In a recent article in The Times (23.03.2026) Trevor Phillips quoted a colleague of his who summed up The British Way as: “Live and let live - but don’t take the piss.” Some Liberals might wish to add, “And don’t expect us not to criticise you when we think you are.”
It says something that I planned to start this comment with "excellent as usual" but that's already taken (as is "brilliant as usual").
So, let me say: clear and comprehensive as usual.
I endorse your opening message and would like to encourage anyone seeing this to join me in financially supporting Helen's Substack. Not just to encourage her to keep writing—to encourage the algorithm to promote her work to a wider audience. The world would be a better place if a lot more than 6,000 people read this.
Ah, but a lot of political issues are downstream of religious or quasi-religious belief systems, and those also make people's collective behavior swingy and override their individual better moral intuitions.
E.g. if somebody is expecting the Rapture any day and thinks God Will Provide, that might affect their politics in ways I dislike.
Good point. I believe Jesus came, told us what to do and what not to do. I don't think he's coming back though - no need to. We got the message. One of my guilty pleasures is arguing with those who believe in the Rapture.
Brilliant as usual. But some would go a step further. Liberalism is incoherent without assuming certain basic moral tenets. While we can't force people to listen, a liberal democracy needs a minimum civic committment and competence from it's members to be sustainable. So more republican democracies, eg France, inculcate certain core norms without offering an opt-out (also strongly establishes a public secular space). There's a genuine tension within the enlightenment democratic tradition on this issue.
There's an anti statist streak in the Anglo liberal tradition for historical reasons. I call myself a liberal democrat to lean towards the republican side a bit. I like King Macron.
I agree with Helen that people have a right to not listen to me — and I’m generally okay with that except when we start getting into the politicolegal implications of such beliefs.
But not telling someone I care about that I think they may be mistaken, and why, while open to myself being mistaken, is disrespectful.
This was a long essay and I admit I skimmed most of it. But I am puzzled--what exactly is the purpose of criticizing other people's deeply held religious beliefs? They aren't going to give them up because you criticize them. So is it to assert your moral superiority?
Well, if you genuinely believe that nobody ever changes their mind about anything as a result of arguments against it, you would indeed be mystified by why anybody would ever bother to argue for anything.
But then you’d need to ask yourself why precisely religious belief has declined so much and if you don’t believe it is because of arguments against it convincing people, what do you think caused it? Why do ideas ever change? Is there such a thing as a zeitgeist or an overton window and does it shift according to ideas getting more or less popular in society?
While you may never change of the mind of a committed believer in anything, there are always questioners looking at the discourse who can be moved.
Also some arguments against religion are ethical and about the values associated with the religion. These are often values that oppose women’s reproductive freedom and same sex attracted people’s right to marry. Criticising these values can inspire people to keep strong protections in place to prevent religious values being imposed on other people and are worth making.
It is deeply uncharitable and cynical to assume that people arguing that some ideas are bad are just wanting to assert their moral superiority. I believe that most religious believers trying to convert me genuinely care about my wellbeing and I genuinely care about theirs.
Hmm. I think people change their religious beliefs for a lot of reasons. I think mostly it's that they have a life experience or experiences that make them question those beliefs. For example a fundamentalist Christian might meet gay people in college and become friends with one of them. But it wouldn't be them arguing "hating gays is wrong!" that convinces the person. Seeing is believing. The person would be convinced after determining that the gay person is not much different from themselves.
I see. You think that a deeply devout religious believer could be persuaded that God was wrong or did not exist by meeting nice people against whom the bible discriminates rather than doing the 'love the sinner, hate the sin' thing? How does this stack up for feminism? Is there any point in making arguments that women should be respected and valued or does your feminism take the form of spending much time with men and being really nice to them so they recognise that women are full humans and oppressing or abusing them is wrong?
Do you think there is ever any value in arguing for anything or trying to persuade anybody of anything?
I in fact do spend time with men and many of the subscribers to my Substack are men and some of what I write is directed at them. That's why I sometimes write about my own experiences instead of lecturing people.
That wasn’t what I asked, was it? None of that is relevant to anything. I’ve never yet had a conversation with you in which you were able to make a reasoned argument based on consistent principles. I’m not going to reply in future unless you do.
"They aren't going to give them up because you criticize them."
I'm someone who stopped being a Christian because I concluded that it was factually incorrect, and that was facilitated by people criticizing it. Not necessarily to my face, of course; I largely found the arguments in the forms of books and articles. But the criticism was there.
That's interesting. So, you found arguments that convinced you that Jesus did not rise into Heaven from the Cross? I'm curious what those arguments were because if you had a passing knowledge of biology and physics prior you would have already known it was factually incorrect. Most Christians would say that they believe based on faith not reason.
No, I believed that the Christian God was real because my school taught that it was. Christians would not say that Christ’s resurrection was factually incorrect. God is not bound by biology and physics. I became very religious and was diagnosed with hyper-religiosity and scrupulosity. My parents were atheists and very worried about it.
The arguments which made me question my faith were:
People pointing out contradictions in the bible.
Arguments that the God of the bible is actually three gods amalgamated.
Factual errors about how the natural world and human biology in the bible.
The argument that if I’d been born in another time and place, I’d believe in a different God.
