The remarkably violent storm which raged around the two talks broadcast last January by Mrs Margaret Knight has now happily subsided and I do not want to start it again. Some of the attacks on Mrs Knight’s views looked like simple manifestations of bad temper, if not of actual hysteria, and very few showed much real understanding of her position. Although there is rather more rhetoric than logic in some of what she says, it seems to me that on the whole her talks present an understandable and moderate non-Christian view.

One who believes that religion is an illusion could do very much worse than follow Mrs Knight’s line of thought and action. She maintains, quite rightly, that it is inconsistent to ask your children to believe what you yourself think to be false. The Christian, of course, thinks it better that a non-Christian should sometimes be inconsistent in practice; just as a liberal humanist prefers a communist or fascist to act inconsistently with his principles, and rejoices to hear that children in Russian schools are brought up to respect ideals of scientific objectivity and intellectual honesty which a true communist might not accept. However one cannot expect a non-Christian to prefer to be inconsistent, one cannot blame Mrs Knight for wanting to be reasonable, and given that religion is an illusion it seems to me that her views are very reasonable. The question on which everything else turns is simply: Is religion an illusion or not?