Reliably wrong

Richard Lucas provides that sense of constancy and reliability because, no matter what the topic, he always gets it wrong.

His latest salvo, lambasting the BBC as a propaganda machine churning out atheist views (Letters, 12 May), is true to form: wrong again. It is also a tribute to his ingenuity because it is wrong in so many different ways.

First he accuses the BBC of an endemic cultural bias which is against his Christian beliefs.

He says that he refuses to pay his licence fee because he does not want to give the BBC any financial support.

He certainly has the right not to watch any programmes at all, but clearly he is then in no position to criticise the quality of those programmes.

How exactly does he encounter the alleged endemic bias if he does not even possess a TV?

I hope he is not being a peeping Tom, watching his neighbour’s TV through a window.

Second, he ignores the fact that the BBC devotes a whole department to religious programming.

Given that religious belief is in terminal decline in the UK and is becoming the preserve of a shrinking minority, the amount of religious broadcasting could be said to be totally out of proportion to the small role religion plays in UK culture.

Far from being a threat to religious belief, the BBC panders to it in a way that a humanist like me can only envy.

Finally, Richard Lucas should upgrade his technology, which is as out-of-date as his belief system.

No-one need be stuck watching live broadcasts today and complaining about the content when there are so many ways to record programmes and ways to access them via iPlayer and podcasts. Recording and downloading would enable him to listen to and watch all the religious programmes available.

Zeus knows where he would find the time to write his letters to the paper then! But it would be a pity not to have him tilting at windmills for our entertainment any more.

Les Reid

Morton Street

Edinburgh