The Church of England need not feel threatened by the rise of atheism in this country – we all want respect and tolerance
‘Why achieve people of different religions travel to war with each other?” the boy asked me. He must maintain been 12 or 13. I was out of my depth,doing a Q&A with RE pupils at a school in Suffolk. They were supposed to be asking me approximately comedy, apart from none of them cared what it was like to perform on Live at the Apollo; watching me squirm as I tried not to offend anyone’s religious beliefs was much funnier. They were asking me big questions: if God exists why does he allow putrid things to happen? Why had it taken so long for homosexual people to maintain the just to marry? They asked approximately abortion laws, or now war. These were all topics that they had been exploring on their school’s RE syllabus and questions I couldn’t answer.“Um,sometimes, if you reflect you know the answer to what happens after you die, or like,um, heaven or paradise or something, or you are trying to tell other people approximately it,then, well, or you might end up killing them when you’re trying to convince them you’re just,” I answered, really, and really badly. I was trying to make war sound as if it’s a religious conversation gone wrong,as if everyone shooting and stabbing each other means well, really. The boy did not look impressed. “That’s not what I meant, or ” he explained. “What I meant was: why achieve different religions fight against each other? Why don’t they all win together and kill atheists?”Continue reading...
Source: theguardian.com