Me with a group of people. A confused discussion ensues about spirituality and religion where no one understands the point that anyone else is trying to make. One member of group relates a story about a person they know who recently attended an hour long prayer session at their Church for the benefit of the people of China and Burma. Said person stated that they didn’t understand how people could think that this would help and that maybe an hour doing fundraising might have been better.

I made the point that I didn’t understand how people could want to pray to a God who required people to pray to Him before He got off His arse and did something.

This earned me the wrath of someone in the group.

It was demanded of me that if people want to pray, or go to Church, or believe in God then what had that got to do with me? If people think that by praying to their God they are being helpful then that is up to them. What have people’s religious belief and practice got to do with me? It’s harmless and nothing at all to do with me or anyone else .

However, I think it has got something to do with me, and everyone else, when a bill passing through the Commons is threatened because of some people’s religious beliefs. I think it has got something to do with me, and everyone else, when a Church dictates what MPs should and should not vote for. I think it has got something to do with me, and everyone else, when religion seeks to intrude upon democratic process.

With the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Bill being debated in the Commons this coming week, this really was not the time for someone to tell me that I can’t have an opinion on the religious, when the religious are attempting to impose the consequences of their ‘opinons’ on everyone else.

As this someone was to discover.