I apologise to Val Potter of ‘Churches Together in Dorchester’ but I laughed outloud at the headline ‘Start of World Peace’ (Echo, August 11).

Val states that: “In the 100 years since the First World War there have been countless other wars and conflicts across the world.”

My cynical laughter was because the overwhelming majority of these conflicts have been caused by religion.

In the Middle East, Muslim sects such as the Sunnis and Shi’ites slaughter each other in the name of their God as do Christians and Muslims.

In Gaza, Jews and Muslims slaughter each other and in Africa Christians are being slaughtered by the Muslim Boko Haram religious sect.

Twenty years ago we had Christians and Muslims committing appalling atrocities against each other in the Balkans.

Ireland had a long and murderous conflict between Protestants and Catholics.

Partition in India in the late 1940s resulted in over a million deaths when Muslims and Hindus fought. Even in the US Christian extremists have been murdering medical workers performing abortions.

Think back to the Spanish Inquisition and all the religious wars of the second millennium and it is obvious that religion has been the cause of unimaginable slaughter for centuries. There is no reason to expect this to change in the 21st century – unless ‘Churches Together in Dorchester’ has discovered the magic touchstone to bring universal peace to our planet?

Perhaps they would have more influence if they were to hold their meetings in Afghanistan, Gaza, Nigeria, North Korea, etc, far from the safety of Dorchester Borough Gardens?

Geoff Kirby

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