The BBC has been rethinking its role in the promulgation of religion, and is proposing to inject even more religious themes into mainstream TV and Radio (BBC to increase religious coverage to better represent all faiths, 20 December). Some people need religion, but, as history shows, its minatory power can paralyse people into stupidity and acquiescence. Problems arise with religions because they imagine their rules and regulations are not just another variant of human arbitrariness, but have immutable transcendental authority behind them – a delusion that must be challenged. Religions may begin as vehicles of longing for mysteries beyond description, but they end up claiming exclusive descriptive rights to them. Religions overclaim for themselves and end up believing more in their own existence than in the initial vision of their raison d’être. The first law of all institutions is their own survival. Few dissolve themselves when they have accomplished what they set out to achieve, and when it looks as if their significance is fading, they go into revival mode. The question we licence payers must ask is, should the BBC, the country’s sole public service broadcaster, have any part in a religious revival?
Doug Clark
Currie, Midlothian
• Like Deborah Orr, I am a Scottish secularist (Opinion, 23 December) and I must say I agree with the National Secular Society that there is an overly cosy relationship between the BBC and the Church of England. The Thought for the Day slot on Radio 4 quite properly gives airtime to every religious denomination from Islam to the Baha’i faith, but whenever the speaker is a Christian he (almost always) is from the CofE and either a bishop or one of the clergy of St Martin in the Fields. Cof E bishops already have the privilege of seats in the House of Lords which enable them to play a part in running the country, without taking over the BBC as well. I know this will come as a shock to Radio 4 controllers, but the station actually has listeners north of the Cheviots, and those who listen to Thought for the Day might appreciate the occasional input of a Church of Scotland minister or Scottish Catholic priest.
Harry Watson
Edinburgh
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