Labour party member Ehsan Jami established a committee of ex-Muslims in order to support the right of Muslims to leave Islam. What do you think of his initiative?

"If someone decides to leave his religion, then this is his fundamental freedom of choice and the Labour party should support it of course. But the party has to be careful not to give the impression that it only supports apostates. I wanted to meet Ehsan Jami, but unfortunately he could not make it. If there is one thing I would like to tell him it is that he should be very careful not to be used by the right wing by implying that the only good Muslim is an ex-Muslim. He should not forget that progressive Muslims like myself and many others have been fighting since a long time for the freedom of Muslims to leave Islam. And we paid the price for it. A friend of mine had his house bombed. I have lived with death threats for 10 years. People have come to my house to kill me. When people like Jami start to distort the debate in this manner, it may put back our effort 30 years."  

Richard Dawkins, finally agreed to debate religion with one of his critics. He has repeatedly refused a head-to-head with protagonists such as his Oxford colleague, Professor Alister McGrath, but on the Today programme this morning, we got a snippet of a fascinating exchange between two very clever men. 

She only had go google "Alister McGrath" and "Richard Dawkins" to find several references to our debate at the Oxford Literary Festival, chaired by Joan Bakewell in March of this year. It is available for her to listen to at http://richarddawkins.net/article,802,Richard-Dawkins-at-The-Sunday-Times-Oxford-Literary-Festival,Richard-Dawkins

 

I would more strongly recommend to her, however, the long conversation between Alister McGrath and me which she will find at http://richarddawkins.net/article,1212,Richard-Dawkins-and-Alister-McGrath,Root-of-All-Evil-Uncut-Interviews

 

Madeline Bunting will be disappointed to discover that, in both these debates, I am conciliatory, civilised, and not, I think it is fair to say, ‘shrill’ or ‘arrogant’. Perhaps, after this, and after examining the evidence of sharp practice by her hero John Cornwell at http://richarddawkins.net/article,1610,Honest-Mistakes-or-Willful-Mendacity,Richard-Dawkins Madeline Bunting might finally begin to get the message. Is it too much to hope that she’ll go the whole hog and actually read The God Delusion before the next time she sounds off about it?  

And this is why I think Dawkins is dangerous. He has spent enough time now thinking about religion and listening to thoughtful religious people such as the Harries, yet he persists with a parody, a childlike perception of God and religion. Of course there’s no man with a beard crashing about in the sky.  

Blimey Madeleine, you really haven’t read The God Delusion, have you? (Nor, in all probability, will you read this.)

 

Page 31: "The God Hypothesis should not stand or fall with its most unlovely instantiation, Yahweh, nor his insipidly opposite Christian face, ‘Gentle Jesus meek and mild’. […] Instead I shall define the God Hypothesis more defensibly: there exists a super-human, supernatural intelligence who deliberately designed and created the universe and everything in it, including us."

 

And, crucially, page 36: "This is as good a moment as any to forestall an inevitable retort to the book, one that would otherwise — as sure as night follows day — turn up in a review: ‘The God that Dawkins doesn’t believe in is a God that I don’t believe in either. I don’t believe in an old man in the sky with a long white beard.’ That old man is an irrelevant distraction and his beard is as tedious as it is long. Indeed, the distraction is worse than irrelevant. Its very silliness is calculated to distract attention from the fact that what the speaker really believes is not a whole lot less silly. I know you don’t believe in an old man sitting on a cloud, so let’s not waste any more time on that. I am not attacking any particular version of God or gods. I am attacking God, all gods, anything and everything supernatural, wherever and whenever they have been or will be invented."

 

Please try reading the book before pronouncing upon it. You might actually learn something.  

A Muslim man and his two daughters are enjoying a coastal drive in South Africa. It’s a happy scene, yet the easy banter belies the hardship this family has endured. The man, Mushin Hendricks, is a former imam who was cast out by his community when he declared his homosexuality. The girls’ mother has since remarried, and when Hendricks asks them what they would do if he were arrested, the answer comes without hesitation. The elder child, combining filial love with the lessons of her Islamic education, says she would ask that officials spare him a protracted death by stoning, and kill him with the first rock. 

What is the problem of an Iranian homosexual?

Kaveh: The first is that we cannot discuss any of our problems. We have a problem with the government due to our sexual orientation; the Islamic government does not accept us and we are condemned to hanging and stoning. In comparison the rest of the problems are minor.

How do you describe life as a homosexual in Iran?

Kamran: Very easy; one cannot work, cannot have fun, and cannot go out. You cannot go out with your partner because everybody will look at you as if you are abnormal. The way we are looked at is a source of torment for us. Even though physically we are not any different from them they discriminate against us. This makes our lives extremely difficult. I don’t think there is any problem greater than being labeled abnormal in society when you are certain nothing is wrong with you. If someone abuses you, you cannot issue a complaint to any organization or report to the police, because you’ll create more problems for yourself.

Kaveh: We do not ask for much in life. I want to have a 40 meter apartment in Iran where I can live with my partner, the person I love. Get up in the morning and go to work, work, and feel at peace when I return home. That’s it. Just a quiet life with my boyfriend. I’d like to reach this dream and not be hanged or stoned for loving someone.  

I cannot, like* Professor Dawkins, think the less of anyone who takes pleasure from a familiar liturgy, nor deride those who fall back on a Church whose central tenets they reject. 

I have probably said enough to convince at least my older readers that an atheistic world-view provides no justification for cutting the Bible, and other sacred books, out of our education. And of course we can retain a sentimental loyalty to the cultural and literary traditions of, say, Judaism, Anglicanism or Islam, and even participate in religious rituals such as marriages and funerals, without buying into the supernatural beliefs that historically went along with those traditions. We can give up belief in God while not losing touch with a treasured heritage.