Letter: Blinkered belief

Rev Dr Robert Anderson claims special knowledge by Christians about Christianity (Letters, 9 March). However, as an ex-Christian, I know only too well that "believers wear blinkers"; they are blind to scepticism and contradictions and so are not in a position to see a matter clearly.

It is naive to believe every word of the Gospels and not to understand that they were written as propaganda. The idea that Pilate exhibited compassion and tried to release Jesus flies in the face of his recorded cruelty. However, it suited the evangelists to present him so.

It is also wilful negligence not to recognise that the charge the High Priest brought before Pilate was not one of blasphemy but of sedition.

Christianity is indeed founded on the belief that Jesus rose from the dead, but not so much on the empty tomb, which is merely evidence of a missing body, as on a chance encounter in Galilee, when some of the disciples mistook an old shepherd for Jesus.

Steuart Campbell DipArch(Birm) BA(Open)

Dovecot Loan

Edinburgh