The argument that gods are something humans created for psychological reasons rather than the other way round.
Arguments against the existence of a soul and that self was instead brain.
I was one of the people who started to doubt in my teens but could not entirely free myself from religion for many years. It was people like Dawkins, Harris, Shermer and Ehrman who convinced me to finally fully disbelieve. Then I became part of the New Atheist movement and spent a lot of time with ex-Christians and ex-Muslims addressing the damage done by early indoctrination. Then I volunteered supporting other people with religious scrupulosity. Then I used all the reading of theology I had done to get a masters in late medieval and early modern women’s religious writing.
Religion is an issue of importance and significance to me because it shaped so much of my life.
Some Christians would say they believed based on faith and not reason but more would be angry at that and argue that “it takes more faith to be an atheist” and use the “proofs” of Aquinas to argue that there is evidence of God throughout the universe and that basic reasoning demonstrates that there must be a creator. I always argued with religious believers who wanted to argue with me. I never knocked on anyone’s door or preached at people on the street. As I wrote in that piece, I think arguments can only be made ethically when they are written essays which people can choose to read or not or debates which other people are also interested in having. Consent matters.
I stopped arguing about religion 11 years ago, though, and focused all my attention on postmodern thought which I also criticise on the grounds of epistemology and ethics.
The “proofs” of Aquinas, and Pierre Teilhard de Chardin’s noospheric woo were sufficient to convince the budding rationalist me at 12 that if these were the best the Church had to bring, I should just put any such energy into useful purposes, like astrophysics, thermodynamics, etc. — things that might in fact have some explanatory power for the biggest questions.
I don't consider myself an atheist, I'm like a liberal Catholic. I tend to think the atheists are right for the most part. That said, arguing with people who believe otherwise is sort of like telling kids that Santa Claus isn't coming. Maybe sometimes that is necessary, but I don't think it should be done merely for sport lol.
Fair, but having suffered firsthand the effects of a Church that believes its appearance matters more than its dogma, while moralizing all the while, tipped me into antitheism: theistic beliefs prime people for all sorts of irrationality, and the deeply embedded cultural “respect” for them is the foundation for people being able to believe *anything*.
That’s the real “Original Sin”, imho, though are lots of others in close chase (patriarchal religious control, misogyny, pro-authoritarian dogmatism, …).
I could become an atheist and do just fine. I do worry a bit about throwing out the baby with the bathwater if you know what I mean.
I was baptized as a child, but I didn't really receive much religious education growing up. I did not attend mass until I got married in my early 30's.
That is probably why I still like the Catholic church. I do disagree with them on many things. I see it mostly as a force for good in the world.
Faith can & does bring a lot of comfort to people — as well as their own existential dreads, and serious here-and-now harms.
So does lying to them, at least that is what liars often tell themselves (ourselves) 🤷♂️
As a firm believer in evidence-based, pluralistic, secular, liberal, democracy as the best of all possible sociopolitical systems, I fully support others’ rights to believe what they like — so long as those beliefs don’t impinge on the rights of others (including its own adherents).
Unfortunately, it has been my experience that even the most “progressive” belief systems are rife with systemic repression and oppression — it may not be an inevitability, but the reality is that fickle humans can be easily tricked into self-sabotaging behaviour by bad actors, and religion provides an ultimate certainty that time & again has allowed such actors to pervert what are without a doubt some very powerful underlying principles on how to live.
Me, I’ll stick with the Greeks, poets, artists, scientists, Montaigne, and others for such guidance — to paraphrase Laplace’s apocryphal quip, “I see no need for such a theistic hypothesis.” 😊
I find the idea that people have a right to believe what they want very odd. I don’t feel I have any choice over the things I believe, although I could choose to pretend to believe certain things.
Perhaps review the history of religious beliefs, including the number of people who hold them literally. It doesn't happen overnight, but it does change. In the UK in the 2021 census, 60% of 25YOs have no religion, but 10% of 80+ year olds. That's a big shift.
But more than just the binary belief in a religion....
In 1990, in the UK and the US, only about 10% would say that same sex relationships were not wrong. That figure today is about 60%-70%. Of course the origin of that belief was Christian teachings.
You can see across the Muslim nations and populations in the West quite different attitudes in polls by the likes of Pew, Cato institute etc.
They might or might not give up their religion over time, but they will almost certainly reiterpret their religion.
And yes, to some degree, it is to assert a form of superiority of argument about the way that society should go. What's wrong with that? You are doing it in your post in a way, and that's fine.
Helen, as usual, I thoroughly enjoyed your piece. Keep up your great work.
I do have one quibble with your observation about libertarians.
I strongly agree that liberalism is not relativism, but I do not think libertarianism should be confused with the idea that all beliefs are equally true or beyond criticism. The libertarian tradition is full of argument, dissent, and criticism of bad ideas.
To the extent that some libertarians are interested in postmodernism, I do not think that usually reflects a retreat from truth. It is more often a suspicion of centralized truth claims, expert monopolies, and state-backed orthodoxies. That seems closer to Hayek’s warning about the limits of knowledge than to the claim that anything goes.
So yes, people have the right to be wrong. But they do not have a right to be free from criticism. The libertarian position is anti-coercive, not anti-critical.
