In response to Roy Hilliard and his reference to my “awful letter” dismantling religion (February 10), being an atheist does not make one a bad person. I’m quite sure there are a lot of Christians who do good work and there are a lot of atheists who do good work too.

I take exception to Christians trying to take command of the moral high ground and, just for the record, it may come as a surprise that I used to be a “Christian” too. I was indoctrinated at school with Christianity along with all the other children, where we were taught that we would burn in the eternal fires of hell if we did not conform to God’s bidding.

If this is still going on in schools today it amounts to child abuse in my book. A child will believe what he or she is told by an adult.

It was only when I reached my teens that I woke up to myself and became agnostic, later atheist, and now I guess you could call me anti-theist.

Religion is a lovely idea but do you want to spend your life chasing rainbows? Ask yourself, do you really believe it or do you just really want to believe it?

Science, unlike religion, does not have all the answers but scientific evidence is indicating that the universe, and life, evolved from a state of extreme simplicity to its present state of complexity.

This is not fully proven, of course, but at least it is plausible and I am only interested in the truth.

There are about 600 different religions worldwide. I disbelieve all of them. A Christian would disbelieve 599 of them. So, as far as agnosticism goes, we are almost equal.

Ricky Shaw, Aberdeen Road, Brighton