Letter: I'm a believer

JIM Carson (Letters, 26 April) writes: "The culture we should strive for is one where believes and non-believers can live together in harmony respecting the position of each other."

Thus he echoes Richard Holloway, former Primus of the Scottish Episcopal Church, writing in his book, Godless Morality, published in 1999: "the aim (of this book] is to unite those who believe with those who do not in the discovery of a workable ethic for our time."

Dr Gordon Booth of Portobello, an adherent rather than a member of the Church of Scotland, writing in the July 2003 issue of Life And Work, the church's magazine, explained that he and others like him stop short of full membership because of "conscientious reluctance to profess faith in creedal tenets to which they cannot sincerely subscribe, despite sharing an abiding concern for those philosophical and ethical issues which religion tries diligently to address."

I have been following his example; it can require considerable tact.

Kathleen Manning

McVeagh Street,

Huntly