Ak Writers Festival: Richard Holloway, the agnostic ex-bishop

Author Richard Holloway. Photo / Supplied

There were no spare seats to be had at Saturday's An Hour with Richard Holloway, the former bishop of Edinburgh who quit the job and now describes himself as a Christian Agnostic.

It was pleasing to see a diverse mix in the audience, who hung on every word as Holloway stood and spoke eloquently, without notes, of the challenges of being a good person.

Being human is not easy, he said - we are thinking animals who know we are going to die. Therefore, throughout history, man has turned to faith, believing there is a God who is a 'broadcaster' of big bang revelations.

Holloway, whose latest book (he has written 27) Between the Monster and the Saint looks at why humans are capable of terrible acts of cruelty, outlined his 'four notches' of faith: strong religion - those who believe that God's 'words' are true, a faith, he added, which can lock you into intolerant social attitudes from long ago; weak religion, a tentative approach to faith, making it more adaptive; after religion, a stance which still takes religion seriously but more critically; and the fourth notch, a position for those who "just don't get religion" or are strongly against it, like his old 'foe' Richard Dawkins, who spoke at the festival on Friday night via satellite.

When questioned by chair Glynn Cardy, the Archbishop of Auckland, Holloway said humans are scary people, "something has happened to us - we enjoy cruelty for its own sake."

His own government, he pointed out, has been engaged in officially sanctioned acts of cruelty in Iraq, in partnership with the United States, for the past five years.

However, all is not gloom. Holloway, who said he threw his bishop¹s hat into the Thames in 2000, which aroused much laughter, thought the creative arts could subvert authority, citing the Guardian cartoonist Steve Bell as someone who could ridicule with just a few strokes of a pen.

Holloway gleefully added that he wished he was in London right now to witness the corruption issues that have just emerged at Westminster.

Is there a heaven? Holloway doesn¹t want to go there if, as some faiths have it, only humans are allowed through the Pearly Gates. "If there is heaven it will be full of the animals we slaughter to make us fat," he stated emphatically. "If only humans go to heaven, that would be boring."

Holloway appears again in a panel event today at 4pm in a session called The Next 100 Years.