YOUR correspondent, Brian Stowe (Your Letters, April 9) is correct when he describes a state of declining morals in the UK but he is wrong to place the blame on what he calls the liberal Humanist state. Far better that he try to understand that so long as the church continues to insist on the existence of God then church attendance will continue to fall and Judaeo/Christian religious teachers, both in and out of school, will have no effect on the attitudes of our children or their parents.

Both the tooth fairy and Father Christmas are childish myths that we all have to grow out of and when the church finally relinquishes its insistence on a supernatural authority then perhaps it will survive in some modern form and once again have influence on the attitudes of people of all ages.

Some years ago, a humanist colleague and myself were invited to address a group of ladies in a local town and set out our lifestyle ideas. Before long one of these ladies asked the question: "If you don't believe in God, from where do you get your morals?" This is the same total misconception portrayed by many religionists who imagine that the only source of proper morals is derived from the various churches of institutional religion. The very same institutions that have branded Phillip Pullman's Dark Materials trilogy, as blasphemous but which the new Archbishop, Rowan Williams, describes as a "near miraculous triumph" when describing Nicholas Wright's stage version at the National Theatre. (The Guardian, March 10).

On another occasion the Bishop of Worcester Peter Selby joined us at a Worcestershire Humanists meeting to discuss morality in a modern world, making it clear that he thought that humanist morality as honest as any other.

This enlightened attitude clearly shows there is no difference between non-believers and believers except that the non-believer does not accept the existence of God.

As for Rowan Williams' last comment that he hopes that Pullman's trilogy will raise questions for the non-believing spectator, I would remind him that none of us could be described as mere spectators in a world so full of evil and incompetence. Further more it is the church and religionists that will fail, no matter how dismissive the Archbishop is of humanism which is, after all, a simple belief.

BRIAN REGIMBEAU, Member British Humanist Association, Albion Road, Malvern.