Dawkins and religion.

SIR. It is barely possible that Professor Dawkins does not read Quadrant and hence has not seen the rebuttal of his claims against religion by Hal Colebatch in the October issue. Had he done so he might have pointed out that the depredations of the three atheist powers of the Soviet Union, Nazi Germany and revolutionary France should be counted on the religious side. Religion and Deism are different. The defining characteristic which Dawkins attacks is irrational beliefs, held not on the basis of evidence but because the faithful want to believe them. This clearly describes most socialists, all Nazis and a large number of the revolutionaries who were not motivated by simple power hunger. They devised, forsooth, a goddess of Reason. It also includes those who are convinced that all human problems can be solved by Science.

The only irrational belief that one might suspect Dawkins of holding is that one can counter irrationality by rational arguments. The evidence is strongly against this.

Mike Alder, Nedlands, WA.