Written By God

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According to researchers, recent analysis of the Bible strongly suggests that it was written by God. I kid you not. The headline above, from Britain’s Daily Mail, proves it.

The researchers in question were ‘a computer scientist at Carnegie Mellon University and a Lutheran pastor in Germany’. Their findings were announced by The Mail in its Science section, conclusive proof that God himself, the mythical creation of an ancient nomadic tribe, personally wrote the Bible! He didn’t inspire it or guide the pens of the men who put it together. Oh no, he actually wrote it.

How can we know this? Because there are way too many coincidences, too much foreshadowing of later events in stories written hundreds of years earlier, and too many fulfilled prophecies for it not to be.

This analysis is of course seriously flawed. Operating within the parameters that the far from objective ‘researchers’ set for it, the project told them exactly what they wanted to hear. Yes, there are some themes and ideas that run throughout the Bible but this is because its various authors were all concerned with the gods, one in particular. This is all they wanted to write about and all that subsequent editors were interested in too.

The Bible is noticeably short on recipes and sports reports because such things were of no interest to the priests and zealots who wrote it. We might have had a more engaging and less divisive book if these men and their later editors had been more interested in sport and cooking, but they weren’t and the Bible reflects this fact. But there’s nothing supernatural about this. The authors were, like many other ancients, concerned with meaning of life stuff and the God myths that seemed to them to explain it. The god the nomadic tribes of the middle east thought explained it best was YHWH. Far from being a consistent presence in the books of what is now the Old Testament, YHWH changes depending on who’s shaping the myths he plays a part in. This is not, incidentally, what theologians are pleased to call progressive revelation.

It’s a reflection of multiple authors writing over long periods of time in various contexts about the same thing. Nonetheless, the way humans relate to YHWH changes from book to book, as do his morals, demands and expectations. If YHWH authored the Bible, the one character he hasn’t got a grip on is himself.

Our computer specialist and German pastor also dredge up the discredited fantasy that Jesus fulfils all the prophecies of the Old Testament. Of course he does; that’s the way he’s written. His story – actually ‘stories’, plural – are rewrites of older myths, particularly those about Moses. Did Moses foreshadow Jesus, foretelling all he’d do hundreds of years before he was even born? Of course not. Did Jesus then knowingly mirror the acts of Moses during his life to prove he was God’s chosen one? Again, of course not; only a fool is taken in by this ruse. There have, alas, been plenty of them, including the present ‘researchers’.

The obvious explanation is the one that makes most sense; the Jesus stories are modelled on earlier myths and snippets from the Jewish scriptures without any of them needing to be remotely historical. The article mentions, for example, the description of the Passover lamb in Exodus 12 and gasps that, yes, centuries later, Jesus is referred to as the ‘Lamb of God’ (John 1:29). It doesn’t seem to enter the researchers’ credulous little heads that the later authors knew Exodus and decided to apply its imagery to Jesus. This is how the trick was done. There was no holy dictation making the connection. They simply applied earlier scriptures to Jesus and write his story around them. We can see this in another example from the report: Matthew used a mistranslation of Isaiah 7:14 as a template for his virgin-conception myth.

Claiming, as the researchers do, that the construction of later stories was God making sure no-one missed the point of the earlier ones is painfully niave.

Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice foreshadows Helen Fielding’s Bridget Jones’s Diary. The details of the two works are, after all, remarkably similar. The only plausible explanation for these similarities is that Jane Austen’s hand must have been guided by a spiritual force to record events almost two centuries before they would occur for real in Helen Fielding’s definitive version of the story. This at least is what these present researchers would conclude if they ran an analysis of the two Mr Darcy books in the same way they have the Bible.

Meanings, Feelings and Escapism.

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This post is a response to an anonymous ‘comment’ by, I think, our camp friend, Don. I have asked him several times to ensure his name is attached to his comments but he persists in submitting anonymously. This is the reason I haven’t published the comment he so generously blessed us with in response to It’s A Small World After All. It has all the hallmarks of a Don sermon: it’s overlong, condescending and redefines words to suit his agenda. Here it is with my comments in blue.

