I feel Dr Syed Alwi Ahmad's letter Onus on Muslims to make Islam attractive deserves a rebuttal.

Why does Syed Alwi insist that non-Muslims must go to hell? The Quran uses terms like 'believers' and 'the faithful' to describe the future inhabitants of paradise, not 'Muslims'. If one studies religious philosophy, one will note that fasting, chanting, pilgrimage, charity etc. are the common denominators of all major world religions.

So is the forbidding of promiscuity, theft, murder, cruelty, immodesty etc. They apply to all religions.

As for Darwin's theory of evolution, it is the discovery of the coelacanth, a prehistoric fish from the dinosaur era, that has made the theory laughable. The fish was discovered in 1938 near the island of Comoros.

The coelacanth lived 400 million years ago and is supposed to be the extinct because according to Darwin, the coelacanth's fins then developed into feet and the species became the first amphibians.

Syed Alwi feels that laws based on religion are outdated. But note how many of society's ills and problems are caused by our refusal to obey God's laws. These includes Aids, Sars, mad cow disease, the growing gap between the rich and poor, drug addiction, alcoholism, gambling addiction, mental disorders, teenage pregnancy etc.

The list goes on and on.