FOLLOWING on from Brian Hubbard’s touching “encounter” with Jesus (Jesus is very real to me, Letters, November 12), may I counter his dismay over religious disbelief with my own over the persistence of religion in general.
If it all began as an antidote to the fear of the unknown, religion is now one of the main vehicles by which conflict travels the world: Hindu v Muslim, Sunni v Shia, Catholic v Protestant. One might also add that Jews have suffered two millennia of Christian vilification.
After a couple of centuries of rationalism, my dismay is that the total of the world’s disbelievers still only equates with the combined totals of adherents of Christianity, Hinduism and Islam.
My ‘Jesus’ was Bertrand Russell and my encounter with him led to my 60 years of secular humanism.
Unlike Brian’s perspective, I find it strange that so many people remain wedded to the irrational faith in gods, and have yet to properly embrace the more rational ‘religion’ of science.
TOM GODDARD St Mary’s Road, Hay-on-Wye
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