The Troubles with Northern Ireland

‘Here we go again’ has seemed to be the unspoken motto of Northern Ireland, whether it be flags, parades or parks there is always an element of the old ways leaking in. We seem to be caught in some sort of political stasis and once in a while certain elements bring these issues back to life and they remain as inflammatory as always. The last number of weeks has brought about the same old feelings, the same reasons to despair but I genuinely feel that all is not lost.

Unlike the times gone by what we have now is a greater saturation of our differences across the global stage, from Portland to Melbourne the world is looking at our country as a place of unrest and political destabilisation.  This exposure can also be attributed to social networking with live updates from the front lines of the clashes or up to date information on which roads to avoid. As with most news it is the sensationalist stories and images that spread the fastest and by and large they are not wholly representative of the entire situation. I hope through exposure to differing opinions, through social media, certain hard-line opinions may be cognitively challenged more than they would have been in the height of the troubles.

I believe that accurate information and personal honesty are two things that could really help the situation here, we need to let go of our long held prejudices that most of us will have inherited rather than having gained by experience. It seems easier to suggest it than to manage it but the need to progress needs to walk hand in hand with the ability and strength to compromise. Over the last few months this situation has been brewing and it is the willingness to accept information given by political leaders without questioning that has caused a lot of the issues.

We hear the DUP, UUP and to an extent the TUV making some claims that are just accepted and that fuel the fires of old hatreds. They will say that British identity is being eroded and that the Britishness of Northern Ireland is being attacked on a regular basis but where is the evidence? They will tell working class Protestants that Catholics are getting a better deal and have gained more than them since the Good Friday Agreement, but once again where is the objective empirical evidence for this? This is the only way you can fairly judge a situation and when provided with statements from politicians you should be doubly sure that you check their sources as the politicians are not beyond using the public to support their own cause.

The first reaction you may have after being told you are being unfairly treated may be an uncontrollable frustration, perhaps anger, but what you then have to do is justify your frustration with hard evidence. There are so many things that you wouldn't take merely on someone's word, claims are made that you will check out for yourself because you do not want to be sold as a fool. In Northern Ireland it seems that certain elements just put the blinkers on when it comes to politics because ‘well that sounds about right’. There are artifacts of the rhetoric of division that still cling to the psyche and they are easier to access than the idea that compromise isn't submission. The clearest example and very much at the heart of this current situation is the distributing of anti-Alliance party leaflets across East Belfast.

To date 101 police officers have been injured.

"The Leaflet..."

Let us roll back the clock to November when unmarked leaflets, that are widely understood to be from the DUP, circulated around Belfast on the issue of the flag vote that was on the cards. My first question here was why the political parties responsible hadn't contacted the people during the 16 week open consultation period. This would have been an open medium by which the concerned people could come and have their opinions and suggestions put on the record. Why did the parties involved not mobilise people into the democratic process and into a channel that could actually make a difference? Given that working class Protestants remain the demographic that has the lowest turnout at elections perhaps it was easier to leave mobilisation until they had an antiquated rhetoric to force people out onto the streets.

There is the ability to draw a causal line between the leaflet distribution and the trouble that flared and I am in shock that the parties involved have not been investigated for some measure of incitement to public disorder. Those involved have been quick to distance themselves from this issue stating that the leaflets were not related to the trouble but that the undercurrent of unionist frustration over various issues had been tipped by the flag issue. It is of course an exercise of damage limitation; it is obvious to those who look at the situation not through the red, white and blue tinted glasses of the troubles where the blame lies. This is not going to be lost on the wider political stage, or indeed the annals of history, as the DUP and UUP are transparently seen by reasonable people as having manipulated the working class of east Belfast into violence.

So while I may be saying that people were manipulated by the parties that espoused to be supportive  for them I would hope and expect that you would ask me to justify what I am saying and to provide evidence of this claim. The best way to analyse this is to look directly at the leaflet that was distributed and critically assess its content. So here it is:

There are many things to note about this leaflet and how it has went about manipulating people so we will look at the issues one by one.

1) The leaflet carries the colours of the Alliance Party rather than the parties distributing the leaflets. They immediately try to bias the discussion by putting the issue at the door of the Alliance Party. The trouble here is that it was not them that called for the flag to come down permanently, so why not mention Sinn Fein who proposed the flag coming down? It seems that the interest here is to reclaim the seat in east Belfast that Alliance won through Naomi Long in the last election and this is a theme that we will see again.

