As to the undoubted wrongs of the Church and people in the name of the Church in history, these could be put into perspective by remembering the 20 millions dead at the hands of Adolph, the 60 million unnecessary deaths in the Soviet Union, the 90 millions dead under Mao the untold millions dead elsewhere under atheistical regimes and of course, not forgetting the terror of whole populations these regimes inspired.

Again we get yet another baseless assertion that “The Gospels are true”. Apart from their possible value as a historical source, there is no evidence of this.. I notice you seem to turn your back on Dawkins and the other philosophers I mentioned. You seem to be stuck in this tunnel vision based on an outdated religion invented by a lot of ignorant old men, not dissimilar to the Moslems.

As to poor JC and his crucifixion. I have no particular reason to doubt this person existed and suffered this fate as did the thousands of others. Crucifixion was a quite normal punishment in the Roman Empire. It was used as a warning – behave yourself or this will happen to you!

For whatever reason a group of Messianic Jews decided he was their “Messiah” (which the Jews do not accept to this day and I thought they would have some authority in the matter). and formed a sect which eventually became the Christians. It was a sect among many which eventually got lucky. If the course of events had been different we would have been worshipping something else (or hopefully nothing at all) and someone like you would be telling us whatever it was was all true, just as the Moslems try to now.

As you do not seem to care about poor Bruno, please spare a thought for poor Hypathea of Alexandria who was (a) a scientist and mathematician inching her way to modern cosmology (b) a woman (c) refused to convert to Christianity and was stripped naked and stoned to death by early Christians for her refusal to convert and recant her scientific work. Nothing about that in your Gospels.

You have much in common with the Moslems, a refusal to move on. It does`not really matter because mankind moves on whatever you say and your beloved gospels and all the other religious rubbish will be consigned to their proper place to some dusty shelf at the back of the library of history.

I heard very little from Dawkins that I couldn’t have heard 40 years ago.

Dawkins seems to think he is some kind of new phenomenon. He is actually simply the latest in a line of similar individuals.

Dawkins has assumed the mantle previously worn by ‘The world’s most notorious Atheist’, the late philosopher Antony Flew, as he is described on the jacket of his book,’There is a God’, written after his conversion to atheism.

By the way, it does matter what is in the Gospels, because the truth of them means the truth of the existence of God. And they are indeed pretty reliable as historical records. Indeed, The Gospels are more reliable as historical documents than just about any other in ancient history.

So, if you know that Julius Caesar was assassinated on the Ides of March, you know even more surely that Christ was crucified and was subsequently seen as living by many witnesses.