So, Philip Kitcher, what I should have done is add the following sentence at the end of every chapter of The God Delusion: "Oh, and by the way, we need a National Health Service." I strongly believe in universal health care, I wish I wish it was available in the United States, I wish the British National Health Service lived up in practice to its theoretical ideals and I'd gladly pay more tax to that end. But, however strongly I believe in human welfare, my book is actually about something else. It is about religion, especially whether religious beliefs are true, and not about the best way to run a society.


(This second paragraph is now redundant since Hasty Toweling has apparently removed his Comment. I can't delete my paragraph, however, because later ones would then become incomprehensible). By the way, I think the first Comment doesn't belong here, since it has no connection with anything Philip Kitcher said. Presumably Hasty Toweling, you meant to initiate a new thread in the General Forum? It would be a tidy act if you were to move it there, where it will doubtless be read with interest. And in general wouldn't be nice if people used the General Forum for starting new trains of thought, rather than de-railing existing ones with irrelevancies (or, since I seem to be in carping mood, with those private exchanges between pairs of individuals that really belong in private e-mails)?