Akenaton spoke of an "equalities" minister but was referring to the equalities minister.

In the same way as he uses the term gay "marriage" when referring to gay marriage.

Keith went on to support his term of reference.

Rather pathetic.

For everybody who tries to justify their belief by insisting not having any is in itself a faith position, I might point out that for many people, religion, lack of religion, faith, scientific discovery and contemplation are all something others get excited about.

It must be difficult for the Mudcat congregation to think that most people go through life without such convictions but they do. Delusion can be all consuming. Even for boutique Christians.

I'm not minded to cut and paste in these discussions as our more shallow members do, I tend to give my view without having to nervously justify it with selective quotes from others (Eyup Keith!) but this from the Office of National Statistics is a good starting point.

In a poll conducted by YouGov in March 2011 on behalf of the BHA, when asked the census question 'What is your religion?', 61% of people in England and Wales ticked a religious box (53.48% Christian and 7.22% other) while 39% ticked 'No religion'.

When the same sample was asked the follow-up question 'Are you religious?', only 29% of the same people said 'Yes' while 65% said 'No', meaning over half of those whom the census would count as having a religion said they were not religious.

You see, it's a bit like parishes and parish churches. Average parish size is over 6,000 and average church attendance is less than 30.

Our local church insists on doing christenings as part of normal services to boost flagging numbers. If they had courage of conviction they'd count people for whom their club is relevant rather than those who partake if a family tradition once in a while. Presumably at funerals they count the people laid in coffins...

I went to a Sikh temple a few months ago for an equivalent of a christening and got talking to a man there when I said the place was busy. Yes, he said, but when the kitchens were being refurbished so the free meal was out of action, attendance was down to a quarter of what you see. He also said it was estimated that only 15% of Sikhs in the city attended either temple.

I reckon 15% is rather high. Churches would stop being turned into bingo halls if Jesus was half as popular.