Oct 19th 2006, Letters

Thinking man

SIR – The Marqués de Tamarón used an old and easily refuted argument in his attempt to defend religious faith against atheism by pointing to the godless regimes of communism and National Socialism (Letters, October 7th). He should have considered that Stalin's regime (like that of China under Mao) was based on a personality cult, and that Nazism was underpinned by a warped Nordic mythology and ideology centred on an Aryan master race. These cultish, quasi-religious qualities have little in common with atheism. Atheists believe that rationality and critical thinking serve humanity better than blind faith and religious dogma. The regimes of Hitler, Stalin and Mao did not come into being in order to defend atheism. And the horrors of communism and Nazism occurred not because these societies applied too much reason and critical thinking, rather because they did not apply enough.

Mark Eaton

Vancouver