Madam, - John Gray (Opinion, March 12th) is surely correct to call "secular fundamentalists" such as Richard Dawkins and Christopher Hitchens "zealous".
He is wrong, however, to call them "evangelists", or to describe their arguments as "proselytising". There is an essential flaw in the analogy he attempts to draw with religious missionaries.
This is because "secular fundamentalists", unlike religious fundamentalists, do not attempt to convert believers to any organisation. They do not try to prescribe their own ideology, nor indeed any ideology, to take the place of religion. Rather, they attempt to convince religious people to become independent individuals. They try to take believers away from organisations and ideologies while, in contrast, religious fundamentalists attempt to draw people to them.
The primary motivation of the secular fundamentalist in this pursuit is the belief that a world of independent, rational individuals is safer than one in which masses of people group together behind often coercive ideologies.
Therefore, it is not fair to say that "atheism renews some of the worst features of Christianity and Islam". - Yours, etc,
OLIVER FITZGERALD, Dartry Road, Rathgar, Dublin 6.