Religious facts

May I gate-crash the Wikman/Logan discussion on the teaching of Christianity in our state schools by inviting Angus Logan to tell us exactly which aspects of the Bible and Christianity he would like our children to imbibe? Would he, for example, include the Old Testament deity who created us sinful and commanded us all thereafter to seek redemption?

Can I respectfully suggest that Mr Logan desist from ad hominem arguments, and encourage him to produce genuine statistical evidence for his claims regarding the respective numbers of Christian and non-Christian adherents.

Doug Clark

Muirwood Grove

Currie, Midlothian

I NOTE Neil Barber’s suggestion (Letters, 19 April) that schools should offer religious education which “familiarises children with all religions and world philosophies and offers them choice”. 

So, we would have, for example: Monday, Izanagi and Izanami stirring the waters; Tuesday, the slaying of Baldur the Beautiful; Wednesday, the expulsion of Quetzalcoatl; Thursday Saul’s journey to Damascus; Friday, the abduction of Persephone and then let the kiddies choose which story they like best. Does it occur to Mr Barber that even one of the great world religions provides material for a lifetime’s study and that the notion of teaching them all in a school course is mere nonsense?

Derrick McClure

Rosehill Terrace

Aberdeen

Secularists persist in their attempts to demonise religious teaching and spiritual practices in schools, but what they demand is that children should be taught according to their own beliefs.

Humanism is the belief that a full life can be lived without religious belief, and that an adequate value system can be derived without reference to supernatural elements. A school operating according to these principles would, therefore, be preaching Humanism. The Edinburgh Secular Society is, therefore, campaigning to make every council school an exclusively Humanist institution – in the name of neutrality.

Richard Lucas

Broomyknowe

Colinton, Edinburgh