An amazing article! I can't claim to follow all the arguments entirely, but I defy Richard Dawkins to refute them. Thank you Melanie.

The Bible clearly describes a sadistic, irrational deity who is not worthy of being worshipped. The list of examples to prove this would probably be as long as Melanie's original blog, and nobody has time to read both.

Melanie says-"Through the demonisation of Israel, Christian Europe wants to redeem its original sin of anti semitism." This sentence is irrational since in reality the exact opposite is true. Christian Europe supports Israel come what may, due to profound guilt as a result of past murderous anti semitism within its domain. Melanie's arguments in favour of the biblical God is ideological rather than philosophical and is therefore simplistic. She seems to imply that all defenders of Western civilisation/values must somehow believe in the Biblical creator God. Setting aside the argument that many defenders of Western Values now living in the West subscribe to non biblical and non monotheistic religions (such as Hinduism and Buddhism), she is obviously not aware that WInston Churchill was an agnostic and had no time for God or religion. One cannot find a greater defender of Western values than Churchill. Melanie is a classic example of someone whose mind has become so ideologically driven that her emotion has overwhelmed her capacity for rational thinking.

Before I post any substantial comment may I just check, is this a spoof? Thanks.

I couldn't finish this article. It was too long for me. Especially as what I did read (the first third or so) disagreed so strongly with my own views. For example, I can't understand the claim that the bible is a source of reason. It was largely written to help the Jews of the North Kingdom explain their lot in life (after being exiled by Nebakaneza in c. 600 BC) and is littered with inconsistencies (2 creation myths anyone - 7 days vs Adam and Eve?) and claims that can be disproved by evidence.

This is hard to get your head around, but, just as the Universe has no beginning and no ending - i.e. infinite in all dirctions, so Life has no beginning and no ending. Life and the Universe as infinite things are as real as the human concept of infinity. Neither the beginning or centre of the Universe nor the beginning or centre of life can exist. Both have existed forever and will exist forever. The existent God is the sum of these and more. Praise be to God on High.

I am sorry to digress but the above comment is based on a fallacy. The earth is not a closed and finite system like a spaceship, it receives a collosal amount of energy from the sun constantly. The environment is dynamic and so are resources. Once grass just grew in fields until some human mind realised that some strains could be grown as wheat and from that made into bread. Flexible,dynamic thinking and acting are vital for the sustenace of life not doom laden introspection.

Amazing article. Magnum Opus. "Freedom through constraints"...hopefully this tiny gem will do something in the messy post-modernistic atheisitic brains.

I fully agree with almost everything Melanie Phillips has said – except what she says about ‘environmentalists’. There are certainly some extremist (and crackpot) ‘environmentalists’ – I have met some - but these are relatively few in number. Like all extremists they make the most noise. She seems never to have met any of the responsible ones, the great majority (I am not referring to the Green Party). She seems to have as little knowledge of these as Dawkins does of Christianity. It is not irrational, or anti-religious, to believe that this finite planet, with its finite resources, can for ever allow people continually to degrade the environment in so many ways without this having an increasingly malign effect on everyone. With the growth of consumerism throughout the world, our ever-increasing consumption of limited resources cannot continue for ever. It is apparently not realised by many that our very existence on this earth depends entirely on the natural environment we live in – for our food, fresh water, clean air and many non-renewable resources. Perhaps this is a result of so many generations living in towns and cities, who have an urban mind-set and just cannot understand the wider environment they depend on. (If the whole of humanity was, on a micro scale, confined to a spaceship travelling through space, with just 1000 people in it, they would realise, very clearly, that trashing or destroying the ‘environment’ they live in would lead to disaster. We are actually, on a far vaster scale, in the same position – but we do not realise it). Melanie says that ‘for environmentalists, the West is guilty of the sins of consumerism and greed, acquisition and luxury.’ Surely the Bible says the same about these things? Environmentalists (except for a few crackpots) do not say we must return to a pre-industrial way of life; science and technology, properly used, are vital for dealing with the challenges we face. Melanie writes, rightly, that that in today’s world people turn away from Biblical religion because it puts a restraint on their behaviour. We have an increasingly hedonistic society, and one of the consequences is the destruction of the environment, on which we depend, to become richer and richer. The Bible does not support unbridled consumerism, which is what most people apparently want. It advocates an ‘adequate sufficiency’ for all, not ever-growing consumption of the world’s limited resources, which cannot possibly last for ever. A ‘simpler and more austere way of life’ may well be forced upon us as the natural consequence of our behaviour. If we do indeed outstrip our resources, but still demand yet more luxury, we could be facing not austerity but something far, far worse – which is fully Biblical. I fully agree with almost everything Melanie Phillips has said – except what she says about ‘environmentalists’. There are certainly some extremist (and crackpot) ‘environmentalists’ – I have met some - but these are relatively few in number. Like all extremists they make the most noise. She seems never to have met any of the responsible ones, the great majority (I am not referring to the Green Party). She seems to have as little knowledge of these as Dawkins does of Christianity. It is not irrational, or anti-religious, to believe that this finite planet, with its finite resources, can for ever allow people continually to degrade the environment in so many ways without this having an increasingly malign effect on everyone. With the growth of consumerism throughout the world, our ever-increasing consumption of limited resources cannot continue for ever. It is apparently not realised by many that our very existence on this earth depends entirely on the natural environment we live in – for our food, fresh water, clean air and many non-renewable resources. Perhaps this is a result of so many generations living in towns and cities, who have an urban mind-set and just cannot understand the wider environment they depend on. (If the whole of humanity was, on a micro scale, confined to a spaceship travelling through space, with just 1000 people in it, they would realise, very clearly, that trashing or destroying the ‘environment’ they live in would lead to disaster. We are actually, on a far vaster scale, in the same position – but we do not realise it). Melanie says that ‘for environmentalists, the West is guilty of the sins of consumerism and greed, acquisition and luxury.’ Surely the Bible says the same about these things? Environmentalists (except for a few crackpots) do not say we must return to a pre-industrial way of life; science and technology are vital for dealing with the challenges we face. Melanie writes, rightly, that that in today’s world people turn away from Biblical religion because it puts a restraint on their behaviour. We have an increasingly hedonistic society, and one of the consequences is the destruction of the environment, on which we depend, to become richer and richer. The Bible does not support unbridled consumerism, which is what most people apparently want. It advocates an ‘adequate sufficiency’ for all, not ever-growing consumption of the world’s limited resources, which cannot possibly last for ever. A ‘simpler and more austere way of life’ may well be forced upon us. If we do indeed outstrip our resources, but still demand yet more luxury, we could be facing not austerity but something far, far worse – which is fully Biblical.