I have Peter Hitchens down as one of my guilty pleasures and this article in the Mail shows what I mean. Sometimes people really surprise you and he has in this article:

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'Lies to the masses as are like fly's to mollasses...they want more and more and more'

But hasn't science, too, been used to justify atrocities? Throughout the 18th and 19th centuries, while Christianity was the backbone of pro-slavery arguments, the pseudo-science of phrenology, claiming that black people had smaller brains than white people and were therefore sub-human. On the subject of Nazis, biological justifications for the denigration of both Jews and disabled people were rife.

The point I'm trying to make is that to believe a religion is at fault for human vice is to think of religion as something fixed rather than as something fluid. Like all beliefs, it is something which is interpreted based on the environmental conditions in which it lives. The last caliphate, the Ottoman empire, was a place of religious pluralism, ethnic pluralism and tolerance of homosexuals, even while it shared many religious beliefs with IS. Why did they interpret the same holy scriptures and religious teachings so differently to those in Iraq and Syria currently? Probably because they lived in a (relatively) peaceful, prosperous society, rather than in a region which has been systematically carpet bombed for decades.

I'm an atheist, and because I am an atheist I view religion not in a spiritual sense but as a product of particular human societies. But to punish all Muslims is to do the exact opposite; it is to suggest that their is something inherent, transcendental in their beliefs.

That's why it's stupid to stop accepting asylum seekers after this attack on the grounds of their religion. Not only are you physically turning them back to the enemies we claim to share, but you are igniting an antagonism towards 'the West' in the refugees which IS absolutely thrive on.

If punk ever happened I'd be preaching the law, instead of listenin to Lydon lecture BBC4

Religion bends over backward to halt progress. It only yields to reason when it has no choice.
The Catholic church has tried to stifle science for centuries and Islam wiped out the great scientific progress that was made in the middle east.
We still have Christian loons in the US preaching creationism.

Mine too. The man is impressive.

"Could we please skip the empty bravado? This is a time for grief above all else, and a time to refrain from soundbites and posturing. France – our closest neighbour, oldest friend, beloved rival, what Philip Sidney called ‘that sweet enemy’ – France is stricken, and we should weep with her.
Over the past 40 years or so, most of us have heard quite enough politicians and others pledging to stand firm against terror, hunt down the vile perpetrators, ensure that it never happens again, and the rest.
Then there have been the emergency meetings of grandly titled committees, the crackdowns, the increased surveillance, the billions spent on spying and snooping, not to mention the various wars on terror which have certainly killed a lot of our troops, but never seem to make us any safer. It is remarkably hard to defend yourself against an enemy whose language few of us speak, yet who speaks ours and can move freely in our world, and who is willing, even happy, to die at our hands – or his own – if he can kill us first.
Meanwhile, many of the demands of terror, from the IRA to the Palestinians, have been quietly met. And the extraordinary connections between our supposed ally Saudi Arabia and the worst terrorist incident of all – September 11, 2001 in New York – have been politely ignored.
It’s also worth remembering, as we mourn alongside the French, how many stupid things have been said about them. Remember the long period of macho chest-thumping in which they were idiotically derided as ‘Cheese-eating surrender monkeys’ and it was claimed you couldn’t find any French military victories on the internet?
This was stupid at the time, especially from Americans, whose country would never even have existed if the French (modestly aided by some Americans) hadn’t defeated us British at Yorktown, perhaps the most significant French victory in the history of the world. How does it sound now?"

Big chest and massive boobs

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Sadly Peter is no Christopher.

'Who are you and how did you get in here? I'm a locksmith. And, I'm a locksmith.' (Leslie Nielsen)

Considering the seriousness of the incident I'm sure there are no efforts to falsify where anyone is from and in time we're likely to know the nationality and origin of all involved.

Edited by bilbo (15 Nov 2015 4.06pm)