I refer to the recent letter by No Religion For Me ("NRFM") of Pembroke. NRFM's scattershot assault on theistic belief warrants a response (just in time for Christmas!) to expose the errors embedded in his diatribe.

NRFM begins his letter by citing a recent example of violence between Greek and Armenian Christian groups in Jerusalem. From this single example he immediately concludes, "…religion has been the main reason for pain, suffering and agony known to mankind."

Note that he states this without offering any evidence to refute the claims of any particular religion. He simply assumes God's non-existence.

This allows him to clump religious doctrines together and I quote, "Catholics, Presbyterians, Seventh-Day Adventists, Jehovah's Witnesses, Muslims, Jews, etc. etc. etc.", assign them causal responsibility for mankind's suffering and then leap straight to the rather narcissistic assertion that, "…if everyone was an atheist, like me, simple, no more religious wars!"

One is left to wonder whether he simply chooses not to believe in God because of his frustration with human beings who claim to follow God, or whether he thinks there actually are positive arguments and evidences for the non-existence of God that are independent of human action.

Claiming religion is the "main reason" for all human suffering is not a reasonable argument. For it to be true, then every conflict between humans, down to bickering with one's grocer over the price of bread, would have to be religiously motivated.

No informed atheist would ever agree with such a facile statement.

But is this atheist claim even partially correct? Have a substantial proportion of wars been fought for religious reasons?

The so-called "New Atheists", Richard Dawkins, Christopher Hitchens and Sam Harris have published best-sellers in recent years arguing this to be the case.

However, theist and atheist alike (e.g. Michael Ruse) have sharply criticised their shoddy philosophy and misuse of the historical data.

In his book, The Irrational Atheist, Theodore Beale (aka. Vox Day) demolishes the atheists' myth that religion causes wars."

Referencing various sources, including the Encyclopaedia of Wars compiled by C. Phillips and A. Axelrod, Day examines 1,763 wars fought from 2325 B.C. to modern times.

Of these wars, only 123, or 6.98 percent, can reasonably be attributed to religion. Since more than half of these religious wars, sixty six in all, were waged by Muslims, this means that, apart from Islam, the world's religions are responsible for only 3.23% of all wars.

Thus, according to Day, "the historical evidence is conclusive. Religion is not a primary cause of war". This percentage, of course, includes the infamous Crusades; and although they "…will likely remain the model of Christian holy war for the foreseeable future, the reason that they are no longer at the forefront of atheist attacks on Christianity is because it is difficult, and growing increasingly harder, to shake a disapproving finger at the actions of men who were faced with the challenge of a militant and expanding Ummah at their borders."

Day then turns the argument back upon the atheists. He points out that the Great Leap Forward and the Holocaust, caused by atheist and pagan-atheist regimes, resulted in 43 million and 6 million deaths respectively, whereas the Spanish Inquisition resulted in 3,230 deaths over a period of three and a half centuries.

And then in the single year of 1936 Spanish atheists murdered 6,832 members of the Catholic clergy, "…more than twice the number of the victims of 345 years of Inquisition."

Summing up, Day reveals that 52 atheist rulers in the 20th century, from 1917 to 2007, were responsible for a body count of around 148 million dead – "three times more than all the human beings killed by war, civil war and individual crime in the entire 20th century combined. The historical record of collective atheism is thus 182,716 times worse on an annual basis than Christianity's worst and most famous misdeed, the Spanish Inquisition."

Incidentally, Day's book is available for free, i.e. downloadable off the Web, and I would encourage those interested to read it for a fuller presentation of the arguments and data than what is available here so that they can decide for themselves whether his data interpretation and arguments hold water.

I note with interest that NRFM reserves spirited vitriol for the misery-inducing, warmongering Jehovah's Witnesses and the God of Abraham, but whether NRFM includes pantheistic faiths such as Hinduism and the non-theist practices of Buddhism, is left unanswered. He writes as if unaware those very different religions make very different metaphysical claims.

More importantly, he never allows for the possibility that at least one of those religions may make metaphysical claims that might actually be true.

He simply presupposes that all are false and ignores any qualitative differences between their teachings.

NRFM then switches gears, moving away from claiming religion is the cause of all suffering to making metaphysical claims, demanding to know "Where is God's love?" in times of "tsunamis, earthquakes and the slaughters of innocents" in war.

These sorts of metaphysical questions fall under the topic of 'The Problem of Evil' and are the province of philosophy, rather than historical fact.

