Why don't all these disaffected Brits convert to Christianity instead?

TomTOm

Ever since Labour gave Imams access to prisons they have harvested angry disaffected youth and given them a "Get out of Jail Free" card for improvement through religion. A religion which accepts violence and instills a sense of hatred towards the very shibboleths this society rams down the throats of angry young men.

It is surprising Islam is not recruiting many more - it seems to attract angry young men and women who need to ally themselves to Muslim men

Johnathan Pearce

I hope Ms Booth realises what happens if she ever changes her mind. Admittedly, she does not sound like the brightest light in the harbour.

Stuart Seacole Smith

Not a bad article. Rather petered off towards the end though. Rowan Williams is anything but an attraction to christianity, and if the RW quotation at the end was meant to be somehow compelling, then abandon ye all hope! I felt my eyelids growing heavy by about the 4th line of it.

Frank P

I can only assume, Melanie, that in writing this essay that you are hoping to inflate Lauren Booth's already gigantic ego (presumably based on family relationships to notorious reprobates various) to a point of explosion, hoping that she will then disappear from the social scene and settle like a shower of soot over Shropshire?

A noble aim, but a rather prolix and convoluted way of doing it. Where's the pin?

Btw - welcome aboard. It's good to have two Melanie's manning the guns, here. I used to enjoy your pieces when you deputised for the other Melanie on Rupe's flagship.

Mark Cannon

The problem with Rowan Williams is that he is impossible to understand.

While listening to the King James Bible being read on Radio 4 yesterday it occurred to me that the CofE would be better served by making its use compulsory and having more readings from it and fewer sermons.

Slim Jim

It would be interesting to know if the converts had a decent Christian upbringing. It seems that in today's Britain, the rise of secularism (and indeed Marxism) has fundamentally displaced the Judeo-Christian values this country was forged from. I was sent to Sunday school (and thereafter to church) as a child, something I was perfectly happy to go along with. I lost my faith as a youth, and now I regard myself as a 'hopeful agnostic'. After much soul-searching, and as the years advance, I am searching for salvation again. Whether or not we actually believe in God, our behaviour towards others defines us.

In2minds

What "young Brits are almost conditioned not to hear" and for that matter, older Brits too, is anything about the
Council of Ex-Muslims of Britain. These are Muslim born Brits who claim their human right to have no religion. Naturally the BBC will not run a programme on this so how about the Spectator filling the gap?

Yam Yam

Or as our Lord put it rather more succinctly than the learned Archbishop...

"Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light." (Matthew ch 11 vs 28-3)

Arthur

The few Muslim converts I have know converted because they liked being told what to do. Christianity requires the person to think for themselves; Islam tells you to submit, pray in a certain fashion, next to certain people, at certain times, or else. Islam is a much easier choice for weaker minds.

And the CofE is no longer promoting itself; from where I sit, all they're doing is managing the decline. If they once thought that there was no reason for that decline, they/we might be in a better place.

Rowan Williams, Tont Blair's last gift to the Church he was already planning to leave....

strapworld

Let us never forget that we had Williams forced upon us by that great christian, Blair.

The next Archbishop of Canterbury will be chosen by David Cameron another well know 'committed?' christian.

Isn't it about time that only practising Christians elected the Archbishop of Canterbury?

Radio Four, yesterday, with its readings from the King James Bible, was superb. It is a pity that that organisation has done more to denigrate Christianity over the past years.

Also do not overlook the role John Major took in ending Sunday closing and, thus, making shopping and attending shopping malls the new religion.

Critical as I am about Islam, at least they are devout!

Dev

So Christinaity is the local religion eh? It's no more local than Judaism or Islam, but why let things like facts get in the way of you diatribe? What difference is there between one wacky middle eastern collection of superstitous and another?

Jeremy

What the study of philosophy develops in you is the ability to both ask and answer your own questions, and also the ability to fashion your own answers to the "great" questions - answers that are satisfactory to yourself. Surely this is what the autonomous human being should do.

Edward

"I have glimpsed the great lie that is the facade of our modern lives; that materialism, consumerism, sex and drugs will give us lasting happiness."

My goodness, she's a sharp one.

Austin Barry

"It is, I think, something to do with the real malaise of contemporary Britain..the notion that what exists abroad, or what is foreign to your own background, is somehow superior to what you’ve grown up with, what’s under your nose."

Precisely. It is the unstated mantra of our ruling elite as it moves through its digestive tract to deposit on our heads the EU, unsympathetic third world immigration and too much respect for a bizarre death cult religion.

