Madam, - I hesitate to take issue with my fellow humanist Nicolas Johnson (January 4th), but in some ways religion does take cognisance of the lack of absolute proof of God's existence. Christians recognise that an "act of faith" is often required in coming to religious belief and sees that as a meritorious act.
This is surely a recognition that for many people the predicated evidence of a divinity is not in itself beyond doubt.
It might be thought that the difference between an atheists and many believers is therefore not one over the nature of the evidence but over the former's reluctance to make a leap of faith in the absence of clear evidence. Richard Dawkins, for instance, as a dogmatic, proseltysing atheist, might be expected therefore to be in that category.
Recently, however, he wrote that he believed that "beings will be found on other planets who will appear like gods to us". He made this statement of belief without a shred of evidence to back it up, so he is able to make a leap of faith - something which he condemns others for doing.
Dogmatists, be they religious or atheists, often seem to share a particular ideological way of thinking. I would suggest that just as there is much difference between an agnostic humanist approach and Dawkins's, we probably have more in common with an intelligent religious believer than Nicolas Johnson might appear to consider. - Yours, etc,
DICK SPICER, Sugarloaf Crescent, Bray, Co Wicklow.
Madam, - Francis J. Roden (January 3rd) makes, to my mind at least, an elementary point when he writes: "the god that Dawkins does not believe in does not exist".
Without prejudice to the admittedly risky beauty of the gift of Christian belief, I would have to confess to being wearied in my time, by otherwise lively atheists, who insist on trying to tell me what sort of God I believe in. - Yours, etc,
TOM STACK, Ramleh Park, Dublin 6.