I gave up on reading or writing about atheism and secularism partly because it struck me that everything that can be said has already been said. If you haven’t heard the arguments by now, you are not listening.

But this, in a Guardian-hosted discussion – Is religion a force for good or would we be happier without God, struck me as new and insightful.

“But a liberal, secular democracy is the best protector of religious freedom, because it says that we need to guarantee the absolute freedom of belief. There is no theocracy that has ever provided for religious freedom, let alone emancipation of women and equal rights for gay people.”

The whole discussion was enjoyable and Harris and Grayling made some good points – even if they have been made a thousand times before.

Grayling:

“What we think of as distinctive of western morality has its roots in the non-religious secular tradition of ethics that comes from classical antiquity.”