Madam, - In his attempt to reconcile science and religion Prof William Reville reduces Christianity to the all-encompassing formula, "Love God, love your neighbour, forgive your enemy and take responsibility for your actions" (Science Today, November 25th). With the omission of God, this formula reflects a humanist philosophy that all reasonable people would agree with.
Unfortunately, it is the human capacity to invent gods and organise religions around them that causes so many problems for humanity.
Compulsory adherence to rituals and rules, on pain of punishment, including everlasting damnation, the wholesale indoctrination of children into the beliefs of whatever religion they happen to be born into and the extremes of war and terrorism based on religious fanaticism are just some of the serious consequences arising from religious belief. Give me the solace of secular humanism any day. - Yours, etc.,
ANTHONY SHERIDAN, Cobh, Co Cork.
Madam, - Dr Michael Telford (November 30th) writes that Richard Dawkins adheres to the idea that "the entire creation developed by purely random changes at the genetic level" - and then argues against this on various grounds. Unfortunately, his argument fails at the first hurdle because Dawkins has never claimed that pure random chance shapes evolution but that natural selection, which is far from random, is the force that drives it. - Yours, etc.,
DAVID TOCHER, Department of Maths and Statistics, University of Limerick.