Everything but arms

When the writer, polemicists and atheist scourge of polite society, Christopher Hitchens, died last December, it provided an opportunity, as part of the usual obituaries, tributes and anecdotes, to replay a debate, held the previous year, in which Hitchens argued whether or not religion was a force for good in the world, with Tony Blair....

In an already much lampooned bit of rhetoric, the Irish Prime Minister, Enda Kenny, told the citizens of his country that “difficult decisions are never easy”.

Bideford town council likes to pray before meetings. The local authority, situated in Devonshire south-west England, and has twice voted to keep the practice of beginning meetings with prayers, something which Clive Bone has objected to; the atheist councillor is attempting to have the practice stopped by the courts, through the National...

Science continues to get a bad rap these days; the popular image of the crazed scientist, from Dr Moreau onwards, repeatedly infests our minds with lurid pictures of wayward experimentation and unbridled hubris. In the imagination, it seems, science only ever gallops ahead at the expense of society, it never works in tandem with it. Science...