Can it be long before the self-professed 'Defender of all the Faiths' lady wife canters out of Highgrove in a Hijab?

Peter From Maidstone

There are a great many Muslims who are becoming Christians. It is not safe for them to identify themselves. Just as there are people who are not really Christian at all who become Muslims, so there are many people who are not convinced by Islam and choose, at great risk to themselves, to become Christian when they have the opportunity.

Neil Turner

Any Bible reading Christian should not be surprised by current events. Prophecy is clear that "the love of most will grow cold", Christians "will be hated", "apostasy will increase", the "elect will be deceived".

The worse it gets, the more I trust my Bible

startledcod

"I have glimpsed the great lie that is the facade of our modern lives; that materialism, consumerism, sex and drugs will give us lasting happiness." Er, it works for me.

Seriously, I think that one of the main attractions of Islam is its unbending rigour. The C of E has more or less become a left wing pressure group, actually lobbying rather than pressure. The only thing they condemn is the failure of the state to spend other people's money. Can you remember when you last heard a senior member of our established church actually condemn something as sinful? For example, fornication is (still) a sin, want to cut teenage pregnancy, stop them shagging. Letb them know what God thinks of their promiscuity ......

Just a thought.

Ahmed Khan

It’s not a case of Christians turning to Islam but of COE followers turning to Islam. If you analysis the stat’s it is apparent that Catholics are not turning to Islam. Islam is not the only religion benefitting from the decline of COE, Catholicism is increasing too not only in the UK but worldwide.

Maybe people are turning to Islam and Catholicism because the COE has lost direction on the back of child abuse in the church, gay rights, women priests, teenage pregnancies, single mothers with 4/5 children from 4/5 fathers with a dependency on state benefits.

wrinkled weasel

First I want to say thank you to the Spectator for publishing this, for I do believe that it is the only major organ of the MSM that would allow it to be printed.

Second, may I commend the author for thinking about the issue. It is a big one and since Islam is more or less impervious to a logical anatomy it is a good effort.

But.

Brand awareness and an enticing USP do not a movement make.

What makes the public face of Islam attractive is rebellion, a reaction to something, but not an embracing of it for its own sake. And this is where it is dangerous.

The first thought that comes into the mind of a would be convert to Islam is a feeling of unease, not about themselves but about the society in which they live. This is in contrast to the Christian convert whose metanoia begins internally with a recognition of their own sinful condition. With Islam it is either unease or rebellion and you cannot rebel into the light.

What characterises Islam in this country is aquiescence on the part of the majority of its adherence and militancy on the part of a minority.

It does not matter that the majority are, as commonly said "peaceful, law-abiding citizens". What matters is their cavernous silence in the face of evildoing by the militants.

Politically, Muslims use our democracy as a means to an end, an end that is certainly not democratic. Once in place, the veneer of democracy will be abandoned and the true face of Islam, as expressed in every country where it has hegemony, will be revealed.

Jews, Gays, Women, Christians and critics will not be allowed the freedom we currently enjoy if Islam becomes more powerful that it is at present.

The majority simply have to sit there and watch it happen, as the Germans did in 1933.

Islam is not a religion as we understand it, it is a bid for world control and the end of freedom for people who do not join it.

As for Christians, they are despised by many and yet the worst one has ever done to me is offer to pray with me.

victor jara 67

Is Melanie McDonagh an Islamophobe? I detect a pattern here .

Craig Strachan

Materialism does have the advantage of being material, which is to say real and quantifiable, unlike the claims of any religion.

It doesn't have to be mindless. I am myself a mindful materialist and, if I were the proseltyzing sort, that's what I'd encourage others to be.

But I'm not, so I don't.

Greg

I'm not surprised Booth is rejecting materialism, given how she's just gone bankrupt.

Mike

Most indigenous Brits are christian by nature if not by religion. I'm an atheist but I definitely believe in the christian values preached by the church as opposed to those by Islam and having christian beliefs is what really counts not whether you go to church or not.

Those like Lauren Booth converting to Islam come across as nothing more than sad individuals who can't go through life without some religious stick to support them. For one reason or another christianity doesn't do it for her and next year she might embrace Hinduism or some other religion when the realisation of what Islam is finally dawns on her.

Religion has always been used as an all embracing crutch for people in combination with 'control orders' whether its the Catholic Church or Islam but for many, we've let go as we don't need it in the 21st century.