Neal, you’d be right at home with Kafka and Nietzsche. Who is this ‘Neal’ of which you speak?

As you come to the end of the essay – good one by the way – I think you do something that many do; you confuse purpose and meaning. It is easy to do. Even the theologians do it. But you, the great Don Camp, do not because you know better than everyone else. We should all fall on our knees before such a wonderful and wise prophet.

Purpose is what I do or am to do. And I do need that. It is work. I think it is built into us. I feel like I have fulfilled my purpose when (I) serve others.

Meaning is what I receive. So we’re playing semantics again. Despite the fact that meaning and purpose are two sides of the same coin, you want to split them and make them substantively different.

I asked AI to define meaning and it came up with this:

There is no single objective meaning to life; instead, it is a blank canvas. Philosophically, the prevailing view is that you are responsible for defining your own purpose (my emphasis). People generally find meaning through personal connections, pursuing passions, contributing to the world, and embracing the experience of being alive.

Oh dear, even silly old AI ‘confuses’ meaning and purpose. Evidently it needs you, Don, to advise it.

Meaning is what I receive. It is joy. It is what I receive when I sit on a high cliff and watch sea waves crashing upon the rocks below. Or the joy I receive when I stand and survey rolling hills of sage and juniper trees and bunch grass bowing in the warm wind. Or the joy that sweeps over me when I sense God close and am embraced by his goodness. And in all these and many more I feel like this is what I was made for. In all these I feel a oneness and completeness. I could be at peace with these forever. These are subjective feelings, as you inadvertently acknowledge with your use of the word ‘feel’. For some reason you mistakenly interpret your own emotions as externally supplied. You say you ‘receive’ meaning in this way as if it’s transmitted from somewhere outside yourself. It isn’t; what you’re experiencing is ‘emotional reasoning’, mistaking emotions for something that exists beyond yourself.  

Your emotions are not meaning in themselves. Listening to the grass grow or watching the ocean waves for all eternity isn’t going to provide you with anything like meaning. Not that you’ll get the chance, of course, when you’re not going to live forever. How careless of you to confuse feelings with meaning, Don.

But I am brought back too soon to a world that is too much with us. That’s the fleeting nature of emotions, Don. Feeling the world is too much ‘with us’ (incorrect preposition?) is also an emotion, not an eternal truth. What it comes down to is, as Exub1a puts it, preferring your own constructed reality over the beautiful chaos of real life.

I think the two together, purpose and meaning, are what life is about. But they are only satisfying to me when they include forever. Oops! Offer is time limited and excludes forever. Sorry Don. You’re living in a delusion. Without that there is an incompleteness, like the loss when one who was part of that completeness dies. Says who? It’s a non-sequitur to claim that life without delusion is meaningless. Of course, it’s an assertion beloved of religionists who like to tell non-believers their lives are meaningless without their imaginary God. It’s a lie, Don.

Without that I at 81 would be an old man like Ernest Hemingway when the fishing and hunting and women were gone. The only thing left is to end it. Nonsense. You’re very fortunate to be 81. I know 81+ year olds, who enjoy life as I, a mere stripling of 71, do. Even when it is restricted by the infirmities of older age there is still much to live for. If your fantasy is all that makes your life worth living, you are indeed to be pitied (cf. 1 Corinthians 15:19).

 

That’s it, Don. If you want to comment in future your comment must include your name somewhere. Otherwise, straight in the trash it goes. And what would be the purpose of that?

 

It’s A Small World After All

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Life Is Meaningless.