No, I agree with you, Ephie. That is why I stressed that it is a tiny subset of libertarians who embrace relativism. They can also have very strong ideas about what is true but defend liberty for dissenters anyway. And I am pleased you see the similarities between Foucault and Hayek on this. I am trying to cover every base here. It is rare for anti-authoritarians to disapprove of me criticising, say, religion because they are committed to a relativist position on truth, but when they do, they are often of the libertarian stance. It is much more common for them to do so from a motivation of “doing no harm” and then they are generally progressives.
Reading this was a great way to start the weekend : ) Helen, recently you wrote about how whatever our convictions are, we can represent them in the world in a liberal way. This was auch a helpful lightbulb moment for me! I'm nearly 60 now, but in my teens I was horrified by what we do to other animals and this horror compelled me to be in everybody's face about it even though it went against my very conflict shy personality. Much later, when CSJ hit my activism world, I increasingly felt like I was in the wrong movie and since then I've been trying work out for myself where I stand. I think making a liberal case for taking animals seriously can result in much more lasting and broader change than lumping it in with illiberal CSJ activism. Needless to say, I'm viewed with suspicion by activist colleagues - at best I'm boring and not radical enough and at worst, I've become right-wing.
Helen, you also wrote recently that there are perfectly sound arguments for being vegan. Would you agree that the liberal commitment of the 'right to believe, speak and live as one sees fit provided it harms nobody else no denys them the same freedom' counts as one of them? I mean why would the 'nobody' here not include non-human animals given all the evidence we have of their interests being morally relevant?
Your posts always enlighten, and then provoke thoughts and questions.
Thought 1: Many seem unable to exist in anything other than a binary spectrum, be it "Left-Right", "Liberalism-Totalitarianism", and then a further sub-set of people - the censors - seem to believe that you can only exist at the poles, because they do. (The Political Compass, and the work of More in Common give a better approximation of our multi-dimensional clusters of beliefs - and in the academic field Shalom Schwartz's 10 dimensions of values, or Jonathan Haidt 6 moral foundations). Liberalism requires an appreciation of complexity.
Thought 2: I defend the right to speak a conspiracy theory. The reason: because between a stimulus and a final position on something, we go through a process of exploration, evaluation, conjecture, testing etc. And speaking a formative idea is one way of testing it. (Sorry, I don't believe our institutions' narratives these days - in fact, they set me off at pace to discover what's really going on!). But more than that, the world is surprising and fascinating at the moment - look at the developments in quantum physics, consciousness, neuro-science etc. There are about 300 models for consciousness at the moment. Assuming their founders offered their theories sincerely, and are some way intelligent, we are at a very nascent point in a relatively new field, where throwing stuff out and seeing what sticks is a natural part of the Darwinian process in the marketplace of ideas. We shouldn't censor them. Once, it was mad and heretical to think the earth was round.
Thought 3: Liberalism is good so long as others are approximately liberal too, at least in intent. However, what does a liberal do when sacked/fired/threatened/attacked/prosecuted?
I have been dwelling recently why we are in this new age of unreason, and I would be interested in ideas. My own thought: 1) we are in an age of signficant uncertainty (due to the inter-related world, pace of AI and shifting global order) - and simple, frequently stated mantras about the nature of society etc justify reducing it (at the expense of liberty, expression etc). 2) we have gradually evolved to make the world safer, and to some, socialism feels safer by way of a collective experience and a reduction in the volatility of markets. Relativism has utility because it offers some the promise of avoiding conflict (as per Helen's points that not everyone wants to argue), but also to also avoid thinking! Everything is done because it is "safe" and easy - a path of least resistance. 3) the wealthy set the rules - they have moved from wealth, to hedonism, to narcissism: an age old narcissism where they are unable to separate their strongly held emotional impulses to "do good" with vanity, hubris and sociopathy. 4) we are dreadfully short-term: liberalism plays a longer game in how it shapes society for the better, acting to enable self-determination and allow good ideas and consensus to emerge organically.
As ever, Helen, miraculously excellent. I’d add that the “tradition that values evidence, reason and robust debate” has been suddenly lost by the very institutions who professed to know how to do that. So your work is hugely important in the new worldwide web that is our open university now. In one of the comments above and elsewhere, you clearly show how, for those who do opt for robust debate that is based on reason and evidence, there are still skills to learn and use if it’s to work effectively. So we need to understand and apply those rules of engagement and know when and how to draw a line when someone is playing a different game. To underline this point I’ve found it helps to strengthen the key phrase to: “principled reason, objective evidence and engaged discussion” — which I must now add includes “engaged robust debate”!
Actually, I would argue that if you hold a view on something important, which you will express in debates with others, potentially influencing them, and which will influence your vote in elections, ypu should be able to defend that view. A debate sticks in my mind from a few years ago when someone I know well became upset when I challenged their stance on capital punishment . It was after the Southport murders, and when I argued against capital punishment, they couldn't refute my arguments, and became angry. But I think if you're going to call for the death of other human beings then you absolutely should be able to defend that view robustly. Less important to be able to defend your favourite flavour of ice cream.
I agree that if you engage with debates with others, you can then be expected to defend your views, but that we do not have any responsibility to defend any position we mention outside of that kind of interaction. See the “debate me, bro” paragraph.
