Believe it or not

"Religion has no place in modern society," writes Malcolm Parkin (Letters, 6 April), backing up the opinion of Jimmy Wilson that religion is more dangerous than climate change, swine flu et al (Letters, 5 April). What do they suggest we do about this dreadful cancer? Eradicate it?

We have been down this road of atheistic fundamentalism before. Stalin and the other great atheist dictators of the 20th century led the way.

It is more than a little disappointing and ironic that, in the week the BBC broadcast a documentary showing the increasing anti-Christian intolerance of our society, proof of the arrogance, ignorance and intolerance of our atheist fundamentalists is once again provided in The Scotsman letters page.

DAVID ROBERTSON

St Peter's Free Church

St Peter Street

Dundee

Jimmy Wilson's tirade (Letters, 5 April) followed the familiar structure of today's militant atheists.

Firstly, it ignores the obvious differences between different religious outlooks, rakes together a selection of misdemeanours committed by "religious" people, and presents it as evidence that religion in general is dangerous.

However, "religion" is a category like "politics", referring to a wide spectrum of views, malignant and benign. As a Christian, I believe alternative religious ideas are often deeply flawed.

Secondly, it attacks religious views as ignorant and outdated, without engaging with intellectual issues. Mr Wilson writes as though there are adequate atheist explanations for the creation of the universe, the fine-tuning of the universe for life, the origin of life, the source of the objective moral standards we all accept, the existence of consciousness and the transformation of a dejected band of disciples into a world changing missionary force. But there are no convincing explanations.

It is sad that so many atheists, inspired by Richard Dawkins et al, believe they make the world a better place by making offensive comments about religion.

RICHARD LUCAS

Cowan Road

Edinburgh