In the name of God
Sir: 'What gives a peculiar horror to modern war,' says Richard West in his review of William Shawcross's book The Quality of Mercy (29 September), 'is that countries like Nazi Germany, Russia, China, Vietnam and Cambodia are run by fanatical ideologues who have no belief in, nor therefore obedience to, God.' What gives a peculiar horror to such a remark is the implication that mass murder is any better or fanatical ideology any softer if connected with a belief in God rather than in some other divinity (nation, tribe, class, party, money, etc). Surely there are still enough Christian. Muslim and Jewish kill- ers at work to remind us of the record of the past couple of thousand years of war in the name of rather than the absence of God.
Nicholas Walter
Rationalist Press Association, 88 Islington High Street, London NI
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