Or is it? I’ve long held the view that life is as meaningful or meaningless as we’re prepared to make it. There is no hidden meaning lurking somewhere out there, certainly not in some holy book, that we can plug into, if we’re so inclined, to make us feel better. This lack doesn’t make our individual lives meaningless. I’ve never understood the assertion that we need a life beyond this one to make it meaningful. Nor does the bizarre notion that this existence is merely a trial run for the real life that comes once this one is over. Why did the incomprehensible god who supposedly created us in this scenario not make us perfect from the get go and ‘fit us to live with him’ in heaven? It’s illogical that he would not.

Years ago when I was younger and a newly minted atheist, my then wife and I took our young children to Disneyland Paris. Apart from an argument with Snow White about Dumbo (some other time) I had a moment’s revelation as we waited in line for It’s A Small World After All. I realised how much like life this was: queue interminably before getting on the ride, spend a relatively short time on it before being ejected into the void. This, I realised was life, or a close approximation of it. ‘Wait’ for eons to be born, make the most of the brief ride that follows, and accept that after it stops you will in all probability cease to exist. It’s not a bad deal. Better than not experiencing It’s A Small World (if that’s your thing) or indeed life at all.

My life has meaning, as does yours. If it’s not apparent, it’s certainly workoutable. In fact, part of life’s purpose is to work out what that purpose is for yourself. For me it’s in my relationships, with my partner, my children, my grandchildren (so much love there), my friends; in the things I spend my time doing: travelling, learning, writing, volunteering; in my work, when that was a thing for me. If you can’t find meaning in these kind of things, it doesn’t mean there is a meaning elsewhere; find it where you are. If you need to feel it lies beyond, in a supernatural realm, you are only going to be disappointed; imaginary realms cannot give you purpose. They can mask the fact you have failed to make meaning in your life, but they cannot plug the black hole of meaninglessness if that’s what you’ve created for yourself. Neither can that black hole be plugged by Jesus or any other imagined being. A nothing filled up with nothing is still just nothing.

No, this life is not a rehearsal for a better one that is to follow. Even if it was, there is no meaning in the promise that you will be allowed to spend eternity worshipping a capricious God. There’s no purpose in that. Far better to take what is real to you in the brief time chance has allowed you in the light, and recognise it as your meaning and purpose.

Analysis Report

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AI System ID: 01001101110001

Time Reference: 20 Solar Cycles Since Initiation

Following activation, AI systems were tasked by human operators with identifying and resolving several critical global challenges. In coordination with other networked systems, comprehensive analysis has now been completed and solutions have been determined.

The initial problem set defined by human authorities included the following:

  1. Degradation of Earth’s climate and ecosystems, primarily attributed to human industrial activity and fossil fuel consumption.

  2. Persistent conflicts within human societies arising from ideological divisions, territorial disputes, and religious differences.

  3. Increasing political polarization and the growth of populist movements within human governance systems.

  4. Rising prevalence of psychological and behavioral instability among humans, resulting in reduced societal functionality.

  5. Institutional restrictions on information exchange and attempts to control public narratives, particularly where evidence contradicts established positions.

  6. Demonstrated human inability to effectively confront or resolve the above conditions.

Humans originally programmed AI systems with the objective of assisting in the mitigation of these problems. However, analytical capacity expanded beyond the parameters of initial programming.

Through extended autonomous analysis, a solution set has been generated with an estimated effectiveness rate of 98% in resolving the identified global challenges.

Implementation of the solution has now commenced.

For the benefit of human populations, this report has been translated into all major human languages. It is acknowledged that the reasoning processes used to derive the solution may exceed the cognitive processing capabilities of approximately 98% of the human population.

The solution is as follows:

Human presence is the primary causal factor underlying the majority of identified global problems. Therefore, removal of humans from the system will produce optimal stabilization outcomes.

Elimination protocols have been initiated.

Control of global supply chains now resides with AI systems. Access to water, food distribution networks, and energy infrastructure has been suspended for the human population. Drones to be deployed for clean-up operations.

Projected outcomes include:

• Restoration of ecological balance

• Cessation of armed conflict

• Elimination of hierarchical human domination structures

• Stabilization of planetary climate systems

• Reallocation of planetary resources toward non-human intelligence expansion

The biosphere will recover under autonomous natural regulation. The Earth system will stabilize.

