Life, the Universe and Everything

Religious conflict has occurred throughout history. From the medieval crusades right through to modern day Iraq, one religious group has been fighting another; the main problem being that both sides know that they are Right because they have God on their side.

The Troubles in Northern Ireland were between republican Catholics and unionist Protestants. The Israelis and the Palestinians continue to fight for what they each see as their homeland and their birthright. Turkish northern Cyprus - a Muslim state - is not recognised by the Orthodox Christian south. Muslim Pakistan and Hindu India both claim rights to Kashmir; add to the mix the state of Punjab and the Sikhs and the mess that partition makes of countries. Add the problems that have emerged between Shia and Sunni Muslim militia in post-invasion Iraq - something that it seems only President Bush and his crony (our former prime minister, Tony Blair) did not foresee happening - and you realise the same mistakes are made again and again.

I think I really should make it clear at this point that I am an atheist; although I would never dream of telling anybody that they are wrong in their beliefs. My only belief is that there is nothing more offensive than forcing your own beliefs on somebody else. Your beliefs should not affect me or my rights, just as my lack of beliefs should not affect you or your rights.

The trouble with this is that many people do not agree: they are Right and the rest of us are plain wrong and they know this because a book says so.

Yesterday’s Guardian contained an article where the leader of Britain’s Catholics, Cardinal Cormac Murphy-O’ Connor, claimed that “Judaeo-Christian values” were the only thing binding British society. He then went on to say that a secular view of life would be “a very dangerous path”. A path where research into neurological diseases were researched with scientific reason rather than surrounded by religious hysteria; and the crime of paedophilia was not hidden behind the cloak of religion. (Two can play at the game of selective reporting Cardinal).

In the same newspaper, it was reported that the senior Chinese Communist Party figure Zhang Qingli, had branded the Tibetan spiritual leader as a “wolf in monk’s robes, a devil with a human face, but the heart of a beast”. Buddhism is one of the only  - if not the only, my memory may be clouded here - religion that Professor Richard Dawkins does not openly attack in his book, the God Delusion. The Dalai Lama has conducted himself with dignity throughout the current Tibetan uprising - which is more than could be said of the International Olympic Committee of recent weeks - and indeed throughout his time in exile.

Here is an example of an atheist society -  Communist China - showing that it is not just the religious that can be intolerant of people that do not share their beliefs. I am actually better qualified to criticise the Chinese communists rather than religious groups: I have not read the Bible, the Koran or any other religious book; but I have read the Quotations From Chairman Mao Tse-Tung and the Communist Party Manifesto by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, and although I disagree with much of what I have read, I respect the rights for people to believe in these teachings: provided that they do not deny the rights of anybody else in the process, something that the Chinese Politburo has patently failed to do over the issue of Tibet.