Letter: It's illogical

MIGHT I point out a contradiction in Neal Ascherson's definition of atheists as people who "hate God"? ("We could nag the Windsors off the throne...", 10 March). It is difficult to hate something that is not there. I have met a large number of people who claim to be atheists because their world is not run along the lines that the God of the Christians, or any other for that matter, should be running it. That is a different matter. Mr Ascherson is an agnostic, the only intellectually tenable position when one has no proof, and I do not envy him it. Belief or unbelief is a great deal more satisfying to the emotions, and is not couched in terms of logic. But, then, whoever claimed the human animal was logical!

David Morton

Driffield, East Yorkshire