2    2) The headline “A Shared Future for Who?” is a fine example of poisoning the well when it comes to honest discussion. The question seems to suggest that someone is losing out and that is Protestants who are losing. There is no discussion that through advice from the Equality Commision and the EQIA assessment the best course of action was to only fly on designated days.

   
    3) The two contrasting images shown, City Hall with a union flag and City Hall without a union flag, is a complete misrepresentation of the issue and provides a false description of policy. The flag will fly on designated days, it is not gone forever and this was not the position of opinion of the EQIA or Equality Commission.

4) The statement “Brought to you by the Alliance” is again a false statement and coupled with the images it really does begin to cement the fact that this was a malicious attempt by the DUP and UUP to discredit a legitimate political party for the possible garnering of future support. The Alliance party did not bring the flag down; it kept it flying in a traditional British context.

Up to this point on the leaflet it has merely been purposely flawed rhetoric, but if there is one way to build your case it is by empirical fact but yet again we see that the leaflets are sorely lacking and misleading. So, let’s have a look at what was said:

1)  “Nearly 90% of people…”

      Statistics are funny things, when they are handled properly then are very useful and insightful things but in the wrong hands they can be stunningly manipulated. The 90% here sounds like a lot and at first glance you may think that the decision made to fly on designated days flies in the face of popular opinion. The truth behind this 90% is that it is based on 15,000 signatures on a petition; a petition cannot be used as an indicator of opinion. The reason for this is that it is targeted and will return biased results and it needs to be representative of the wider community not just the names that the UUP and DUP had on their books.

To put this figure into a wider context we must look at what the figures actually represent in quantative terms. The population of Belfast is around the 640,000 mark, so when we look at the 90% of 15,000 in a population of 640,000 what you are left with just about 2% of the population. Looking at it objectively the will of the smallest portion of the population should not in a democratic society overrule a democratic decision made by the majority.

2)  “More than 95% of councils surveyed on the mainland fly the union flag 365 days a year”

I find this interesting for a number of reasons but most importantly because there is the call for Northern Ireland to fall in line with the mainland. The Alliance Party have contacted all 400 councils to find out the details of their flag flying policies, as it turns out 300 councils responded with 52% having the policy of designated days. The DUP and UUP have not released where they got their figures from. With the mainland opting for designated days and the Crown body stating that designated days is British tradition it seems at odds with the call to be more like the mainland by flying the flag 365.

      3)  “At the minute Alliance are backing Sinn Fein/SDLP that the flag should be ripped down on all but a few days.”

Notice the emotive language used, saying that the flag is being ‘ripped’ down is intentionally provocative and later on they refer to it as being ‘torn’ down. The reality is the flag is being lowered and stored away to be raised on designated days, nothing more and nothing less. There is an attempt to lump Alliance in with 'Sinn Fein/SDLP' to create a false dichotomy in the typical ‘them and us’ narrative. Truthfully, and officially on record, the Alliance have always supported the move to not take the flag down permanently but fly it on designated days, as has the PUP even though you wouldn’t know it now.

4) The leaflet also gave Naomi Long’s name and contact information to challenge the upcoming decision and it is here that true intentions freely come to the fore. Why would the DUP want people to target Naomi Long? She has not sat on the council in two years since she won the East Belfast seat in Westminster, a seat that was taken from none other than DUP leader Peter Robinson. There is due cause for any thinking person to see that this topic could have been hijacked in a bid to gain support to reclaim the seat that was lost. 

The fallout from this saw a protest at City Hall, when the vote was cast to change to designated days, devolve into violence. There may have been genuine protesters there but many arrived with weapons, golf balls, bolt cutters and it is something that cannot be justified by anyone in society. From here began continuing street protests, some largely peaceful, but many involving serious violence. There are ongoing protests outside Naomi Long's office, political offices in Carrickfergus have been burnt out and death threats issued across differing parties. 

"It's my right to protest..."

There has seemed to be a lot of talk of rights, specifically the right to protest, and it seems that most involved in the protests do not understand some of the key regulations governing your right to protest. Firstly you must inform the police of the gathering, this is not to curtail your protest but to in fact accommodate you, others and also to be there to protect you. The social media world is alight with claims of excessive police presence but nearly all seem to miss the point that the police are there to also protect them.