It would be impossible for me to do the topic justice here in an already lengthy letter (assuming I even am capable of making a decent philosophical stab at this difficult issue!)

However, I will just point out that Christian philosophers give separate, though linked, explanations for natural evil (earthquakes, floods etc.) and human evil.

Prof. William Lane Craig writes that human evil is simply testimony to the "fallen-ness" of man, that we can take the most beautiful and wonderful things in the world, such as Christ's command to 'love our neighbours as ourselves' and use them as instruments of violence in the way Christianity has sometimes been used in the hands of wicked men.

However, the existence of human evil does nothing to disconfirm Christianity.

On the contrary, if anything it confirms the Christian doctrine of sin, i.e. that we really are depraved and fallen and alienated from God.

The famous 20th century atheist philosopher, Bertrand Russell, wrote that you cannot prove a system of thought as true by looking at the lives of its adherents.

What Russell meant was that just because the adherents lived good and righteous lives, it does not mean their system is true.

However, Dr. Craig additionally points out that what Russell says should also apply to when those adherents fail to live up to their system of beliefs and are wicked and hypocritical and deceitful. In the same way, it does not mean that their system of beliefs is false.

NRFM then admonishes Christians, writing, "instead of sitting in church – do something. Go to the old folks home and cheer them up, same at the hospital, help someone homeless. You so-called Christians think one hour a week is enough! Hypocrites. At least I am honest when I say I am an atheist."

I am not sure what he is saying about himself here. It would appear he is saying that it is hypocritical of Christians not to practice charity, but not at all hypocritical for atheists not to act charitably.

If that is his argument, I don't think that he is being fair to all atheists, many of whom are perfectly law-abiding, good, upright and nobly moral people.

It is vital here to clarify that the Christian position is NOT that man needs to believe in God in order to live a good and moral life (for we believe God implants the sense of right and wrong into all mankind).

Rather, our position is that in order for there to exist a meaningful, qualitative distinction between right and wrong, there must be a prime Moral Agent ("God") from which objective standards of right and wrong can derive ('objective' means that they exist irrespective of whether anyone happens to believe in their existence).

Otherwise, any attempt to distinguish between right and wrong action is entirely arbitrary. Any standard of value is ultimately meaningless, for it cannot rationally be said to be 'better' than any other standard in the absence of an objective standard of good and bad by which to compare it.

In a Godless, empty universe, one could only compare one subjective standard of value with another, equally meaningless, standard of value.

So, for some atheists, the implications (probably unwitting) of NRFM's comment might be perfectly acceptable – if they have subjectively chosen a standard of value that deems charity not worth their time or energy.

Note how this harkens back also to NRFM's demand for an explanation to the existence of evil in the world.

His demand is really inconsistent with his atheistic worldview because for an atheist there can logically be no objective moral distinction between right and wrong.

Oxford professor and village atheist, Dr. Peter Atkins, writes, "Science shows us that there can be no moral distinction between an administered poison and one that the body itself is slowly generating." ("Will Science Ever Fail?" New Scientist 135 (August 8, 1992), p. 34.)

Do you understand what he is saying here? According to Atkins, there is no moral distinction between poisoning someone deliberately and that person dying of natural causes!

If NRFM finds Atkins' view repugnant, then he may now find himself agreeing that objective moral values do actually exist. And that would be good news indeed!

Finally, I would remind NRFM of Christian charities such as the Salvation Army and all the work they do to help the poor in Bermuda and around the world.

American scholar, Arthur Brooks, in his book, Who Really Cares, forcefully demonstrates that conservative, religious Christians contribute far more money and personal time to charity than secular people do, even whilst on average earning a lesser salary with longer working-hours.

How can this be, you ask. His findings cut to the heart of the perception that "secular liberal democrats are more socially concerned than religious conservative republicans."

He demonstrates that secular liberals believe that it is the job of the government to take care of the poor and that they are more in favour of income redistribution from those who have money to those who are poor.

Thus, liberal secularists "political views" have actually been substituted in place of their charitable contributions.

Having presented my rebuttal to NRFM, I cannot, however, refute his points without taking an honest self-appraisal and admitting that I do not personally do enough to benefit the poor and needy on this Island.

All too few of us do make the effort; and at this festive time in particular, we should salute those wonderful men and women, both religious and secular, who throughout the year do give so generously of their time, resources and energy to charitable causes.

Thank you NRFM for reminding me that these people deserve our thanks and that those more fortunate ought always be willing to help ease the suffering of those in need.

I am sure all would agree that it is the "objectively" right thing to do …