Why is religion so divisive?

My first teacher was a nun. I adored her and wanted to become a nun too. Praying many times a day and confessing our ‘sins’, we little six year old Roman Catholics were properly indoctrinated.

My adherence to Catholicism faltered a few years later when in our history lessons we learned about the 80-year war of independence the Dutch fought against the Spanish. We learned to loathe Catholic Spain’s Alva the Bloodsucker. Our hero was William of Orange, protestant to the core.

Orange is the Dutch national colour as a result. This William of Orange is not to be confused with a later William, an ambitious civil servant of royal descent in the Dutch republic, who married Mary, the daughter of Catholic King of England, James, only to usurp the throne by invading Britain at Brixham. Subsequently, he went on to beat the Catholics at the Battle of the Boyne in Ireland. The seeds of the Orange Order were sown.

I cannot understand why this particular William is still so revered, why every year a few die-hard Orange men celebrate victory over Roman Catholic Irish people, harking back to a battle more than three-hundred years ago and insist they have the right to parade down the predominantly Catholic Garvaghy Road. It’s pure provocation.

Religious beliefs trump secularism

Requests to the Almighty, Catholic, Protestant, Jewish, Allah, or any other deity for that matter, must frequently be contradictory.

Hence I question Rob James’s assertion that the Assisted Dying Bill failed because God answered the prayers of those who opposed it. Many believers prayed for the passing of this Bill, to allow sufferers who wish to have a peaceful, dignified end to their lives have an assisted death.

Does God only listen to those who’ve won the day? I believe that our new Roman Catholic Prime Minister influenced the outcome. He opposed the Bill. Those MPs who’d previously supported it, cowardly abstained. Shame on them.

This country is largely secular so why do religious people still have this enormous level of power? There are, by automatic right, 26 bishops in the House of Lord, unusual in any democratic country, unelected naturally and representing only a small fraction of our society.

I hope that the Assisted Dying Bill returns to the House of Commons soon. I was moved by Esther Rantzen’s daughter describing her mother’s campaigning life and her last few weeks. Esther campaigned fervently in favour of this Bill. She never got her wish and didn’t have the strength in the end to travel to Geneva. She sadly refused to see her grandchildren in the final few weeks of her life.

I can only guess what her remaining days must have been like. I’ve sat at the bedside of people close to me, waiting for that final breath. Doped up to the eyeballs in order to numb the pain, those last days or weeks were spent in some sort of purgatory.

A consultant spoke on Radio 4 about the difference between alleviating pain and relieving suffering. Pain can be dulled with vast quantities of morphine and other drugs. It’s suffering that’s unquantifiable. Two close relatives of mine in the Netherlands were granted their wish to have an assisted death. They couldn’t eat, drink, swallow, speak, were incontinent and hated the way they looked.

You don’t have to be religious to have compassion and moral standards. So can we please remove the power that religion still holds over us all, starting with Andy Burnham’s personal beliefs; he should keep them to himself.

Muslims versus Jews

The latest attacks by settlers in the West Bank, deliberately destroying the olive crops on which the Palestinian residents rely, violating international law and using force on witnesses, are another example of one religious belief being used to dominate. I have zero time for zealots who consider themselves God’s chosen people and their notion that a particular stretch of land belongs to them because of some two-thousand year old decree in a book.

The Middle East conflict won’t be solved unless and until international diplomacy is exerted, and sanctions applied to the perpetrators bite.

Yet, neither is it helpful if Palestinian deaths are commemorated on a day close to October 7 when over a thousand Jewish people were slaughtered three years ago. Those victims deserve a special remembrance too. The latest demand for a one-state – Palestinian - solution, made at the pro-Palestine demos in both Aberystwyth and Cardigan as well as passed at Green Party Conference, pits one religion against another. It won’t solve the crisis. It took the Netherlands centuries to find peace, to enjoy proper power sharing.

Religious fervour of one sort or another has a lot to answer for. Faith should be a matter of personal belief, not used to dominate others. Let’s all refrain from fanning the flames.