Religion no subject for jokey boredom

8:18am Wednesday 7th May 2008

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MR TORDOFF (Letters, April 23) says my Christian checklist' could apply to anyone. True.

I am not a big fan of abortion, I have my moments of obsession with sex and I'm as much a hypocrite as the next person - unless, of course, that person works from their preferred Holy Book rather than from reason and evidence. There is a special circle of hell for them.

The problem is that religion nowadays doesn't merely threaten unbelievers, pro-choicers, and homosexuals, as if that weren't bad enough - it threatens all of us, which brings me to the two letters whose authors live life following the rules laid down by Jesus Christ.

The days when such simple faith can be accommodated are long gone, because it is the oxygen by which the real crazies out there exist.

Your correspondents are the unknowing thin end of a very nasty wedge - the thick end is 9/11. And should anybody think that I confuse my faiths, or overstate my case, I point to Northern Ireland, the Balkans, and to the long, bloody history of the Church in Europe.

These are not extremes', they go hand in hand with the faith of your correspondents, and in a world where terrorists of all faiths may well soon obtain nuclear weapons, we must rid ourselves of simple' religion of all kinds. If we don't, we really are in trouble.

These are important matters, and I'm not sure that Mr Tordoff's jokey boredom is an appropriate response. I will confine myself to saying that every part of my checklist can be justified and that he should beware of making jokes about blowing up churches the next time he is in Belfast, where they have enough faith for all of us.

Roger Moorhouse, Lancaster