I have been mulling over the debate on the BBC Radio 4 Today programme at the end of last week, about whether humanists, agnostics, atheists, or others who do not subscribe to the major world religions, should be able to contribute to Radio 4's Thought for the Day slot.

It just struck me that Thomas Moore might be a little implicated in the opposition to such a proposal. In Utopia, Moore contrasts the contentious social life of European states with the social arrangements of the Utopia where almost complete religious toleration is practiced. But the Utopia does not advocate tolerance for atheists. Moore theorises that such people would never be driven to acknowledge any authority or principles outside themselves. If a person doesn't believe in God or an afterlife of any kind, he said, they could never be trusted...