December Editor's blog

Is religion dead? It is true you may manage to eat your way through the festive season without even hearing the name God or Jesus. Even the Christ in Christmas conjures sentiments of Mammon or visions of jolly red-faced men with sacks on their backs rather than of a divine infant.
2007 has seen a swingeing counterattack on religion by high ranking intellectual atheists.
But the question surely is: Does God Exist? rather than is religion dead? Religion is alive and kicking. In America, Christian fundamentalists, the self-proclaimed “moral majority” are seeking to dominate the primaries and dictate the choice of Republican candidate: even a Mormon so long as they are bigoted enough. In Britain, they are trying to replace science with Christian evolution in schools. Then there is the Islamic question which states, correctly, that all Islamic terrorists are Muslims but forgets that this does not mean that all Muslims are Islamic terrorists.
Closer to home, I was surprised when a Jewish lady, wanting to put a notice in this magazine to meet fellow Jews, asked for a box no. rather than risk putting her contact details in print. Surprise turned to shock when some of those replying were equally afraid to pass on their addresses and gave only a mobile telephone number. In 2007? In civilised Western Europe? This is appalling.
It is contempt for the bigotry that uses religion as its excuse that prompted three contemporary authors to attack the very concept of belief. Christopher Hitchens’ God Is Not Great, Richard Dawkins’ The God Delusion and Sam Harris’ The End of Faith all entered the best seller lists this year.
True, fundamental dogmatists, both Islamic and Christian, are today apparently more hostile to democratic secularism - the separation of church and state - than at any time since the Enlightenment.
However, the vehemence of this trio of attacks on faith and religion has caused widespread unease.
Heading the condemnation of Dawkins-Hitchens-Harris determination to prove that religion is not just redundant but positively evil, is British national treasure John Humphrys. His years of working as a journalist had caused his own loss of faith, he admitted. Yet these sneering attempts to disprove God infuriated him. In an attempt to rediscover the existence of a god, of whatever faith, Humphrys asked the Archbishop of Canterbury, the Chief Rabbi and a leading Muslim academic to try and convince him.
They did not succeed. But, surely, argues Humphrys, who now calls himself a failed atheist, the existence of conscience begs the possibility that something greater than ourselves exists?
In any case, he asks, is there really anything to be gained by convincing millions of decent, god-fearing, non-fundamentalist believers - of whatever faith - that the trappings of their belief and church are mistaken?
As a moral code by which to live, religion is a comfort blanket to many. A belief in goodness.
Atheists, of course, argue that conscience is a scientifically evolved device which allows society to function. And that they are superior to believers since they do good without any hope of future rewards or fear of eternal condemnation.
Whether or not God exists is clearly not a question we are going to answer here. Faith is a matter of personal belief.
But Christmas is also the season of peace and goodwill - which we can all believe in.
So I make no apology for putting Happy Christmas on the cover of this month’s issue - not least because it is far more jolly than the anodyne alternative: “Seasons Greetings”.
In doing so, I wish peace and goodwill to our readers - Christian, Jewish, Muslim, Atheist, Agnostic - all.