VERSION|0.5.1|NAME|Dinah|DATE|1365538549|CONTENT|Does the Bishop really believe what he spouts about life after death?  Or is he just conforming to the requirements of his religion in order to keep his accommodation and livelihood?  I find it hard to fathom how grown-up people can really believe this stuff, though obviously some of them do, particularly suicide bombers, though in their case of course it’s a different version of the IMF and a different kind of paradise, the Islamic one replete with virgins in order to make the men’s lives more interesting, (whether women receive anything on arrival for their enjoyment is probably not specified).

What really annoys me is the Bishop and others of his ilk presenting their ideas and beliefs about life after death as facts, what Sam Harris calls ‘telling us what they do not know.’  I wouldn’t mind so much if the Bishop said ‘this is what I choose to believe’ or ‘this is what my religion encourages me to hope for’.  No one knows what happens after death.  No one has ever proved the existence of a soul, or of the survival of the human personality following death, and no dead person has ever chosen to tell us, probably because the dead are in no position to impart such information.  It would be interesting if the Bishop and Giles Fraser had a debate about the existence of life after death, since Giles has clearly stated on TFTD that he doesn’t believe in it.

As for Mrs Thatcher, I suspect some of the animosity hurled at her has a touch of misogyny about it, particularly the kind of misogyny directed towards older women.  If she had been a man, she would have been credited for strong leadership and for being a conviction politician, qualities the current leader could never be accused of possessing.  
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