Letter: Mistaken beliefs

David Robertson (Letters, 18 September) repeats the mantra of the papal visit that societies without God are somehow intolerant, bigoted and more prone to genocide. This is, of course, preposterous, a slanderous calumny and inversion of the truth.

It was not secular humanists who flew planes into the twin towers in the United States, it was not "militant atheists" who killed people for being the wrong sort of Christian, such as happened in Northern Ireland until recently, It was not a secular US president who stated that God told him to invade Iraq and Afghanistan, leading to the deaths of millions.

Non-believers do not seek to stultify the minds of young children by teaching them quackery of Creationism in place of evolution nor do they call for the beheading of those who choose people of the same gender in the privacy of their own bedroom.

History shows that secularism respects the right of people of faith to worship. The US constitution is a perfect example of this. It enshrines in law the freedom to practice religion.

Christian history is one of suppression of any contradictory evidence, from the censorship of Greek and Roman knowledge in the Dark Ages to the threatening of Galileo for contradicting Church dogma to the denial of evolution. Rev Robertson would do well to study history before he starts misleading people with a false representation of history.

ALAN HINNRICHS

Noran Avenue

Dundee