WHILE Eric Gendle (HAS, Mar 15) is correct when he writes that that I should have talked about a “secular democratic society”, I was referring to the secular society in which we all live.

Ours is a society where we all have the right to think, speak and believe as we wish without fear of arrest, torture and execution for contradicting doctrine or a religious leader’s views.

A society where slavery, oppression, denial of human rights, torture, child rape, forced marriages, sectarian violence, caste systems, cultural, religious and racial genocide are crimes no longer accepted as the norm backed by archaic doctrines and religious leaders who ordered, promoted and profited from such atrocities.

The essence of the point I’ve been making is that if we are indeed the children of God, then religious leaders must stop acting like children and start taking responsibility for the mess they helped create.

You don’t need to follow a religion to believe in a “god”, but such a believe means you should be first to condemn atrocities against fellow human beings.

Otherwise why not let your compassion and humanity be blocked by doctrine or the desire to protect a faith’s image?

Otherwise you’ve understood and learnt nothing – from life or faith.

CT Riley, Spennymoor.