Calling you angry is one thing, calling me “Andy” is quite another. Low blow, Jonah, low blow…

Turning to your response, I think that you were angry. What intrigued me was why you were angry. More generally, I have a feeling that the (perfectly understandable and well-mannered) instinct to soft pedal the language of religious debate can have very undesirable consequences. In a sense, I suppose, people have to learn to accept that there are others out there who disagree very profoundly with their own most deeply-held convictions. And they have to learn how to live with it. Today’s Middle East is an extreme example of what can happen when they don’t.

Did I take offense? Not at all. Although when I think about these matters (which is rarely) I am, as you say, a non-believer, it’s not a subject that worries me very much one way or the other. School prayer? Go for it. Nativity scenes? Love ‘em. God on the currency? I trust so. Fire and brimstone? Deathbed conversion.