Last week, in a remarkable and deeply worrying ruling a British judge dismissed as ''irrational'' and ''capricious'' any and all conscience claims a Christian can make in the course of their daily lives. His attitude is finding a home on these shores as well.

The judge, Lord Justice Walls, dismissed ''religious faith is necessarily subjective, being incommunicable by any kind of proof or evidence'', which is simply another way of condemning religious faith as irrational, on a par with belief in the tooth fairy.

On this basis, the judge stated, the law cannot be used to protect religious belief because then it would have to give similar protection to other forms of 'irrational' belief.

Conscience

With that, the judge effectively declared legal war on religious believers and told them that every time their values clash with the values of the surrounding culture, they will lose and their conscience rights will be overridden.

The consequences of this for freedom of conscience and religion simply cannot be overestimated.

The judge was ruling on a case involving a sex therapist, Gary McFarlane, who on religious grounds, specifically his belief in traditional sexual morality, said he could not offer sex therapy sessions to a same-sex couple.

McFarlane was sacked and was challenging his dismissal. He received public backing from the former Archbishop of Canterbury, Lord Carey.

Hard-line

The judge in this case is evidently a subscriber to the sort of hard-line secularism represented by the likes of Richard Dawkins. In this view, religion is inherently irrational and must be consigned to the private sphere at best. It has no part to play in public life and certainly no part to play in the law or politics.

Not only must it be banished from public life and law, no right to dissent on grounds of conscience can be permitted either.

On this basis, then, any doctor or nurse asked to perform an abortion would have to do so like it or not on the grounds that their objection to abortion was ''irrational'', ''capricious'', ''necessarily subjective'' and beyond ''any kind of proof or evidence''. This is already happening in ultra-secular countries such as Sweden.

But this judge's ruling is philosophically illiterate, and on two grounds. The first is that if religious value judgements are beyond ''any kind of proof or evidence'', then so are all value judgements, including the value judgement that all people must be treated equally.

The second ground is his arrogant and ignorant assumption that religious belief is impossible to defend rationally, and specifically in this case his prejudice (for that is what it is), that belief in traditional sexual morality cannot be defended rationally.

Admitted

With regard to his first error, cleverer secularists than this judge, such as the renowned atheist philosopher, AJ Ayers, frankly admitted that if matter is all that exists, then all value judgements, religious or otherwise, are ultimately subjective and are therefore expressions of personal preference, no more.

This being so, the values enshrined in our laws are simply those of whichever faction happens to be dominant in society at any given point. They do not derive from objective facts.

The judge's second error is to claim that religious belief, and everything that stems from such belief, is inherently irrational.

But belief in traditional sexual morality, to name one by-product of belief in a creator, is eminently defensive. It roots are found in natural law and these roots extend all the way back to Aristotle in ancient Greece.

The natural law is based on the observation of nature, and the fact that sex has an objective meaning and purpose tied in the first instance to procreation without which the human species would cease to exist.

Procreation is inherently related to the complementarity of the sexes, male and female, and therefore heterosexuality is part of the purpose of sex in a way that homosexuality is not.

This isn't the belief only of Christians, but of Hindus, Buddhists, Jews, Muslims, and indeed of anyone, religious or otherwise, who believes sex has an objective meaning and purpose to be found in its very nature.

In rejecting such a viewpoint, as he evidently does, Judge Walls denies that sex has an objective meaning, tied to procreation, tied to heterosexuality, and therefore he denies what is obvious from nature. In other words, he is the one who is being irrational in this regard.

Currently the dominant faction in Western society is secular and it is becoming ever more militantly so. They are placing their values above all other values and by crushing freedom of conscience, are permitting no dissent whatever.

Their greatest trick is to convince both themselves and others that they are being objective, rational and neutral in what they are doing. They are not. What they are about is imposing upon society a sort of secular theocracy and the irony is that they are doing so in the name of 'anti-theocracy'.

In Ireland, our political establishment is also moving to embrace this kind of thinking as evidenced by the refusal to insert a conscience clause into the Civil Partnership Bill and the recent treatment of Catholic fertility doctor, Phil Boyle by the Medical Council for offering his services to married couples only,

Christians and other religious believers are finding themselves in an increasingly desperate battle for their freedoms.