Secondly you are not allowed to block roads or pavements. It is so obvious that this is flagrantly being abused and broken on a widespread daily basis, people returning home from work are stuck in traffic and people walking home are taking alternative routes out of intimidation. The reality is you are not born with these rights, we as a society decide what these rights are and in involving yourself within that society you adhere to respects the same rights of others. Your right to extend your arm is honoured only until it hits another person and by the same logic your right to protest extends only as far as you are in breach of other people’s rights.  Some may be peaceful protests but when you set up camp on the road and block vehicles then you are involved in an illegal protest and are at risk of police intervention and punishment.

There has been frustration by many by the seemingly accommodating nature of the PSNI, we want people who are breaking the law to be rounded up and subsequently charged. The nature of the police activity seems to that of playing the long game; minimum interference, containment and evidence gathering. I do believe that there is a shock coming to the flagrant rioters, the police have been gathering evidence for weeks now and building cases against individuals and as has been said, “there is a knock at the door coming.” It is disturbing to see the politicians who began this mess sitting far away and watching this all unfold while offering nothing but standard statements from the handbook of calling for calm. 

The truth seems to be that the politicians that tried to gather the support of the people they riled up are the people who are scorned by the protesters; they are seen as disengaged from the people and of little use.  To a large degree they are right, in this ill-advised move by the DUP and UUP you can see that they have very little to offer the working class protestants of East Belfast or Unionism as a whole. Tied down by old hands the anachronistic rhetoric of the fractured Unionists serves little or no purpose in today’s progressive Belfast and Northern Ireland.

"Unionism divided..."

It is a strange thing that Unionism is as weak as it is as there is a huge majority in this country who want to maintain the union. The problem lies with that feeling that it is a very protestant unionism that is being offered with little or no room for any progressive thought. Probably the best solution for preserving the union, not that it is actually at risk, is to court middle-class Catholics and to actually affect their daily lives is to alienate those that could give you what you want.  There has always been the old scare tactic of the United Ireland card that used to get played, and still gets played to a degree, by Sinn Fein andSDLP.  The reality is that no Catholic/Irish person would realistically want a United Ireland unless fueled by an unhelpful and myopic dose of nationalism.

Some people need to develop a different level of perspective and ask themselves some seemingly obvious questions about the reality of a united Ireland. To be part of Ireland would be to give up the NHS that while not perfect is much preferable to the Irish system. Economically it would be an utter disaster, with people struggling for jobs as it is why would you opt to make things more difficult for yourself and your family? Probably the biggest question to ask is ‘would Ireland even want us?’ Ireland is a country that has a myriad of issues of its own and you have to wonder why they would possibly want to inherit a country infused with so many internal issues. It's a genuine question and the reality is that Northern Ireland has always been a poisoned chalice and with the option of not drinking from it I would guess that Ireland would pass.

There is a better Northern Ireland that exists already, and it is accessible to all who want to be part of it and who will respect their neighbours. There have been a number of peace rallies that have happened over the last number of weeks and it is here that the world press should focus and it is here that the people in this country should take heart.  These rallies have seen people of all backgrounds, nationalities and religions all coming together in the name of a shared, peaceful future. This is the Northern Ireland that I now know; it’s not the one I grew up with and it’s all the better for it.

Northern Ireland's humour at its finest.

"Where do we go from here?"

What we are left with at the minute is a directionless minority, unsure of what they want and more unsure how to get it. There are emergent voices amongst the crowds that claim to speak for the people but in fact have next to nothing to say. The likes of Willie Frazer, Johnny Harvey and Jamie Bryson are mere opportunistic narcissists that like to be heard, the truth is that when you dissect what they are saying they are in fact saying very little. There have been numerous television and radio interviews over the last few weeks with these individuals and in each one you will have conflicting statements, flawed logic and no direction. We also have the unionist forum emerging that is seeking to engage with grass roots unionists to develop a strategy for moving forward. We do not move forward by walking alone, it is like Catholics and Protestants both having one half of a map and to get where we need to go we need to involve each other. I agree with the forum to the extent that it might focus issues and take people off the street but with disengaged rioters and illegal organisations pulling the strings it is hard to see how this will follow.

