Is it an exercise in comic irony?

From the archive, first published Monday 13th Feb 2006.

SIR - Jonathan Miller in his series Atheism: A Rough History of Disbelief can hardly be said to be "narrow-minded" and "egotistical", as George Cowley accuses him (Letters, January 26).

Mr Miller's personal dissent from religious belief is a matter of intellectual conscience, conveyed in this programme with neither arrogance nor prejudgement against the religious. But then, perhaps I mistake Mr Cowley's intentions. Perhaps his assertion that "all atheists are narrow-minded, egotistical fools" is merely an exercise in comic irony, given that this abusive generalisation is so obviously undermined by its own flagrant hypocrisy. I suspect Mr Cowley is serious, however.

BOB CHURCHILL,

Worcester.

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