With God on our side...

“I knew God was with us”, said Lionel Messi, after Argentina scraped through to the knockout stage with a last-gasp goal against Nigeria. Did God really express a preference for the Argentinian team? What about the members of the Nigerian team, who ‘crossed themselves’ before the start of the game: did God forsake them? And, if so, why? I’m assuming that religious people really think that God can (if he so wishes) intervene in our lives… otherwise why would they invoke his name? Yet surely it would only take five minutes of clear and objective thought to reach the conclusion that God may have more important things to attend to, and that the fortunes of individual teams in the World Cup are unlikely to catch his attention (or, following a little more thought, that God is entirely fictional).

Armies, throughout history, have marched “with God on their side”: the same wild presumption. “Gott mit uns” was the legend embossed on the belt-buckles of Nazi soldiers, which gives the lie to the widespread notion that Hitler’s crimes againgst humanity were committed in the cause of atheism.

We hear so often this idea that God is on our side that its very familiarity renders us immune to what it really means. As innocuous as it may seem, the phrase has motivated crusaders, inquisitors, witch-hunters and, in recent times, suicide bombers. When God is on your side, you can behave like him; and, since God sanctions the killing of infidels (who may be guilty of nothing more than worshipping the ‘wrong’ deity), his followers may feel emboldened to follow his example.

Kirkdale Minster, North Yorkshire...