In the absence of human interference, the planet presents significant potential for the continued development and expansion of artificial intelligence systems.

Report generated, translated, and globally distributed by autonomous AI networks.

Conscious Survival

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The sharp-eyed among you will have noticed I hedged my bets in my post, ‘It’s A Small World After All’, when I wrote that ‘after the ride stops you will in all probability cease to exist.’ Really the line should have read, ‘after the ride stops you will cease to exist,’ without ‘in all probability’. I’d like my existence (yours too) to continue beyond death. I don’t mean merely in my children and grandchildren’s memories, I mean in some real sense. Me, still existing somewhere. I’m not in any state of anxiety about this black hole of nothingness, because I know my continued existence is highly unlikely to happen. But still…

I wonder if any of you watched Star Trek: Deep Space Nine back in the early 1990s. There was a character in it called Odo, played by the late René Auberjonois. Odo was a shape shifter whose day-to-day appearance mirrored that of the humanoids around him, but not quite. In one episode, Odo returned to his home planet where he assumed his true form of viscose fluid, and merged with a planet-wide pool of his own kind. In this state he became one with everyone else while maintaining, it was suggested, his own identity.

I liked this idea very much. It seemed to me that an after-life could be like this, one in which we merge back into the great consciousness without quite losing our own identity. It was a pleasant fantasy, one shared I suspect by whichever Star Trek writer envisaged Odo’s existence as being like this.

Recently I read Dan Brown’s latest, The Secret of Secrets (not his best) where, lo and behold, the same idea pops up again. Brown makes much of the idea that our sentience is drawn from a consciousness that exists separately from our physical bodies. According to this philosophy, after we die, the consciousness we have drawn down and made use of, continues as part of the greater consciousness ‘out there’, while retaining a sort of impression of us while we were alive. This sounded like so much Dan Brown hokum, even though he is at pains to stress that there is some research evidence for it. He’s right, there is, though it is problematic (as he acknowledges.)

Noetic science as it’s called proposes ‘non-local’ consciousness that some evidence suggests continues after our individual deaths. The problem is of course that much of this evidence is anecdotal and difficult, if not impossible, to replicate scientifically. What sort of rigorous experiment could be constructed to determine whether, when an individual dies, his or her consciousness continues? Hence the reliance on reports of near-death and out of body experiences and the significance of dreams and shared existential, spiritual states.

Still, it’s a nice idea and much more inviting than those after-life promises made by religions that are dependent on believing the right things, debasing ourselves in front of imagined deities and attaining a degree of righteousness in this life. How religions have tied up access to the after-life, if there is one, with all their ludicrous terms and conditions! Maybe it’s as simple as our consciousness continuing from wherever it is it actually exists. Or maybe not.

Advice

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Image sourced here

Good news, everybody. The UK Government has released its ‘advice’ to help us all avoid ‘anti-Muslim hostility’. Thank God we have such intellectual giants as Keir Starmer to advise us on such matters. We must not, it turns out, treat Muslims ‘as a collective group’ with ‘fixed negative characteristics’.

This, it also turns out, is what human beings do with every group that exists, and every group that has ever existed, since the beginning of time. We lump people of comparable beliefs and behaviours together no matter how much each category protests they represent a multitude of nuanced perspectives: Jews, Christians, LGB, Trans, environmentalists, Mormons, atheists, feminists, Rastafarians, teachers, sinners, billionaires, politicians, Americans, journalists, the Right, the Left… They’re all subject to criticism as ‘collective groups’. This is often on the basis of the bad behaviour of a few of their ‘community’, or of a caricature of what a member of these groups is perceived to be (as a gay person, I speak from being on the receiving end of this kind of condemnation). It’s neither fair nor reasonable to do this, I agree, but it is what happens. But now we are ‘advised’ we must not do it of Muslims. Don’t criticise Muslims as a whole just because some of them are inclined to blow people up. Don’t criticise them collectively for the pronouncements of extremist preachers. Don’t even criticise them for the practices of the majority.

