Readers' Letters: War is hell... but don't blame the atheists

American Civil War General William Tecumseh Sherman said it all: “I am sick and tired of war. Its glory is all moonshine. It is only those who have neither fired a shot nor heard the shrieks and groans of the wounded who cry aloud for blood, for vengeance, for desolation. War is hell.”

William Tecumseh Sherman, general of the US Union army during the American Civil War, pictured around 1870 (Picture: Hulton Archive/Getty Images)

While religion has the power to inspire adherents to do good, history is replete with examples of religion-inspired violence. Where was morality in the Crusades, the Spanish Inquisition, the Thirty Year War and the Indo-Pak partition? Was morality hiding in Ahmedabad and Godhra in 2003 and in New York in September 2001?

And what holds back the moral sense amidst the ongoing Middle East violence or made it look the other way during the pogrom in Bosnia, the ethnic cleansing in Rwanda and the horrors of the Holocaust? What does the worldwide exposés of sexual abuse of children by Catholic priests say about the efficacy of religion to inspire moral good?

It would seem religion has a lot of explaining to do. Where, oh where, can an atheist go in this world of ours to find peace?

Doug Clark, Currie, Midlothian

Blinkered dream

More knocking copy from a Scottish nationalist. Leah Gunn Barrett (Letters, 23 October) can’t tell us how Scotland would fare better outside the UK; she just “knows” it would. Her latest mission is to disparage Labour, now that it has shown in the Rutherglen and Hamilton West by-election that it is a serious challenger to the SNP.

Perhaps Ms Barrett would explain from where her secessionist Scotland would find the means to achieve her ambitions? Let her research how much it would cost to “renationalise public services”, for example. How many billions? Scotland already faces a £1 billion financial black hole, yet her apparent solution is to “increase taxes on wealth”, at the very point when even the SNP is realising how counterproductive that could be. With the SNP assuming more spending commitments at its recent conference and pledging to incur even more debt by freezing council tax, it is hardly likely to be able to improve public services – which have in any case deteriorated markedly on its watch – or to invest much.

Disparaging the UK is easy in time of economic difficulty, but it is worth noting that the G7 country whose economy is predicted by the IMF to have the slowest growth this year is not the UK but Germany, the dominant force in the EU. The IMF’s view is that consumption in the UK is stronger than expected, Brexit uncertainty has reduced and the March global banking stress has dissipated.

As for Ms Barrett’s persisting in calling Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland “England’s remaining colonies”, the juvenile inaccuracy of this has been pointed out frequently, but indoctrinated Scottish nationalists are too blinkered to understand their error.

Jill Stephenson, Edinburgh

Web of lies

There's a screeching U-turn smell seeping out of Bute House today. Cynicism is alive, well and thriving in the SNP. It now looks like Scotland's First Minister, Humza Yousaf, will cancel his so-called progressive tax plans to pickpocket more of our hard-earned cash. He has trumpeted this policy loud and clear at every opportunity and the reversal has nothing to do with helping working people in Scotland, everything to do with votes. The SNP claims it must change after the Rutherglen drubbing.

This is cynicism at its ugliest; if a party does an about turn with wind direction you can bet your boots if it worked, another about face would be their next move. The SNP are now and always have been a shower of chancers without a moral compass. My fellow Scots are not that stupid and will see right through their gossamer web of lies. It's clear the only people who matter are themselves in their overpaid jobs and how to keep them. Their raison d’etre is dead in the water so they should open the seacocks and scuttle their clapped-out clipper now and strike out for the shore, St Kilda would be fine.

Stan Hogarth, Strathaven, South Lanarkshire

Mea culpa?

When Shona Robison of the SNP was Social Justice Secretary she was utterly dismissive of those expressing deep and genuine concern that the SNP’s Gender Recognition Reform Bill would, if passed, endanger women and girls. She claimed no evidence existed of predatory men pretending to be women in order to abuse women and girls. More than a few were shocked at what they considered her naivete. The cross-party doubters’ fears were genuine; politics did not come into this equation.

