.... And that brings me, as so often, back to JS Mill, who said a lot of things about religion, many of which still resonate. In The Subjection of Women, he noted: “Every established fact which is too bad to admit of any other defence is always presented to us as an injunction of religion.”
But in pondering Lady Warsi’s speech, this, from the Essay on Liberty, seems particularly apposite:
So natural to mankind is intolerance in whatever they really care about, that religious freedom has hardly anywhere been practically realised, except where religious indifference, which dislikes to have its peace disturbed by theological quarrels, has added its weight to the scale. [20 Jan. telegraph.co.uk] Read more
