Letter: Don't believe it

David A Robertson (Letters, 22 September) claims that "atheism has slain its tens of millions".

Far from being "a fact of history", this attributes the irrational and totalitarian ideas of Communism to atheism, which, in fact, is simply a negative term signifying only what one does not believe. Communism's evil is that it holds that man has no right to his own life and must sacrifice it for the good of the state or collective. There is not, and never can be, any justification for that in reason.

Any ideology that denies reason and advocates self-sacrifice as a virtue paves the way for totalitarian rule because wherever there are sacrifices, it stands to reason that there must be someone to collect them.

BRUCE CRICHTON

Victoria Road

Stirlingshire, Falkirk