Need we fear the Secular Society?
I was once discussing lying with a friend who was an atheist. We both believed lying was wrong and I said I'd been taught that lying devalued the currency of speech and, as it was speech that made us unique among the animal kingdom, it was wrong to lie. She said she found this a very good argument, as it was reasonable and had nothing to do with religion. I'd heard the argument from a Catholic philosopher and thought it was religious, but perhaps the most important thing was that we both believed lying was wrong.

There is much in the media at present about the threat of secularism, particularly from Bishop Nazir Ali, who is quoted as looking back nostalgically to the time when there was 'a golden chain of social harmony under God.' I'm not sure which time he is talking about - I hope it's not the era of 'The rich man in his castle, the poor man at his gate, God made them high and lowly and ordered their estate'! Perhaps the 1950's was the last time there was a Christian consensus in Britain, but even then there were movements of rebellion, like the teddy boys. And those of us who remember capital punishment and the persecution of gay people under the law would, surely not want a return of those days. Of course, Christians played their part in abolishing such things, but so did Jews, humanists and members of other faiths, all working together.

Now that Muslims form a significant proportion of Britain' s population, Bishop Ali fears that 'radical Islam will fill the moral and spiritual vacuum' left by the lessening of Christian influence. Presumably he is speaking about the younger generation - I can't quite see middle aged stockbrokers and members of the Women's Institute converting en masse to any brand of Islam - but this sort of remark can be quite dangerous, particularly when taken up with suitable embellishments by the tabloid press and the Sunday Telegraph as it implies that only through religion can people lead moral lives. Religion is, after all, about much more than morality.

As a school governor I recently attended a seminar on the teaching of 'common values' in schools. In the days when nearly everyone in Britain was Christian or Jewish, morals were normally taught from a Biblical basis, but now that many schools contain children of all faiths and none, this is hardly appropriate. At worst, it could persuade children outside the Judeo Christian tradition that there was no reason to behave! And so the 'common values 'of respect for others, kindness, honesty and reliability are emphasised, with illustrations of how they form the basis of any good society. Where there are different opinions between different faiths about what actions are moral - as there often are between different branches of Christianity - respect for the person holding the opinion is stressed, regardless of difference. And along with 'common values' teaching there is the 'Seal Project' (Social and Emotional Aspects of Learning) which concentrates on helping children to relate harmoniously with each other by developing empathic skills and learning to perceive when a disagreement is developing into a row, and how to take steps to avoid this. I only wish some of this had been around when I was at school and in several places where I worked!

All this is not undervalue Christianity or to pretend that all religions are the same, but I have seen too much good work done by people of no religion to believe that a secular society is necessarily a selfish one. Of course there are many examples of 'me first materialism' in our media - programmes like 'Trinny and Susannah', where women are bullied and insulted for wearing the 'wrong' clothes, and 'Look Twenty Years Younger' where they are coerced into dangerous plastic surgery to resemble some dreamt up 'norm' are only two examples. But, while most of my atheist friends agree with me that these programmes are immoral, (though compulsively watchable) I have a highly Christian friend who thinks they are marvellous. So where is the consensus?

Maybe people of all faiths and none should concentrate on working together for a better society, rather that trying to prove whether morals are revealed or common sense and who had the ideas first.

Pat West