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In his letter (Daily Bee, Dec. 8, 2016), Tim Knapp accuses me of being “criminally uninformed” for implying that interpersonal violence has been in an historical decline. In fact, it is he who is uniformed on this matter. (See “The Surprising Decline in Violence” by Steven Pinker at ted.com.)

He also falsely accuses me of implying that religion is the primary cause of war. In my letter (Daily Bee, Nov. 29, 2016), I was responding to the claim that the teaching of evolution was to blame for contemporary violent behavior (Jason Otto, Daily Bee, Nov. 22, 2016). I cited passages from the Bible to show that violence is nothing new, and that it is vividly described as occurring at least as far back as biblical times. The point I was making is that man’s inhumanity toward man didn’t commence with the teaching of evolution, but that it has a long and sordid history.

Mr. Knapp misunderstood my intent. I was not addressing the causes of war. I cited the Bible to provide historical perspective.

A study published in the “Journal of Religion and Society” shows that, in general, the more religion-oriented a prosperous democratic country is, the higher is the level of social discord. The study looked at such factors as homicide, mortality, STD, youth pregnancy, and marital problems. (Search for “Cross-National Correlations of Quantifiable Societal Health with Popular Religiosity and Secularism in the Prosperous Democracies.”) If the goal is to minimize violence and uncivilized behavior, perhaps it is time to give secular humanism a chance.

JACK DeBAUN

Sandpoint