Hardy and the bishops

It turns out that now bishops have a clear opinion against cremation. Too late for jews and witches burned in the autos de fe of the Inquisition.

The English mathematician G. H. Hardy had something clear about bishops. On the question of whether the mathematician Srinivasa Ramanujan had, as his Hindu biographers argued, strong religious beliefs and great veneration for the goddess Namakkal – who came to inspire his formulas in dreams – or, as Hardy maintained, for Ramanujan religion was more a matter of observance of precepts than of convictions and all religions were, more or less, equally true, Hardy in his biographical essay on Ramanujan included the following observation:

If the Archbishop of Canterbury tells one man that he (the Archbishop) believes in God, and another that he does not, then it is probably the second assertion which is true, since otherwise it is very difficult to understand why he should have made it, while there are many excellent reasons for his making the first whether it be true or false.