Unionism deserves to have responsible leadership, a leadership that is genuinely interested in progress and has the ability to compromise to achieve results. Currently it is floundering; the old guard have shown themselves to be removed from the people on the ground and to offer nothing in the way of solutions to close the disparity that they have tried to sell to garner votes. Unionists need someone to lead them towards something positive and not just meander through a bog of old hate. Working class Protestants are the lowest performing in education in the country and that is an issue that needs addressed and paid attention to, not the number of days a flag flies. They are also the lowest to turn out at polls and that is something that needs to change and a more worthy exercise would be to engage with them in the political process before the riots start. I genuinely hope that someone stands to this challenge, but does so honestly and puts care for the people of this country before political gain and symbols. Contrary to what many protesters are saying democracy does in fact work, even when it a decision does not go your way it is still working as you have the democratic freedom to challenge the decision.

Tis the Season to be...well, misinformed mostly but also persecuted!

Came across this lovely little article where Atheists are taken to task for their pesky mean Christmas spirit, I just thought I'd critque the piece found here http://richarddawkins.net/articles/566680-atheists-numbers-doom-them-to-irrelevance .

Atheists are once again trying to bring attention to themselves by attempting to denigrate, insult or demean religions and, in particular, Christianity and therefore Christians. [Well I guess it beats them once again trying to alter legislation, demean a gender or persecute a demographic with late Bronze Age myth.]

This time it is a billboard advertising [the horror] stunt in New Jersey; the billboard was placed [paid for by them and completely within the law] there by some atheist activist group that calls itself American Atheists. Once again an attempt to put down Christianity will be doomed to irrelevance. [Well done you for making it less irrelevant by writing an article.]
Polls show atheists to be 3 percent or less of the total population of the United States, a number that has remained about the same over past years.[In fact the non religious in one of the fastest growing minorities in the United States.] However, in a desperate attempt to make the number appear higher, the president of this organization now claims that there are many more "closet atheists."[A claim you seem to want to refute but can’t seem to provide actual evidence for.] He goes so far as to say that there are many who attend religious services during the holidays but don't believe in them. Kind of pathetic if you ask me. [I’d say that’s a bit naïve of you but lets not split hairs.]

Fortunately, the country is headed back on the right track to sanity.[You are implying that belief in a deity and private conversation with something untestable is sane, your standards are wide open.] A few years ago only 20 percent of the nation's top companies dared to make any mention of Christmas in their stores. A great many were simply intimidated by the American Civil Liberties Union or similar organizations. The number mentioning Christmas has reversed itself and is now up to 80 percent and continuing to rise.[People must’ve caught on to the fact that it has nothing to do with Christianity in any real sense.] It's also nice to see the Salvation Army bell ringers back in places where they were previously banned. [I’m guessing you see no problem with their homophobic perspective.]
Why are atheists so afraid of Christianity that they feel they have to go out and aggressively attack it every year around this time? [First of all it’s not an attack on Christianity, I would see it as Christianities attack on other religious faiths and people of non belief. You are free to pray and go to church and do what you will, why this feeling of persecution].Why don't you instead proudly proclaim your "atheistic religion" [because its not a religion, it contains no tenets or dogmas, there is nothing you must take on faith or without evidence.] and explain all the reasons and research that led you to your stance.[For the good it would do you as you have set you stall out already, plus we don’t feel the need to proselytize] Maybe you can't?[Presumptuous] Maybe your choice was made out of laziness and you didn't even give religion a chance?[Presumptuous squared] Are you going to give your children the right to choose? [I can safely say they will not be told something that is not provable as fact.]

Tell you what; why don't you pick a day, any day, call it Atheist Day, and spend the day celebrating your atheism.[Celebrating a lack of belief is a bit silly and shows sheer lack of understanding. Shall you join in for all the other gods you don’t believe in? Or should we have a ‘I don’t Believe in the Loch Ness Monster Day?] Get yourself an atheist tree, exchange atheist gifts and have a great atheist meal. [I think you’ll find that we already do, it’s called Christmas. The tree is pagan, the gift giving isn’t original, the date is stolen and as far as I recall they didn’t eat turkey in the bible.] Call all the other atheists you know (won't take long) or send them a card and exchange happy atheist wishes.

Since you believe that there is no being more supreme than yourself (a rather egocentric viewpoint), [In fact there is no more supreme to our knowledge than each other and that is the reason we should all be equal in rights and freedoms. Call that egocentric if you so wish.] you can celebrate you by staring at yourself (or small groups staring at each other) in the mirror all day. Isn't this a better idea than going around and putting other religions down?[ I wouldn’t say Christianity is being put down. It’s an obvious and historical fact hat the 25^th of December has nothing to do with Christianity, There is no impact on your ability to have your personal relationship with your g, you are free to go to church, you are free to pray and you are free to do as you wish…which is the same right extended to everyone else] At least you are doing something more positive for yourself if you follow my strategy for you.