Wily Trout

It's been my impression that the C of E withdrew from communicating with the common man and took to contemplating its own navel. And the common man reciprocated. Over my lifetime (born 1955) the C of E has become an irrelevance to the man in the street. In a misguided attempt to modernise the vicars went for too much obsession with left wing thought and political correctness and being non-judgemental, and took all the fun out of the sermons. It was far more entertaining being condemned to fire and brimstone.

Ms Proper - Courtesy Advisor to Imams Everywhere

“unrestrained consumerism” as aspects of British society for which Islam was a remedy.

Oh, dear,oh, dear, oh, dear!

Has Lauren Booth ever seen the new Cadillacs and other, more expensive, luxury cars,littering the highways in Saudi Arabia because they ran out of gas, or oil, or something, and the owner got out, left it there and went and bought another one? Has she ever seen the secret, press-button bars in the homes of rich Saudis that have shelves and shelves of absolutely every kind of liquor known on the face of the earth, and every brand?

Mark Cannon says the problem with Rowan Williams is he is impossible to understand. That is a very big problem indeed for a vicar of God and his inability to communicate in common language, to the Christian congregation disqualifies him for the job.

As an aside, Lauron Booth is just another chippy attention-seeker and, I'm guessing, has always been in the shadow of her smarter sister. What George Osborn's brother's problem is, who knows?

But it's always the disaffected who convert to islam, or scientology or other arcane, fanciful, showy "religions".

Verity

I'd like second Frank P's welcome to Melanie McDonagh. She's a good thinker and a good writer.

Verity

Victor Jara 67 asks if Ms McDonagh is an islamophobe. From her writing, excellent as it is, I don't think she has reached that elevation yet. Basically, you have to have lived among them to reach that level of contempt. (I am assuming, from your post, that you have misapprehended the suffix "phobe".)

strapworld

Wily Trout you are so right. I had moved house some years ago and not having my two youngest baptised I went to the local CofE near Barking, on a Sunday morning, to 'test the water'

I had to check the hymn book to assure myself it was a CofE church. Dancing in the aisels, people talking 'in tongues' George (the vicar) giving a sermon of left wing tripe. I was glad to get out.

Many years later, in the West Country I went to the Cof E church and, again, dancing in the aisles- this time with flag waving!.

The church needs missionaries to bring back the message- and quickly!

Verity

Why do women who "convert" to islam always have such appalling taste in clothes? The mess that Booth is wearing appears to be a scary reflection of her mind. Three conflicting coloured patterns on the upper part of her body alone, then that plain scarf. Thank goodness we can't see her skirt or trousers or we might get dizzy.

I think this outfit would seem to reflect a certain lack of clarity of purpose in Ms Booth's "thinking".

Verity

Greg - "m not surprised Booth is rejecting materialism, given how she's just gone bankrupt."

Well, there's bankruptcy and bankruptcy. Booth wrote the other day on her visit to a performance of the Royal Ballet and complained that her ticket cost £100.

At the same time, The Mail has inexplicably - given that she is free of any discernible talent - gifted her with a column.

Boudicca

So why is it that the young folk revolted by contemporary excess don’t simply make for the local CofE, or Catholic church, and rediscover the religion of their grandmothers, rather than getting their spirituality via Islam?
-------------------

Because they are basically adolescents and/or immature. Converting to Islam is an act of rebellion - particularly at the moment when Islam is seen as provocative and extremist.

In the case of Lauren Booth, it's just one more bit of attention-seeking I'm afraid.

bob frost

I note that Mark16: 17-18 covers more than talking in tongues:-

And these signs will accompany those who believe: In my name they will drive out demons; they will speak in new tongues;
they will pick up snakes with their hands; and when they drink deadly poison, it will not hurt them at all.

Why do they always go for the easy one rather than gargling paraquat and juggling black mambas?

Marcher Baron

"... hoping that [Ms Booth] will then disappear from the social scene and settle like a shower of soot over Shropshire?" What have you got against Shropshire, Frank? It's a truly beautiful county (the largest, inland, non-Metropolitan one to boot).

It's no wonder, given that Islam is kow-towed to by Al Beebeda and the MSM while Christianity is denigrated, that people who have limited education and feeble powers of intellectual reasoning are drawn to it.

I blame the introduction of the Series 2 prayer book for the decline in church-going and muscular Christianity. First they changed the order of service and then, in Series 3, they changed the language. Happy clappy I do NOT do when I'm worshipping my Creator.

