the Evil Line

When Daniel Dennett, Frank Furedi and Neil Davenport offer comments on religion, they each feel the need to point out their own secularism, as if that is the only way that they will be taken seriously. Davenport gives us a patronizing defense of religion; it's "primitive" and pathetic but really harmless:

Religion isn't 'the root of all evil' as such, but a primitive attempt to understand what it is to be human.

Furedi's piece is definitely worth reading, as he notes a real problem with the way the left relates to religion. Dennett (who I've mentioned here) makes the common error of misunderstanding what faith means. Like Sam Harris, he seems to think it is some way of holding to facts without evidence, because obviously anyone who used evidence and reason would agree with him.