Atheism UK has a strapline – “Challenging religious faith”. In many ways it defines the purpose of our organization. While other groups may promote secularism, science and reason, humanist or other non-religious ethical systems or challenge religious privilege, we are the only national organization that specifically identifies religious faith itself as a problem in our society that has a deleterious effect on both its religious and non-religious members alike.

Before going on to offer evidence for our position it is important that we define the term ‘faith’ as used in a religious context. If you consult a dictionary you will see that the word ‘faith’ has a number of definitions, many of which are good and desirable. It can be defined as a confident belief in the truth, value, or trustworthiness of a person, idea or thing. It can also be loyalty to a person or thing. To act in good faith is to be sincere or honest, to keep faith, or, be faithful is to be loyal, honourable or steadfast.

Doesn’t sound too bad, does it? No reasonable person would object to that kind of faith but English is a funny language; the same word can have a number of different meanings. The faith you might have that the sun will rise tomorrow, or in the Theory of Evolution, or in a friend’s good intentions are all based on evidence, your past experience, the fossil record, your knowledge of your friend’s character.



This brings us to the second definition of faith, the one with a religious context, that is, a strong and unshakable belief in something without proof or good evidence. Now this is a very different kind of ‘faith’ indeed. This is the sort of faith you require to believe the sun will rise tomorrow when it failed to rise this morning, or to continue believing in the Theory of Evolution after they find rabbit skeletons in Pre-Cambrian rock strata. The kind of faith you need to believe your friend is trustworthy even after you find out that he has stolen all your money, run off with your wife and framed you for murder. In short, this kind of faith is just plain stupid.

It is this kind of faith that religions would have you believe is a virtue. In fact the less evidence you have for your belief the more virtuous your faith; indeed the most virtuous kind of religious faith is that held when all the evidence directly contradicts it. It is the glorification of gullibility; the exaltation of wilful ignorance. In no other field but religion would this be considered a good thing, but religion needs you not to think and reason because it has no good evidence that it is true. To quote Benjamin Franklin – “The way to see by faith is to shut the eye of reason”.

Oddly, in this matter both sides seem to be in agreement. Martin Luther, the father of Protestantism said – “Reason is a whore, the greatest enemy that faith has. It never comes to the aid of spiritual things, but more frequently than not struggles against the divine Word, treating with contempt all that emanates from God”.

So then, the choice appears simple. Either blind faith is a virtue and reason a vice, or else the converse is true.

Religions know they need to get to you early before you develop critical thinking skills, while Santa Claus and the Tooth Fairy still make sense because they are magic and magic can do anything. Then they can persuade you that their scripture and dogma are the inerrant Word of God (and always were and will forever be, no matter how many times they are rewritten or reinterpreted for the convenience of priests and despots). If they can get you at this stage and convince you that “You must have faith” then you may simply join the unquestioning flock and bleat in unison with the other sheep.

Some however will escape the indoctrination process. They won’t believe what the religion is telling them because it doesn’t make sense to them. They cannot be cowed into believing by threats of eternal torment or bought with the promise of 72 virgins when they don’t believe that a Hell or a Heaven exists. They may call themselves agnostics or even atheists. They may even become anti-religious and join an organization such as ours.

However, religion has one last trick up its sleeve. It is the third definition of ‘faith’ – that is, a specific system of religious beliefs. “Hold on a minute …” you may say. “Isn’t that the same as ‘religion’?” Well, of course it is but ‘religions’ are all Crusades and Jihads, and Inquisitions and burning witches or beheading heretics whereas ‘faiths’ are more carols and bell-ringing and pretty cathedrals, and harvest festivals and charitable work.

Some will be hornswoggled by this mountebank’s legerdemain and join the ranks of the ‘spiritual but not religious’, or else become ‘faitheists’, accommodationist atheists, who while obviously not believers themselves think patronisingly that religion is good for others (usually the poor, less educated and/or brown skinned) and that it should not be criticised. If religion succeeds in conflating religious faith with the other nice, fluffy, totally different definition of faith we discussed earlier then all it does is put lipstick on a pig and before you know it you are marrying a Gloucester Old Spot and proclaiming to everyone that she’s the prettiest girl in the world.

Why should any of this matter? What concern is it of ours what others believe? Thomas Jefferson is quoted as saying – “It does me no injury for my neighbour to say there are twenty gods or no God. It neither picks my pocket nor breaks my leg”. The problem is that beliefs inform actions. While some religions such as Jains or Wiccans do not seek to impose their moral outlook upon others many others do. We do not have to look far for examples whether from extremists such as Wahabi Islamists and Dominionist Christians to more moderate religions who still seek to enshrine religious privileges or deny rights to others. Religions demand to limit free speech, to deny women and LGTB people equal rights, to indoctrinate our children into their belief systems, to inflict unnecessary pain on animals, to mutilate children’s genitals, to disproportionate political representation and privileged exemption from taxation, to prevent people dying with dignity, to deny people sexual and reproductive freedom, to limit scientific research, to give but a few examples. They seek to enforce their rules even on people do not subscribe to their belief systems, and they do this based on dogma that is not open to question.

Religion makes many truth claims. It claims to have answers but they have repeatedly failed to demonstrate the veracity of any supernatural assertions. When challenged with evidence that is contrary to their dogma religious faith simply sticks its fingers in its ears and goes “Na,na,na,na, … not listening, not listening”. By contrast we have discovered another way of determining the truth; the scientific method. Science is open to questions, in fact, they are its lifeblood. Unlike faith, science does not ignore evidence, it assimilates it and its theories evolve. Unlike faith, science has delivered. It has cured disease, fed the multitudes, taken us to the depths of the deepest oceans and let men walk on the moon. Science has split the atom, explained how we are related to every other living thing on our planet, shown us that although we are only one amongst billions of our species on this planet there are a hundred planets in our galaxy for each of us and a hundred billion galaxies to choose from. And it has told us that we are all made of stars which died and in doing so created the elements of which we are made. The truth is so much cooler and more interesting than any creation story involving gods and the great thing is we have only just stopped making things up and started to find things out.

It’s time to put an end to the charade that religious faith is worthy of respect. It has had ample time to demonstrate its worth and has failed every test. We have a simple choice. To stand on the shoulders of giants and see as far as we can, or, as religions would have us do, huddle ignorant and afraid in the shadows of pygmies, blinded by faith.