To The Daily Telegraph
Your correspondents who think that one is duty-bound to respect other people’s religious views are mistaken. With religion, as with anything else, respect has to be earned. Many would find it difficult to respect a religion which regards women and gay people as inherently inferior; which believes that any questioning of its tenets is at best something that needs to be closed down, and at worst tantamount to blasphemy and deserving of the death penalty. This, of course, used to be a fair characterisation of Christianity. Fortunately this is, on the whole, no longer the case.
Roger White, London
Roger White is absolutely right! http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/jan/14/charlie-hebdo-add-faithophobia-to-my-crimes Suzanne Moore says it perfectly. The only thing I disagree with is when he says that intolerance is no longer a ‘fair characterisation’ of Christianity. That isn’t the case at all: many Christians may be tolerant people but their faith is anything but. The Bible still speaks out strongly against any kind of sexual relations outside of a hetrosexual marriage, expresses a consistent racial bias in favour of the Jews, condones slavery and genocide, and promises that those who reject Jesus will burn in hell for all eternity. Islamic theology is similarly intolerant, but it also calls for the killing of ‘infidels’- a factor in why the terrorists are what they are.