The cynicism was in fact more than justified. Ms Robison was deputy First Minister when Andrew Miller was recently jailed for 20 years. He was transitioning to being female at the time of the horrific offence against an innocent child. The trial judge questioned if the victim would have gone with him in his car had he presented as a man. Again Ms Robison dismissed further questioning, saying, with reason, not all transitioning men are this way. No, of course they are not, and no-one had ever said they were. But the simple fact is that the GRA Bill was inherently dangerous to women and girls and this horrific crime was the perfect example of that.

Do not hold your breath for any mea culpa from this administration. Satisfying vociferous minorities and being super woke, it seems, is by far more important.

Alexander McKay, Edinburgh

Yes, Secretary

I had to laugh. Holyrood’s Secretary for Economy, Fair Work and Culture (what a title!) Neil Gray is going to help business. He has published a “plan” to hold a “forum” and to have a “full review” to ensure that businesses are “consulted”… So there you have it. Action by the SNP. Business will truly be helped.

Come in Sir Humphrey Appleby of Yes Minister fame!

Adair Anderson, Selkirk, Scottish Borders

Protect democracy

The authors of three excellent articles in Saturday’s Scotsman Perspective section (21 October), with their respective pleas to protect the way our democracy works, are to be commended.

First, Brian Wilson highlighted the deplorable way that Barry Smith KC’s inquiry into the award of the contract for two ferries was blatantly restricted to minimise the exposure to Scottish Ministers and those acting for them (“SNP could give Trump lessons on how to evade responsibility”). The judge-led inquiry Brian Wilson calls for is unlikely until a new government is in place at Holyrood, one that hopefully places more store by honesty and openness than the present incumbents.

Susan Dalgety questions a Gender Reform Bill that seeks to improve the rights of one group in our society without sufficient care for the consequences for a far larger group (“Child abuser who posed as woman shows why self-ID is dangerous”).

Flying in the face of public opinion on this matter, First Minister Humza Yousaf prioritises using the courts to grandstand his campaign of grievance against the UK government, rather than protecting women’s rights. Again, we must hope that future elections free Scotland from such an abuse of power.

Finally, Stephen Jardine turns to Westminster and how its culture of drinking is at odds with established norms in almost every other work setting (“Let’s call time on the booze culture rife amongst our MPs”). Bad behaviour fuelled by alcohol, along with the potential impact on the judgment of MPs, suggests change is overdue. Surely, we can agree that politicians should drink on their own time and at their own expense, not on ours, and certainly not in their place of work.

These articles illustrated how our precious democracy needs to be protected from those who will otherwise exploit and misuse it.

Keith Howell, West Linton, Scottish Borders

Turkeys

Stephen Jardine's article on alcohol at work brings a smile to my face. I am also old enough to remember when alcohol at work happened, when you had a wee hauf on Fair Friday before you broke up for your annual holidays and a wee hauf at Christmas before the festive break.

Nowadays that’s not acceptable. However, I honestly can't see MPs in Parliament voting to close down their subsidised bars as it would be akin to turkeys voting for Christmas. If they're asked to vote there will be a stampede to the bar to ask for a double of their choice to help with the shock of even a rumour of last orders

J Moore, Glasgow

Bah, humbugs

Aidan Smith’s review on Saturday of the new Netflix TV series Bodies said a little of what it is about. I have been watching it, but I have not yet reached the end, so I won't spoil anyone's enjoyment in that respect. I can't help commenting, however, that I had been planning to enjoy a dinner of pork sausages before I starting watching and quite lost my appetite in the first episode.

It would also help if TV programmes about the Second World War remembered that there was rationing, so no humbugs or lollipops to be bought from street markets in 1941; Zippo cigarette lighters arrived when American soldiers came to the UK in 1942 and not before; compulsory black-out curtains prevented peering out of the window in the dark. And, a regular bugbear of mine, would someone please teach actors how to pronounce Luftwaffe correctly?

Peter Hopkins, Edinburgh

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