Secularism has led to much tragedy

In his Sept. 13 letter, writer James D. Cook appears to be historically challenged. I would like to remind him that it was secularism that brought the world such utopias as Hitler's Germany, Stalin's USSR, Mao's China, and Pol Pot's Cambodia. What's more, it was the secular-minded English of the late 16th and early 17th centuries who imposed upon the Catholic Irish a system of oppression every bit as wicked as apartheid.

To extrapolate from the recent atrocities perpetrated by ISIS in the Middle East that all expressions of religious devotion are similarly murderous is both grossly inaccurate and puerile.

James S. McPherrin

Prospect Heights