Religion - Devil's advocate

Religion, especially the organised variety, doesn't make a whole lot of sense to me. But does it have anything going for it? On the face of it, yes. It's been the inspiration behind some of humanity's great works of architecture and art. From the surreal mud mosques of Mali to William Byrd's Ave Verum Corpus, works dedicated to the glory of religion can astonish and move even a crusty old humanist like me. The cathedrals of medieval Europe, the gilded pagodas of the Far East, the gospel music of the American Deep South, the geometrical marvels of Islamic architecture, Milton's Paradise Lost, Nkosi Sikeleli Africa, the Parthenon; it's a list which could go on and on.

As important, maybe more so, is the sense of community and fellowship which people can experience at their church, temple, mosque, whatever. In our self-centred, atomised western world, this valuable feeling of community isn't something to be lightly dismissed. In a country where you probably live miles from your family and hardly know your neighbours, a sense of belonging would be a valuable addition to many people's lives and religious congregations often provide that. Furthermore, there are plenty of religious people are just genuinely nice people - perhaps being socialised by a strong community can make them so.

So, what's not to like?

Well, my problem is with truth. As most religions believe themselves to be in possession of a very special truth - The Truth - this should be, along with humility, one of religion's Unique Selling Points. The trouble is that if you can't accept that central truth, then by definition you don't have faith and aren't religious - and that's where I am. There have always been a few who questioned the claims of religion, but in the last couple of centuries, the evidence that the creation myths of the world's religions aren't truthful accounts of what actually happened has become overwhelming.

Speaking as someone from a culture where Christianity has been the dominant faith, obviously Darwin V Genesis has been the big match. It isn't the triumph of Darwin alone which conflicts with the narratives of Christianity. Think about the size and age of the universe, according to the best estimates patiently put together by generations of scientists. The Universe of the Bible was a large place, but of comprehensible size and old, but of an age which could be grasped in terms of the generations of men and women. Within that framework, it would be possible to believe in an earth that was at the centre of the universe and in a God whose chief concern was his earthly creation. Now that we know that the size of all human civilization is an almost dimensionless point in great gulfs of time and space, it would seem a tad presumptuous to postulate a God who created everything and yet keeps us under his special care. In the words of Arthur C Clarke, "if there are any gods whose chief concern is man, they cannot be very important gods."

As if that wasn't enough, there have been generations of pesky Biblical scholars, picking apart our sacred texts, pointing out inconsistencies and contradictions, suggesting that Gospel Truth ain't necessarily ... well ... true. In fact the documents have all the hallmarks of texts written amended and developed by fallible humans rather than direct dictation from on high.

Some religionists - often the more "liberal" and sophisticated ones, don't have a problem reconciling all of this with faith. The bits which have been thrown into doubt or dis proven are, they say, beautiful metaphors. The bits which are currently un-provable or un-dis-provable are, they say the real Truth. I almost prefer the wilful blindness of Biblical literalists, determined to ignore any contrary evidence to the literal truth of Genesis to this level of intellectual dishonesty.

So, although there are many things which religious people have, which I actually admire, the central tenet of their religion is the sticking point, along with all the accompanying baggage of faith trumping observation, empirical inquiry, questioning or anything else which isn't literally a prejudice (pre-judging an issue in the absence of evidence). It's a bit like the placebo effect - good things can happen though believing alone, but that doesn't actually make what you believe in true. In fact, I did a bit of a sneaky thing in including the Parthenon in my list of religiously-inspired architecture - although religious people find it hard to accept dismissal of their own spiritual beliefs, they find it quite easy to dismiss those of past believers, whose beliefs, presumably just as deeply held, are no longer in fashion. To quote Arthur C Clarke again, "No one ever demonstrated, so far as I am aware, the non-existence of Zeus or Thor — but they have few followers now".

Along with many religious people I believe that there is more to life than our society's current obsessions with making money, shopping and celebrity. But whatever that "more" is, I don't think it's the sugar pill of religion.