We Christians are on the Right Side of this issue [I’m sure Muslims and Jews would tell me the same, but I guess you are just super special.]. Atheists have no real beliefs; [Now that’s closer] they just want to tear down one more longstanding tradition and belief.[You lost it again] How can they claim that a baby in a manger, a cross, a Christmas tree or some innocent Christmas songs cause them untold suffering and still keep a straight face?[I don’t recall someone mentioning ‘untold suffering. Strawman for Christmas?] And then they tell the rest of us to be more sensitive to their feelings. Wrong, atheists; you are the ones who need the sensitivity training sessions. Your claims of hurt and pain are bordering on the side of ridiculousness. [Unlike the persecuted Christian majority who don’t mention their hurt feelings?]
As has been shown over the past few years, Christians can make their feelings known by voting with their feet and their wallets. As much as the atheists hate to admit it, their impact is becoming smaller each year.[Who is asking who to admit what?] Remember the movie, "The Passion of The Christ"? It is now No. 15 of the top 1,000 grossing films of all time in the United States.[ And Phantom Menace is 7^th, so people who recognise themselves as Jedi’s have more credibility?] On the other hand, Bill Maher and his classic film, "Religulous," is number … well, I can't find it on the list. As a matter of fact, I wonder if it even covered its costs. I think it was popular for about three weekends.[ To date, Religulous has grossed over $13 million after having a production budget of $2.5 million. It is currently 7th among the highest grossing documentaries in the US and is the highest grossing documentary of 2008. But hey its not like you need facts on your side when you believe what you are saying is true.] Examples like this abound. [Yet no need to supply them to back up your argument.]
The same thing holds true for retailers. Whose business do they want? [Jesus would be so proud as he was quite into commercialism] Do they want 3 percent of the population frequenting their stores or a much larger percentage?[Depends on the wealth of the people in those percentages, but again its easy to assume people are dazzled by numbers.] I think the answer is obvious when you look at all the establishments that realized they made a huge mistake a few years back and have since rethought their positions. [Who? And what did they do?]

Even though I do push back hard against you atheists, [I think we can take it, even though it is brilliantly researched and irrefutable.] I still hope you will rethink your position and change before it's too late. You are making the biggest mistake of your lives by not at least giving religion a serious try.[Which one? And it’s near the end and you are still making assumptions.] In the meantime I wish you a Merry Christmas and I will be praying for you. [Merry Christmas also, if I pray for you can we call it a cheap Christmas present?]

Tom Sears is a local professor of accounting in Oneonta. He can be reached at searsthomas16@gmail.com. His column appears every other week. His columns can be found at www.thedailystar.com/tomsears.

The lady doth protest too much

Over at the National Post writer and editor of Holy Post Charles Lewis has felt the need to let atheists know that he in fact does not care what they think at a reasonable length(http://life.nationalpost.com/2010/12/05/dear-atheists-most-of-us-dont-care-what-you-think/). It’s very rare to see someone defeat their own point before they manage to make it but these are indeed strange times we are living in and as such I guess we should see why his toys left the pram and perhaps help him put them back in.

Launching into his diatribe, which is definitely about something he definitely doesn’t care about, we find the catalyst for this article is the recent debate between Christopher Hitchens and Tony Blair. Lewis goes on to lament that, “Blair probably should not have even bothered and instead should have gone to mass that night or spent an evening helping out at a shelter or visiting someone who was lonely and sick in a hospital.” I can’t help but think by his own standards surely he himself would be better off tending to the needy rather than writing, editing, proofing and publishing his letter. Surely Mr Blair giving a defense of his faith to a sold out auditorium is a worthwhile endeavour and in many ways a requirement of his faith ( 1 Peter 3:15, Phillipians 1:7, Corinthians 10:5). What we have is Lewis telling us that Blair shouldn’t have wasted his time while at the same time doing the same thing himself, imposing an approach that he himself cannot follow.