Judy

I'm extremely sceptical about the demographics and substance of any claims of really large numbers of people converting to Islam. There is a history of reports in the context of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict of grossly hyped up population counts of Muslims given by supposedly reputable agencies.

However, the key issue here is that my understanding is that a very disproportionate number of the white converts in the UK are women. I've heard all sorts of guff talked about on the BBC et al about this reflecting women's greater spirituality and wish not to be the object of sexual objectification. The BBC radio reports I've heard on this always duly wheel out a couple of white women converts who come out with this rationalization.

I very much suspect that the truth is much more mundane. Those white Christian women who convert to Islam do so for exactly the same reasons as the vast majority of the Christians in this country who convert to Judaism. It's because they are marrying Muslim men, and both the men and their families expect or at least very much wish them to convert. I am not suggesting they are coerced, but the issue is very much one of wanting to make their partner and his family happy.

Mainstream orthodox Judaism, rightly in my view, does not accept that as a valid reason for conversion, so almost all those converts to Judaism have to go to the Reform, Liberal or Masorti movements to convert. If you go to some of the Reform synagogues you will see that a very high proportion of the women converts are those who converted for the sake of the marriage in this way.

The fact that this doesn't even seem to get considered as a reason in posts and discussions like this one astounds me. So assumptions about the conversions having to do with disaffection with Christianity are pretty wide of the mark.

And by the way, "Faith Matters" is pretty ignorant in relation to the way it presents Judaism, also with rather mindless extrapolations from census figures and bland assumptions that only Reform and Liberal Judaism give women a full role in the religion because in Orthodox Judaism women pray separately. Duh!

Faith Matters seems to me to be a particularly naive and underinformed organization, dripping with the well-meaning but ultimately dense understanding of the world outside their own limited horizons.

HairyNoddy

Because the Church of England are at the vanguard, proudly leading the rush to surrender to secularism, to be shortly followed by domination by islam.

Any church which dared to criticise Islam would get my support, but none will.

Verity

Judy - I don't know, and have no first-hand experience, but I thought that Jews do not really want any non-Jews joining them. Indeed, you can't be classified as a Jew if just your father was Jewish. It's uterine descendency. So I don't know that they accept casual converts ... I could be wrong, but that was my impression.

If correct, this is similar to the Hindus, who believe (the ones I've spoken to) that you have to be born a Hindu to be one. they just say, "Oh, you wouldn't understand."

Interesting that two of the brightest groups of people in the world are not looking for non-qualified, so to speak, joiners.

AngloWelshDragon

@ Verity

In my experience at university, the girls who converted to Islam becuase the our culture was supposedly too obsessed with body image and sex tended to be the, how shall I put it? Less attractive ones? Let's put it this way, a chador and niqab can cover a multitude of sins!!

N J Mayes

HairyNoddy is nearer the mark than the author. Yes, there's a lot of attraction to the exotic, as ever - but I'd say its got more to do with the CofE, or Christianity in general, having surrendered far more completely to the licentious, secular culture these women are understandably rebelling against than Islam has. Simply put, the choice is between a Church whose navel-gazing liberalism has allowed the culture of which it was once a central pillar to sink into depravity, and a new (to us) religion that offers simplistic, undiluted solutions to the moral questions the old Church barely bothers with any more. It's not hard to work out why many would see more appeal in the latter.

David Lindsay

Some of us have been saying this for years on end. Well, I have been, anyway. The White British Muslim population is already well over 60,000. Imagine if it alone grew by an improbably small 50 per cent every 10 years: by 2100, there would be over a million. Now imagine that it grew by a possibly over-large, but nevertheless much more realistic, 100 per cent every 10 years: by 2100, there would be nearly 23 million. Yet that is only the White British section of British Muslims.

The real Islamic threat is that people disgusted with the complete collapse of all moral standards in the personal, social and economic spheres, and left helpless by the closely connected, almost total loss of collective cultural memory, will convert to Islam in droves. Look at the mosques full of disaffected young men in Afro-Caribbean areas, and at the flourishing Student Islamic Societies full of white, middle-class, deep-thinking, and often female seekers. In comparable ways did many another country begin to be Islamised. Who would have thought that present-day Afghanistan, Pakistan, Bangladesh and much of Northern India could have been Islamised? North Africa? Much of Sub-Saharan Africa, very much an ongoing process? Central Asia and much of western China? But how did it happen? And how quickly?

