Sir, – I did not know whether to laugh or cry when reading Ivor Shorts' comments (Letters, August 3rd). Laugh? The ridiculous over-the-top language – "conditioned", "so-called education", "institutional abuse"?
This sort of drivel passes for debate on the place of religious education and your paper actually publishes it.
The majority of Irish people went through this system and were not conditioned or brain washed.They have largely abandoned or rejected the belief systems presented.
The best way to eliminate religion in Ireland is to have the churches continue with their current religious education practices. We’ll soon have no believers at all, the system being so inefficient. A major shake-up of religious education is urgently required.
There are major questions to which children should be exposed and they should also encounter the major historical answers (both critical pro and con). But I cannot see letters such as Mr Shorts’ as contributing to rational debate.
They generate no light, only heat. – Yours, etc,
PAT BREEN
Athlone.
Sir, – Further to Ciarán McNamara assertion that religion is one of the greatest causes of conflict in the world (Letters, August 4th) it might depend on how you look at history.
Perhaps half the wars in history were caused by too much religion, the other half by the absence of religion.
Maybe we just have to get the balance right when teaching religion. – Yours, etc,
DERMOT O’ROURKE
Lucan,
Dublin.