Religious viewers send me hate mail for not crediting God: Attenborough

London, Jan.27 (ANI): BBC television presenter and conservationist Sir David Attenborough has claimed that religious viewers send him hate mail for not crediting God for his nature's bountiful benefits, and he expects more such letters when his latest project, a documentary about Charles Darwin's theory of evolution, is broadcast on Sunday.

"They tell me to burn in hell and good riddance," The Telegraph quoted Sir David as saying while explaining that he is regularly asked why he does not "give credit" to the Lord for creating the flora and fauna featured in his programmes.

"They always mean beautiful things like hummingbirds. I always reply by saying that I think of a little child in East Africa with a worm burrowing through his eyeball. The worm cannot live in any other way, except by burrowing through eyeballs. I find that hard to reconcile with the notion of a divine and benevolent creator," Attenborough adds.

Sir David said he was raised in a religion-free household and it had "never really occurred to me to believe in God... I do remember looking at my headmaster delivering a sermon, a classicist, extremely clever - and thinking, 'He can't really believe all that, can he? How incredible!'"

In an interview with the Radio Times, Sir David, 82, attacked the "terrible, terrible" fact that some British state schools are allowed to teach children that creationism and evolution have equal merit.

"It's like saying that two and two equals four but, if you wish it, it could also be five. This is one of the errors. Evolution is not a theory. It is a fact, every bit as much as the historical fact that William the Conqueror landed in 1066," Attenborough says. (ANI)