This is the first of a series of hitherto unpublished pieces that I began some fifteen years ago. As I've recently added the scarlet A to my blog, perhaps I ought to blow the dust from these essays and post them. Here we go then.

As I write these words, early in the closing decade of the second millennium, I face despair. This despair comes from the sense of inevitability that my lifetime will be too short to see the eradication of the most widespread, and longest established, infectious mental illness ever known. Mankind continues to show signs of gradual recovery from this scourge, but I fear there is little hope of a clean bill of health for some time to come. The reasons for this I hope to make clear.

The world news, in the late autumn of 1992, is dominated by war, terrorism, starvation and disaster. This predominance of misery reflects a most unfortunate state of affairs on our planet. Even so, I am sure we would all agree that the enormous proportion of media time devoted to reporting such matters is more than justified by their importance in human terms.

During the last few weeks, however, such items have been displaced from the headlines by a wholly different tale. The issue to which I refer is the debate concerning the ordination of women by the Church of England. Few of us can be unaware of the vociferous protestations from both sides, reported ad nauseam by radio, television and newspapers. For some time, editorial columns and magazine programmes could find room for little else, as each side endeavoured to turn the tide of public opinion in its favour.

Among the arguments advanced were those which appeared to confuse the debate with a separate issue concerning equal opportunities. I must make it immediately and abundantly clear that the subject of equality is a centrally important one, affecting us all. Neither sex may be considered "better" or "worse" than the other. The vast majority of occupations are equally suited to both sexes, while a few clearly require one or the other by their very nature.

The debate on the ordination of women is not about equality. It is about whether or not one half of the world population may consider itself eligible to perform the utterly useless (if not downright harmful) functions over which the other half (until recently) held an almost total monopoly. When faced with the question, "Do you think that an individual of one sex is more suited than an individual of the other to the task of placing his or her hands upon the head of another individual and uttering a string of words, whereupon the latter individual may go forth and do likewise to others?" I suggest that your answer would be to ask what difference it would make. I would like to guess that few of those who voted against the ordination of women would consider themselves sexists (or even be considered sexists by those who continually demonstrate their fondness of calling people sexists) if a different matter were under discussion. I feel sure that they would not feel moved to vote against the employment of women bus drivers or women doctors. They would claim to see women priests as being entirely different from women bus drivers and women doctors, and that is why equality has little or nothing to do with this debate.

What, then, does the ordination debate concern? The answer is that the whole issue is a symptom of the mental illness to which I referred in my opening paragraph. It is called religious belief. Those who suffer from it are prepared to display a complete absence of common sense and objectivity in many matters. Instead they claim to state their case (whatever it may be) with complete authority, because of their professed faith. As if that in itself were not bad enough, the rest of us are supposed to accept what they say without justification! Both camps in the ordination debate regularly invoke faith, and/or the will of God, as a key note of their "arguments". It is impossible for a rational observer to take sides in a debate based upon such uncertain ground. If anything, the very existence of the debate serves to point up the sheer illogic of religious belief. As that is a fact with which much of humanity is already conversant, the debate performs no worthwhile function and therefore does not merit the amount of media coverage devoted to it.

The reasons why we tolerate the continual barrage of meaningless coverage are twofold. Firstly, the illness of religion is still widespread (although diminishing). Secondly, it is generally accepted that as decent, considerate human beings, we should all respect one another's beliefs. The second point is all well and good, but many of us need to look critically at our own beliefs (something which I do daily, before you say anything!). If we find those beliefs to be arbitrary, or illogical, or based upon blind faith and nothing else whatever, or based upon some chance experience, then we should be extremely suspicious of them. We should be equally suspicious of anything which we believe purely because someone else told us to. This leads me to my most important point.

Religious belief is a dangerous disease. It has arisen spontaneously and independently, several times during the course of human history. It, or some other kind of superstition, will (initially) arise inevitably in any intelligent mind which focuses its attention upon questions about the origin and purpose of life. But we have the power to cure the disease in our own minds, provided we do so before it has become so completely established that it stifles rational thought, replacing it (as in so many cases, even today) with a state of mind which requires nothing to be supported by evidence. (Such a state of mind is, of course, highly seductive - one of the reasons why religious belief still persists.) If a person is unable to rid his own mind of the sickness of religion, then that remains his own problem. If, however, he succumbs to the temptation (perhaps the most diabolical symptom in the repertoire of the disease) to spread the infection into the minds of others, then he is certainly guilty of an immoral act. This is particularly true when the target minds are those of children.

Children are born fresh into a world of which they try their best to make sense. This is not a simple task, and it takes them many years. They are assisted in their Herculean labour by something called education. Essentially, education is a kind of acceleration of achievement; a key to further the progress of mankind by building upon the good work of others.

Eventually, during its development, a child will begin to ask ultimate questions. We must consider very carefully our responses to such questions. Young children are prepared to believe almost anything they are told, especially when the information comes from a trusted individual such as a parent or teacher. Beliefs acquired at an early age become more or less fixed (if they did not, learning would be nigh impossible). If we implant a series of superficially plausible but utterly truthless beliefs into young minds, often before the salient questions are even framed, then we can do real damage. Frequently I hear children as young as five years of age (and as old as eleven) singing a modern hymn which begins, "Who put the colours in the rainbow?" If you read the complete lyric of the hymn for yourself, you will see that it seeks to foster a sense of wonder at the beauty, complexity and order of the world and the living things within it. That in itself is not a cause for concern - indeed it is commendable. It encourages us, as Richard Dawkins has put it, to shake off the "anaesthetic of familiarity" which can so easily dampen our appreciation of the wonders all around us. But there is a nasty sting in the tail. The words state, clearly and unequivocally, that God is responsible for creating everything. They do not encourage any form of enquiry or debate. Indeed, one verse delivers a clumsy and ignorant sideswipe at neo-Darwinism, with the words, "It surely can't be chance!" That the lyricist fails to understand Darwinian evolution, wrongly assuming it to be based solely upon "chance", is his own affair. But something particularly sinister is at work when the seeds of that same misguided ignorance are sown in the fertile ground of innocent young minds.

Suppose you or I were to get to our feet on next hearing those words issue forth from the mouths of children. Suppose we were to cry, "Enough of this! What about the evidence of our eyes and ears? What about common sense? This stuff has been parroted as though it were unquestionable truth for, quite literally, ages. Let's hear another point of view for a change."

I think you can imagine the response. Those with sufficient of an axe to grind would act rapidly to silence us. Apologies would de demanded. Appointments would probably be reviewed. Disciplinary action would be all but inevitable.

You see, the goal posts are not of equal separation. Those who daily promulgate falsehoods, no matter how underhand their methods of persuasion, no matter how cunning and wily the means by which they seduce developing minds, have the backing of two thousand years of shameful precedent. The rules, both unspoken and as laid down in English law, are still weighted heavily in their favour.

But the despair to which I have referred is perhaps not absolute. One day, no matter how far away that day may be, the truth will replace fiction. Already it is beginning, all over the world. Every day we move ever so slightly nearer to the time when we shall finally be rid (to quote Arthur C. Clarke) of the "billions of words of pious gibberish with which supposedly intelligent men have addled their minds for centuries."