Some folk believe I hate religion. Not true. Whoever wrote my Wikipedia entry (what a strange job that must be) might be nearer to the mark. They say I’m “openly critical of religion”.

That anonymous Wiki author cites a debate night I attended after the murderous Jihadist attack on the French satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo over cartoons deemed anti-Islamic.

I was defending free speech, and I clashed with a Muslim writer who said freedom of expression should be restricted in order to respect religion.

My view was that no religion – especially none of the major global religions – should be offered special treatment. Religion is as fair game as the police force, the royal family, or the armed forces. Religion is simply another social structure which wields power and is therefore, rightly, subject to critique.

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If that’s challenging, then I suggest finding a time machine and setting the dial to some point in the 17th century prior to the Enlightenment.

But "hate"? Absolutely not. Well, certainly, not any more. In my youth, I did perhaps hate religion. I grew up in the ethnic civil war known euphemistically as "The Troubles" in Northern Ireland, and saw only the evil carried out in the name of religion. I saw nothing good about religion until I left Ireland in my early twenties.

As I travelled and matured, though, I learned there were many good people doing many good acts in the name of many faiths, though this certainly didn’t offset the truth that there remained many wicked people doing many wicked acts in the name of many faiths.

I also came to admire plenty of........

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