I MUST reply to Mr L Lawes -- "Why does God need our praise?" (Letters, May 13). The answer, of course, is that God does not need our praise, nor anything else that human beings could give Him. His very nature as God means that He is capable of being totally self-sufficient!

However, He created us out of love, and desires that we should be related to Him in a loving relationship.

In any genuine, loving relationship, there will be respect, appreciation of the good qualities of the other person, and affirmation of the importance of that person in one's own life. This is what is meant by "praise and worship" of God.

Praise and worship are not some kid of "toll" that The Almighty expects humankind to pay on a regular basis. They are simply the natural response that arises when a person recognises the ultimate goodness of his Creator, and the true nature of his own position as one whom God loves infinitely.

As to the "Creation versus Evolution" debate, I don't think one needs to take the story in Genesis literally.

The point of that story is not so much how the world came into existence as who decided it should exist and why, and by what principles it should function.

It is quite possible to accept scientific concepts about the process of evolution without discarding the idea of a Supreme Being who initiated the process.

H BOOTH (Mrs), Ernlouen Close, Blackburn.