To change your mind

I was reared as a Catholic, but long ago changed my beliefs. Heaven and hell, for instance; heaven seems nice but dull, and hell? Big black devils sticking red hot pokers up your arse for all eternity?

Attractive though it might sound, I couldn't rationalise this, and, as G K Chesterton said, there is more virtue in honest doubt than in all the blind faith in Christendom (a loophole for unbelievers everywhere).

And why should this marvellous world be only a preliminary to some hypothetical afterlife? Like most enthusiastic atheists, I have all the passion of the convert. A sky …