GP Taylor: The god we think we serve weeps for us in our stupidity

I REALLY wish that politicians and world leaders would be honest with their Easter messages.

Instead of David Cameron waxing about Britain being a Christian country, why can’t he tell the truth?

We are no longer Christian and the values that once held our society together are fading fast.

The majority of people no longer identify themselves as being Christian and are more comfortable with the word “spiritual”.

Like so much in their lives, they can pick and choose what they want in their belief system.

It is more comfortable and less threatening and you don’t have to agree with those bits of the Good Book that make life difficult.

The danger with this liberal approach to faith is that it pushes some groups to the extremes of religion.

In times like this, there is a great need for certainty. People need to know exactly what life is all about.

Like the instructions to a dodgy Ikea table, they need to know how to put it all together.

Real life, unlike religion, doesn’t try to give all the answers. There is no black and white and certainly no certainty.

As a young man, I was converted to Christianity. I was excited and impressionable and greedily ate up my new-found faith.

In a short space of time, I was a fundamentalist. To me, the Bible was the inspired word of God. Every word was the unwavering truth. I chose to ignore those passages that were in contradiction to each other.

When I prayed I expected God to come running, more like Father Christmas than Father God.

My faith was politicised with an “us” and “them” mentality. I was right and the rest of the world was wrong.

Over the years, my fundamentalist evangelical approach to life was eroded away.

God was often very silent and people I prayed for weren’t healed. I was slowly and steadily liberalised in my religious viewpoint and I am thankful for it.

Looking back, I can see the real danger of fundamentalism. If the Bible had contained any passages on Jihad, I would have been the first one on the plane. But the Jesus I was devoted to told me to turn the other cheek, forgive my enemies and love my neighbour.

In the past, many wars have been fought in the name of God. Far from being a way to peace, religion can often be a way to war. Politicians and leaders have used religion as an excuse to go on financial crusades for the acquisition of wealth and empires.

There is something in the human psyche that makes a religion or ideology worth fighting for.

Sadly, faith in God seems to be at the top of that list.

In the Koran there are over 109 verses that directly promote violence. Having read them I cannot see any excuse for the argument that they talk about a defensive war.

It is no wonder then that those who bombed Brussels or the Twin Towers truly believed they were doing the will of God. Their interpretation of their faith was that to attack the infidel was totally justifiable. The Western lifestyle is seen as decadent and immoral and in contradiction to the ways of God.

This violence is not just confined to Islam. Sectarianism is the scourge of religion. Catholics and Protestants have been killing each other for centuries.

When I announced in this column that I was considering becoming a Catholic, the wave of hate mail I received was like a tsunami.

Rather than bringing us together, religion seems to be a source of division and hatred of those who believe in the same god we do.

The tragedy is that there is no way to change any of this. There will always be those in different faiths who will use the words of their holy books to promote the ideology they ascribe to, whether that is dressing in a particular way or killing those who disagree.

Blowing up worshippers as they celebrate Easter is typical of how religion divides and does not unite.

When I was a priest in Whitby, I asked a wise old woman why there were so many churches in the town.

She replied simply by saying that if there was a church for every individual who lived in Whitby there still wouldn’t be enough.

History is full of religiously-inspired atrocities. As the hatred of Western culture increases, they are set to increase.

Religious tribalism will only lead to more bloodshed and violence.

Humankind yet again gets it wrong and the god we think we serve weeps for us in our stupidity.

Perhaps it is time to give up on organised religion and carve my own path up the mountain.

GP Taylor is a writer and broadcaster and can be followed @GPTaylorauthor.