Hallelujah! More and more people are seeing the light!

Or, to be more accurate, more and more people aren’t. As in half of Scotland’s adults now say they are not religious.

That bit of good news for the triumph of common sense was contained in the latest Scottish Household Survey with 49.8% saying religion is not for them – up from 40% in 2009.

Now, let’s get this clear from the outset. If you hold a faith, believe in a deity and it gives you comfort then that’s brilliant.

Whatever gets you through life as happily and as fulfilled as you can is a thing to embrace.

Where I part company is with the religions – and religious – who think they can either tell me what to think, or view me with contempt because I don’t go along with their beliefs.

Most religions don’t believe in other gods but theirs. I just take it that one step further.

And whether you believe in God or not, you do still have to ask questions about religions.

Okay, let’s ignore rational thought and go with the idea of a deity creating existence. Fine. But religions are man-made institutions – and like any institution they serve the interests of the men who made them.

If there is a God, would he really want his children killing each other over differences in how they perceive him?

And never mind religions duking it out, it seems every faith has secular divisions which cause just as much misery.

Sure, you can point at all the good things religions have done. But wouldn’t we be doing that anyway?

When it comes to faith, I have faith in us, in humanity, in ordinary people.

We have, by and large, an innate impulse to do good, to help each other, to care for those who need it. We recognise not doing that is wrong and try to stop those doing harm. We don’t need a God to tell us that – otherwise all us atheists would be homicidal maniacs.

We certainly don’t need religions chipping in on what they think the Divine thinks we should think.

Bring on my next running event

I came, I saw, I ran … and then I had a bit of a lie down.

Well, what do you expect when a man of my years takes on a half-marathon?

But The Great Scottish Run was huge fun, even if towards the end of the 13.1 miles I was running on willpower and little else. But then, I was buoyed up by the cheering crowds, creating such a great atmosphere in Glasgow.

In my heart I know the Granite City can do even better than the Glaswegians with the Great Aberdeen Run. Bring it on.

Homeless need help

Right … that’s my Friday night sorted for this week.

I will be spending it in a sleeping bag at the ASDA car park in Garthdee.

Not on my own, of course, but with all the others taking part in the Aberdeen Cyrenians Sleepout.

Why, you ask? Because it’s time we stopped pretending those who sleep rough don’t exist or are invisible.

You can help too, by giving the Cyrenians your dosh at www.justgiving.com/cyrenians