We need to re-learn structured daily prayer, setting aside one day in seven, fasting, almsgiving, pilgrimage, the global community of faith as the primary focus of personal allegiance and locus of personal identity, the lesser outward and greater inward struggle, the need for a comprehensive and coherent critique of both capitalism and Marxism, the coherence between faith and reason, and a consequent integrated view of art and science. The answer to the challenge of the Sunna is Sacred Tradition. The answer to the challenge of the Imamate is the Petrine Office. The answer to the challenge of Sufism is our own tradition of mysticism and monasticism. Liberal Catholics will be the last to see the point.

On the King James Bible, see here.

toco

We should remember our British heritage which is most definetly not Muslim-there are plenty of Muslim countries in which to settle but living in such countries is not without drawbacks such as freedom of expression.

raymond jones

The great success of the western Anti christs,is almost boundless like Blair said," We dont do God "After politics he becomes a catholic.Unfortunatly Christ said if you deny me I shall deny you to the father.Of course the Anti Christ leadership of Britons have powerfull allies in parts of the Media and so called entertainment industries.The young are crying out for leadership in their hearts.The type of leadership they need is against the secret plans to rid the world of religion.The judges on x factor have more chance of being worshiped than Christ with their godlike attitudes.They have done us a bad deed indeed

Ian Walker

I'll stick to rational thought, thanks. I gave up on imaginary friends 20 years ago, and that was already about 20 years too late.

MikeWood

Contrary to popular perceptions, Islam does not educate muslims to be genuinely moral. Islam emphasises what is forbidden and what is permitted and demands external compliance with the rules set out but it does not teach muslims to empathise with others. Empathising with others, the effort to put oneself in the shoes of another and look at the effect of one's actions from that perspective is the foundation of real moral behaviour. It springs from "concern for the other" rather than what is essentially the avoidance of blame or punishment that is rooted in "concern for the self". Islam's emphasis on avoiding the painful consequences of doing that which is forbidden puts it firmly in the position of making muslims concerned for themselves.

Andy Whittaker

What a complete idiot (Lauren Boothe) - she will certainly come to regret such a moronic decision!

Jeremy

raymond jones:

"The type of leadership they (the young) need is against the secret plans to rid the world of religion."

Uh...the plans can't be very secret if you know about them - can they, Raymond?

"Christ said if you deny me I shall deny you to the father."

Yes, that's definitely a threat (I've noticed this tendancy in Christianity before). But it's rather like the voodoo curse. By which I mean that the curse only works if you actually believe the voodoo in the first place. Really, the best response to someone who walks up to you and verbally threatens you in that manner is to say: "Bog off you evil, bearded dwarf. Your skull-on-a-stick antics neither frighten nor impress me." That should dispel it nicely.

"The judges on x factor have more chance of being worshiped than Christ with their godlike attitudes."

Well, clearly that's an imbalance which needs to be redressed. What I suggest you do is lever Christ back out of Graceland, put him into a white jumpsuit and persuade him to fight Simon Cowell in a Celebrity Thai Kickboxing showdown. In a ring. In Las Vegas. And then sell tickets. That might have the effect of boosting Christ's approval ratings. Assuming, of course, that he can actually beat Simon Cowell at Celebrity Thai Kickboxing. And you never know, you might end up with a few bob in your own pocket, too...^^

Frank P

Marcher Baron.

My apologies: but not only is Salop a beautiful County but a very useful one for alliterative whimsy. At least I cleaned up the old tongue twister for those like Holly with tender susceptibilities (even though she did raise her bedroom habits in one post recently - coyly suggesting that she was a bit of a goer - albeit monogamous). :-)

Nathaniel

Maybe Christianity isn't embraced because look at all the divisions, look at all the controversy...it's a steaming pile of confused crap! You've got the boy-touchers of the Catholic Church...not exactly a good image people want to get behind. Here in America you have the idiot gay bashers, plus the crazies that blow up abortion clinics; again, not images people want to get behind. Combine this with what you said about how Christianity is basically non-existent and not taught, it's no wonder the youth turn from the "Christianity" that they know. What blows my mind more is that will all the information about Islam's violence and abuses towards women a woman would openly embrace Islam.

revolution

Check out muslims when they get to Thailland, Singapore, Hong Kong to mention a few and you will see that Allah is out the window once they are set free.
The Brits converting will be disturbed black men and ugly white women who are looking forward to getting into a burka and getting their genitals mutilated

Barry

I don't think this is worth analysing. She's just a silly, attention seeking, middle class rebel.

