Douglas D’Enno (Letters, April 20) was quite right to challenge Robert Stovold (Letters, April 13 and 26) regarding his “joke” about the Virgin Mary, and also the definition of a true humanist.

I am a devout Christian but I also have many friends who follow a totally different spiritual path, from Buddhism, Zoroastrianism and the New Age Movement to agnosticism and even atheism. I would never dream of mocking their belief system or claim to have superior knowledge over them.

Christianity must be the only religion which is regularly publicly ridiculed, sometimes in the most obscene way. Why is this?

Gratuitous sneering at other faiths is never a good way to promote one’s own set of beliefs. You invariably let yourself and your fellow believers down by acting in this way.

It is indicative of someone who is rather insecure in their own faith and not convinced of having enough reasonable arguments to validate their own set of beliefs.

One may not agree with someone else’s beliefs, but respecting them and their faith actually is a choice.

When someone insults my faith, they are insulting me as it is part of who I am and part of my identity.

The following saying springs to mind: A fool claims to know everything, but a wise man claims to know nothing.

Nicole Pendlebury, Wilbury Villas, Hove