NOTHING CT Riley said in his recent letter (HAS, Sept 10) invalidates the specific point I was making that C MacArt attributes an “atrocity monopoly” to religion with no mention of the good it does and no reference of the appalling record of human rights abuse of non-religious (secular) states, organisations and institutions, which even continues today.

I also inferred that his argument would have carried more weight, integrity and credibility if it had included some reasonable and fair balance.

I invite Mr Riley to state whether he agrees.

He focuses at length on Hitler’s religious ideas. Does anyone really believe that Hitler was motivated by religion or that the millions who dies in the Second World War were the victims of a crusade?

Surely his motivation was the here and now?

He murdered Christians, Jews, anyone who opposed him, regardless of faith, among them Dietrich Bonhoeffer and Maximilien Kolbe, a declared Saint. And does Mr Riley deny that the murderous communist regimes of Stalin, Pol Pot and North Korea and the Communist regime in China under Mao Tse Tung were not atheist in ideology?

I challenge Messrs Riley and MacArt to acknowledge the good work of churches running universities, hospitals, old folks homes, food banks, women’s refuges, grief counselling groups and soup kitchens etc.

But will they?

Michael Baldasera, Darlington.