Letter: No religion

I WOULD have agreed with Jim Carson (Letters, October 13) if he had suggested simply removing any religious element from Remembrance Day parades, but absorbing a rival atheist group into them devalues the national nature of the occasion.

As a formal organisation, the Scottish Humanist Society can represent only its own registered members; they have no mandate to speak for other atheists, who may well disagree with this idea.

At the time of the two remembered world wars, the monarch's position as head of the Christian church established the religious nature of the ceremony. I believe it would be more acceptable for either the monarch or the prime minister to deliver a eulogy with no reference to God.

ROBERT DOW

Ormiston Road

Tranent