Excellent as usual. What of that area where someone expresses a strong and highly consequential view that is clearly in conflict with provable facts, and they don’t want to hear that? This is where a lot of tension arises. To what extent must a person hear such views, perhaps repeatedly, by someone who exerts their right to not engage, or even listen? If this is a colleague, friend, or family member that is significant. I expect that this is where relationship skills and mutual accommodation come into play but I’m curious what you think.
This is what tests protecting the right to be wrong and the right not to listen. Perhaps it is something like the case of the young woman who died recently because she believed her mother that coffee enemas were the way to treat cancer rather than chemo and radiotherapy? Her brothers wanted their mother held accountable because she was an impressionable young woman who was cowed by their mother. The judge said the mother’s behaviour was terrible but not illegal because the young woman had mental capacity. I was very sympathetic to the brothers aim to have their sister’s medical case reviewed which was ongoing when she died. This was an attempt to make her listen. If they’d convinced her to do that, I’d have been happy. They cannot compel her to do that.
This is so hard when someone’s life is at stake and they are clearly wrong in their beliefs but protecting their right to be wrong remains essential. In other situations the highly consequential and wrong thing someone believes themselves to have the right to force them to listen to counterviews for has been a failure to believe their particular religion.
🙂thanks Helen, that’s great - you clarify it well with those examples. That’s the discernment I meant to signal to with my initial comment “I expect that this is where relationship skills and mutual accommodation come into play”, but which is the very areas where the issue you otherwise wrestle down so well in your article I felt were not addressed in it. Of course, you can’t write endlessly but I thought it worth getting your judgement on that domain stated specifically. Thanks! And no fear of you here, only respect and appreciation for you and certainly my trust in your good faith and integrity. Cheers!
Thanks, Helen. Those are interesting cases. I tend to agree with your assessment. However when I said ‘consequential’ I was thinking not of such deeply personal matters so much as wider social matters. Many examples of which are mundane or everyday things, often random comments in casual conversations. It could be anything but let’s say anti vax views, or public policy advocacy that’s simply flat out wrong on evidence or reasoning. That’s the tension I’m pointing at. How do you square this common occurrence - someone who randomly, or repeatedly - gives voice to such views? How does their ‘right’ not to be engaged square with any responsibility one may feel to correct it, especially publicly? Is it not an everyday reality, with meaningful consequences, that’s not as easily settled as your piece seems to suggest?
(and I would add that in regards to your examples, on reflection I think I would advocate speaking the truth even when the other party didn’t want to hear, out of a reasonable belief that it was righteous to so. The matter imo stops at their freedom of belief, not any freedom from being challenged by speech.)
My apologies if I’ve in any way misunderstood your arguments, and you have the right, obviously, to not keep responding! And I love your work.
Oh no. If someone is arguing for anti-vax views publicly, they can certainly be engaged with publicly. And people can write and publish pieces arguing for why that person and other people who believe the same thing are wrong. If it is your neighbour and they say in passing "Course, I won't take vaccines. I don't want autism' and then tells you they don't want to discuss it further, you might have to put up with it, but this is the same bar as for harassment generally.
Please don't be apologetic! I've been responding to people quite sharply recently but this is when they take dogmatic authoritarian views and are antagonistic. I need to stop doing that too, though. I'm sleep deprived and grumpy at the moment, but I don't want people to fear I might bite their head off if they disagree with me!
A certain type of faith can also encourage one in the belief that all human beings are worthy of dignity and respect. It's possible to believe in the mandate to "love your neighbor". The Genesis myth explains why this might be meaningful (we are all more than we seem, perhaps.) Perhaps all morality requires some kind of leap of faith. Psychology comes and goes, but religion has been challenging people to look beyond themselves throughout the entire span of our species.
Not knowing and never accepting any answer about life as final, while trying to hold onto some articles of faith like the inherent worth of a human being, is my preferred and probably innate cognitive style. "relative truth" doesn't quite describe it. Do I get to call myself a liberal?
Yes, you are a liberal. I am pretty sure you were the person who made that comment but time passed since I started writing it & I could not find it. I’d say that religion comes and goes but our psychology remains fairly stable. And yes, it’s absolutely acceptable to say “I don’t know” about things I encourage it, in fact. What I want to establish is that arguing quite strongly for and against things is also perfectly liberal even if it goes against somebody else’s deeply held beliefs, provided everybody engaged in such arguments wants to be and nobody is forced into it. People who shy away from doing that for any reason can also do so.
In a recent article in The Times (23.03.2026) Trevor Phillips quoted a colleague of his who summed up The British Way as: “Live and let live - but don’t take the piss.” Some Liberals might wish to add, “And don’t expect us not to criticise you when we think you are.”
It says something that I planned to start this comment with "excellent as usual" but that's already taken (as is "brilliant as usual").
So, let me say: clear and comprehensive as usual.
I endorse your opening message and would like to encourage anyone seeing this to join me in financially supporting Helen's Substack. Not just to encourage her to keep writing—to encourage the algorithm to promote her work to a wider audience. The world would be a better place if a lot more than 6,000 people read this.
Isn't the short version: other people's beliefs matter because they vote?
