It strikes me that in yesterday's post I was a little hard on belief.
After all, I have stood before a raging sea and wondered what kind of god Tangaroa might be; I have stood in an old church in Cornwall, built on an existing sacred site, and felt I was in a holy place; I read The Tao of Physics and dreamed of the nature of things; I have loved the devotional music of Christianity, Sufism and Rastafari; I have been in the same room as the Dalai Lama and thought I was in the presence of a special man; I have occasionally taken homoeopathic remedies in pursuit of some magic (and face it, it ain't science).
So the problem isn't belief, just that the faiths enjoyed by Bush and many of his fellow Republicans and, more so, by Bin Laden and his armies are unsatisfactory, intolerant and unhelpful. So I believe you, Hard News readers, can help the world by suggesting a new faith for these people. I'm looking for a tolerant, pluralistic, peaceful belief, but mostly, millennialism of any kind is right out. People who believe in great wars that presage the end of the world are dangerous and stupid.
You, reader, can email me via the feedback link on this page with your suggestions for new belief systems for the world's would-be combatants, and the reasons for your suggestion. Head it Hard News Faith Challenge 2003. If yours is the best suggestion, I will send you one or two CDs approximate to your favoured musical genre (so remember to indicate genre). So move it people - together we can beat bad religion!