Atomic god

I read Bruce Crichton (Letters, 13 December) and no longer felt quite so alone, after having had my knuckles wrapped for not believing in a god the day before by Martin Blackshaw: thank you Bruce.

Like Mr Crichton, I failed to see where the dropping of atom bombs on Japanese cities in 1945 – surely the greatest one-off acts of murder ever committed – came into the discussion of whether there was, or was not, a god.

I know it can be argued that the sacrifice of 185,000 mainly civilian Japanese lives prevented a similar toll of Allied military casualities had the war continued, but I have never been wholly comfortable with that proposition. All it seems to indicate is that the god Mr Blackshaw believes in may have created, in humans, an ultimate killing machine: I’m not sure, had I been him, that I would have been all that proud of that.

The point I had clumsily tried to make was that I don’t want folk who believe in an imaginary being influencing those I elect to run my country.

David Fiddimore

Calton Road

Edinburgh

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