Mary Brown: Baroness Warsi does not speak for all believers

Secularism does not deprive believers of their rights nor undermine their faith. Many religious believers, especially if they are feminists, would much prefer to live in a secular society than those which claim to be theocracies, where the will of “God” appears to align with misogyny and violence against dissenters.

Richard Dawkins may be a truculent atheist, but as a religious believer I find I have more in common with him than extremists of any faith.

Fry is correct that a secular society does not deny people the right to religious identity; as a Quaker friend pointed out: “Let your lives speak.”

There are many people who take inspiration from the way of Jesus, or Mohammad, or Buddha, but refrain from making dogmatic statements about them – Jesus was not a Christian but preached a way of life which could be followed by anyone, provided that they loved the Divine Being and their fellow humans.

It has been pointed out that although Islam is now the religion which scares people because of the violent and aggressive views of some of its apologists, Christianity has had a similar history of murderous assault against those viewed as heretics.

The difference is that in the west we have all, believers or not, benefited from the 18th-century Enlightenment in the establishment of a secular government and legal system which, for example, at an early stage outlawed burning pagans as witches.

The fact that religion in the sense of tribalism and power seeking has had such a turbulent and bloody history makes me wonder whether those who love God but not dogma should look for another word to describe our stance, such as “post-religion”, which could be embraced by all people of goodwill, regardless of their religious belief – or indeed, lack of it.

In an independent Scotland this is surely the way forward.

• Dr Mary Brown is a freelance education consultant