The malign influence of Christianity and Gordon Brown, the use of Leuchars for commercial flights and the response to the bad weather, are all topics that have exercised our readers today.
Church has had malign influence on history
Sir,-It would be surprising if, in its 2000-year history, an institution that wielded the power, wealth and influence of the Catholic Church had not achieved something good.
But to its credits, extolled by George McMillan (December 7), can be added a long list of debits.
This institution has tortured, murdered and burned its way through history.
While it was founding schools, it was also burning witches. While it was preserving ancient texts, the Inquisition was viciously suppressing freedom of speech.
All this time it was spilling the blood of Jews, Cathars, Huguenots and anyone else of the “wrong” religion.
In modern times, it was shamefully silent when it knew of the Holocaust and helped thousands of Nazis escape justice after the war.
It continues to vilify gay people, to prohibit birth control in the face of over-population and spread lies about condoms and HIV.
Even Mr McMillan’s list of noble Christians is a poor one. Ignoring giants like Martin Luther King and Desmond Tutu, he instead picks Wilberforce, whose hatred of slavery was roused in his schooldays, before he converted and who was reactionary on most other issues, Nightingale, who actually renounced Christianity and Mother Teresa whose credibility was shredded by Christopher Hitchens.
Far from being a force for good, Christianity is a curse on humanity. The debit side easily outweighs the credit.
(Dr) Stephen Moreton.33 Marina Avenue,Great Sankey,Warrington.
Opportunity for Fife air travel
Sir,-What a fantastic idea it would be to open up Leuchars, in part, as a civilian airport.
The number of golfers wishing to have direct access to St Andrews by air must be enormous.
The university has some 9000 students, who all need to go somewhere at sometime, plus all the academic travellers.
To open up to low-cost airlines would increase travel abroad by many in this area and also, more importantly, bring in more tourists and, therefore, more revenue to this part of the world.
As for the military aspect of fast-response jets to intercept foreign planes, surely it cannot be beyond the traffic controllers to clear a runway for their immediate use.
As taxpayers, we have paid for a new runway at Leuchars and now is the time to make full use of that facility.
The whole aspect must be looked at in full.
It cannot be beyond the wit of civilian and military leaders to give Leuchars an extra lease of life by still keeping the skies safe from enemies and welcoming to friends.
Sandy Alston.40 Buchanan Gardens,St Andrews.
Crash Gordon fooled us all
Sir,-In his new book, Beyond the Crash, Gordon Brown admits what his contemporaries at university all knew: he was not an economist and had little knowledge of finance.
This was already sadly obvious in his ludicrous belief that he had “conquered boom and bust”, his endless policy errors and his final claim to have “saved the world”.
Yet, at no point in the book, does this deeply insecure, self-righteous man acknowledge that he must take a significant portion of the blame for the calamity which befell us.
He treated the Treasury’s expert officials with open contempt and relied instead on a handful of cronies as he proceeded to wreck the best economy Labour ever inherited.
The surprise is not that our pensions and public finances were ruined or that he presided over the biggest bust since the 1930s. The surprise is that he got away with it for so long.
(Dr) John Cameron.10 Howard Place,St Andrews.
Remove these abandoned cars
Sir,-It has been over a week now since the snow and we are still struggling through the aftermath, the main problem being the number of cars left abandoned. As the drivers have been without their cars, it raises the question, do they really need them?
A week is more than enough time to dig out a car and if they have to park away from their own house then they should dig a space for it.
In Macalpine Road, Dundee, cars are parked on the centre white line leaving only a single-track road for what is a very busy thoroughfare.
This is unacceptable and very dangerous and, given that the pavements are almost impassable, where do the pedestrians walk?
Careful drivers now have to be more vigilant, dodging cars, hard-packed snow and pedestrians, making every journey hazardous.
Roddy Smith.44 Laird Street,Dundee.
Blame Europe for snow panic
Sir,-The almost complete stoppage of national life occasioned by the current spattering of snow is scarcely believable. When I was a child, our schools were kept open by every janitor, able-bodied teacher and even the school dinner ladies being set to the task of digging out the playground with old-fashioned shovels.
The same all-hands-to-the-deck attitude applied to airports where the general manager was to be seen setting an example with his spade alongside ground and cabin staff as well as pilots and navigators as they fought to keep runways clear.
Not only are we now far too reliant on often inadequate and unreliable mechanical means of snow removal but the EU- mandated adoption of the SI system of units has brought a touch of fatalism to how Britons regard low temperatures.
Zero degrees Celsius is now seen as a sign that civilisation must be temporarily suspended whereas 32 degrees Fahrenheit never had that effect.
John Eoin Douglas.7 Spey Terrace,Edinburgh.
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