In response to my post, Cardinal Murphy-O'Connor: Britain can't become God-free zone, a reader writes:
Cardinal Murphy O'Connor told the BBC, "if you go just by reason, I think, without faith, without belief in God, you can imagine, for instance in the last century, some of the faith(less), or supposedly faithless societies - people, whether it's like Hitler or Stalin, bringing up - having a country in which, if you like, a God free zone, a dictatorship ruled by reason, and where does it lead? To terror and oppression."
It has caused quite a twitter among atheist bloggers. It was a stupid thing to say. It undermines his good speech at Oxford. Do you not agree?
Do I agree? No! Cardinal Murphy O'Connor could have chosen his wording better. But it was not a stupid statement. "Where might it lead," makes it better. The point is that reason does not have an absolute moral underpinning. The atheist response is, of course, that we can reason to one. It is simply the old argument of moral relativism versus God given moral imperatives.
I do agree it has caused a "twitter." No matter how he worded it, it was likely to cause a twitter because he was confronting Richard Dawkins. And Dawkins will seize on any issue no matter what a prominent religious figure says from a podium at Oxford or on the BBC or in the Times of London.
My name is Dan Porter. I have always believed in God. And I have always been a Christian, which means I have always believed, at some level of understanding, Christian assertions about Christ. But during all of my adult life—I am now 65—I have struggled with many seeds of doubt brought on by modern science, objective history, the question of why a loving God would allow so much suffering in the world and difficulties with seemingly conflicting moral precepts. 
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