion. Cameron admits that people of no faith can still have a moral code, and yet puzzlingly still makes the claim that religion can help with people's moral codes. This makes the clear corollary that atheists are less moral than believers, a claim frankly not borne out by these little things called FACTS.

Cameron's arrogance and hypocrisy are breathtaking. It almost sounds as if he's pulling a Mother Teresa stunt. Just celebrate in and actively sustain others' suffering, so you can ride in on your white horse and look like the hero. How does Cameron know that it's the Anglican Church that have it right, and not Muslims for example? Oh I know, he doesn't, but it's OK to be a Muslim, but not an atheist, because whatever you do, you MUST believe.

"Calm down, dear!"

All we need to motivate ourselves into helping with the plight of disadvantaged people is a little compassion and awareness for others' suffering. These things simply do not require belief in a deity. It doesn't take a genius to figure out that we need to stop poverty, exploitation and harm of vulnerable groups. Atheist, humanist, skeptic and freethought communities do a lot for others given their comparatively tiny numbers. When you don't waste time praying, you can spend more time acting. Britain has seen a sharp rise in poverty since Mr.Cameron took power, so he's a fine one to talk about seeing the need to improve things. 

Various factors can cause these problems to be worse. Things like seeing others as less than yourself because they're from another country. Or seeing women as less, because they earn less, because you make them earn less, so they can stay less. Things like wanting to isolate yourself from the rest of the world because it's in your own "interest" (and not regressive at all). Things like treating people who don't have a job as thieves and spongers.

 You know, the little things like having a Tory-led government for four years. Who's in charge of that again?