Although I'm an atheist and a secularist and just about as anti-religion as it's possible to be, I have no problem with anyone believing in God if that's how they want to live their lives. In fact, I think for some people believing in a false god - and this one is false, because they all are - can be quite therapeutic in the way that, say, artificial daylight can help with the winter blues. But personal faith and public religion are two completely different things. When religion goes public it stops being spiritual and it becomes political, usually running on the moral hypocrisy ticket. And because it claims divine authority, demanding unconditional submission and obedience from outside the bounds of reason, it despises democracy as much as it despises women and homosexuals - so quite a lot, then - and therefore it's always working towards theocracy, towards strengthening the power and status of clergy. Public religion exists for the sole benefit of clergy, and clergy exist for the sole benefit of clergy, and this is a pivotal point to understand. Personal faith, spirituality, whatever you want to call it, doesn't need to be administered and policed by a privileged class of clerical fascists, whereas public religion not only depends on clergy, they depend on it. Neither can exist without the other, and neither is actually necessary. And they know this, of course, which is why their poxy religion is all about guilt and submission and obedience, not enlightenment, are you kidding? That's the last thing they want because enlightened people don't need clergy. Why do you think the Pope tells Catholics: "Obedience to the doctrine of the Church is the foundation of your faith." Not the sermon on the mount, not loving your neighbour. Obedience is your foundation. Of course it is. It has to be, because the alternative is for you to look into your own heart, and that's the last place these parasites want you looking because that's where the bullshit detector is. I've heard clergy referred to as many things - sky pilots, dog-collared vampires, humanity's headlice is one of my favourites - but I don't think those epithets do justice to the true iniquity of the clerical profession, which I believe is engaged in the wilful misdirection of the human race. Like alchemists who specialise in turning gold into lead, clergy seek to eliminate as much creativity and pleasure as possible, to effectively neutralise the human experience and to persuade us that this life isn't good enough. They claim moral authority when their track record shows that the words 'religion' and 'moral' don't even belong in the same sentence, any more than the words 'creation' and 'science', or 'Islamic' and 'education', or 'biblical' and 'sense'. In fact, the only moral that any sane person takes from religion is don't believe everything you read in books. And whenever some senior clergyman is quoted in the media he goes out of his way to portray secular opinion as a form of extremism, when it's they themselves who are the extremists, insisting that we deny the evidence of our own senses, not only to accommodate a raft of unprovable absurdities, but to let them dictate many aspects of our lives. How much more extreme do you want it? And there are no depths to which these people won't sink to reinforce their crappy dogma. Condoms, for example. We all know the Catholic Church doesn't like birth control, which is a little odd, as it favours just about every other form of control, but to knowingly give false information about life and death issues to people who are compelled to obey, as the Pope did a few months ago, and as Catholic clergy do quite routinely in Africa, is cynical and inhuman, and should be treated as attempted murder. Every public utterance from a senior clergyman is designed to disempower us and disconnect us from the planet that gives us life because they don't want us grounded in any way. So they tell us that we don't even belong in this world. We're far too good for this sinful place, because we're sacred and special. Yeah right. We're so special we've got to spend our whole lives on our knees apologising for stuff that we had nothing to do with. Why do you think all the good stuff about religion happens in the future, and not in the present? Not at the only point of actual contact that you have with reality, and therefore the only point you have any power. That's reserved for prayer and penance and despising the human condition. Far better, then, for you to focus on that glorious future. And while you're waiting for it to arrive - indeed, while you're waiting for your life to end so that it can arrive - what better moment than the present to get down on your knees and say some prayers and do some penance. You can never do enough; you know that. And while you're down there apologising for your existence as usual why not take a second to ask yourself a pretty obvious question to me: Who benefits from your faith in the here and now where it actually counts? Who reaps the earthly rewards, as opposed to the less tangible heavenly ones in the happy-ever-after land that you've been promised? Let me ask you something. How many people do you know of who live in a palace? A handful, right? How many of those people are Christian clergymen, and what the bloody hell do you suppose they think they're doing there? Surely any clergyman who lives in a palace has missed the point and the message of Jesus by a country mile. You don't need to be a theologian to know this. A child could point out that this man hasn't even begun to understand the lesson he's supposed to be teaching others. He's merely acting out a role like a trained monkey. He isn't remotely qualified to hold the position he does, and, in holding it as he does, he debases it and renders it meaningless. The Archbishop of Canterbury; you remember him, of course. He's the unprincipled quisling who wants sharia law implemented in Britain because it's religious law, and because for him religion comes first and people come second. And here in Britain we've become quite used to being lectured by this man about selflessness and non-materialism from the comfort of one of his two magnificent palaces. That's right, two palaces, conveniently situated about an hour's drive from each other. I've actually mentioned this before, but I'm having to do it again because I still can't quite believe it myself. His colleague, the Archbishop of York, another media moralist with plenty to say for himself, lives, guess where, in a palace. Of course he does. Where else would he live? Anything else would be an insult to Jesus, isn't that right? And as for the rest of them, the bishops, archbishops and cardinals, none of those bastards would dirty their feet on anything less than a mansion. Of course we all know about the Pope and his massive palace. In fact, he presides over an entire city that doubles as a sovereign state over which he is sole ruler. Nice work if you can get it. Meanwhile, where are you? Still on your knees praying for salvation, by any chance? Well, if so, keep it up, because your favourite televangelist needs to buy himself a new private jet with your money, in Jesus' name, of course. That Jesus. He's going to be a very wealthy young man if he ever comes back, isn't he, with all that stuff that's been bought in his name. All that crude extravagant unnecessary luxury. I wonder what he'll think when he realises that the image of his grisly death on the cross has been turned into the most lucrative money-grubbing logo in human history, and that 2000 years on it's still raking in mountains of cold hard cash mostly from poor people. I wonder if Jesus will allow himself a twinge of conscience and reflect that perhaps he is the one who should be repenting, and not us, and that it's he who should be asking our forgiveness for allowing his name to be hijacked and exploited by these cynical life-sucking criminals. I guess we'll just have to wait and see. In the meantime, turn to religion if you really have to for comfort, if it's all you've got to lean on. But whatever you do, don't turn to religion for the truth. Religion doesn't know the truth, and these men are living proof of that. If, by some miracle, they were to stumble upon the truth, they would hide it to protect their stinking dogma in the way that it protects them. How obvious does it have to be that these are not man of humility and wisdom, which is kind of the Jesus model, and really what we were looking for, but career politicians. Petty, small-minded, status-obsessed, ego-bound men. What a humiliating state for anyone claiming to be a spiritual teacher. The very pharisees, in fact, that Jesus himself resisted. The ones obsessed with their own importance, their own grandiosity, with the status quo at any cost, with dogma over compassion every single time, the ones who behave as if people exist for the benefit of religion and not the other way round. I found out recently that the word 'heretic' comes from the Greek word 'hairetikos' meaning 'able to choose', which pretty much says it all, don't you think? Peace, and God bless atheism.