Last autumn, The Times reported on the results of a poll that found that 42% of Britons think that religion has a harmful effect.  Read the article here.  Broadcaster and writer John Humphys, who commissioned the poll, suggests that ‘one reason might be the publicity attracted by a handful of mad mullahs and their hate-filled rhetoric.’  Two caveats are therefore in order.

First, the fact that many people think that religion is harmful does not mean that is necessarily is.

Second, there is religion and there is religion.  The tendency to lump together Islamic extremists and conservative evangelical Christians and brand them both as ‘fundamentalists’ suggests a serious failure of discrimination.