The plural society is the one we actually have and its value is that, within it, we can all contribute our several little bits of truth and insight to the common pool. The plural society can enable us all to benefit from diversity.

"Can" is the operative word. The plural society can also be one that is heading for self-destruction with perhaps one element enforcing a temporary triumph over all comers and establishing its own 'singular society', its own brand of totalitarianism. That road has been explored under tyrants both religious and secular and it is a dead end.

What are the ground rules that make constructive pluralism feasible? Of course they include adherence to the classic liberal ideals of freedom, toleration and the rest but there is also a state of mind essential to positive pluralism. We all have to accept that beliefs, no matter how deeply held, are not necessarily objectively true and we should avoid the error of thinking "I believe this proposition so sincerely that it MUST be true." Failure to appreciate this danger results, with frightening ease and rapidity, in - "I know the truth; you do not, so be quiet and listen while I tell you. If you do not accept what I am about to say then you are either stupid or perverse and I shall have to be patient or tough with you, as your case may require."

There will, realistically, never be a Christian World, an Islamic World, a Marxist World. Will there be a Humanist World? There will not and there need not be; there should not be. But there will be no human world at all if the purveyors of 'certainty' do not soon learn to distinguish between "I know" (which generally they do not) and "I think" or "I believe" (which they are perfectly entitled to do - and indeed should do, as their contribution to the common pool of wisdom).

That bit of humanism is the essential lingua franca of the plural society. Without it, we will all come to grief in a shouting match of the deaf. The humanists' contribution to the plural house is to impress upon all, including themselves, the need to be house-trained.

It happens that I do not believe in the real truth of the Christian scenario - Creator, Creation, Fall, Incarnation, Redemption, all perceived as being known by revelation, recorded in scripture and ordered by tradition.

This is no place for me to explain my scepticism - perhaps another time but that is up to the Editor and the weight of readers' opinions pressing upon him. But I do recognise that your Christian scheme of things is a 'belief-model' within which many people (some of them very dear to me) can accommodate their natural goodness, their acquired wisdom and their cherished hopes. Those Christians who show, by their actions and attitudes, that they accept the constraints and compulsions of positive pluralism are my allies and often my friends. My observations drive me to the conclusion that most Kirk people have a leaning towards pluralism and that is why I am not anti-Kirk in spite of my finding doctrinal Christianity unacceptable as an illuminator of life..

'Not anti-Kirk' is an understatement of my true position. It is my opinion that religious fanaticism is the biggest danger facing human beings at this time. Fanaticism is an addictive vice of the emotionally insecure and the intellectually dishonest (Am I being as bad as they?)

There are, I think, three main protections against fanaticism. One is good old apathy - love may make the world go round but it is apathy that stops it flying off at a tangent and we enthusiasts of all colours do well to remember that. Another defence is the secular humanist movement; it is small but it is alive, and has been down all the centuries from the world of classical antiquity to this very day. The third barrier against religious fanaticism is the liberal tendency in religion of which the Kirk is usually an influential exponent. That, after all, is what some of the traditionalists complain about but I must not get mixed up in your family quarrels, must I.