I think it was yesterday or the day before that Sadiq Kahn made a speech about how religion is an aspect of human diversity to be respected and cherished like any other, and about how we must all live beside people who might hold different beliefs to us. To be honest, when I heard his speech, I was torn in two, both agreeing and vehemently disagreeing with it at the same time. On the one hand, of course I think any aspect of human diversity has to be cherished: social and cultural differences are what make humanity so great and so fascinating. We must accept other people’s beliefs, no matter what they may be or how bizarre we may find them, lest we risk repeating the most hideous mistakes of history.

On the other hand and at the same time, there’s no escaping the fact that religion – all religion – is an inherently oppressive form of social control. I have written on here several times how I think religion boils down to using a set of outdated, baseless myths to tell others what to think and how to behave; it should therefore be opposed or spoken against. In the case of Christianity, priests, preachers or whatever invoke the authority of an all-powerful, all-seeing creator-being, as well as stories about a social leader living in Palestine around 2000 years ago, to tell others how to live their lives. They often use such authority to justify things now rightly rejected in mainstream society, such as homophobia, transphobia and racism.

The authority of such preachers demands absolute, unquestioning belief in such myths. Religion is therefore inherently oppressive because it cannot allow followers to question or look beyond what they are told, which is why I think it is essential that humanity outgrows it. You only have to look at what is going on in Israel to see the problems and divisions religion causes. Surely it has held humanity back for too long and needs to be spoken out against.

That’s why I call religion out as the baseless, anachronistic bullshit it is whenever I can. Yet I cannot deny that causes a contradiction: the need to respect the diversity of human belief versus my desire to get people free from this kind of social control. To be honest I can’t see a way out of this paradox. Of course one must oppose all religions with equal vigour, but that still leaves you open to accusations of persecution, bigotry and intolerance, the likes of which you have always fought against.