I will personally staunchly defend the right of anyone to express any opinion whatsoever, no matter how stupid, intolerant or abusive it may be. No one has the moral authority to tell another person what to think or believe. If thoughts or beliefs turn into actions against people, that is a different issue, but merely expressing a stupid, hateful or intolerant opinion should not be legislated against.

One for your God Blog: how claims are made for science over "God" in the absence of evidence: http://madamearcati.blogspot.com/2009/09/god-tarts-and-misleading-sunday....
Btw, a better name would be gods blog.

Your observation in your "Age of Homo Religiosus" column that the readers of the New Statesman would probably align themselves with the "God free" seems an accurate one. What frustrates me though is the lack of space or apparent thought given to the possibility that we might not be God free nor religious.

I meet increasing numbers of people who describe themselves as "spiritual but not religious" and I think that this growing hub of people is too often overlooked.

Karen Armstrong (the religious scholar) in A History of God argues that homo sapiens is also homo religiosus. The earliest works of art, including paintings on the sides of caves, included expressions of wonder and mystery about the nature of Life.

Armstrong says "our current secularism is an entirely new experience, unprecedented in human history". Without this historical context, it is too easy to regard religion as an aberration in our otherwise rational, buttoned-up world.

I wish you well with your God blog and hope that it opens hearts and minds to consider the full spectrum of belief and faith in our post-modern, multi-cultural, multi-faith reality.

I to am delighted to see the possibility that not everyone on the left politically is a fire-breathing atheist. I teach and examine Religious Studies, by choice (many RE teachers do not choose!). I am not a Christian and I do not instruct children in how to become Christians, or indeed any other faith. What I do is ask them to consider, for themselves, the human condition and the different ways in which people cope with the questions and challenges raised by the simple fact of being human...

Anyway, moving back to your original question, and the freedom of speech issue I have observed that when classes first start to discuss 'deep' matters they begin by tip-toeing around, deeply anxious not to offend or be told 'you can't say that', gradually they begin to see that, in the interests of meaningful debate, their views have to be open to challenge and discussion, and it is OK to ask the hard questions. They also learn how to defend those views that they consider worth defending. In other words they move from the idea that you are entitled not to be offended in any way to understanding that questions and diverse opinions are not in themselves offensive things (they can of course be asked offensively but, knowing better, we rise above it by taking the question seriously). They also learn that offense is not really necessary if the question is asked or the point made in the interests of creating a real debate, in the spirit of genuine enquiry and a quest for understanding.

Basically what I see in my classroom is that I, and many of my students, do not mind being 'offended' as long as there is a purpose behind it. I know for instance of prayers offered recently by members of a church local to my school asking God to remove me from my pernicious influence on their young people, This is personally upsetting, of course it is, but it also led to a lively debate in the Church Youth Group as to whether a faith that could not bear to be questioned was a faith worth hanging onto, a question I think all dogmatists should ask themselves and one I am delighted to have inspired.

I go further in fact and suggest that opening racism and sexism to the debate in the same way will force us to defend these values of our society. After all saying something does not make it so, acting on those statements is amply prevented by the law at present and we all know being told not to think something is likely to make us cling to it all the more. If our opposition to sexism and racism are good and right then we should not be afraid to open the discussion with the racists and the sexists - instead of which the mere whiff of them is so frightening these days that I am frequently told that the physiological truth that women are not as strong physically as men is a sexist statement, which I must not make in a classroom. Racsim at football matches is shocking to most of us - surely that is at least part of it's attraction? like the football hooligans of my youth - people want to do the things that 'they' don't want you to do.

Views which are worth defending should not need aritifcial protection in a society which claims to be free and open, they should not be afraid of entering into robust debate. To suggest that such protection is necessary suggests to me that we are not as free and open as we want the rest of the world to think us. Protecting some views simply means that those who ignore those protections become heroes, everyone loves a rebel after all. We should educate people in how to think independently and how to engage in civilised debate of their views and then let them go to it. I think they used to called it politics....

I conclude with the words of Voltaire - "I do not agree with a word you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it."

Without commenting at all on the substance of Sholto Byrnes' article, other than to say how interesting it was, I'm afraid that if it was reading my article that triggered the thought, he was misled. I referred to "new work on lesbian and gay rights, hate crime against learning-disabled people, religion and belief, and age discrimination". It may be that the print edition missed a comma, or that we each follow different grammatical rules on the compilation of lists; but actually the reference here is only to hate crime against learning-disabled people. I don't think that this makes anything in the article less valid.

I sincerely hope Trevor Phillips is not intending to interfere with my hobby which happens to be stirring up religious hatred - or more specifically stirring up hatred of religion(s).

Yes, but surely hate speech is no substitute for rational and deliberative debate? That said, I oppose censoring hate speech for the same reason that I support blasphemy law repeal. I'd rather have religious right texts where I can expose them to critical analysis and rebuttal.

Section 29J clearly protects Rowan Laxton's criticism of clearly documented Israeli war crimes. Such criticisms are hardly religious except by coincidence. If Judaism itself is been used to justify such acts, then harsh criticism from the bleachers of civilisation is merited).