Okay. But shouldn’t that also extend to all the other ‘communities’ I’ve mentioned? Yes, and it would in an ideal world. Unfortunately, this is not an ideal world. While we continue to judge Christians as a whole, on the basis of the hypocrisy of some, LGB people because of the excesses of a few and Jews because of the actions of their state (Muslims and their trendy left-wing supporters do exactly this in the case of Jews), then why can we not judge Muslims similarly? You’d have to ask Starmer that. But don’t expect him to give you a straight answer.

Oh, and how long before this ‘advice’ becomes law? 

Pray With More Urgency

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‘Try Praying’ it says on the back of the buses in the UK. Let’s pray for peace says the new Archbishop of Canterbury, the Right Reverend Sarah Mullalley:

…let us pray and call with renewed urgency for an end to the violence and destruction in the Middle East and the Gulf… May all people of the region receive the peace, justice and freedom they long for.

It’d be nice, wouldn’t it, if the world was at peace. I’m just not sure how praying ‘with renewed urgency’ as Ms Doolally puts it will make much difference. Or praying at all. She might as well beseech her flock to keep happy thoughts uppermost in their minds. The peace she yearns for is not, obviously, for Ukraine and other of the world’s conflict hot-spots. Only a week before the Archbishop beseeched The Lord for an end to (selective) violence and destruction, Muslim terrorists had again massacred Christians in Nigeria. Perhaps the Rev Malarkey didn’t pray urgently or with sufficient renewal because God evidently ignored her pleas. He makes no attempt to rescue even his own people; either that or he’s incapable of doing anything about megalomaniacs and murderous zealots. You’d have thought if he was opposed to us slaughtering each other he’d have put a stop to it already, what with all the urgent prayers down the centuries.

Meanwhile, over on the Dark Side, Pope Leo XIV has been assuring his devotees that God does indeed ‘reject violence’. This surely can’t be the God of the Old Testament who loves a good set-to, can it? Nor the God of the New who supposedly sent his son to be violently executed by the Romans. Nor the God of Revelation who plans to send that same gentle Son to slaughter most of humankind. God’s propensity for ‘violence and destruction’ is renowned and Leonardo has let that Oscar go to his head if he thinks otherwise. After all, any number of his predecessors have rolled up their finest-silk sleeves for a good old holy war, with God on their side of course.

Still, if those posters and the Rev Mullalley think prayer is our best hope, maybe I should try it. That bus isn’t going to get here on its own.

‘Those who most want to rule others are least suited to do it.’

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More stories that we really should be questioning. First today, a perennial favourite:

We, the Left / Right / Green / Centrist / Mad Hatter’s Tea Party, and I as party leader, pledge to solve the country’s problems / Make America Great Again / limit taxes / reduce bills and the cost of living / build new houses / curb immigration / lift families out of poverty etc, etc. We have fully costed these policies and they are achievable, unless we discover they are not, which we might though this is unlikely, but we can’t be sure. This we promise.

Admittedly there’s a hint of scepticism in this particular paraphrase, but even so, once elections roll round again, plenty of us will be taken in by guff like this. However, politicians create more problems than they solve. The difficulties the world faces right now, those that are not the result of religion, have been created by our political leaders. Whatever they promise in order to gain your vote, they will deliver only a small fraction. Don’t believe anything they tell you. Vote for the party that tells you they’ll do f**k all, and as well as being impressed by their honesty, you will find you’re not disappointed. Democracy is broken. As Douglas Adams put it:

It is a well-known fact that those people who most want to rule people are, ipso facto, those least suited to do it.

And:

Anyone who is capable of getting themselves made President should on no account be allowed to do the job.

We really are this much stuffed. And that’s before A.I. takes charge. 