That’s a very valid reason, yes, and you could restrict yourself to arguing about political things and for that reason.
Ah, but a lot of political issues are downstream of religious or quasi-religious belief systems, and those also make people's collective behavior swingy and override their individual better moral intuitions.
E.g. if somebody is expecting the Rapture any day and thinks God Will Provide, that might affect their politics in ways I dislike.
So open season!
Yes, OK, I have argued that we don't even need that justification, though.
Agreed. For me difference between permission and imperative.
Or ant ideology or religion that is not typically understood as religion even though it has the same if not worse hold on people
Or religious people adopting genderwang as a pious act.
Good point. I believe Jesus came, told us what to do and what not to do. I don't think he's coming back though - no need to. We got the message. One of my guilty pleasures is arguing with those who believe in the Rapture.
Maybe it is because what other people think has an effect be it in politics or... anything.
And all must be questioned.
Brilliant as usual. But some would go a step further. Liberalism is incoherent without assuming certain basic moral tenets. While we can't force people to listen, a liberal democracy needs a minimum civic committment and competence from it's members to be sustainable. So more republican democracies, eg France, inculcate certain core norms without offering an opt-out (also strongly establishes a public secular space). There's a genuine tension within the enlightenment democratic tradition on this issue.
Yes, I would say this is a departure from liberalism but would not consider people who hold those views illiberal.
There's an anti statist streak in the Anglo liberal tradition for historical reasons. I call myself a liberal democrat to lean towards the republican side a bit. I like King Macron.
I do think Macron has been magnificent.
How so?
"Respect my beliefs". The world cannot be flat for me and round for everyone else. Belief is... complicated.
RESPECT is criticizing
Exactly.
I agree with Helen that people have a right to not listen to me — and I’m generally okay with that except when we start getting into the politicolegal implications of such beliefs.
But not telling someone I care about that I think they may be mistaken, and why, while open to myself being mistaken, is disrespectful.
This was a long essay and I admit I skimmed most of it. But I am puzzled--what exactly is the purpose of criticizing other people's deeply held religious beliefs? They aren't going to give them up because you criticize them. So is it to assert your moral superiority?
Well, if you genuinely believe that nobody ever changes their mind about anything as a result of arguments against it, you would indeed be mystified by why anybody would ever bother to argue for anything.
But then you’d need to ask yourself why precisely religious belief has declined so much and if you don’t believe it is because of arguments against it convincing people, what do you think caused it? Why do ideas ever change? Is there such a thing as a zeitgeist or an overton window and does it shift according to ideas getting more or less popular in society?
While you may never change of the mind of a committed believer in anything, there are always questioners looking at the discourse who can be moved.
Also some arguments against religion are ethical and about the values associated with the religion. These are often values that oppose women’s reproductive freedom and same sex attracted people’s right to marry. Criticising these values can inspire people to keep strong protections in place to prevent religious values being imposed on other people and are worth making.
It is deeply uncharitable and cynical to assume that people arguing that some ideas are bad are just wanting to assert their moral superiority. I believe that most religious believers trying to convert me genuinely care about my wellbeing and I genuinely care about theirs.
Hmm. I think people change their religious beliefs for a lot of reasons. I think mostly it's that they have a life experience or experiences that make them question those beliefs. For example a fundamentalist Christian might meet gay people in college and become friends with one of them. But it wouldn't be them arguing "hating gays is wrong!" that convinces the person. Seeing is believing. The person would be convinced after determining that the gay person is not much different from themselves.
I see. You think that a deeply devout religious believer could be persuaded that God was wrong or did not exist by meeting nice people against whom the bible discriminates rather than doing the 'love the sinner, hate the sin' thing? How does this stack up for feminism? Is there any point in making arguments that women should be respected and valued or does your feminism take the form of spending much time with men and being really nice to them so they recognise that women are full humans and oppressing or abusing them is wrong?
Do you think there is ever any value in arguing for anything or trying to persuade anybody of anything?
I in fact do spend time with men and many of the subscribers to my Substack are men and some of what I write is directed at them. That's why I sometimes write about my own experiences instead of lecturing people.
That wasn’t what I asked, was it? None of that is relevant to anything. I’ve never yet had a conversation with you in which you were able to make a reasoned argument based on consistent principles. I’m not going to reply in future unless you do.
"They aren't going to give them up because you criticize them."
I'm someone who stopped being a Christian because I concluded that it was factually incorrect, and that was facilitated by people criticizing it. Not necessarily to my face, of course; I largely found the arguments in the forms of books and articles. But the criticism was there.
Me too.
That's interesting. So, you found arguments that convinced you that Jesus did not rise into Heaven from the Cross? I'm curious what those arguments were because if you had a passing knowledge of biology and physics prior you would have already known it was factually incorrect. Most Christians would say that they believe based on faith not reason.
No, I believed that the Christian God was real because my school taught that it was. Christians would not say that Christ’s resurrection was factually incorrect. God is not bound by biology and physics. I became very religious and was diagnosed with hyper-religiosity and scrupulosity. My parents were atheists and very worried about it.
The arguments which made me question my faith were:
People pointing out contradictions in the bible.
Arguments that the God of the bible is actually three gods amalgamated.
