Facts, unfortunately, are simply that, facts. Things which are. There are still folk out there who believe the Earth is flat and not all the facts can change that.

When facts challenge millennia of tradition, the customs and beliefs of a people - their sense of identity, of what makes them who they are -they will be ignored and rejected.

From a European, and more specifically English perspective, I see a series of systems overlaying older ones. Catholicism laid on top of paganism, Anglicanism layered over Catholicism, Nonconformism placed on top of Anglicanism. But the simple fact was that in England, pagansim remained the default position until the 19th Century. People went to church, but they believed in the old ways, the old gods, the old rituals, the Fair Folk and the rest. Only when the increasing urbanisation of society separated people from nature did Christianity truly triumph. But too little, too late -Christianity was only a thin crust, easily broken by unversal education, leaving the UK one of the least religious countries in the world.

The religions of people who came later to Britain are more deeply-rooted in them than Christianity ever was in the old English. In the face of racism and prejudice, these later English clung to them the harder to preserve their identities. It will take time and acceptance to change that.