If I believed in a God, I would be thanking Him now for sending me a sign. In yesterday’s newspaper arrived a story to rekindle my atheism.

Just when my disbelief was flagging — not for want of certainty but out of weariness with banging on — comes a report that energises me with anger. The relics of St Thérèse of Lisieux, a 19th-century Roman Catholic nun, have arrived in Britain for a month-long tour of England and Wales.

What? And we’re reporting this deadpan — and not in the Wacky World pages of light magazines? “Organisers said that the arrival of the casket, containing pieces of her thigh and foot bones, was likely to attract hundreds of thousands of pilgrims.” I’m sorry: “pilgrims”? Isn’t the word “dupes”? Does balanced reporting require neutrality even towards the self-evidently preposterous? Would a conference of the Flat Earth Society get giggle-free treatment on the news?

The faithful will apparently be bringing roses, to be blessed by proximity to the bones. According to the BBC, the relics are thought to possess supernatural powers to promote reconciliation and were taken to Iraq; but it didn’t work. The casket will be visiting “28 centres of prayer”, including many Roman Catholic cathedrals. How can bishops sanction this paganistic nonsense? I had been wondering whether Richard Dawkins’s critics were right to complain that his atheism was intolerant; whether we atheists were wrong to rage with such certitude about what is really only an absence of belief. But these relics have performed a miracle: they have re-inspired in me a fiery conviction. We non-believers must rage, insist, proclaim.

For pity’s sake, closet atheists of Britain, come out! Don’t “respect” this credulous folly! Don’t let the madnesses of these faith minorities go by default! Stop our politicians kowtowing to nutters! Cease the embarrassed muttering about being “don’t knows” on religion, and shout it out. We do know! It isn’t true! All that is necessary for the triumph of religion is that disbelievers should do nothing. God speed to this ludicrous casket of bones; they have reminded me of an eternal truth: agnosticism is not enough.

Left-loving llamas

On a hillside in the Derbyshire Peak District graze — as you read this — the most political llamas in Britain. Last Saturday my little herd notched up yet another big political name on their gatepost. David Blunkett, who lives over in the next valley near Chatsworth House, came to visit them. They’re still talking (or, rather, humming) about it.

Nick Clegg and his family have already paid the llamas a call, driving over from his neighbouring constituency of Sheffield, Hallam. George Osborne and children (whose constituency is in next-door Cheshire) have dropped by. My frontbench Tory friend, Alan Duncan, knows them well. I was becoming concerned that the camelids’ political education was skewed towards the opposition parties, but Mr Blunkett has put that right: the first Labour politician they have met. And he fed them! A handful of corn was stretched tentatively towards five velvety muzzles, and hoovered up fast. It was rather brave of Mr B, after his savaging by angry cows this summer.

Whether any new Labour truths sank into the llamas’ somewhat trivial minds I rather doubt. Camelids are right-wing, although they don’t really reason it out. But they stared at the former Home Secretary with wide, soft, shallow eyes and a hint (I thought) of adoration.

Poignant pact

It’s rare that a photograph brings me to tears but yesterday’s in The Times, of a young man, Barry Delaney, in a green dress with pink leggings, crouched weeping at the graveside of his friend Kevin Elliott, did so. The two young men had made a pact that whoever survived the other would wear a dress to his funeral. Private Elliott was 24 when killed in Afghanistan.

Perhaps you think that to honour this pact was tasteless. No doubt Mr Delaney received such advice. Perhaps you’d expect the photograph to look shockingly inappropriate.

Shocking — yes. But this curdling juxtaposition of frivolity and horror, Delaney’s garment so gay and his face locked in a spasm of grief, wrenches my stomach. I imagine the two mates together in a pub, a rip-roaring evening, shaking on this pact with mock solemnity, laughing, clinking glasses ... little knowing.

Mr Delaney was brave and right to go through with it this week. The picture moved me more than anything I’ve seen from Afghanistan, even that recent photograph of an American soldier’s last minutes. Elliott’s death, Delaney’s tear-soaked dress, say more about the Afghan war than words can. This is a picture of something that has gone horribly, horribly wrong.

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