Factual errors about how the natural world and human biology in the bible.
The argument that if I’d been born in another time and place, I’d believe in a different God.
The argument that gods are something humans created for psychological reasons rather than the other way round.
Arguments against the existence of a soul and that self was instead brain.
I was one of the people who started to doubt in my teens but could not entirely free myself from religion for many years. It was people like Dawkins, Harris, Shermer and Ehrman who convinced me to finally fully disbelieve. Then I became part of the New Atheist movement and spent a lot of time with ex-Christians and ex-Muslims addressing the damage done by early indoctrination. Then I volunteered supporting other people with religious scrupulosity. Then I used all the reading of theology I had done to get a masters in late medieval and early modern women’s religious writing.
Religion is an issue of importance and significance to me because it shaped so much of my life.
Some Christians would say they believed based on faith and not reason but more would be angry at that and argue that “it takes more faith to be an atheist” and use the “proofs” of Aquinas to argue that there is evidence of God throughout the universe and that basic reasoning demonstrates that there must be a creator. I always argued with religious believers who wanted to argue with me. I never knocked on anyone’s door or preached at people on the street. As I wrote in that piece, I think arguments can only be made ethically when they are written essays which people can choose to read or not or debates which other people are also interested in having. Consent matters.
I stopped arguing about religion 11 years ago, though, and focused all my attention on postmodern thought which I also criticise on the grounds of epistemology and ethics.
Helen, you’re the best 😻
The “proofs” of Aquinas, and Pierre Teilhard de Chardin’s noospheric woo were sufficient to convince the budding rationalist me at 12 that if these were the best the Church had to bring, I should just put any such energy into useful purposes, like astrophysics, thermodynamics, etc. — things that might in fact have some explanatory power for the biggest questions.
Sorry if I'm being too nosey, what church did you belong to?
No worries, GG.
Roman Catholic.
Me too - loosely affiliated.
I don't consider myself an atheist, I'm like a liberal Catholic. I tend to think the atheists are right for the most part. That said, arguing with people who believe otherwise is sort of like telling kids that Santa Claus isn't coming. Maybe sometimes that is necessary, but I don't think it should be done merely for sport lol.
Fair, but having suffered firsthand the effects of a Church that believes its appearance matters more than its dogma, while moralizing all the while, tipped me into antitheism: theistic beliefs prime people for all sorts of irrationality, and the deeply embedded cultural “respect” for them is the foundation for people being able to believe *anything*.
That’s the real “Original Sin”, imho, though are lots of others in close chase (patriarchal religious control, misogyny, pro-authoritarian dogmatism, …).
I could become an atheist and do just fine. I do worry a bit about throwing out the baby with the bathwater if you know what I mean.
I was baptized as a child, but I didn't really receive much religious education growing up. I did not attend mass until I got married in my early 30's.
That is probably why I still like the Catholic church. I do disagree with them on many things. I see it mostly as a force for good in the world.
Faith can & does bring a lot of comfort to people — as well as their own existential dreads, and serious here-and-now harms.
So does lying to them, at least that is what liars often tell themselves (ourselves) 🤷♂️
As a firm believer in evidence-based, pluralistic, secular, liberal, democracy as the best of all possible sociopolitical systems, I fully support others’ rights to believe what they like — so long as those beliefs don’t impinge on the rights of others (including its own adherents).
Unfortunately, it has been my experience that even the most “progressive” belief systems are rife with systemic repression and oppression — it may not be an inevitability, but the reality is that fickle humans can be easily tricked into self-sabotaging behaviour by bad actors, and religion provides an ultimate certainty that time & again has allowed such actors to pervert what are without a doubt some very powerful underlying principles on how to live.
Me, I’ll stick with the Greeks, poets, artists, scientists, Montaigne, and others for such guidance — to paraphrase Laplace’s apocryphal quip, “I see no need for such a theistic hypothesis.” 😊
I find the idea that people have a right to believe what they want very odd. I don’t feel I have any choice over the things I believe, although I could choose to pretend to believe certain things.
I respect how you feel. I like Voltaire's opinions on the topic. Still, Catholic social justice is good stuff. We need more of it.
Perhaps review the history of religious beliefs, including the number of people who hold them literally. It doesn't happen overnight, but it does change. In the UK in the 2021 census, 60% of 25YOs have no religion, but 10% of 80+ year olds. That's a big shift.
But more than just the binary belief in a religion....
In 1990, in the UK and the US, only about 10% would say that same sex relationships were not wrong. That figure today is about 60%-70%. Of course the origin of that belief was Christian teachings.
You can see across the Muslim nations and populations in the West quite different attitudes in polls by the likes of Pew, Cato institute etc.
They might or might not give up their religion over time, but they will almost certainly reiterpret their religion.
And yes, to some degree, it is to assert a form of superiority of argument about the way that society should go. What's wrong with that? You are doing it in your post in a way, and that's fine.
Helen, as usual, I thoroughly enjoyed your piece. Keep up your great work.
I do have one quibble with your observation about libertarians.
I strongly agree that liberalism is not relativism, but I do not think libertarianism should be confused with the idea that all beliefs are equally true or beyond criticism. The libertarian tradition is full of argument, dissent, and criticism of bad ideas.