So, what did Mr Lewis make of the Blair apologetic? Well, I’m not sure because while he is saying that Blair should’ve stayed at home or went out and helped the needy he also shows that he in fact didn’t watch the debate, “I have read bits and pieces about who bested whom.” Now, I may be being slightly picky but I find that I like to actively see the evidence before I make a decision but then again if I didn’t really care about it, why would I? In absence of taking the time to understand the arguments it seems that Lewis has found good filler, a good old fashioned ad hominem attack. Nothing sells ‘I don’t actually care’ better than attacking someone personally and he exquisitely demonstrates this with his not quite indifferent opinion of Hitchens as, “a pompous ass whose main intellectual arsenal is sneering and using sarcasm.”  Now I have read a lot Hitchens work, I have watched the majority of his debates and I think that there is a lot more to his ‘intellectual arsenal’, after all there are forty years of publication that would immediately dispel this idea of an intellectual myopia. If perhaps Lewis could’ve addressed Hitchens points and then explained how they were intellectually void and covered up with sarcasm then we may have had a case. I don’t want to judge Charles Lewis too strongly as I understand that his level of care when approaching the subject was minimal so he is likely to make mistakes, no matter how glaring.

So, in absence of having heard what Hitchens actually said and judging Blair for taking part where does Lewis take his non-interested article? Well apparently atheists, and one must wonder if he includes agnostics in with this, do not have the necessary understanding of religion and what it is and he feels, “the debate is useless for one simple reason: most atheists do not have a clue what religion is about.” There seems to be no accounting of the fact that a lot of atheists, and I would definitely count myself in this group so I know of at least one, migrated from belief to non-belief. I struggled to really understand what he was trying to say with this, after all if I don’t understand something I will engage with someone who does and based on that communication and a further examination of all evidences I can then make a judgment. It seems that Lewis doesn’t want to go this far, it seems that if you don’t understand by now then its tough because it turns out believers shouldn’t be wasting time explaining it to you.

Just when I thought he had ticked all the ‘bad apologetics’ boxes Lewis then reminded me that there was more in his ammunition and reminded us that, “..Godless societies have not done too well, unless you consider North Korea a success.” What impresses me more than a good sentence is a bad one that is self assured; a person who can confidently assert something that’s not based on fact must take a really special effort in blocking out reality. Firstly on the issue of North Korea we need not waste time other than point out that this has more in common with a theocracy and the atheism here is not organic, this argument has been knocked down more times than a bad stuntman and really does not hold up under serious discussion. If Lewis had in fact read any of the ‘new atheist’ writings, that on one hand he describes as having, “…captured the secular imagination.” and on the other says are written by a “dreary crew”, then perhaps he would’ve seen this argument beaten down with great confidence.

So what do we make of the implied claim that religious societies fare better than Godless ones? Firstly I would not claim that there is a causal link from religiosity to bad societal health but it does seem that there is a correlation between the two. Looking at Gregory S. Pauls study on ‘Cross-National Correlations of Quantifiable Societal Health with Popular Religiosity and Secularism in the Prosperous Democracies’ (http://moses.creighton.edu/JRS/2005/2005-11.html) we can see quite clearly that there is actual real world evidence of a correlation between religious societies and increased homicide/teen pregnancy/abortions etc. It might be too much for Lewis to do a quick Google or Wiki search on the subject he apparently doesn’t care about but I think it would do him the world of good. I wouldn’t commit myself to draw the causal line with absolute confidence, as societies are complex organic things, but as a starting point of research I feel it helps direct the necessary questions.

Mr Lewis has little left in his back catalogue of apologetics at this point of the article and jumps on Hitchens opinion of Mother Teresa. I found this quite bizarre as he seems to think Hitchens is wrong about Mother Teresa as a fraud because of his view on her crisis of faith. I can only guess that he has never read Hicthens “Missionary Position” or his documentary “Hells Angel”. Hitchens had much more to hold Mother Teresa to rights for and it far outweighs her crisis of faith, her belief that poverty and suffering as a good thing and her fund raising from questionable figures are among those reasons.

With the straws firmly clutched Lewis then launches into what can only be described as some abstract literary hand waving such as, “Real faith is like real love — something that endures after the first attraction and then sustains life itself.” I struggle to grasp what he is trying to say coming to the end of his piece, perhaps as an atheist I just don’t get it, but this statement that faith sustains life is just a bumper sticker for his understanding of the human condition. The waning pace of the article is almost indicative of someone who has slowly realised that he is in fact the beast his wishes to slay. All I can say is that if this is what he produces about something he absolutely does not care about then the bar for his writings for things he does care about is set low enough for him to succeed next time.