Religion has never been a force for good. Let's not dwell on persecutions visited on one religious group by another down the millennia, on bigotry, on institutional antisemitism by the Catholic Church down the centuries, on papal misrule and corruption in the Renaissance, on acquiescence in the Holocaust, on institutionalised sexual exploitation of children, on the Christian Brothers, on the Magdalen Laundries, on Mother Teresa's vile exploitation of the poorest and most vulnerable...

Yes, religions teach (but do not necessarily practise) morality. I'm a critical friend of the committee known as Jesus myself. But there's a rather wicked assumption, in the face of all this, underlying the assertion that religion is a force for good. It's that we wouldn't be good unless we had religion to make us good. That is religion's biggest arrogance and its biggest conceit, and it simply isn't true. In microcosm apropos of that, I went to the funeral of a close relative years ago. The service was religious because the rest of his family was religious. The presiding vicar declared that he'd been such a good, upstanding man because of his Christian upbringing. We knew better. He certainly was a very fine, upstanding man, one of the best I've ever known and who we all revered for his kindness, generosity, good humour and sense of justice. But the only time he'd been near a church in fifty years was when he was dragged, kicking and screaming almost, to weddings and funerals. Like I said, microcosm. Revealing nonetheless.

It's impossible to argue that we'd be better off without religion because we never get a chance to try it. But it is possible to argue that the glorious reality of the world is a damn sight more magical that the abject hocus-pocus peddled by religion's control freaks.

Not going to go down well, this, is it...