To the extent that some libertarians are interested in postmodernism, I do not think that usually reflects a retreat from truth. It is more often a suspicion of centralized truth claims, expert monopolies, and state-backed orthodoxies. That seems closer to Hayek’s warning about the limits of knowledge than to the claim that anything goes.
So yes, people have the right to be wrong. But they do not have a right to be free from criticism. The libertarian position is anti-coercive, not anti-critical.
No, I agree with you, Ephie. That is why I stressed that it is a tiny subset of libertarians who embrace relativism. They can also have very strong ideas about what is true but defend liberty for dissenters anyway. And I am pleased you see the similarities between Foucault and Hayek on this. I am trying to cover every base here. It is rare for anti-authoritarians to disapprove of me criticising, say, religion because they are committed to a relativist position on truth, but when they do, they are often of the libertarian stance. It is much more common for them to do so from a motivation of “doing no harm” and then they are generally progressives.
On this subject, there was an interesting discussion last year between Nick Gillespie and Mark Pennington.
https://reason.com/podcast/2025/08/06/the-libertarian-case-for-postmodernism/
Liberal animal rights advocate
Reading this was a great way to start the weekend : ) Helen, recently you wrote about how whatever our convictions are, we can represent them in the world in a liberal way. This was auch a helpful lightbulb moment for me! I'm nearly 60 now, but in my teens I was horrified by what we do to other animals and this horror compelled me to be in everybody's face about it even though it went against my very conflict shy personality. Much later, when CSJ hit my activism world, I increasingly felt like I was in the wrong movie and since then I've been trying work out for myself where I stand. I think making a liberal case for taking animals seriously can result in much more lasting and broader change than lumping it in with illiberal CSJ activism. Needless to say, I'm viewed with suspicion by activist colleagues - at best I'm boring and not radical enough and at worst, I've become right-wing.
Helen, you also wrote recently that there are perfectly sound arguments for being vegan. Would you agree that the liberal commitment of the 'right to believe, speak and live as one sees fit provided it harms nobody else no denys them the same freedom' counts as one of them? I mean why would the 'nobody' here not include non-human animals given all the evidence we have of their interests being morally relevant?
Your posts always enlighten, and then provoke thoughts and questions.
Thought 1: Many seem unable to exist in anything other than a binary spectrum, be it "Left-Right", "Liberalism-Totalitarianism", and then a further sub-set of people - the censors - seem to believe that you can only exist at the poles, because they do. (The Political Compass, and the work of More in Common give a better approximation of our multi-dimensional clusters of beliefs - and in the academic field Shalom Schwartz's 10 dimensions of values, or Jonathan Haidt 6 moral foundations). Liberalism requires an appreciation of complexity.
Thought 2: I defend the right to speak a conspiracy theory. The reason: because between a stimulus and a final position on something, we go through a process of exploration, evaluation, conjecture, testing etc. And speaking a formative idea is one way of testing it. (Sorry, I don't believe our institutions' narratives these days - in fact, they set me off at pace to discover what's really going on!). But more than that, the world is surprising and fascinating at the moment - look at the developments in quantum physics, consciousness, neuro-science etc. There are about 300 models for consciousness at the moment. Assuming their founders offered their theories sincerely, and are some way intelligent, we are at a very nascent point in a relatively new field, where throwing stuff out and seeing what sticks is a natural part of the Darwinian process in the marketplace of ideas. We shouldn't censor them. Once, it was mad and heretical to think the earth was round.
Thought 3: Liberalism is good so long as others are approximately liberal too, at least in intent. However, what does a liberal do when sacked/fired/threatened/attacked/prosecuted?
I have been dwelling recently why we are in this new age of unreason, and I would be interested in ideas. My own thought: 1) we are in an age of signficant uncertainty (due to the inter-related world, pace of AI and shifting global order) - and simple, frequently stated mantras about the nature of society etc justify reducing it (at the expense of liberty, expression etc). 2) we have gradually evolved to make the world safer, and to some, socialism feels safer by way of a collective experience and a reduction in the volatility of markets. Relativism has utility because it offers some the promise of avoiding conflict (as per Helen's points that not everyone wants to argue), but also to also avoid thinking! Everything is done because it is "safe" and easy - a path of least resistance. 3) the wealthy set the rules - they have moved from wealth, to hedonism, to narcissism: an age old narcissism where they are unable to separate their strongly held emotional impulses to "do good" with vanity, hubris and sociopathy. 4) we are dreadfully short-term: liberalism plays a longer game in how it shapes society for the better, acting to enable self-determination and allow good ideas and consensus to emerge organically.
As ever, Helen, miraculously excellent. I’d add that the “tradition that values evidence, reason and robust debate” has been suddenly lost by the very institutions who professed to know how to do that. So your work is hugely important in the new worldwide web that is our open university now. In one of the comments above and elsewhere, you clearly show how, for those who do opt for robust debate that is based on reason and evidence, there are still skills to learn and use if it’s to work effectively. So we need to understand and apply those rules of engagement and know when and how to draw a line when someone is playing a different game. To underline this point I’ve found it helps to strengthen the key phrase to: “principled reason, objective evidence and engaged discussion” — which I must now add includes “engaged robust debate”!
