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I understand the frustration of the many rationalists living in our modern world where many religions are used to promote inequitable and even unchristian attitudes: that one class of people are morally superior because of their beliefs, that unbelievers are pre-destined for damnation, that natural disasters can be interpreted as a divine punishment for the behaviour of gays and other minority groups, that Evolution is evil and Creationism/Intelligent design should be taught as factual subjects in schools, that God should bless just America or the Queen instead of asking for blessings on all people, that we are on the brink of the End Times and so need not take strong action to protect our physical climate and ecology from destructive human activities.

But the apparent hopes of Richard Dawkins and others who share his views that all religion is evil and should be vanquished from the earth are unlikely to be fulfilled in the foreseeable future. People tend to believe in God because it satisfies a need to believe their lives and sufferings are meaningful on the highest possible level and they have a life in the ‘hereafter’ to hope for themselves and their loved ones.

When Richard Dawkins or any of us criticise history it carries an interesting irony. Think on it. If not for history occurring precisely as it did, chances are we would not exist. A history without religious ideologies, institutions, wars and oppressions would have resulted in a whole different set of circumstances governing the particular meetings and matings of those men and women who were our ancestors. The intricate sets of interconnected events that brought our present generation into being are more delicate than we can imagine.