It was Saturday, and I was bored. I decided to drive around and look for bookshops. I remembered one in particular: or rather, the second-hand section of a nearby Oxfam. It's the best Oxfam book section I have ever seen, closer to a genuine second-hand bookshop than just meagre shelves of popular romance novels.

"I love the bible", she said. It was placed alongside numerous contemporary works, including a tempting Nick Hornby novel. I read High Fidelity two or three years ago, but did not have my own copy. In normal circumstances, her remark would have been a friendly invitation for a discussion, as if I had said I 'loved' Nick Hornby. They were not normal circumstances, because the book in question is associated with a cultural and historical form with immense ideological connotations and a particular set of human relations. My reaction was therefore not normal either.

I did not reply by saying I liked this chapter, that chapter, or preferred another writer altogether. I said that I 'hated' Christianity, which in some respects is true. For me, this emotive expression was a shorthand and casual way of describing my objections to an infantile narrative that has hypnotized millions of people. She replied with a vague reference to 'the Lord', linking the book on the shelf to the imaginary fiction that it alludes to. I responded by pointing out that it was just a story that comforts people.

My remark had great philosophical significance concerning the nature of human reality, the relationship between thought, feeling and fact, and how narrative informs our perception of life. I did not dislike her; on the contrary I considered how unfortunate it was that we were clashing in this way because she was a friendly and pleasant person, who proceeded to chat with other people in the shop. However her parting remark was neither friendly nor pleasant. She said that it was "sad" - referring to my so-called non-belief. That was both patronizing and condescending.

I was reflecting how, to a large extent, the basis for my position was that I prefer to think for myself. I read many books, and have investigated spiritual and metaphysical traditions from Indian, Chinese and Sufi cultures, and others. I find the more scientific approach of the Theosophical and Alice Bailey material particularly informing, as an attempt to conceptualise and represent subtle reality in an authoritative, non-emotional form. I decided that she was simply repeating the unquestioning nonsense that she listened to every Sunday. She did not mean to be offensive, and was not the author of that particular attitude.

A belief is not a fact. I do not accept that 'spirituality' is or has to be based on belief. Rather, I take the view that if it has any reality, I should be able to discover it regardless of what I believe, because spirit - by definition - transcends thoughts and feelings. Thus the fact that I do not 'believe' is neither sad nor an indication that I am not interested in spiritual discovery.

I am entitled to say what I think. If it offends someone else, they are entitled to engage me in a debate. They can express their views, I can express mine. Religion is against my non-beliefs.

I like referring to a remark Salman Rushdie made on television several years ago. He declared that the death sentence imposed on him was "an extreme form of literary criticism". This elegant comment redefined the debate into a philosophical consideration of what the situation consisted of, removed from the psychopathological elements of Islamic belief. He had written a fictional work which criticized another fictional work (The Satanic Verses). A few people decided they did not like what he said, and decided that they would try to kill him. The absurdity of this has to be both clarified and emphasized. The extreme gravity of this cultural situation was eventually underwritten by September 11th.

In The Sunday Times of 16.9.01, I read two contrasting stories. The first concerned the attempt to open a 'cannabis café' in Stockport. The man responsible for this enterprise was arrested and charged with the inevitable 'possession and intent to supply'. The second concerned a meeting of 50 people in Birmingham, who supported the terrorist attack on the US and advocated hatred of the aforesaid as a legitimate political position. I found this absurd.

Cannabis remains an illegal substance and the ensuing events were predictable, despite the fact that other countries interpret this differently, nicotine and alcohol are perhaps similar drugs that are 'acceptable' (based on immensely lucrative industries), and cannabis apparently has legitimate medical applications. About two hundred miles away, a large group of people assembled for a meeting that, it seems to me, was an attempt to incite violence and provoke racial hatred. Both of these are serious matters, and this meeting was a few days after the US attack. Indeed, the US events were the seed-agenda for the occasion. No arrests were made.

I can imagine the thoughts of the police when they discussed the meeting, and have no doubt that 'political correctness' was on their minds: tolerance for cultural relativity. But humanistic values transcend this kind of timidity.

Rushdie also stated that you 'should' offend people. He was implying that robust debate is valid, desirable, and an aspect of cultural advance. I agree, but both he and I mean philosophical argument - not killing people because they have a different outlook to your own.

After the terrorist events, one commentator argued that we should not condone, but try to understand why some people hate the US so much that they were willing to randomly kill thousands of its innocent citizens. He envisaged Afghan people watching MTV on televisions 'hanging from trees'. He was not being derogatory, but created a striking image referring to the vast inequalities of wealth between the two nations, and a cultural chasm equally as great. A few days after this I watched MTV for the first time and saw how it could be regarded as an example of cultural and moral decadence, for particular nations and cultures.

I think the commentator had a point. I could imagine how MTV images might create misunderstanding and resentment in people in some distant countries. It is a grotesque example of the 'haves' and have-nots'. For an impoverished Afghan citizen, the television must be a window onto other worlds full of decadent music, cars, silly but interesting clothes, ostentatious jewellery, and sexual provocation. However, none of these matters justify murdering other people, because they think differently.

The terrorist attacks were described as a 'wake up call' to the US, and their previous isolationist tendencies. I suggest that it was also a 'wake up call' to the role of religion in national and international conflict for hundreds of years. Religion tends to divide people, based as they are on an insistence that they are 'the way', which discounts anyone else who thinks they have got it wrong, that in fact 'the way' is to be found in other belief systems/narratives.

It seems to me that all this has to be viewed in a more penetrating manner. If I had been born into a Hindu family, I would probably now be a Hindu. The same applies with any other religion. This arbitrary fact suggests that religions are relative, yet each one claims to be absolute. And each one is based on a logic that goes like this: if you believe A, B and C, you will be saved or spiritually redeemed.

About 3000 years ago, Lao Tsu wrote in the Tao te Ching that "the way that can be told is not the real way". Taoism is not and has never been a religion, although it may have become so for some people. As a set of philosophical teachings, it countered the socio-political doctrines of Confucianism, and followers of the latter sought to eradicate it. It has always pointed to a transcendent reality that lies beyond all attempts to establish belief systems. It is anti-religion.