If the Salvation Army suddenly became chic, she'd be signing up for trombone lessons.

Gavin O

There is a lot of evidence from analyses of Catholic converts to evangelical Protestantism in Latin America that, first, this can be a temporary phenomenon whereby the converts often revert to their original religion; and, second, their switch may have been related in the first place to changing social conditions, particularly if they have migrated from the countryside to the city. The point being that this is a social, class-related phenomenon in which their new denomination offers them either concrete benefits, or greater expressive freedom, than the previous one. In response, the Catholic church has started to do things in a different way (using TV, for example), not without impact. The writer is correct to point out that this phenomenon in Britain may reflect a wider social "malaise", but it is not irreversible and does at least reflect a yearning for a kind of missionary guidance that outward-looking Christian denominations would do well to respond to closer to home.

Pramston

It affords the individual victim status - the most prized of all possessions in modern Britain. This allows access to elements of free speech and poor behaviour denied the majority Christian population.

John.

Christianity may condemn sin but it also opens up the possibility of repentance and the remission of sins. Forgiveness is not the strong point of Islam. The restoration of our national faith requires a return to the practices of 60 or 70 years ago when children were taught "Scripture" as a subject at school by teachers who themselves knew what they were talking about and an uncompromising re-establishment of the reverence and dignity implicit in the reading of the King James Bible in church, to the exclusion of all other versions, and the exclusive use of the 1660 prayer book in its entirety, with no exceptions or ommisions. No-one of a truly spiritual turn of mind should embrace the present politically correct, wishy-washy, mealy-mouthed rubbish that is the standard fare of Anglican clergymen. Definite, clear-cut moral standards and the uncompromising elucidation of causes and effects are necessary. Islam at least pulls no punches in this regard. And this firmness of purpose and moral rigour are what people are looking for.

John.

Gavin O.: Were Lauren Booth to return to her original religion she would instantly become a murder candidate. As she would no longer be there to enjoy the consequent victmhood, this fact may deter her from so doing.

skai

It is pity that those who convert to Islam don't know the truth about Islam,see www.thereligionofpeace.com

Peter S.

Ms. Booth is absolutely right when she says the 'great lie' of modern society is that 'materialism, consumerism, sex and drugs will give us lasting happiness.'

Why, we ask, do young people not turn to the Church? It is because the Church of England (and in America, the Episcopal Church) has thrown in its lot with modern society. Hardly ever does it condemn this materialistic hedonism. It is weak and inculturated. Islam seems a strong, outsider perspective. Never mind that like Marxism it is a religion of continual struggle. Peace is only found in Christ, but precious few churches now offer that peace.

James

Dare I suggest that if the local church actually preached and believed in the gospel those young people might not have to disappointedly go down the road to the Mosque? Some C ofE and MEth churches can be offensively weak and assinine and I'm not surprised that people looking for certainties and strength are not there for very long.

James Murphy

In a nutshell, the concept 'God' = psychological template for tyranny: i.e., divine bully versus weakling man. What must man do to appease the tyrant? Subject his will to that of the divine bully, and ensure others do the same. No rocking the boat now! Consult the history books: Monotheisms are always vicious. They are always spread by the sword. They always attract the weak-minded who cannot, or do not, think for themselves.

Katie Howard

Oh for goodness sake! When will religious leaders concede the point that one doesn't need to follow any organised religion to understand that excess (whether it be sex, alcohol, materialism, consumerism etc) leads to a very bland and unfulfilling lifestyle?

Some of us have developed enough intellect without 'converting' or 'reverting' or even encountering any religion at all! And the world would be a much nicer place without it.

opit

It seems to me quite trite that the question is asked 'why can't people adhere to the mindwashing promulgated by the state as good and proper for all?' And I was raised in the Church of England by a priest !
People must relate to unscrewing the inscrutable in terms that make sense to them. It always makes me shake my head when people do not remember who Jesus said was justified in his prayers : Lord, have mercy on me, a sinner !'
And, of course, the archery term synne referred to the variation from the perfect shot.
BTW Did you know the 'Defender of the Faith' entertained the proposition of England becoming an Islamic nation, finding Suleman more congenial than the machinations of the Pope and Vatican ?
Eventually, of course, it was the Divine Right of the king to order things to suit himself...which he did.

Reb

I think women would do a whole lot better turning to their pagan roots if it's female self-respect they're after. The male cults have all but destroyed their memories of that.