Atheism and theology

Sir, – Deliberately or not, Michael Nugent, chairman of Atheist Ireland is wildly misleading on many points when he speaks of…

Sir, – Deliberately or not, Michael Nugent, chairman of Atheist Ireland is wildly misleading on many points when he speaks of the New Testament (Rite & Reason, November 1st). He says, for example, that there is “no detail of the resurrection” in Mark’s Gospel. What does he think Mk 16:6-7 is, which says, “And he said to them . . . He has risen, he is not here”? Likewise, when he states that Mark dates Jesus’s “relationship with the main Christian god” to his baptism: this is an idea which has absolutely no basis in the Gospel itself. Mr Nugent’s claim that Paul dates this same phenomenon to the resurrection is clearly contradicted by Philippians 2. That he took Homer Simpson as a theological authority is telling. – Yours, etc,

(Fr) TERENCE CROTTY OP,

St Mary’s Priory,

Tallaght, Dublin 24.