We need a dose of cool, calm liberalism

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/dec/29/we-need-a-dose-of-cool-calm-liberalism-js-mill

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The recent heated flurry of letters about Christianity and tolerance (29 December) understates the disastrous impact of Christianity upon the world. Voltaire and an array of sceptical philosophers pointed out the inconsistencies in the New Testament. The Gospels and Paul’s letters are a virtual diatribe against the Jews as Christ-killers. To the persecuted Jews, Christ is the traitor who has hunted them down for two millennia. Within Christianity, sects have turned on each other. Across continental Europe, Roman Catholicism was associated with pitiless royal absolutism and, eventually, with the brimstone of fascism. The Church of England, as the religious establishment, schemed to beat down for centuries the radical dissenters – Quakers, Baptists, and then Methodists.

There would simply be no compassionate, level-headed, moderate civilisation without the advent of liberalism as exemplified by John Stuart Mill, who loathed the monopolistic tendencies inherent in Anglicanism. Liberalism, under threat from unrepentant Tory critics, seems the guarantor of tolerance, of which Christianity has always been the enemy. Cool, calm liberalism should be described as the answer, while Christianity is the essence of conservatism at its most vindictive.Zekria IbrahimiLondon

• Freedom to worship is the expression of wider rights: the freedoms of expression and of association. It is these that require upholding. The focus on religious worship is not only a distraction from those rights but also a weakening of inner spiritually and devotion. The first Christians met under the cover of the first day of the week, ie the day that followed the sabbath, when the Jews returned to work and business. Quiet and private Christian worship thus did not draw attention to itself and was the stronger for it. Let our lives speak.Norma LamingIpswich