Ongoing #39

And you thought I'd forgotten my continuing series of new poems.

No such luck.

Actually I thought hard before posting this one as it could best be characterised as an anti-religion poem and has the potential to offend. It isn't meant to. The cartoon is of a bishop but the impetus for the poem comes from my feeling that atheists are the last persecuted religious minority. I started to believe this when I first encountered Tony Blair's National Prayer Breakfast Speech in February last year. I blogged about it at the time. What worried me most about it was that he bent over backwards to name check every religion he could think of but seemed to be positively aggressive about non-believers, listing them together with terrorists as the cause of evil.

Thus do the extreme believers and the aggressive non-believers come together in unholy alliance.

At best he seemed to see us as doing God's work whether we know it or not, which is patronising to say the least and offensive to me as an atheist to put it more bluntly.

Neither do I decry the work of humanists, who give gladly of themselves for others and who can often shame the avowedly religious. Those who do God’s work are God’s people.

I find this all rather disturbing. My beliefs, which he would probably characterise as my lack of beliefs, should certainly be accorded the same respect that he seemed to accord those who follow a religion different to his. The fact that our country's Prime Minister had secretly held the views expressed in his speech, beliefs he only articulated after leaving office, disturbs me even more but that's a topic for another time.

Anyway, enough of the background. Here's the poem.

Signs and Symbols

They wear their signs and symbols
To witness their belief
In things they cannot evidence
That hold them yet in fief.
They show the signs and symbols
That bind them to their view
And spurn the voice of reason
As they join in retinue.
They have their signs and symbols
Each one a different set
To clearly mark the boundaries
Between spire and minaret.
They flaunt their signs and symbols
Like favours on their sleeve
Pay respect to different symbols
Of others who believe.
But for those who wear no symbols
They reserve their scorn and hate
The agnostic and the atheist
And the vilest apostate.