Actually, I would argue that if you hold a view on something important, which you will express in debates with others, potentially influencing them, and which will influence your vote in elections, ypu should be able to defend that view. A debate sticks in my mind from a few years ago when someone I know well became upset when I challenged their stance on capital punishment . It was after the Southport murders, and when I argued against capital punishment, they couldn't refute my arguments, and became angry. But I think if you're going to call for the death of other human beings then you absolutely should be able to defend that view robustly. Less important to be able to defend your favourite flavour of ice cream.
I agree that if you engage with debates with others, you can then be expected to defend your views, but that we do not have any responsibility to defend any position we mention outside of that kind of interaction. See the “debate me, bro” paragraph.
Excellent as usual. What of that area where someone expresses a strong and highly consequential view that is clearly in conflict with provable facts, and they don’t want to hear that? This is where a lot of tension arises. To what extent must a person hear such views, perhaps repeatedly, by someone who exerts their right to not engage, or even listen? If this is a colleague, friend, or family member that is significant. I expect that this is where relationship skills and mutual accommodation come into play but I’m curious what you think.
This is what tests protecting the right to be wrong and the right not to listen. Perhaps it is something like the case of the young woman who died recently because she believed her mother that coffee enemas were the way to treat cancer rather than chemo and radiotherapy? Her brothers wanted their mother held accountable because she was an impressionable young woman who was cowed by their mother. The judge said the mother’s behaviour was terrible but not illegal because the young woman had mental capacity. I was very sympathetic to the brothers aim to have their sister’s medical case reviewed which was ongoing when she died. This was an attempt to make her listen. If they’d convinced her to do that, I’d have been happy. They cannot compel her to do that.
This is so hard when someone’s life is at stake and they are clearly wrong in their beliefs but protecting their right to be wrong remains essential. In other situations the highly consequential and wrong thing someone believes themselves to have the right to force them to listen to counterviews for has been a failure to believe their particular religion.
🙂thanks Helen, that’s great - you clarify it well with those examples. That’s the discernment I meant to signal to with my initial comment “I expect that this is where relationship skills and mutual accommodation come into play”, but which is the very areas where the issue you otherwise wrestle down so well in your article I felt were not addressed in it. Of course, you can’t write endlessly but I thought it worth getting your judgement on that domain stated specifically. Thanks! And no fear of you here, only respect and appreciation for you and certainly my trust in your good faith and integrity. Cheers!
Thanks, Helen. Those are interesting cases. I tend to agree with your assessment. However when I said ‘consequential’ I was thinking not of such deeply personal matters so much as wider social matters. Many examples of which are mundane or everyday things, often random comments in casual conversations. It could be anything but let’s say anti vax views, or public policy advocacy that’s simply flat out wrong on evidence or reasoning. That’s the tension I’m pointing at. How do you square this common occurrence - someone who randomly, or repeatedly - gives voice to such views? How does their ‘right’ not to be engaged square with any responsibility one may feel to correct it, especially publicly? Is it not an everyday reality, with meaningful consequences, that’s not as easily settled as your piece seems to suggest?
(and I would add that in regards to your examples, on reflection I think I would advocate speaking the truth even when the other party didn’t want to hear, out of a reasonable belief that it was righteous to so. The matter imo stops at their freedom of belief, not any freedom from being challenged by speech.)
My apologies if I’ve in any way misunderstood your arguments, and you have the right, obviously, to not keep responding! And I love your work.
Oh no. If someone is arguing for anti-vax views publicly, they can certainly be engaged with publicly. And people can write and publish pieces arguing for why that person and other people who believe the same thing are wrong. If it is your neighbour and they say in passing "Course, I won't take vaccines. I don't want autism' and then tells you they don't want to discuss it further, you might have to put up with it, but this is the same bar as for harassment generally.
Please don't be apologetic! I've been responding to people quite sharply recently but this is when they take dogmatic authoritarian views and are antagonistic. I need to stop doing that too, though. I'm sleep deprived and grumpy at the moment, but I don't want people to fear I might bite their head off if they disagree with me!
You seem very polite to me - I find most Brits are like that. There is a need for civility - I'm not perfect that way - but I do try.
A certain type of faith can also encourage one in the belief that all human beings are worthy of dignity and respect. It's possible to believe in the mandate to "love your neighbor". The Genesis myth explains why this might be meaningful (we are all more than we seem, perhaps.) Perhaps all morality requires some kind of leap of faith. Psychology comes and goes, but religion has been challenging people to look beyond themselves throughout the entire span of our species.
Not knowing and never accepting any answer about life as final, while trying to hold onto some articles of faith like the inherent worth of a human being, is my preferred and probably innate cognitive style. "relative truth" doesn't quite describe it. Do I get to call myself a liberal?
Yes, you are a liberal. I am pretty sure you were the person who made that comment but time passed since I started writing it & I could not find it. I’d say that religion comes and goes but our psychology remains fairly stable. And yes, it’s absolutely acceptable to say “I don’t know” about things I encourage it, in fact. What I want to establish is that arguing quite strongly for and against things is also perfectly liberal even if it goes against somebody else’s deeply held beliefs, provided everybody engaged in such arguments wants to be and nobody is forced into it. People who shy away from doing that for any reason can also do so.