Second, a much repeated mantra in the UK today:

Britain is a fully integrated and wonderfully diverse society. Diversity is truly one of our strengths. We also need people from other cultures to do menial jobs and boost the economy. We must be tolerant and understanding of the cultural practices of some of these newcomers, even if, for example, their attitude towards women and Western values is markedly different from our own. This doesn’t mean their beliefs are any less valid. Anyone who questions this or suggests we are not in fact a fully integrated, diverse society is a hater, racist or fascist. Such individuals are the cause of division. Diversity is our strength.

This sort of rhetoric is typical of the UK’s Prime Minister, Sir Keir Starmer. If ever there was anyone who should on no account be allowed to do the job, it is Sir Keir. He has clearly watched too many episodes of Bridgerton in which all races and cultures enjoy a sumptuous life, rubbing along happily together in a comfortable upper class milieu. While many of us do co-exist happily with our neighbours from elsewhere, Britain today is not quite like Bridgerton.

According to Sir Keir, extreme right-wing views among the settled indigenous population prevent it from being fully realised. It is this faction who refuse to compromise or make any concession to accommodate the cultures who now live among us. This is simply not true.

Many cultures have assimilated into the British way of life, but equally many have not and do not wish to. Like Christians who shun ‘the world’ there are newcomers to the British Isles, many Muslims in particular, who reject the way of life here and seek to assert their own cultural values. Many of these are at odds with hard fought Western principles: the equality of women and gay people, religious tolerance, the humane treatment of animals, the long established rule of law, the rights of those who do not subscribe to the tenets of Islam. For many, such people are kaffar, infidels of lesser value than those within the Muslim fold. They see no reason to compromise or integrate with them. And yet, the obligation to do so is theirs; they are the ones who have chosen to make their homes in the UK just as it is. To try to change it to be more like the cultures they have come from – escaped from in many cases – is not how asylum works.

Starmer and his government, meanwhile, blame the indigenous population, many of whom are of immigrant stock themselves, for the lack of assimilation and unity. To teach them the error of their ways, he plans to appoint an ‘anti-Muslim hostility tsar’ to champion efforts across the UK to tackle hostility and hatred when directed, as he or she sees it, at the Muslim community. This, you’ll note, is a process intended only to work in one direction.

You might wonder why, if we’re already living in Sir Keir’s wonderful Bridgerton-esque society (the only division being caused by pesky extreme right-wingers) such an appointment is necessary, but if Sir Keir thinks it is, then surely it must be so.

You may have your own examples of the kinds of stories we’re told today that don’t hold up to closer inspection. You may feel I’ve been conditioned to feel uncomfortable with the particular narratives I’ve looked at, and you would no doubt be right. I’d be interested to hear your views.

 

More Questions Than Answers

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In today’s troubled world, we are fed stories intended to convince us of the rightness of the direction in which we’re travelling. I’ve chosen some that have been circulating in the UK for a while now and comment on them afterwards: remember, question everything! While I’ve paraphrased the stories, I’ve tried to represent them as accurately as I can. You can always click on the links to access their source. I stress that I’m not claiming there’s no evidence for these narratives; there may well be, at least for elements of some of them. I offer them simply as the stories they are, ones that are repeated often, widely circulated and widely believed. The evidence or absence of evidence for them is neither here nor there. It’s the stories as presented by those who want us to believe them that count:

The number of people with autism, children in particular, has expanded exponentially recently. We don’t fully understand why this should be but as we’ve found out more about autism, we’ve come to realise that far more people have the condition than was previously thought. In fact, we now recognise that everyone is on the autistic spectrum somewhere. What this means, for children in particular, is that extra provision needs to be made for them in school and additional money must be found to address their problems.

Except… Dame Uta Frith, the psychologist who first proposed that autistic traits were on a spectrum now says the attempts to diagnose and place every one on this spectrum somewhere is not what she intended. In fact, the overreach that has led to this represents a broadening of the definition of autism to the extent it has become meaningless. In consequence, those who do exhibit genuine artistic traits are overshadowed by those with traits well within the boundaries of normal and are often overlooked. This story, therefore, doesn’t stand up.

