Reading Paul Johnson’s History of the Jews, one realises the extraordinary course of their history. The Jewish people often seem to have dedicated their entire raison detre and their very being to an idea that there is a purpose to history, created by Yaweh, and have suffered so much for it.

I cannot accept dogmas that state a particular religion or denomination is right and the rest are wrong. How could we know? I see religion as a tool; a kind of key, which unlocks the shutters to various darkened, tiny windows giving a vision of God. The religion is not the final answer, but without some help from those who have gone before us, we are groping even more hopelessly in the dark. This does not mean that I am an agnostic or that all religions are equal or that I value them all equally. I find that the Catholic church, in the profundity of 2000 years of teaching, its spirituality and its concentration on the Eucharist, suits me best. But that is just for me.

What I cannot accept, though, is the uncompromising dogmas of The Watchtower – the magazine of the Jehovah’s Witnesses – which was delivered to my house by two very nice women. I read it this weekend and was told that I have got it wrong and that heaven is populated by exactly 144,000 people. Apparently it says so in the Bible. Despite this assertion, the witnesses say that not everything in the Bible can be taken literally for instance the seven day story of creation. But how can you state that heaven definitely exists for us, let alone that there are precisely 144,000 people in it?

Then again give me the Jehovah’s Witnesses any day rather than the joyless Atheists with their lack of art, music poetry and hope. I remain a questioning Christian pilgrim.