Opinion/Paddy Woodworth: Fear is rarely felt most intensely at times of actual danger. Real fear is more often experienced in moments of reflection and tranquillity, when the horrors that stalk our world lurch abruptly into view.
I had one such moment on a luminous, crisp morning in Salamanca in 1996, when I stepped out of the Castillian sunlight to view an exhibition organised by Amnesty International.
"The Instruments of Torture" laid out, without much comment, the objects which the Holy Inquisition, among other institutions of European Christian civilisation, used to persuade religious heretics and political dissidents to recant the error of their ways. I walked in breezily enough, thinking I was by now immune to stuff like this.
I was wrong. It was the sheer ingenuity of the evil on display which was heart-breaking. There was one neat little device which could be smoothly inserted into the anus or vagina of the torture victim. It could then expand alarmingly, extruding spikes which, upon withdrawal, would cause almost unimaginable pain.
What seemed most terrifying to me that morning was that these instruments were devised, and used, by people who claimed to be following the teachings of Jesus, the man who told his disciples to treat others as they would like to be treated themselves. The experience brought to mind some lines from Yeats:
Odour of blood when Christ was slain
Made all Platonic tolerance vain
And vain all Doric discipline.
Somehow, the story of Christ's crucifixion and resurrection gave rise to a violent and ferociously intolerant theology. Official Christianity turned Jesus, the wise and kindly author of the Sermon of the Mount, into the empty figurehead for a religion steeped in bloodshed. It provided equal inspiration for the Catholic torturers who took daily communion in the Franco period, and the Protestants who strutted beside loyalist killers at Drumcree church.
The fear I felt that day has been amplified by many developments in our contemporary world since then, which extend well beyond the realm of Christianity. We have seen Zionists claim religious grounds for stealing even more land from Palestinians. We have seen Muslims, who speak in the name of Allah the Merciful, exalt in merciless slaughter. We have seen Hindus, despite their own marvellously promiscuous pantheon, murder those who follow Christian or Muslim gods.
In the United States, the country most blessed with material wealth, scientific knowledge and democratic institutions, we have seen the growth of Christian and Zionist fundamentalisms - and that bizarre hybrid, Christian Zionism - which gleefully embrace the concept of apocalyptic war.
In short, the world seems to be going to hell in a handcart, pushed by people who claim to be leading us to heaven.
So, as an agnostic and humanist, I don't feel in the least offended when Bishop Murphy tells me not to participate in Christian rituals. Indeed, I agree that to do so, whether in one of his churches, or those of my Protestant forbears, would be "a lie and a charade". (I would, however, have thought that his next word, "an abuse", should have burned like acid on the tongue of a Catholic bishop today.)
But the bishop's anathema is mild indeed compared to the treatment of atheists and agnostics by his church in the past, before a series of democratic revolutions put some civil - and civic - manners on the clergy.
What consenting adults do in the privacy of their own churches should be absolutely respected by those of us who do not wish to darken their doors, except to look at the stained glass windows. We live today in an Irish Republic of unprecedented tolerance and plurality, which those of all religions, and of none, should equally be able to cherish.
Nor should those of us who fear the current global revival of religious intolerance ever forget the great benefits that religious teachers have conferred on humanity, despite the often perverse legacy of their followers.
We must always remember the huge advance in the status of Arab women achieved by Mohammed; the lives of selfless dedication to others lived by countless ordinary Christians; the marvellous sacramentalisation of everyday life in Judaism; the life-affirming exuberance of Hindu celebrations; the serenity of the Buddha's smile.
We should also remember that Karl Marx, an atheist who inadvertently founded a secular religion of sickening brutality, did not only describe religion as "the opium of the people", but also as "the heart of a heartless world".
But agnostics and atheists of goodwill should not be afraid, in this frightening new climate, to reassert our own positive values, rather than defining ourselves negatively as "non-religious". Despite the inevitability of pain, loss, illness and death, one life lived to the full among our fellows on this wondrous planet is the greatest gift any human being can be sure of, and may be as close to paradise as any of us need.
woodworth@ireland.com