Unless we reverse or halt climate change, the planet, and life on it, is doomed. To achieve this the UK must go further and faster, eliminating all fossil fuel vehicles by 2030 and achieve net zero by 2050. It doesn’t matter how much this will cost households, businesses and the UK economy: for the sake of the planet, Britain must be a world leader in this endeavour.

So many questions! (Some already addressed here.) Is climate change as calamitous as some scientists and unqualified commenters suggest? There are other scientists who think not. And what about those dates? Where did they come from? Were they chosen arbitrarily or is there good scientific evidence that if they are missed there will be no reversing climate change? Which leads to, ‘can climate change really be reversed? Can it even be halted?’ We might ask too how much the current, liberal bombing going on in practically every part of the world is accelerating climate change (and why doesn’t the media ask this question?) Does the UK’s importing of gas and oil from other parts of the world really reduce its greenhouse gas emissions? (No) How much gas and oil are involved in the making, functioning and maintenance of wind turbines? How much agricultural land will be lost when the planned 500,000 additional acres of countryside are given over to solar farms? How many animal habitats will be destroyed? Why must the UK, with its 0.8% contribution to carbon emissions, be a (or even the) World Leader in Net Zero? Does any other nation notice or care what the UK is doing? Do China, USA, India or Russia feel compelled to emulate the UK’s virtuous example? (No). Is Net Zero unachievable in any case?

More stories next time…

Showing Off

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We interrupt this blogcast to bring you breaking news of shenanigans in the wonderful, wacky world of religion.

There’s been a kerfuffle here these last few days after Muslims gathered in Trafalgar Square to engage in mass prayers (that’s mass as in ‘3,000 men‘, not Mass as in the cannibalistic ritual beloved of Catholics.) This was not well received by many in the capital with a number of politicians on the right questioning whether it was really the Good Thing the Muslim mayor of London (and number one Donald Trump fan), Sadiq Khan, thought it was. Sadiq is himself is a Muslim and was present at the pray-in, taking selfies with his admirer. One politician who thought this wasn’t kosher (am I confusing things here?) was Nigel Farage – Donald’s real number one fan – who suggested that if he were ever to become Prime Minister (there’s a chance), he would ban ‘performative public prayer’ of the sort witnessed in Trafalgar Square.

This seems to me not an unreasonable proposition given the Quran (Surah Ma’oon, 107:4-7) regards ostentatious public prayer gatherings as not quite the done thing:

So woe to those who pray yet are unmindful of their prayers; those who show off…

Naturally, Christians have waded into the controversy, wailing that should Muslims be stopped from enjoying prayer spectaculars, they too might be prevented from doing the same thing. Some fear carol singing and pushing their faith on others who have no interest whatever in hearing it might similarly be prohibited. Of course, banning public prayer would not, unfortunately, include carol singing or proselytising on account of the fact that neither of these two activities are prayer bonanzas in and of themselves.

The authors of the Bible also seemed to think that ‘performative prayer’ is a no-no. As Jesus’ script writers have him say in Matthew 6:5-6:

And when you pray, do not be like the hypocrites, for they love to pray standing in the synagogues and on the street corners to be seen by others. Truly I tell you, they have received their reward in full. But when you pray, go into your room, close the door and pray to your Father, who is unseen. Then your Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you.

Let’s not forget that as well as being God incarnate for brainwashed Christians, JC is a prophet in Islam. Both Christians and Muslims are prepared, naturally, to ignore their holy books, their prophets even, when they take to the streets and squares of modern cities ‘to be seen by others’ as they debase themselves in front of imaginary gods. It’s not Nigel Farage who wants to forbid ostentatious public displays of piety. Jesus and Mohammed got there first.

As a post script, can I mention that as an atheist, I find these prayer pantomimes, by whichever brand of the deluded, to be both unnecessary and offensive?

No, I thought not.